by Alexa Black
Dehek crouched, his lips twisted in pain or rage or both, his claws still held out to strike. Kara followed suit, laughing, gesturing for him to attack again, as if all this were nothing more than some minor nuisance.
“Stop!” Sue cried again. “Whatever you’re arguing about, I’m just a guest.”
“The creature is right,” someone rumbled.
Sue turned around and found herself facing a tall, broad alien—Outcast—with dark skin like Kara’s and thick, twisting horns. His eyes and the streaks in his skin burned orange.
But Dehek either wasn’t listening or didn’t care. He rushed at Kara from the side, apparently intent on revenge. Kara twisted away and kicked him, hard enough that he fell to the ground with a rumbling cry.
She inclined her head to the other Outcast. “I apologize for his bad manners.”
Dehek turned his head and hissed, his lips drawing back. His teeth were dark and pointed against the bright red of his mouth. He scrambled to his feet, an animal’s clamber, and dashed off again.
Sue felt warmth spread through her despite her fear. Kara had driven off someone who meant to hurt her.
The big Outcast wasn’t as impressed. His hairless eyebrow ridges creased, and he cast a significant look down the hall where Dehek had fled. “You apologize for his bad manners? You brought a human here. A quickened one.”
“Sue is telling the truth. She is stranded. What else could I have done?”
“You could have left her. Humans do not make good pets. They don’t belong here. Not living ones, anyway.”
Sue shivered. Not living ones? Was this guy saying he wanted her dead? He wasn’t threatening her, not like Dehek had, but whatever that meant, it wasn’t good. And “do not make good pets”? What was that about?
The male Outcast was still staring down the hall. “And that fool was right about one thing.”
“What is that?” Kara asked, her voice cold.
“An elder warrior like you should know better than to keep pets.”
Kara growled, a low and thunderous hum. She grabbed at Sue’s hand. “Come. We’re leaving. Now.”
Chapter Seven
“So now I’m a pet?”
Kara blinked but didn’t answer. That was bad.
“Tell me,” Sue said. “What was that guy talking about? Dehek, or whatever his name was?”
“Dehek is a fool. Made too late to understand what is happening around him.”
“Made too late?”
“He is young. He knows nothing. Nothing of the worlds beyond this and nothing of his own purpose.”
Sue rolled her eyes. “I’m not even going to pretend to know what that means. And it wasn’t just Dehek.”
“He began this.”
“Yeah. He did. But it wasn’t just him. The big guy said ‘humans don’t make good pets.’ Like humans are just hard to take care of or something.”
The corner of Kara’s lip quirked up in a smile. “Hard to take care of? Do you find fault with the way I’ve cared for you?”
“What? No! No.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Sue put her hands on her hips. “I mean I’m a human, Kara. Not a dog. Not a cat. Not some kind of robot companion.”
“I’m aware that you are human.” Kara stepped closer. “But why be so offended? What exactly were you expecting, Sue Jones?”
Sue blinked. What was she expecting? She’d gotten caught in a wormhole, not sought out a distant world that welcomed tourists. And where she’d found herself, if she was right about Kara and the others, wasn’t a place she’d choose to be.
“This world is ours,” Kara was saying. She flexed her clawed fingers, and Sue stared in fascination. Whatever Kara was, she was still beautiful.
And Sue’s body still responded. She felt her cheeks flush and cursed under her breath.
“We don’t welcome humans on this planet,” Kara finished.
“And that means it’s all right to treat me like this?”
“I treat you better than the others. They wouldn’t want anything to do with humans. Not unless—”
“Not unless they were down on the surface?” Sue snapped. “Battered by storms? Burning in a flame pit?”
She clapped a hand around her mouth and stepped back. The pristine room felt wrong. A polished, gilded cage, trapping her alone with—
She shuddered. She could feel the word in the back of her throat, like something she needed to cough up. But if she said it, she might make it real.
Kara didn’t notice or didn’t care. She tilted her head, all innocence. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s what Dehek said, isn’t it? ‘She’s not from the surface, is she?’”
“Dehek is a fool.”
“But you do have humans on the surface. You’re not denying it.” Sue shuddered. “Down there.”
Kara nodded, a crisp, cold movement. “We do. And the more of the Outcasts who see you, the more of them will wonder whether you belong there. And whether I think so. Or why I don’t.”
Sue’s eyes widened in shock and horror. She tried to imagine it. Remembered the riots back home. The violence, the screaming, the beating, the flames. “No one could survive down there!”
Was that what Dehek meant? He’d said something about how she smelled. But Sue wasn’t sure what. Smelled good? Smelled healthy? Smelled like someone who wasn’t stranded on a dead planet exposed to the elements?
“You are right. No one could survive down there. Why do you think we built these Rings?”
Anger flared through Sue. “So you people, you Outcasts, get banished down here for God knows what—”
“Don’t.” Kara’s lips drew back in a snarl. Bright light flared between her teeth.
But Sue wasn’t finished. “Get tossed down here, and someone tears your fucking wings off—”
Kara raised her hands, claws poised to strike. “Don’t.”
Kara’s eyes flickered. Sue slid to the side, trying to make sure Kara couldn’t corner her if she lashed out again. But she didn’t stop talking. “Tossed down here, and the first thing you do is throw humans down to—”
“Only the dead ones,” Kara cut in.
“Dead ones?”
“You think there are living humans here?”
“I don’t think anything.”
“If there were, I would have taken you to them. And left you with them, if the others had anything to say about it.”
Dead ones. Sue looked around the room again. It didn’t look like a room for the dead. It was better maintained than any room Sue had ever been in. But it was for the Outcasts. Not the humans they kept, whether as pets or as—
Prey.
From what Dehek had said this morning, and what the musicians’ song had shown her, it made a twisted kind of sense. She backed away from Kara, her eyes wide.
“Dead ones. You were banished from where you lived before, had your wings torn off, and you keep dead humans down on the surface of some awful torture planet. With storms, and maybe fire.”
“We—”
Sue looked up and stared straight at Kara. At her horns, her glowing eyes, the harsh angles of her sculpted body. At the lines of gold running over her stony skin. Like scars. Like cracks. Like breaks.
At the mist of shadows wrapping around Kara’s back, where a gleaming set of white wings used to be.
“I know what you are!” Sue said at last.
Kara’s head snapped up. She growled, a dark rumble. But she didn’t say anything.
So Sue said it for her. “You’re demons.”
“We are Outcasts.”
“You’re demons. And what’s down there is hell.”
Kara growled again. “There are some human souls there, yes.”
Sue stepped closer to Kara, glaring. If she’d let herself think at all, she never would have done it. Who would threaten a fallen angel?
But Sue found herself doing it, all the same. “And when exactly were you going to get arou
nd to telling me about this? After the tour?”
Kara raised her head. “You are alive. You didn’t need to know.”
“I didn’t need to know?”
“You were stranded here.”
Stranded here. And Kara had picked her up. Would anyone else have done that? Dead humans belonged down there, and a living one would die quick, from what Kara and Dehek described.
Why?
“I was stranded here, and you saved me. Why?”
“You were lost. Even the Enemy wouldn’t punish you for that.”
The Enemy. Who was that? The Outcasts’ leader, or the God that Sue barely remembered, so much more important to her mother and her father than to her?
Sue stepped closer to Kara again, still glaring up at her. “And you were going to tell me this when exactly?”
“Once you had seen our world. Once you understood it. Once you did some exploring, as you wished to.”
“Exploring. I take a wrong turn somewhere past the edge of the Rim and wind up in hell, and you think I want to go exploring?”
Kara turned toward one of the windows and looked out. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes, before I knew it was hell!”
Kara snorted, a beast’s sound, and shook her head. “It isn’t hell. Or at least, it’s not what you think hell is.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Kara cut her off with a wave of her hand. “Look around you. At where you are now. At the Rings. Does this look like the hell your people know?”
Sue looked around. Sheltering walls, half clear glass, half metal, polished and gleaming. Did demons build cities? She’d heard names sometimes, in really old books, for the places in hell where the monsters gathered.
But did they look like this? Like something from the colonies, only better made and cleaner? Maintained, not cracking like the concrete or rusting like the metal back home?
“No,” Sue said finally. “No. This doesn’t look like hell.”
Kara walked over to Sue’s cot and sat down. The shadowy mist she carried curled around her, and she lowered her head again. Sue reached out, her hands itching to touch, to soothe.
What am I doing?
Kara looked up. “You humans know many things about us. You’ve heard many things about our origin and our history. Some of it is true. I won’t deny that. But there is also much that you have forgotten. Or lost.”
Sue hesitated, her hand hovering over Kara’s skin. What Kara said made sense. If someone had ripped her wings off and thrown her to some awful planet, maybe even worse than the worlds the colonies were built on, she’d be furious too.
And yet.
Demons were supposed to be tempting. Demons were supposed to sound convincing. Demons were supposed to worm their way into your mind and make you think everything they said sounded right.
But before Sue could put her hand down, Kara grabbed it. Stony fingers wrapped around Sue’s, and the tips of sharp claws pressed against the back of her hand.
“Listen to me,” Kara said.
But she didn’t say anything more. Instead, she pulled Sue closer.
What are you doing?
But Kara’s face lingered inches from hers, and she knew exactly what Kara was doing. Around them both, the shadows danced, a whispering promise of wings.
Sue closed the distance between them. She pressed her lips to Kara’s before she could think better of it.
They were thick and warm. Then Kara’s lips parted, and the strange warmth made Sue moan into her mouth.
Kara’s hand wrapped around the back of her head and drew her closer. She shuddered at the strength in it. Kara was a demon. What strength of will did it take not to hurt a human partner?
She’s a demon. A demon is kissing me.
I’m kissing a demon.
It should have felt wrong. It should have been frightening. And somewhere deep down in Sue’s brain or her heart or her gut it did, a queasy little shiver of warning. But Kara’s open mouth was warm with whatever light burned inside her throat.
That thought made Sue shiver again. Who else would ever come this close to touching an angel’s spirit, even a fallen one? Sue let herself twitch, rode the wave of adrenaline making her skin tingle.
Kara’s hands wound in her hair and she opened her mouth wider.
Chapter Eight
“These clothes are in the way.” Kara’s voice echoed, low and hollow as always. But Sue heard a growl under it, an animal sound like the one she’d heard during the fight.
It almost made Sue laugh. Demons were supposed to be temptresses, whispering promises into unsuspecting human ears. And yet Kara knew so little about humans that all she could say was “why aren’t you naked already?”
Sue smirked. I might know more than a demon. It was a heady feeling, a good one. A powerful one, in a world where Sue had no power.
She slipped off her clothes, not even trying to be sultry about it. She’d shown Kara that she wasn’t ashamed already, whatever that meant. And demons didn’t even wear clothes anyway, from what she’d seen and what Kara had told her before.
And this wasn’t the best place to be seductive. Sue hadn’t seen much of the Rings beyond this little corridor, but this was the demons’ hospital.
If not where they bring sick pets.
Sue willed the thought away. Kara wanted this, wanted her. And she knew what clothes were now, and what it meant to take them off. Sue glanced over to her shirt and pants, tossed in a wrinkled heap at the foot of her cot. Sexy enough, she guessed.
Kara leaned down over her. She reached up to touch Kara’s chest, anticipating its warmth. Then she felt it for real, a smooth heat that lit her fingertips.
It didn’t quite feel like touching another human. It didn’t quite feel real. The stony skin was smooth but not polished, leaving a hint of texture. It reminded Sue of running her hands over a rock, kept in the pocket of her jacket as a tool to calm herself.
I’m touching a demon. And it’s soothing.
Kara’s eyes flickered. Her lips parted, the crack of golden light between them brightening. “Your fingertips are soft.”
Sue grinned. “So you do like humans. Or is it just me?” She slid her finger over Kara’s skin, toward one of the bright cracks. Kara’s skin was warm. Would those be hot? Would they sear her fingertips? A little thrill curled through her. She wanted to find out.
She moved her finger closer to the golden streak. Closer, closer, as close as she dared. Her fingertips warmed, like before. She closed her eyes and imagined curls of smoke and crackling flame, vivid as the images from the band’s song. Was this another one of the Outcasts’ powers?
It warmed her nerves, bright enough to burn, but didn’t hurt.
The life force of an angel. Or someone who used to be one, anyway. Sue sucked in a breath. If one tiny crack felt like this, how would it have felt before Kara fell? Sue’s lips twisted into a wry smile. The one question she could never ask: What was it like when you were an angel?
But she could find out, if she was brave enough to try. She bit her lip, closed her eyes, and slipped her palm directly over the glowing crack.
Her mind filled again with images of flame. The nerves in her hand tingled, the energy under her palm the crackling center of it all. It burned, too hot, but didn’t harm her. There was only a cleansing ignition, searing away all other sensation and leaving only this.
Kara looked down at Sue’s hand. “You’re brave for a human. You should be frightened of our fire.”
“So it is fire, then.”
“More than fire. But I do not know how we were made. I thought I knew why, in the beginning. But now I know that I do not.”
Sue shook her head and clamped her lips shut on a question. Whatever she asked now might awaken the rage she’d seen before.
Kara chuckled, amused or wry or both, and reached out to touch Sue’s chest. She pressed her fingers to Sue’s skin like she thought it was paper she could rip just by touching it.<
br />
Her fingers were warm. Warmer than a human’s? Sue thought so. But that might just be her imagination. Or the hunger building in her flesh.
Then there were Kara’s claws and the strength behind them. Sue shivered. How easily could they tear her skin? She sucked in a heavy breath, trying not to tremble, wondering whether she wanted the hands tracing over her skin to be gentle or rough.
“You’re soft,” Kara said. She smirked. That made Sue shiver for real, unable to repress it, however risky twitching under a demon’s hands might be.
Kara noticed. “Fragile,” she whispered, and laughed. Her lips drew back in a predatory grin.
“Maybe so.” Sue pushed out her chest, wanting more of Kara’s touch. She let herself say exactly what she was thinking. “I’m stranded here. A ring made of metal is the only thing between me and hell. And I’m in bed with a demon.”
She grinned. “Go ahead.”
Kara laughed again. Sue closed her eyes and gave herself up to the eerie, hollow sound. It moved through her, and she canted her hips. Might as well. After all, she had nothing to lose.
Kara curled her claws inward, just pricking Sue’s skin. I’m trusting a demon. Sue fought down a chuckle.
Little beads of blood welled up from where Kara had pricked her. She thought of vampires, of succubi. Of the price for their sex or their love, the sweet hypnosis of their sting. In that light it felt good, a sharp prick to seal a pact. To bring them close. Maybe even to make them one.
Kara’s hands stilled, and Sue saw a question in her eyes. Careful, she arched her back. Yes. Yes.
She slid her hand past Kara’s shoulder and up to her back, careful to avoid the scars at her shoulder blades. A heaviness lingered around Kara’s shoulders, a warm press of air. The shadows, Sue thought. The shadows that used to be wings.
Kara’s eyes widened, and her clawed fingers stilled against Sue’s skin. They bit deeper, a sharp pinch.
“Wait!” Sue cried. “I’m not going to touch you there. I promise.”
The hairless brow ridges angled downward, and Sue knew the light in Kara’s eyes wasn’t all lust.
She moved her hand, as quickly as she dared, into the middle of Kara’s back and splayed her fingers out in a sign of submission and surrender.
