“Pride.” She cupped her hand, slid down his thick length. She could have eased her way by unzipping, unbuttoning—eased the tight fit of her fist and his cock within the clothing. His groan made her glad she didn’t.
“Mine?”
“No, it is mine,” she said, and squeezed. Heat gathered low in her belly as he shuddered again. “Though you have reason enough to be proud.”
He laughed, but it held a desperate edge, and she could feel his need to move within her grip. “Vanity.” He choked on the word as she pulled upward, pumped her hand at the crown.
“Aye, vanity.”
He closed his eyes, and his hips jerked once, as if he had to thrust or expire. “The book.”
“Mmm, the book,” she agreed, her tone teasing. She spread a bead of moisture over the head of his shaft with her thumb. Her nipples were tight, and the slow heat had become a burning ache.
She ignored it.
“You don’t like the translation?” he said, and his head bowed as she circled the crown again.
Her lips pursed. “Couldn’t you have reprinted it? It’s humiliating. But the original is very good.”
“You wish another version? A new translation?” He was shaking, with laughter and frustration.
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re allowing me to punish you this way, so that you feel less guilty for it.”
“I hardly think”—he broke off on a gasp, clenched his teeth as she stroked down his length with pressure that bordered on the painful—“this is punishment.”
“No.” She released him, stepped back. If her grin was strained, she doubted he would notice. “This is.”
She was disappointed, however, when he only stood stiffly, staring at her with amusement. As if his cock didn’t strain and pulse, as if he weren’t moments from release—she knew he was.
“I think I finally understand why Mandeville allowed himself to be tied to that wall. You make a man nearly desperate enough to drill a hole into a stone and rut.”
“You aren’t.” He didn’t even touch himself.
“I’m well-versed in this kind of frustration.” He tilted his head. “My hand has been my only companion these eight hundred years. I’m glad this time it is yours.”
He smiled as he approached her, lifted her palm to place a kiss in the center. Her breath caught, strangling her laughter.
“Mine are rough,” he said, his voice low. “When I served d’Aulnoy, I always had a sword in my hand, practicing so that I’d be ready if he needed my weapon. And I carried the calluses with me into death, though I had not arms nor armor to take.”
He smoothed his thumb across the heel of her hand, and she shivered. He still had a warrior’s calluses, though he’d not lifted a weapon in years. As if divining her thoughts, he shook his head.
“These are not the same. Falling leaves its mark, but this is not one of them. This is the result of trying to forget—trying to understand—what I’ve done to you. And I have done naught but think of it these sixteen years. So, yes, I’m glad of your touch. Not only because it is soft, but because it is. I should never have rejected it.”
Her gaze traced the line of his fingers, studied the contrast of tanned skin against red. He’d not been the only one who’d needed protection. She had, too—from his touch, from his kindness. There’d been safety in his rejection of her; and though she’d not known the truth behind his ability to resist her, she knew her weakness: she’d craved his touch as much as she had feared it would be her undoing. As a Guardian, he’d been safe.
But now he did not hide from her, could not hide—and the humanity that denied his protection denied hers as well. And this kindness would destroy her.
She pulled back her hand and looked away. Methodically, she began calling in weapons from her cache, placing them on the table. A sword, crossbow, rifle. She nodded toward the files. “Those are all related to the investigation.” Daggers, a pair of semiautomatic pistols. Another sword. “There isn’t much you don’t know—except that Sanchez’s mother told Preston and Taylor that she saw him leaving with you the night before she reported him missing. At least, with someone who matched your description and had a slight accent of indeterminate origin. Probably a demon. But it was reason enough for them to focus on you.” She unloaded more weapons. “Take the reports with you.”
“I will.” He stood behind her, but she could hear the frustration in his voice. “Quite the arsenal.”
“Yes.” She paused, let her mind run over the remaining weapons. Took out a few more, then located her badge and ID. Her suit was on the back of the chair; she slid them inside the pocket and hung it in the closet.
When she returned to the table, Hugh was studying the pile of weapons on its surface. He reached down, slid his finger along the barrel of a pistol. “You don’t need this many guns for work.”
“No. I like them. And I’ve found they are effective against the nosferatu, as well.”
“Slows them down?”
“Not much, but enough to help.” She met his eyes, had to bite back a smile. “When I was allowed, that is.”
“May I?” He picked up the pistol at her nod. “Michael and I used to practice with a flintlock revolver, but found it was too unreliable, and the damage too minimal to be of use.” He blinked. “That was two hundred years ago.”
“You should have tried them again.”
He chuckled, set it back down. “The corps does not readily accept change.”
“They should. Take it.” She called in an extra clip. “But if you have to use it, make certain there isn’t any evidence. It’s registered to a man I arrested seven years ago.”
Laughing softly, he shook his head. “And if I’m caught with it on my way home?”
Her lips quirked. “Run very fast,” she said, but didn’t argue when he left it on the table.
Next the books, and she set those on the already leaning tower beside the kitchen counter.
He squatted next to them, looked at the spines. The broad line of his naked back drew her gaze. After a moment’s hesitation, she called in his robe and sword. Held them, waiting.
“These are from various public libraries,” he said. Looking around the room, he realized, “All of them.” He opened one of the covers, glanced back at her with a lift of his brows. “They must be overdue by now.”
“I didn’t check them out.”
“Planning the downfall of mankind by stealing books from the library?” There was no censure in his tone, only curiosity. Then he froze, his gaze fixed on the items in her hands.
“There are no books Below. And if I take any with me in my cache, Lucifer will confiscate them. I can get away with it here because I can make the theft seem a petty pleasure. But if he realized that it was the books I enjoyed, and not the theft . . .” She shrugged. “He’d take my ability to read, and it is one of the few true pleasures left to me.”
Hugh rose to his feet, his expression stark.
“I’ve seen him do something similar to a musician—took away the music he’d been creating in his head as an escape from the torment.” She looked down at the robe, at the pile of weapons. “Everything that I need, everything that means anything to me, I leave here. I wash to rid myself of the scent that clings to me after living on Earth for a while. And then I strip away all that is human, because he hates it.” She vanished her clothing, felt the instantaneous shift as she transformed.
He’d never seen the cloven feet or the scales that gleamed over her skin, but he did not flinch or look away. He stepped forward, lifted the bundle from her grasp, and dropped it to the floor beside them. The wool muffled the clank of metal against the carpet. “Lilith—”
“Do not be angry on my behalf,” she growled. “Do not pity me. And do not be kind to me.”
“Why? Should I think you less human because of what I see now?” His gaze traveled down her length, and she fought the urge to transform back, to hide.
“Because he hates self-pity above all other
things, considers it an insult to his rule. And because I must go Below, and he will decide whether to make me fulfill the terms of our bargain, and destroy you, or to Punish me for stepping into—perhaps undermining—whatever bargain he has made with the nosferatu. I must present a face that is entirely inhumane, entirely without self-pity and completely in line with his goals, or he will destroy me. I must convince him he will be better served by our bargain than by my Punishment.” She looked down at her hands—claws. Twisted, with obsidian talons. “There are no other halflings like me because, at some point, they have all wished for something human, a return to what they were, and he has destroyed them all.”
No, not destroyed—what he’d done to them had been worse than destruction. It was that fate Hugh had saved her from when he’d killed her. He couldn’t save her from it now.
She lifted her head. His shoulders were hunched, as if in anticipation of a wound. “And when you are kind to me, when you touch me, I desire what I cannot have.”
And she watched the indifference enter his eyes, his withdrawal, knowing he would make no other choice. There were few things she could depend on, but the actions of this knight she would never doubt. He would subjugate his desires for the life of another. He would slay dragons when they threatened—and when a lady asked him to let her be, he would leave.
And if his leaving was like another death, it was only because she must be a dragon.
He did not feel his legs as he went down the stairs; even the weight of his duffel, increased by the files—and the sword and robe she’d stuffed in at the last moment—was nothing. There was naught to do but leave, though he would have stayed, would have...
What? Earlier, he’d thought to use her susceptibility to him to prove her humanity, but if Lucifer would destroy her for it, he could not. Would not.
Cold rain pelted his bare skin—he paused on the sidewalk, abruptly aware of his half-naked state. She hadn’t returned his shirt. A short, hard laugh escaped him as he dropped the bag. On one knee, uncaring that the wet concrete soaked his pant leg, he pulled out the robe, felt the familiar wool beneath his fingers.
The rain beaded on the material, the drops glistening beneath the streetlamp.
She’d kept it sixteen years. Unease filled him at the realization, though he couldn’t pinpoint why. Suddenly still, he examined the rough weave for stains. It had been cleaned, and he would have been glad for it had he not the sinking certainty where the blood had gone.
He let it fall back onto the canvas, wiped away the water from his face. He could not wear it again. Foolish to have worn ever worn it, when it stood for a humility he had not truly felt. An illusion, as false as her demon skin—a denial of his will to a greater purpose, a denial he’d resented, but not resisted.
And when he’d finally resisted it, he’d destroyed the one person he’d most wanted to save. Had destroyed himself.
It would have made more sense for Lucifer to have forced her into the bargain earlier, when his soul had been hard but for the cracks Savi and Auntie had—
He rose slowly to his feet, his heart thundering.
Sixteen years.
Had Lucifer been interested in obtaining Hugh’s soul, he would have acted earlier. But it was not Hugh’s damnation the demon lord truly sought.
It was Lilith’s pain.
Lilith knew that. The Morningstar spoke with doubled tongue; he forced Lilith to purge any humanity out of hate for its source, but wanted the pain it brought her when she could not. He’d waited sixteen years to call in the bargain as a Punishment.
But if she could convince Lucifer the bargain was not a Punishment, that she was eager to destroy Hugh, wouldn’t Lucifer choose that which gave her greater pain? Would he not choose the real Punishment?
Instinct—sharp, predatory—led him back inside. She had expected him to leave, and he had; but sixteen years had not turned him into the boy he’d been before, the knight who lived for the chivalric code. Nor was he the Guardian who’d lost faith.
He was a man who needed to make certain she could not hide what she felt for him from Lucifer. When she returned from Below, he’d deal with the consequences then.
But she had to return first.
He moved with slow deliberation up the stairs, preparing. Giving himself completely over, losing himself in the memories of her—teasing, arousing—so that she would not feel the intent behind the action. He knew how to approach her, how to start, but to fully convince her . . . he had to feel his way through, find a vulnerability and exploit it.
She would hear him; and, indeed, she opened the door before he could reach for the knob—no longer in the shape she would use Below, but the form in between. The form she’d been so many nights: in the castle tower, his bedroom the night previous . . . Seattle. The black corset hugged her torso, the leather pants her legs to just below her knees. She was barefoot, and it would have made her seem vulnerable but for the sword in her hand.
He leaned against the door frame, hooked his thumb in his pocket and smiled lazily. “Shall we bargain?”
CHAPTER 21
No. The answer hovered on Lilith’s tongue, but she couldn’t force it past her lips. A demon had no choice but to consider a bargain, to hear the terms before rejecting it as unsatisfactory. He knew that. She eyed him warily, distrusting his stance, his smile, the impenetrable psychic block around his thoughts. And she distrusted herself, for the skip of her heart when she’d heard him returning. Would that she’d had more time, to banish the pain of his leaving, the lingering arousal.
As if he felt her probe, his blocks disappeared, leaving her mind awash with images of heat and raw sexual congress.
Her breath sped from her lungs, and the heavy, liquid melting she had suppressed weakened her knees, leeched the strength from the limbs she’d determined would be as steel.
“You have nothing to interest me,” she said, but her eyes made her a liar. She couldn’t look away from him, from the dark hair wet and tousled, as if he’d run his hand through it to shake off the rain. The drops that clung to his cheeks, ran in rivulets down his shoulders and chest, beside the bronze nipples puckered by the cold; she wanted to follow that trail with her fingers, her lips, her tongue.
Vanishing her sword, she turned away. And immediately realized it was a mistake when he stepped into the room, set his bag down, and shut the door. Locked it.
He had not taken her response as acquiescence, but had taken advantage of her reluctance to fight, to argue. She had retreated from a defensible position, and he’d claimed it for his own.
“Coward,” he said softly.
Gathering herself, she looked over her shoulder and slanted him a wry smile. “Self-preservation is not completely divorced from cowardice, as you well know.”
“Aye.”
The guttural assent sent a tremor through her stomach. He’d discarded his accent, the language of his birth hundreds of years before, but it bled through when he was deeply affected or harassed.
Or aroused.
The memory of the feel of him, his hard length, lingered on her palm; she flexed her fingers against it. She refused to glance down, to see the physical evidence of that assent. Did not need to see it: he projected it as clearly as a child.
She stood still, silent as he approached and stopped a breath away.
“It was the first name you called me: coward.” A gentle smile curved his mouth as he touched a curl above her ear, but the softness of his expression, his action, did not deceive her: she could feel the heat within him. “For not making sport of Mandeville. For caring more of a comfortable situation than obtaining power over him.”
“Yes, and look what it got you: a freezing post on the allure and a sword through the heart.” Her tone mocked him, but he only raised his gaze to hers, a hint of triumph rolling through his psychic scent.
“You offered me a bargain that night on the wall walk, my lady—a bargain I was a fool to have rejected. I will accept it now.”
&n
bsp; She shook her head. “It is not still—”
He halted her denial by placing her hand against his skin, drawn tight by cold and rain. “You can burn me with hellfire. What has changed that you would withdraw the offer? Are you so different you cannot sit on a man’s lap without it being a kindness?”
It was a challenge—a trap, though she couldn’t see his purpose. She withdrew her hand. “I am as I always have been,” she said, and it took all of her control to keep the trembling inside her from manifesting outwardly. He would kill her with this; did he not see that?
He lowered his head. “I see your lie,” he whispered against her lips. No part of him touched her, yet she felt enveloped by him, surrounded. Under siege.
Did he seek her surrender or her resistance?
“You cannot. You’re no longer Gifted—” She wasn’t making sense, couldn’t think as his mouth skimmed down the side of her neck, still not touching her but for the warmth of his breath.
He straightened. His gaze was cold, hard. “I see your lie,” he repeated.
He pivoted and strode toward her table; shaken, she stared as he sifted through the items there. Perhaps he could still see Truth, perhaps eight hundred years as a Guardian had left its mark on him in ways not entirely human—
A pair of handcuffs dangled from his fingers as he turned back.
She laughed. “What do you think to do with those?”
“I think to obtain the power I once denied myself,” he said, and though the reply sent prickles of unease down her spine, she let him slip them over her wrists, click them tight. She could break them if she desired. “Surely even your father would approve of it, for I intend to help you along in your bargain with him.”
Was he mad? But, no, the purpose emanating from him wasn’t tinged by insanity, only arousal. Curiosity and excitement—worse, anticipation—made her question breathless, “How?”
He scanned the apartment; his gaze lit on something behind her, and he began pushing her in that direction. A devilish grin creased his cheeks, flashed white teeth. “I get to play the demon. To tempt someone who has strayed from the path.”
Demon Angel Page 26
