Everything in her face stilled. The hold of her fingers slackened. “You knew this and didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know they were your parents.”
“But you knew they mattered. That they were important to me.”
He wanted to plead ignorance. To say he didn’t know, that he hadn’t believed it, that he’d thought she was a demon who couldn’t truly feel, that it was all a trick.
But he’d known. He’d held her while she sobbed for parents she couldn’t remember, and he’d known that emotion was real.
“Yes,” he said. “I knew.”
“So you brought her out here,” Lilith said. “And you waited for Madelyn to come to you.”
He looked into Ash’s face. He couldn’t read all of the emotions there, but he recognized pain, horror, disbelief. God. She had to know everything had changed.
“Yes—”
“Truth.”
“But not now! Goddammit, I wouldn’t have used you as bait now! I can only think of protecting you.”
And silence. Awful silence.
Ash’s hands dropped away from his waist. And though the wall prevented her from backing away, he could feel her withdrawing.
“Ash,” he pled softly. “Please. Believe me. Believe me.”
Her voice was wooden, her face stone. “I don’t know what to believe, Nicholas.”
“I swear my only thought was protecting you,” he said, but there was only more damning silence from Hugh. Did Ash see what they were doing? “They want you to leave with them, or he would say that is the truth, too.”
“We can train her to protect herself far better than you can, Nicholas,” Lilith said. “You’re only a man who needs to eat, to sleep. You can’t protect her all the time. Can you? Because all it would take is a word from her, a letter sent, a shout from down the street, and Ash is lost to you.”
Would it be that easy? Suddenly stricken, Nicholas looked down at her. Completely naked, she stood with her face set and her eyes averted from his, and though he knew Ash didn’t care that the others saw her nude, though he knew her strength, she suddenly seemed so exposed, so vulnerable. God. Could he be so certain, when it meant risking her life?
“And Ash—if Madelyn finds you together with Nicholas, she’ll order you to kill him. Because that would cause you the most pain, and because that is what a demon would do.”
Ash shook her head. “But I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t obey.”
“Then you’d be back in that frozen field as soon as she sacrifices you to the spell. And she wins either way.”
Back in the frozen field. Ash continued to shake her head, but he saw the terror fill her eyes, the fear that would be her choice: to kill him, or to suffer an eternity of torment—a torture that she already knew too well.
No doubt, Madelyn would order Ash to do it. Nicholas wouldn’t care if he died for her. But if Ash refused to carry it out, he couldn’t bear the thought of her in that field, tortured for eternity for saving him.
He couldn’t bear it. And if Lilith had been searching for his limit, she’d just found it. So what now?
It would be Ash’s decision. It had to be hers alone.
Without taking his eyes from her, Nicholas said, “Will you two give us a minute? Let her take a breath, get dressed.”
“So she doesn’t run around like that all the time? That’ll disappoint the novices,” Lilith said. “But go ahead.”
With a quick, grateful glance at Nicholas, Ash turned toward the bedroom. Nicholas’s throat tightened. This wouldn’t be the last time he was with her there. He’d follow—
“Ashmodei.”
As if struck, Ash stumbled. She caught herself against the wall and slowly faced Lilith, her eyes wide. “What?”
“Your name. I finally saw it when you moved—it’s written here.” Lilith touched her own chest, and Ash mirrored the movement, flattening her palm over the large symbol between her breasts. “Lucifer named you after a demon who betrayed him. It would be considered an insult to Ashmodei, giving the name to a halfling. I take it a good sign.”
“Ashmodei,” she repeated softly. When she looked at Nicholas, a smile had transformed her face. “So you helped me discover it, after all.”
“I didn’t—”
“You’re the one who stripped me naked.”
God, and she made him laugh. He followed her into the bedroom, memorizing the sway of her blond hair against her back, the square of her shoulders, the dimples above her perfect ass. Then she looked down at herself and her clothes formed, with boots matching the one that still lay with a broken heel near the bed.
The Guardians could probably tell her how and why she did that. Nicholas hadn’t even been able to tell Ash her name. They could train her, better than he ever could.
She faced him, and her smile had already gone, her eyes glowing crimson. He knew what her choice would be. What it had to be.
And he knew what his had to be, too. “I’ll go with you.”
“They’ll lock me up, you realize. Not in a cell, but the effect is the same. They’ll lock me up tight—and you’d be locked up with me, too, because Madelyn might find me through you.”
“Then I’ll stay locked up with you.”
Her tearful smile gave him hope. Until she spoke. “You can’t come.”
Feeling sucker-punched, he shook his head. “What?”
“You can’t.” Her breath hitched. “The Guardians aren’t perfect. They can be defeated. They have their limits. You forced one to leave us in Duluth by pointing a crossbow at her friend’s head. They’ll work harder than that to protect me, but there’s always a chance Madelyn will get through and I’ll have to choose whether or not to kill you.”
And he’d make that choice as easy for her as he could. “You died for me once. I’d return the favor.”
“That was Rachel.”
No. He hadn’t meant—“I know you aren’t Rachel.”
He’d never been this fucked up over her. Rachel had deserved better than she’d gotten, but he hadn’t been able to give it to her.
“Yes, but that’s my point. That was Rachel. She loved you.”
His chest turned to lead. “And you don’t.”
But it didn’t matter. He’d still protect her. He’d still die for her.
“Today I think I do,” she said, but held up her hands, stopped him when he’d have gone to her. “Tomorrow, I might not.”
“Ash—”
“It’ll probably change. It’ll fade.” She drew her hands in, wrapping them around her stomach as if keeping herself warm, holding herself in. “Nothing I feel stays the same. My emotions are up, and down, and all over. Today, I know that if Madelyn told me to kill you, I wouldn’t—even though there’s nothing that terrifies me more than the frozen field. But tomorrow, I might kill you rather than be trapped there again. Tomorrow, I might hate you for keeping the truth about Madelyn killing my parents from me. Tomorrow, your life might not be my limit.”
“I’d give it to you,” he said hoarsely. “Whether you love me or not, and not in exchange for Rachel. Just for you.”
“You might give it. But if I don’t love you, I’d be taking it to save myself—and I’d become everything you finally believe I’m not.”
If Ash was capable of becoming that, she wouldn’t give a shit about whether she did. And Nicholas didn’t believe she could be that, no matter how she felt about him. “No—”
“And you have to rescind the permission you gave me, so that you’re protected by the Rules again.”
What? She wouldn’t be able to touch him as she wanted. She hated the restrictions the Rules put on her. If there was only one human in the world she didn’t have to check herself with, it would be him.
Nicholas shook his head. “No.”
“Yes. Not having to follow the Rules makes it too easy for me; there would be no consequences if I kill you. If Madelyn orders me to do it and my emotions aren’t strong enough to stop me, maybe
fear for my own life will.”
And if her emotions did stop her, she’d end in the frozen field. So they were back to that again. If she loved him, if she was with him, then her soul was in danger.
Until Madelyn was dead.
So he had a purpose again—the same purpose he’d always had: destroying Madelyn. But this time, not for revenge. This time, it was for Ash.
“I’ll find Madelyn,” he vowed. “I’ll kill her, just to release you. Then I’ll find you again.”
“But—”
“And I release you from our bargain. I won’t take back the Rules’ protection, but I’ll stay away until she’s dead.”
“Nicholas,” she whispered brokenly—and finally, she reached for him. He held her close, her body so strong, so warm. “I hope this fades. Because I never want to feel like this again.”
Neither did Nicholas. Her mouth rose to his, and when she kissed him, Nicholas knew he wouldn’t have a moment’s peace until she kissed him again.
But it wouldn’t be now. And when she drew back, he let her go.
CHAPTER 15
The Guardians’ headquarters in San Francisco wasn’t quite the prison Ash had thought it would be. She’d immediately had free range within the facility—and within two weeks, had been allowed to take walks around the neighborhood, with either a Guardian or Sir Pup by her side.
Today, Ash had chosen Sir Pup. Appearing as happy-golucky as any other dog sitting beneath a café’s sidewalk table on a sunny spring day, he lay at her feet while she read and sipped her coffee. That appearance was deceiving. If Madelyn found her, tried to issue an order, the hellhound would shape-shift and bite off the demon’s head before the second word passed her lips.
If Madelyn found her here. Ash knew the Guardians didn’t think it was likely, or they’d never have let her outside. Except for changing between her demonic and natural forms, Ash would never be able to shape-shift. Lucifer’s symbols carved into her body prevented any other shifting, probably just for this reason: so she couldn’t hide from Madelyn. But stage makeup to cover her tattoos, scissors, brown hair dye, and a hat to shadow her features all worked well enough to keep attention away from her.
So did a Guardian named Radha, a master of illusion who was currently in London and posing as a tattooed, miraculously-returned-from-the-presumed-dead Rachel Boyle. The story the Guardians came up with had been easy to follow online, caught in sensationalized headlines: Owing to some still-unknown trauma, Rachel had lost her memory for three years, which she’d spent at Nightingale House until she’d finally remembered her past . . . tragically too late to be reunited with her parents.
All close enough to the truth to be verified, and the remainder vague enough to mystify or frustrate anyone who tried to dig deeper. After two months, the news had lost interest, police investigations into those still-missing three years between Rachel’s disappearance and Nightingale House were cooling down again, and Madelyn still hadn’t made a move against Radha—she hadn’t even made a psychic probe to confirm Rachel’s identity.
Madelyn would probably do so soon, however. Since Rachel’s tattooed face had first spread across the Internet and news feeds, other demons had come after Radha, all trying to prevent that spell from being cast and Lucifer’s early return. The Guardian had slain them all—and Ash had no doubt she’d be able to slay Madelyn, too.
Until then, Ash remained a brunette who couldn’t shape-shift, and who still couldn’t fly. But she was working hard on that, doing the one thing that had never occurred to her while she’d been jumping out of a tree: reading.
Flying, she discovered, truly was for the birds. Humansturned-Guardians—or halflings—didn’t have an instinctive ability, and they had to make up for that lack in knowledge and understanding. In two months, she’d read her way through books and scrolls detailing bat and Guardian wing anatomy, piloting manuals for small planes and fighter jets, and texts loaded with information about the effects of wind currents and altitude—all in the hopes that when she was finally in the air, some of that knowledge had soaked deep enough into her brain that she understood the adjustments that needed to be made, and why she might need to change the angle of her wing in order to stop herself from crashing into the ground.
But the rest was simply familiarity. Inside the Special Investigations warehouse, Ash wore her wings constantly, and now she could maneuver them as easily as arm or a leg. She could flap them, hard and fast enough that she hovered—wobbling but upright—a few feet above the floor. In the next week or two, she’d be teleported to a desert for her first trial flights, with a Guardian standing by to catch her if something went wrong.
Much better than falling out of trees . . . but she wished Nicholas could be with her.
And her feelings for him hadn’t faded.
She’d thought they would—or that they’d be replaced by some newer, fresher emotion. She liked several of the Guardians and vampires she’d met, but she hadn’t stopped loving Nicholas, wishing he were there, trying not to laugh. Several other people she’d met were undeniably attractive. Ash didn’t want them. When her body ached, her thoughts were only of Nicholas.
And she missed him. That was new, a longing that cut deeper with each passing day, instead of fading as it should have. Even her resentment had subsided, though it had burned hot when she’d first read through the reports Taylor had compiled on her parents’ murder. For days, she’d been glad to be rid of him, glad to be surrounded by Guardians who gave her any information she needed, especially when it mattered. But her resentment hadn’t been able to stand up against her understanding of him.
He’d been wrong to conceal Madelyn’s involvement. He’d sacrificed her need for revenge on the altar of his own. But she also understood that he hadn’t let himself believe in her need, or the grief that had driven it. He might have known it was real; he wouldn’t let himself believe it.
That had changed. Given the same choice now, he’d have told her. Ash believed that to the root of her soul . . . and that belief didn’t fade.
So she lived with a bone-deep ache that deepened with his absence, the hope that Madelyn would soon be slain—and the pleasure that the tiny contact she managed to have with him provided.
As promised, he hadn’t attempted to reach her since she’d left the cabin. Though reporters had tried to find him after Rachel’s reappearance had cleared him of suspicion in her murder, Nicholas hadn’t made any public statements. But with Rachel alive and her accounts unfrozen, the Guardians had managed to liquidate and launder most of her assets, spread them across five different identities, and transfer them to Ash. With the substantial amount in hand, she’d begun buying up shares and taking over two of Reticle’s outlying holdings—Ash’s way of saying Hello.
Even distracted by his search for Madelyn, he’d eventually see her activity or be alerted by his staff, and look hard at her. And though he might not recognize who lay at the other end, she looked forward to his countermove.
No, that wasn’t right. She looked forward to everything.
She loved the fighting practice, the unending fencing forms, and the continuous study of things she hadn’t forgotten but had simply never known before. On the night she’d met Nicholas and he’d aimed his crossbow at her chest, Ash hadn’t been certain whether she didn’t want to die because of some deep survival instinct or a true desire to be alive. Not now. She loved life—as much as she still loved him. Preferably, that life would eventually include him again. But if it couldn’t, she could at least be certain that she’d made the right choice by coming with the Guardians . . . because it meant she’d never have to choose between life or Nicholas.
A beep from her cell phone alarm warned that her time outside was up; if she didn’t return soon, the Guardians would come looking for her. With a great huff, Sir Pup climbed to his feet. Ash collected her books and tossed her uneaten sandwich to the grateful hellhound—who’d already enjoyed two under the table.
“Pig,” she said,
and he grinned his doggy grin at her.
Her resentment against him had faded, too. And after she’d realized how smoothly Lilith and Hugh had manipulated her and Nicholas, it had taken longer to forgive them, but eventually that sense of anger and stupidity had gone, too.
Intentions mattered, and she understood why they’d pushed Nicholas away and brought her here: They simply couldn’t allow a Gate to open and for Lucifer and his demons to spill out into the world. Ash couldn’t feel the same urgency about the whole matter that they did, but she recognized the danger of thousands of demons, each pushing humans like Steve Johnson to their limits, and not enough Guardians to hold them in check.
The whole world would go mad. Ash preferred the world as it was.
Well, maybe it could be a little better—especially if Madelyn were dead. Especially if Ash or Nicholas were the ones to slay her. But she’d settle for dead, and be happy no matter who did it.
A block away from the café, she vanished the books into her cache. Easy now, just as forming her clothes or her wings were. Her eyes rarely glowed unless she wanted them to, and her fangs appeared with a thought. The only difficulty she had wasn’t looking demonic, it was looking too much like herself—if she wasn’t careful, her hair reverted to blond and grew to the middle of her back again. The Guardians had stopped buying the brown dye by the box and ordered it by the carton, instead.
Another two blocks of run-down warehouses and apartments brought her to Special Investigations’ large fenced lot. The building didn’t look any different than the others in the neighborhood—deliberately, she was told. Demons preferred to be surrounded by money and luxury, so they wouldn’t come into this area unless necessary.
Ash didn’t care about luxury, though it was nice. She did like money, however, so she’d gotten the demon thing half right.
A four-inch-thick steel door provided the first line of defense for the warehouse. Rigged with enough electricity to fry anyone with an elevated temperature on the spot, she avoided electrocution by swiping her keycard. As soon as she and the hellhound passed through the entrance, Sir Pup doubled in size and his two other heads appeared, tongues lolling from each massive jaw. Though her psyche and emotions were already shielded from detection, now she blocked all emotions coming from others. The Guardians had been surprised that she’d walked through London absorbing all of those human feelings, but even though they’d taught her to block them, she liked to open herself during the visits to the café. People were too fascinating to shut them out.
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