Except she couldn’t lift her hands and hold him to her. Couldn’t push her fingers through his hair.
A soft whine broke them apart. Nicholas frowned, looking through the dark.
He couldn’t see the dog, she realized. She turned, and let her eyes provide the light he needed. “His leg was in a trap.”
Nicholas nodded before crouching, pulling off his glove and holding out his hand. The dog came over, sniffed, and then seemed to groan when Nicholas’s long fingers moved to scratch behind his ear.
“Is the leg broken?”
“I don’t think so, but he’s hurt enough that he lashed out at me, knocked me over onto my ass.” And apparently broke open some of her shotgun shells in the process. She could still smell the sweet hellhound venom. “I’ll look at his leg again in the cabin, see how bad it is.”
Nicholas’s eyes closed, almost as if in relief. His voice roughened. “So we are taking him in?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then.”
Nicholas stood, pulled on his glove. He gave her a hard kiss before pushing into the already furrowed trench he’d made through the snow. They made quick time back to the cabin, and Ash got the dog settled in with a blanket near the stove and a bowl of water while Nicholas changed out of his heavy clothes.
He returned to the living room wearing only his pajama bottoms, and sank onto his heels next to her while she examined the dog’s leg. “Diagnosis?”
“Just bruised, I think. I can’t find any puncture wounds, and he doesn’t react when I press on it.”
“We’ll take him to town tomorrow, have him checked out at the vet’s. We’ll need food for him, anyway.”
The dog lifted his head at the mention of food. Nicholas grinned, scratching the pup behind the ears again, and Ash found herself looking at Nicholas instead, examining his every feature. Only a few hours ago, she’d been jealous, and horrified by what she’d been feeling. Now, she couldn’t imagine not wanting to feel like this again.
He met her eyes, and his grin faded. Slowly, as if giving her the chance to retreat, he moved to her, brought her to her feet. His head bent, and he brushed his lips over hers. “I’m sorry for the bath, too.”
“Nicholas—”
“And the floor.”
She smiled against his mouth. “I liked the floor. Except the end.”
“It won’t happen again.”
His lips pressed to her cheek. Again, and again. Her tattoos, she realized.
“Will you kiss every symbol?”
She felt his laugh, a soft rumble through his chest. “I’ll damn well try.”
His lips moved to her neck, and she let her head fall back. Her hands lifted to his shoulders—but she stopped. Her throat tightened.
She wanted this, so much. But she didn’t want it like this.
“Stop, Nicholas. Stop.” When he stiffened against her, she said, “I can’t.”
He immediately drew back, face carefully blank. Not cold. A mask of tension and pain. His gaze searched hers, and he finally closed his eyes and nodded.
“All right.” His voice was the same, rough with strain. “But don’t go back outside. I’ll build up the fire again. Or you can stay in the bed. I’ll keep you warm.”
And torture her? “I can’t do that, either. I can’t touch you.”
“Can’t touch—No. No, Ash.” He gave a hoarse laugh, shaking his head. “You can. Anywhere. Any way you like. Anything. Punch through my chest if you want. My free will, that’s yours. Whatever you want to do to me, I want it, too.”
Trembling, Ash looked to his chest. He offered a measure of trust that she hadn’t expected. It wasn’t even the qualified bending of the Rules they used in training. Her hand shook as she flattened her palm over his heart.
It pounded, but not in fear.
“For how long?” she wondered.
“Until you don’t want to touch me anymore.”
That might be longer than he thought.
She grinned up at him, and he’d just begun to smile in return when she was on him, her hands in his hair, dragging him down to her mouth. Hotter now, and his hands slid to her ass, lifted her against his rigid length. Ash’s head fell back, and she panted.
“Naked,” she said. “Get naked now. And on the bed.”
Nicholas went out of order. Pants still on, he swung her up, carried her into the bedroom. She reached around, tried to shove down his waistband, and the moment he set her down beside the bed, she pushed him over. He fell back on the mattress, his laugh shaking the bed. She followed him down with her knee braced beside his thigh, and hooked her fingers into his pajama pants.
She paused. “Am I going too fast?”
He sat up. “Do you plan on going demon-fast?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I’d like to see what’s happening.” He unzipped her jacket, pushed it off her shoulders. “I’d like to feel it, too.”
“You will.”
“We’ll do slow next time, then.”
He pulled her hoodie and T-shirt over her head in one motion. Her hair spilled down, slipping across her breasts.
“Sweet Jesus,” he breathed, pushing the strands aside to expose the vermillion symbols again. “I’ll kiss every one. Just so that I know I’ve kissed every inch of you.”
His pulled her toward his lips, but not to kiss. Ash cried out as he drew her nipple into his mouth, sucking the hardened tip. Searing pleasure burned down her spine along the path of his fingers. Red light glinted against the dark of his hair. She gripped his shoulders, lost in the heat of his mouth, the tease of his tongue.
“I can’t stop my eyes from glowing,” she whispered.
He lifted his head, bent to press a kiss to the large glyph between her breasts. “Good.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” She had to ask.
“No.” He rose up, kissed the corner of her mouth. “You’re beautiful to me.”
Her heart swelled. “I have horns.”
“And I’m a bastard who should have known what might happen when you lost control. I saw you change in London. I should have been prepared for the same when you came.”
“You have scars. And you have good reason not to trust demons.”
“But not you.” He pressed his lips to her temple. “And I don’t care if your skin turns red. I don’t care if your wings form. I don’t care if your scales come out—”
“I have scales? Like a judging angel, or like a dragon?”
“A dragon.” He held her face between his hands. “But for now, just shut up and let me tell you that you’re beautiful.”
Not with words. He told her with another kiss, sweet and thorough. He told her with each lick as he moved down her body, teeth tugging at her nipples, tasting his way down her stomach. He told her with his eyes when her jeans vanished and he parted her thighs, spread her open to his gaze, when looking wasn’t enough.
His mouth covered her, tongue sliding between her slick folds. Fire shot through Ash’s blood, burning every nerve. She cried out, lifting against his mouth. With a groan, Nicholas bent his head, took another long swirling taste that left her panting, writhing.
“God, Ash. So sweet and hot.” Coming up for breath, he pushed her knee wide. “And we’re going to go slow now.”
So slow. An eternity of the thrust of his fingers and the flick of his tongue, the bed creaking with the desperate jerk of her hips, his hungry assault against her slick flesh, the raucous pounding of their hearts.
And then it all disappeared, narrowing down to just the ecstasy bursting through her, white-hot. She screamed with it, her back arching as it burnt her down.
Slowly, she built her awareness again, of Nicholas’s soft kiss against her thigh, her stomach, moving up until she opened her eyes and he was there, too. She smiled up at him, and his gaze slipped to her mouth.
“Don’t move,” he said.
His head dipped, and he flicked his tongue across her lips before sliding betwee
n. Ash moaned at the subtle penetration, then stiffened when he licked the long point of her left fang. A shiver ripped over her skin, a sweet and painful tightening. She cried out in surprise.
He lifted his head again, studying her face. “Do you like that?”
“Yes.” She licked her own, but it wasn’t the same. “How did you know to do that?”
“I heard it about vampires once. But it looks like you get the benefits, with none of the bloodsucking.”
She grinned, and realized that the fangs were already gone. A laugh escaped her when she saw Nicholas’s disappointment. She’d make up for it. Rising up, she caught his mouth in a kiss, her fingers sliding down and curling around the thick shaft behind thin cotton. Somehow, he wasn’t naked yet. But she—
Had to let the dog out.
Slipping out of the kiss, Ash groaned her frustration, hoping she’d been mistaken. The sound came again. A scratch at the front door, an anxious whine.
Nicholas froze, as if suddenly aware that she’d heard something. “Ash?”
“The dog. I’ll be one second.”
Or two, depending on how long it took the dog to slip out of the door. She left Nicholas on the bed, still aroused and his heart pounding. Hers pounding, too, so hot and thick that it seemed to echo in her ears. The dog sat in front of the door, tail wagging. She opened it and he merely looked up at her, giving her a doggy grin.
Cute, but she was standing there naked and the cold was seeping into her skin. “Out,” she said. “Do your business. I’ll let you back in. I promise.”
He shook his head, flapping his ears wildly. Hope lifted when he rose to all fours, but he only snuffled at the edge of the doorway before padding back around to the middle of the room. The bed creaked, and she heard Nicholas coming to the door of the bedroom.
She looked at the dog. “I’m only going to have it open for a second longer. Then you have to hold it.”
He chuffed at her.
Shaking her head, she turned back to close it—and stopped. Her boomstick should have been on that rack next to the door. It wasn’t.
Neither was Nicholas’s rifle, and the holsters that hung there were empty. Sudden dread filled her stomach, her heart began beating sickly thuds. And the rhythm of Nicholas’s had changed, too . . . and there were still the echoes, but they were beating at a different time.
“Ash.” Behind her, Nicholas’s voice filled with a cold that she’d never heard before—the ice of fear. “Don’t look around. Just run. Go. As fast as you can.”
And leave him? She couldn’t. She looked around, and her blood turned to ice water.
It wasn’t a dog anymore. Standing as tall as the ceiling, it had three massive heads, jaws filled with gleaming dagger-teeth. Its eyes glowed, not steady crimson like hers, but flickering as if lit by the fires of Hell. Short fur as stiff as needles poked between crimson and black scales. She couldn’t see Nicholas beyond its enormous body, but the monstrous creature was watching them, each of them to one set of eyes, and the third . . . was watching the door.
Pressing her back to the wall, she kept her eyes on the monster, let her fingers search for a weapon. A chair, a curtain rod, anything.
The head watching her growled, a long deep rumble. She froze.
“Nicholas?”
She heard the low noise he made, despair in the back of his throat. “Go. I’ll distract it, keep it here. You have to go now or you won’t have a chance. It’s a hellhound. One bite can paralyze you.”
It had already bitten her once. Apparently, she’d been lucky. Damn lucky. Ash eyed the size of its jaws. “One bite could kill either of us.”
The hellhound chuffed, but this time it was a deep bellow, from a chest as wide as a truck. She could almost taste the amusement behind it—
No. She could taste it. A little odd, but in the same way she sensed emotions in people.
“It’s laughing,” she realized.
“Ash. Go.”
Not without him—but it was too late anyway. She heard a light thud from outside, followed by a second. A flutter, a flap. The sound of wings.
Feathered wings.
Her chest tightened. “Nicholas. The Guardians are here.”
For a moment, there was only silence. Then a footstep from the porch seemed to break it, and Nicholas roared her name. The hellhound’s heads swung around. Ash’s heart stopped.
Nicholas was attacking the thing. Trying to get to her. Oh, God.
She sprinted forward, and though Nicholas’s heart was between beats, she saw that the hellhound reacted just as quickly, that he’d already noticed her coming around and so she shouted, “I’m just protecting him!” before sliding beneath those enormous gaping jaws, across the floorboards and up. Nicholas seemed frozen, his expression contorted by fury and determination, and he’d found the only stabbing weapon the hellhound hadn’t taken: the heel of her boot. Clenched in his raised fist, he was trying to protect her, but this would only hurt him, and if she didn’t slow down, she’d hit him while going too fast and hurt him, too. She slowed, and caught his wrist as he stabbed down. She hadn’t slowed enough. As her body hit his and they went flying, Ash managed to react, to twist, and take the impact.
She slammed back into the wall next to the bedroom door, holding on to him. It took him only a blink to realize what had happened, and then his arms were around her, shoving her behind him and putting himself between the hellhound and her.
Between the Guardians and her.
Ash slipped her hands around Nicholas’s waist, ready to carry him away. She looked over his shoulder as the footsteps came nearer, as the resonance of their steps against the wood changed when they crossed from the porch into the cabin. “I hear two,” she whispered. “One with heels.”
The hellhound gave a happy chuff, an unmistakable sound of greeting. His giant, slithering tail wagged. A woman answered him.
“Such a good boy. I love it when you look so mean. But you’re taking up all of the room. Hugh can’t even fit in here with me.”
With a noise like a sigh, the hellhound suddenly diminished—looking almost like a Labrador again, but twice as big, and still with three heads—and revealing the man and woman standing near the door.
Tall, with a long black wool coat that buttoned to her throat, and a tangle of long dark hair, the woman regarded them with arched brows and a sharp amusement. The man gave less away, but Ash couldn’t miss the calluses on his hands, the bulk of his shoulders. A man who had his own obsessions, was driven by some deep purpose.
That purpose was to kill her, Ash supposed.
“Just turn around,” Nicholas said. His arms came back and his palms flattened against the wall on either side of her, as if to protect her from every side. “She’s not like most demons. She’s not evil.”
The woman smiled and came farther inside. The man—Hugh, she’d called him—shut the cabin door.
“Different, yes. I know better than anyone,” she said, her gaze narrowing on Ash’s face. “You are new.”
Easier to kill, Ash thought.
“And those symbols . . . Taylor was right. Those aren’t for the transformation. They’re a spell to create a new Gate. Fuck.”
Ash trembled. A spell. The demon who’d attacked her in Duluth had said something similar, and there was a memory there, something she needed to know, but she couldn’t trace it now.
The woman turned to look at Hugh, who seemed to shake his head without moving at all. She focused on Ash again. “I see you’re all naked and cozy here, shacked up in the middle of nowhere, but unless the demon you’re bound to is dead, you’re not safe. Nobody will be safe if Lucifer opens that Gate. So you need to come with us.”
Okay, that was easy. “We’re safe then,” Ash said, and since she didn’t have a bargain with these Guardians, had no problem telling them, “The demon is dead.”
Hugh spoke. “Lie.”
She felt Nicholas’s tension increase. The woman looked to him and grinned.
“You know what he is, don’t you? He had a Gift to see the truth for eight hundred years, and he can still see it. So don’t even try to lie.” She glanced at Ash. “Or try, if you want. It’s a lot more fun that way.”
“Or maybe he’ll lie even when he hears the truth,” Nicholas said. “How can we know?”
“That’s your first thought? Your mother really fucked you up, didn’t she?” The woman studied him for a long moment. “He won’t lie, not when he’s here to see the truth. And not when I depend on him to tell me when you’re lying.”
“If he sees it, then he knows I told the truth when I said she wasn’t like other demons,” Nicholas said.
“Well, I don’t need Hugh to tell me that. It’s written all over her face . . . and from the little I can see, it’s also written all over the rest of her. Lucifer named you Ash, is that right? Because after you sacrificed yourself to save St. Croix’s life, you’re not Rachel Boyle anymore.”
CHAPTER 14
Through his own shock, the immediate denial, Nicholas felt Ash tense behind him.
“I’m not Rachel.”
“Not anymore,” the woman agreed, but her gaze moved between them, and Nicholas could almost see her calculating, weighing. “You don’t know. Neither of you know.”
“We know she’s not Rachel,” Nicholas said.
The woman’s eyes flattened. “No, because Lucifer stripped most of Rachel out of her. Didn’t he? Not everything, because she’s talking, and I’m guessing she didn’t have to relearn her ABCs, but the rest is gone, isn’t it? Relationships, emotional connections, and the deeper they were the harder he dug. Then he ripped them right out, and took everything that made Rachel Rachel with it. And he made you with what was left.”
Ash made a soft noise—of pain, of terror. The sound tore at his heart. Nicholas spun, caught her in his arms.
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