by Jessa Slade
She reached for an elaborate, triple-curved blade. “I saw one of these in a painting next to the mask I found for Mobi. It’s African, isn’t it?” She unhooked it from the wall and gave it an experimental whirl so the three open arcs of steel sang in harmonious descant.
“Be care—” He bit back the rest of the inadvertent exclamation. She wouldn’t be careful. Being careful wasn’t in her DNA, or in the etheric mutations the teshuva had given her. But the demon always had a feel for a good blade.
“I like it,” she said.
Of course she would. “The design is based on a Congolese executioner’s sword.”
She took a long step back and extended the armlength blade. Shaped like three linked sickles, the sword’s upper arc came to a point and was sharpened on both sides. The two lower arcs were smaller and sharpened only along the inner edge. She tilted it under the light. “It’s beautiful.”
Etched lines and indents reflected back the light in baubles that danced along her skin. “Looks good on you.”
Abruptly, she reversed her grip. Her fingers pressed precariously around the honed edges, to hand him the blade. “Obviously meant for you.”
Dull heat spread through his chest. “Without the demon’s balance—”
“I didn’t have any teshuva protection when I learned to do a backward walkover pole straddle with no panties.”
He choked.
“I mean,” she said patiently, “you don’t give up just because you can’t rely on the demon anymore. If I’d given up every time I was on my own . . .” She shook her head, the blade still held out to him, unwavering. Her stare was equally steady.
He reached out to take the hilt and eased the sharp edges away from her fingers.
With all the elaborate curves, the weight of the weapon seemed to drift, first balancing near his grip, then sidling away, mocking him. Within him, the teshuva shifted with the same restlessness.
She watched him. “So you used that to lop off the heads of marauding cannibal tribes?”
Absently, he frowned. “I’ve never held one before. I wielded Bible verses in those days.”
“What did you use after you joined the league, before your accident?”
In his mind’s eye, the guillotine of glass hung above him. He forced away the memory and angled up to the balls of his feet to steady himself, but his palm was slick with sweat. When he tightened his fingers, the strain made his grip even more precarious.
The blade wavered when he pointed across the room. “Like that. A two-handed, double-edged greatsword.”
Nim pulled her lips to one side in contemplation. “I see why. It’s very straight.” Her gaze slid slyly to him. “And big and long too.” She shrugged. “Still, I like the one you’ve got there now. It’s kind of . . . kinky.”
He almost laughed. In despair at her folly, but still. “You won’t let this go, will you?”
“We’re bonded, right? That seems to cancel out letting go.”
The sword weighed down his left, nondominant arm. The demon energy surged through his bones . . . and buckled to a halt in his missing extremity, just as it always did. His muscles cramped with the urge to toss the blade from one hand to the other.
Which, of course, he couldn’t. Bile burned in his throat. Bad enough to have struggled with tooth brushing. What she was asking now . . .
No. She had put her faith in him when he had taken everything else. The least he could do was have some in himself.
He took another step back and stretched, trying to resettle the demon’s energy. “This isn’t . . .”
Nim stepped into his space, her aura sparking along his skin. She set herself against his back, her breasts soft against his shoulder blades, her hands skimming down his arms to settle at his wrist and stump.
“What if . . .” she mused. The fingers of her left hand brushed the hilt nestled in his palm. “What if the sword was your hand? Like the cup of the spearhead wraps the shaft.” She pressed her arms together and transferred the sword from his left hand to her right.
He shifted, unbalanced. She counterweighted, and he settled into his dominant stance. It felt good. She felt good.
“You wouldn’t need me as your right hand if you had this,” she said.
His pulse thumped with anticipation. “Liam was a blacksmith. He could adapt the haft.”
“And we already have the pattern of the prosthetic arm in your room.”
“Going through my goods?”
“Naturally,” she said.
“Freaked you out, did it?”
“Like you would not believe.”
He took a deep breath, indulging in the caress of her flesh. “I thought I was arming you.”
She slid around to face him. The blade whispered against his thigh as she dropped it to her side. “Disarming me, you mean.”
“If that’s what you want.” He eased the sword from her hand and backed her to the wall, where he hung the blade on its hook.
The guilt of making love in the league’s weapons room while the rest of the talyan fought for their lives out in the dark city or alone with their wounds might once have given him pause, but Nim of the nimble fingers didn’t allow for any pauses. Or guilt.
Still reeling from the possibility of regaining his sword arm—quite literally—he thrilled at the sensation of her, taut under his weight as he pressed her against the wall.
She gazed up at him through half-lidded eyes. “All this time, why did you settle for that silly hook?”
“I was waiting for you.”
She lifted her chin. “Don’t tease me, missionary man.”
He thumped his truncated forearm against the wall beside her head and leaned in to her. One of the small knives jumped off its hook. “I haven’t been down here since I was wounded.”
She pushed herself up on her toes. “But you like it so much.” Her voice was a low growl in his ear as her tongue traced his lobe.
He gasped and spoke the truth. “I didn’t think the other talyan would fight with me broken.”
“I’ll fight with you.” She moved down to graze her teeth along his jaw.
Was that a threat or a promise? His head spinning with desire, he hardly cared. Or maybe his head was spinning because she was rolling him across the wall. His shoulder knocked down a scimitar. The glinting blade narrowly missed his foot.
Nim danced over it. “Oh, you really like that idea.” Her hand settled on the fly of his jeans. “I can tell.”
He spun her again, and a half dozen pikes clattered against one another. The last in the row fell off the wall and clanged into a suit of armor that, as far as he’d known, had never been worn. The polished steel rocked on its stand. He reached out to steady it. “I think the league elders would consider this battle far too kinky.”
“Isn’t it fun?”
“You are fun.” He pushed her wild hair from her face and smiled as the curls fell back over his knuckles. “Every day with you is an adventure.”
“Every day that doesn’t get you killed,” she agreed. “Good thing you love adventure.”
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s you. Nim, I love you.”
She froze. Her breasts were tight against his chest. She didn’t breathe, but the racing of her heartbeat rattled him.
Maybe she’d misheard him. Although what she might have heard instead . . . “I love you, Nim.”
With each frantic pulse of her heart, she shook her head. “You love my body.”
“Yes. And your hair. And your wicked smile—”
“You can’t. . . . It’s the lure.”
He scowled, half-amused, half-irate. “It’s you.”
Her fingers wrapped around his biceps, as if she’d fall without him, and her eyes were wide. “But I’m . . .”
“You’re what? You’re killing me here.”
“Yes,” she burst out. She tried to squirm away, but he pinned her with his knee between her legs. “I could do that, kill you. I’m bad that way.”
“No, wicked maybe. But wicked isn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought.” He kissed her, and she moaned. “See? I’m learning.” He wedged his thigh a little higher, and she writhed against him. He set his lips against her rushing pulse, then nipped her.
She shivered. “But you don’t know—”
“So show me again.”
With another moan, she popped his fly. “Oh yes, being good is so hard. Too hard.”
The armor crashed to the floor.
He and Nim were a heartbeat behind.
CHAPTER 20
Nim stood in the first light of the rising sun, watching the talyan return on the still-dark street below. From the slump of all those broad shoulders, sagging as if the humidity melted their bones, she knew they’d had no luck again.
“We can’t keep sending them out like this,” Jilly murmured. “With that black energy they’re emoting, they’ll spawn as many tenebrae as they destroy.”
“At least they are going out,” Sera said. “One more night under guard and I was going to have to start my own battle.”
The two women turned away from the edge of the roof. Nim lingered a moment until she picked Jonah’s blond head from the crowd. She studied his gait. Steady, strong, uninjured. She breathed a silent sigh of relief.
She caught up with the others as they headed inside. “When is Liam going to finish the modifications to the executioner’s sword?”
Jilly pulled a face. “Soon. Setting up his forge again was a great idea. He was thrilled. But if I live forever and never work the bellows again, I’ll die an ecstatic woman.”
“Better than being under computer-lab arrest,” Sera said. “Ferris had me downloading every reference to heretical talya women in the league archives. I guess he thought making me write ‘I will never crack open the Veil between the realms without broody male talya supervision again’ on the chalkboard a hundred times was too juvenile.”
“Don’t bet on it.” Jilly stumped down the stairs, her combat boots unlaced in concession to the heat. “The league adores old school. That’s why Liam built a forge like the one his father used two hundred years ago instead of upgrading to something not Jilly powered.”
Sera skipped a step ahead of Nim. “How’d Jonah decide to keep you out of trouble?”
Nim struggled to keep the heat out of her cheeks, glad when they exited into the dark main hall. “Oh, I had to straighten up the weapons room.”
“Lucky you,” Jilly said. “Find anything you like?”
“A couple times. Things, I mean.” Nim cleared her throat. “Anyway, it’ll be good to join the guys. Maybe we can lure Corvus out.”
When the two women straightened in alarm, she clarified, “Not ‘lure’ as in ‘almost get ourselves killed again.’ Just tempt him out of hiding with the way he’s always been interested in us, ever since Sera’s demon first crossed over.”
During the two nights of their house arrest, she’d gotten the full stories of Sera’s and Jilly’s possessions, how Corvus’s attempt to break through the Veil had summoned Sera’s teshuva, and how he had almost trapped Jilly while trying to circumvent the mated talya bond.
Sera sighed. “It is frustrating how he seems to respect us more than the league ever did.”
“He might have been around when the last female talya fell out of the archived records,” Jilly said. “Maybe he knows he should be careful. Anyway, the crews have been out every night around the airports and haven’t found the tiniest smear of demon sign.” She echoed Sera’s sigh. “I have to finish breakfast for the guys. I don’t want them crashing in and deflating my soufflé.”
Nim managed not to snicker as they dropped Jilly off at the kitchen. As if somebody might fight her for the territory she’d claimed, she slipped into an apron that read DON’T FUCK WITH THE COOK over a stenciled cleaver.
Sera waved an absent good-bye as she continued down the hall. “I’d better get back to the computer before Ferris comes looking for me. Maybe I’ll find something we can actually use. Like an ancient scroll of easy Crock-Pot recipes for when we’re too busy slaughtering demons to sauté.”
Nim smiled. “Three hundred and sixty-five centuries of cream of chicken.”
Sera shuddered. “That would be hell on earth. Don’t let Jonah catch you looking idle.”
“Oh, I keep my hands busy.” Nim blinked innocently when Sera peered at her. When the other woman had gone, she continued on.
The hiss of water running through the pipes accompanied her down the hall. All the talyan in their rooms, washing the ichor and blood away. She paused outside Jonah’s door. Her room too, she supposed.
She’d never lived with someone before. Well, not for longer than a couple weeks. Not that she’d broken that record with Jonah yet. But eternity stretched before them.
Assuming she didn’t do anything stupid.
Like believe him when he said he loved her.
She let herself into the room, into the bathroom, into the shower, into his arms.
“I saw you on the roof,” he murmured, after he’d finished with a long, lingering kiss that stole her breath and redoubled her pulse.
“I was waiting for you.” She worked the bar of soap between her hands and slicked her palms over his chest as the water sluiced around them. Her fingers satisfied her of the truth her eyes had seen from the roof; he was unmarked, other than his quiescent reven. Whatever tenebrae the talyan had encountered had gone to their end without excessive fuss. “I missed you.”
“I missed the feel of two soapy hands on my skin.”
She smacked him, a loud, fishy sound in the confines of the shower, and suds flew. “Naughty boy.”
“I was missing your hands. I just didn’t know it before.”
The murmured words, soft and warm as the touch of the water, carved a little space in her heart. “How could you? You didn’t know me then.” And if he had, he wouldn’t have liked her. She hadn’t particularly liked her.
“Maybe my demon knew.”
Of course. One creature of shady mortal character to another. She busied herself with a washcloth. “Jilly says Liam is almost done modifying the executioner’s sword.”
“Well, I still won’t be soaping up with that.”
She smacked him again.
He caught her against his chest.
“Oh no, you don’t,” she said. “You need breakfast and then sleep.”
He ducked his head down to nuzzle her neck. “Let the demon take care of it.”
“Not when I’m here to bedevil you,” she said. But she sagged into the caress of his hand down her spine.
A half hour later, he snuck to the kitchen and back, returning with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Everything else was eaten,” he said. “Jilly’s comfort food always gets to them. Especially when it’s frosted comfort studded with mini chocolate chips.”
Nim scooted up a pillow for him to lean back on while she nestled against his side. “Sounds like you all needed the caloric encouragement.”
“Malice and ferales and even salambes aren’t enough anymore. The talyan won’t be satisfied until they have Corvus.”
She’d been running her fingers down the quiet patterns of the reven that curved around his ribs, but she stopped to look up at him. “Because I let Corvus get the anklet?”
He shook his head. “This isn’t about you. Or you’re just an excuse.”
“I’m used to that.”
He finished the sandwich and rolled her onto her back. “You’re my excuse for not getting enough sleep, for getting worn down to the bone.” His mouth pressed softly to hers in a slow kiss, though other parts—seemingly not at all worn-down—were more insistent. “You’re my excuse for wondering why I even care about Corvus when you’re here waiting for me.”
She licked the hint of jelly from his lips. “That’s so sweet.”
“By the way, I like your hair.”
She patted her head and the trimmed curls poked at her fingers. The last wei
ght of the dreads had unraveled, leaving behind a springy mess with pretensions of world domination. “Sera and Jilly evened it up tonight. Said they were sick of looking at it.”
He nudged aside her hand and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. The corners of his half-closed eyes crinkled when it tumbled back again. “Soft,” he murmured. “And wild.”
She kissed him again, and he was asleep before she lifted her head. Easy for him to be exhausted. He hadn’t been sitting around, worrying and twiddling his fingers all night.
With a sigh, she echoed his caress, brushing a blond lock from his forehead. His deep breath never faltered, but he turned to nuzzle her palm. The brush of his lips against her wrist fired her pulse.
God, she couldn’t stop touching him, even while knowing he needed to rest, needed to stay focused if he was going to survive the horde. She pulled away and clamped her hand between her knees so she wouldn’t reach out to him again. All these years of ruthlessly using her body to get her way and she was betrayed, not by her bones or muscles or nerves, but by a quivering lump of flesh at her center.
And not just her clit either.
Her stupid heart.
What was she doing here? She wasn’t just seducing a missionary man. She was luring a damned holy warrior away from his shot at redemption. She had ruined his chances and put him in danger by losing the anklet, and he wouldn’t even let her help him get it back. She’d never even wanted to be part of a team—for which everyone was probably eternally grateful, since when she wasn’t being useless, she was a downright menace.
Her fingers curled, digging into the flesh of her thighs.
Once upon a time, she would’ve taken this beautiful moment to burn a hole in her skin. But the demon would laugh at such a wimpy wound.
And this time, she didn’t need the outside pain.
She slipped out of the bed and fetched Mobi. She’d forgotten to bring her CDs from her apartment, which was a drag, since the only stereo she’d found in the warehouse didn’t have a place to dock her iPod. Another example of the league’s slow evolution, Sera had mourned, despite the ever-pressing need for change.
