by Jessa Slade
The same bone-deep weariness left her swaying on her bare feet, but Jilly couldn’t bring herself to leave the dock. She stood at a slight distance. Though she didn’t look around, she knew Liam lingered behind her.
“We have to be done here.” Archer stalked by them. “He’s been possessed a long time. The body’ll be dust and bones before dawn.”
Sera snagged him by the arm and dragged him to a halt. “Let them be. They need to see. They need this time.”
“Ghoul,” he hissed at her. But his body curved toward hers.
“Healing,” she countered. She touched his shoulder. “Go inside. Eat some of what Jilly made. They’ll follow you, and then we can take care of Perrin. Lex volunteered to make the drive out to the burial ground down south. Even if the league has never fully explained what happens to the talya soul after death, we know what’s left of his body will find a beautiful place to rest.”
Archer watched her a moment, eyes half lidded. Though he didn’t move, Jilly’s skin prickled as she felt the demon rising in him, as if just the thought of walking away from his mate was a threat. After a tense moment, he nodded, and his exit did pull a few other talyan into his wake.
Sera joined Jilly. They watched Jonah, who bent his head over the body, as if in prayer.
“They don’t lose a brother often,” Sera murmured. “In some ways, that makes it harder for them.”
Jilly slanted a glance at her. “Who wants to practice at losing just so you won’t cry when the time comes?”
“Who said anything about not crying?” Sera shrugged. “Violence only sharpens the edge of the pain.”
Liam’s voice rumbled behind them. “Violence, properly wielded, also takes care of what’s causing your pain.” He inclined his head at Ecco, who nodded and finally dragged Jonah away.
Jilly winced at their matched halting steps. “With all that’s coming at the league, I’m surprised there isn’t a funeral a day.”
“The teshuva are almost always strong enough to repair the damage from malice and ferales,” Liam said. “It’s the others that have been the problem.”
“The salambes.” Jilly gripped the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “And the djinn.”
But Sera gave him a narrower glance. “And you still wonder about the demons that choose a woman, don’t you?”
He met her accusing glare without any sign of regret, his arms loose at his sides. “I never believed you were evil. Either of you.”
Jilly wondered if she’d ever be warm again. “Just dangerous.”
He didn’t answer, and Sera prodded, “In the last four months, you’ve lost two talyan. When was the last before that?”
“Check league archives.”
“I don’t need to.” Sera’s voice was low. “I know you remember every one.”
He gave her a level look. “Does it matter? I gained a talya for each one I lost.”
His nonanswer was answer enough. And Jilly didn’t want to be a replacement part. “We should go.”
He nodded. “Get something to eat. The teshuva might not care, but your body still does.”
Now he cared about her body. “I mean, Sera and I should leave the league.”
They stared at her, with flickering violet in their eyes and demonic lows in their voices when they both said, “No.”
“Something dangerous happens when we . . . when we touch.” She looked at Liam. “You said it yourself. What happens between us might not be evil, but it isn’t good.”
His jaw tightened. “So we won’t touch.” A scant heartbeat later, he added, “Except when we can use it, control it.”
“You two speak for yourselves,” Sera snapped. “If Archer heard this, he’d break something.”
“We’re already breaking the league,” Jilly said. “One man at a time.”
“That’s what happens when you won’t bend to changes.” Sera cast a hard look at Liam. “Even brain-damaged, soulless Corvus figured that out.”
“Maybe that made it easier,” Jilly said. “All he had left was his heart.”
“And his demon,” Liam growled. “We paid a high price, but we have a salambe to dissect, clues to unravel, and the end of the world to avert. No one is leaving.”
His vehemence silenced them until Archer strode up, stark lines drawing his face into a hard mask. “Your sister’s gone.”
As if the cold was just too much, Jilly’s heart went still in her chest. So much for nobody leaving. “Maybe she needed something for the kitchen. Frosting for the brownies. Maybe—”
“And she took the last of the solvo.”
CHAPTER 23
As the sun came up, Corvus eased back on the musty mattress. When his demon went dormant, it tended to forget to position his body in ways that wouldn’t leave him aching and stiff. After all their years together—centuries, actually, not that he could remember them—it now treated him like a rag doll it had not quite outgrown.
Which made him wonder when it would need him no longer.
Almost without his awareness, his hand crept across the dirty sheet to touch the first faint beam of light. No warmth yet, but spring was coming. He smelled it sometimes, when the wind was right.
He sighed.
A gentle hand reached out to stroke his brow. “You okay?”
“Never better.” The slur in his voice ever since he’d fallen should have belied his words. But it was true.
How right it would be that when the blooming season came, the last of those vile talyan who’d left him crushed under the tons of brick and glass would be gone.
He rolled his head carefully against the pillow. The djinni had knit up the flattened bones of his skull, but sometimes he imagined what was left inside rattled a bit. “Never better,” he repeated, though he wondered if that made him sound like the idiot he was now.
But the woman beside him smiled as if he’d said something profound. The light of the sun and the smile gave life to the otherwise gaunt lines of her face. In his time, the women had been round, soft, but these days everything seemed to have become tighter and sharper. One of the many reasons destroying it all had seemed so reasonable. Oh, he supposed he could always find a rounder woman. Like the newest female talya.
But that one wasn’t soft at all. He frowned as the woman beside him traced her finger down his chest, lingering a moment on the faint parallel scars, as if someone had tried to open him on the dotted line. “She did that to me,” he said.
“Who did, baby?”
“Your sister.”
Dory’s eyes widened, though even in the brighter light, her pupils never changed size. “What?”
“She stabbed me.”
Dory sat back, dragging the sheet up to shield her naked breasts. “I didn’t know—”
He smiled. “Don’t fret. I am not angry.”
The sheet sagged. “You’re not?” A bit of animal cunning returned to her pinched features. “At her? Or at me?”
He chuckled, a grating sound. “Either. Remember how I said you must let go your hurts before you can move on?” When she nodded, he tucked a strand of her lank blond hair behind her ear. He moved slowly, lest he accidentally poke out her eye with his clumsy hands. He who had once wielded swords finely enough to carve birds on the wing. “Let it go, Dory.”
She leaned into his touch, and let go.
“Into thin air,” Archer growled.
Liam spiked his fingers through his hair. In the brilliant—and frigid—March light, his teshuva’s sensitivity to the dark side was less powerful. But to not pick up a single trace of Dory’s passage?
“No signs of struggle,” he said at last. “She went willingly.”
Ecco nodded. A white thread was all that remained of the jagged wound at his hairline. “A feralis on the wing could have plucked her up any time in the night if it knew where to find her. If she summoned it.”
“She’s a confused woman,” Jilly objected. “Not some djinni witch.”
Liam had planned the sear
ch to rendezvous at Grant Park after quartering the area near the warehouse and then expanding in concentric rings through the morning, jumping ever farther afield as they found nothing.
Under the bright sun, the lake sparkled, and the white breasts of the wheeling seagulls soared like foam whipped from the whitecaps. Dozens of people braved the cold to stroll in the light.
“She told me Corvus liked to come down here,” Jilly said. “This was my last idea.”
“We don’t know that she went to Corvus,” Liam cautioned.
They all, even Jilly, stared at him until he shrugged, hoping he’d wrestled down the flush of embarrassment on his face. Of course his teshuva-ridden talyan had seen through his lie.
Jilly paced with jerky movements. Liam watched the pulse of amethyst in her eyes as the demon sputtered in and out of her control. She was exhausted. They all were.
And they couldn’t afford any more mistakes. “We’re going home.”
The others turned to head back to their vehicles, but Jilly stiffened. “We’re abandoning her?”
He didn’t see any way to soften the decision. “For now.”
“Go, then. I’ll keep looking.”
“We’re all going.” He kept his voice even.
She spun to face him, golden eyes flaring pure violet. “You told me no one was leaving,” she mocked. “But you couldn’t keep one weak human woman from sneaking out. How will you stop me?”
The other talyan melted back. While he appreciated their discretion, he half suspected a touch of wariness drove their tactful retreat.
Having lost her puffy jacket in the salambes’ attack, Jilly had borrowed Sera’s coat, which was enough like Archer’s coat that it had always made Liam think of matching velour tracksuits. Except now the sleek red leather, hanging on Jilly long enough to touch the ground if it weren’t for her brand-new shit-kicker boots, made him think of concubines.
He realized his own thoughts were none too coherent, so he shouldn’t blame her for challenging him. Even if his demon, hovering unnecessarily close to the surface as his control slipped, made such a challenge particularly unwise.
In the face of his silence, she bristled. Literally. The crescent knives appeared in her hand, fanned to array all four forward points at him.
He kept his hands at his sides. “That really what you want to do? Right here on the pier with everyone watching?”
The demon flash in her eyes clashed with her coat. “I just want to find Dory.”
For a second, he contemplated lying again. But he thought that just might set those blades in motion.
So instead he reached out and touched her face, just a fleeting glance of his fingertips against her skin. When he stepped closer, the knife tips prodded at tender places, but he let out a breath and gave himself some room. “Remember what I told you. You can only take on so much before you risk getting taken over.” He should know.
Despite the cold, a faint blush rose on her cheek where his touch had passed. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, the violet had leached away as purely human pain surpassed the demon’s barriers. “I thought I had another chance,” she whispered. The gleaming points of the knives dipped away from his groin. “Why would she leave?”
“Maybe she wasn’t ready for another chance.” Now she might not get a third, but he didn’t think he needed to add salt to Jilly’s wounds.
“I just can’t believe she went back to him. She kept riding me what trouble you were, but then she went back to Corvus.”
Her words twisted in him, sharper than the knives. “So maybe you shouldn’t listen to her.” She glanced up, and he realized abruptly how much of the grievance was in his tone. “Maybe you should let the talyan get some rest, which you know they can’t do if you won’t call a halt.”
She swayed on her feet and glanced around her, as if she couldn’t quite remember where she was. As if she didn’t quite realize what it meant to be in charge of other people’s fate, balancing one against another.
When she finally looked back at him, her throat worked in a hard swallow. She put away the knives. Without a word, she followed the other talyan away from him.
He stood for one more moment, between the lake and his league. Except for Jilly in her wild red, their sleek dark clothes, so suitable for night hunting, made them outcasts on the sunny pier. The afternoon of rest he would give them was no vacation—more like purgatory, waiting for the burning to begin.
He turned his back on the water and headed for his men. And woman.
He ignored the one last flare of his demon at that thought.
At the warehouse, Liam followed Jilly to her room, feeling like the black shadow of doom hovering behind her.
“I’m not going to double back to continue the search,” she said, her voice dull.
“I know.” He pushed open the door and she edged past him.
It took her a full heartbeat before she realized he’d followed her in.
Her gaze snapped. He could almost see her shove her weariness away. Next she’d be shoving him away. “I said I wasn’t going to leave.”
“And I said I know.” He went to the window to pull the curtain against the sun. Still, enough light leached around the edges of the fabric that he didn’t have to summon his demon to see as he sat on the chair to pull off his boots.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking my boots off.”
“Don’t fuck with me.” She huddled in her long borrowed coat, which took some of the threat out of her words.
“Truly, I’m too tired.” But now that she’d said it, some of his fatigue lifted. Which was unfortunate. Just so long as nothing else lifted, he’d be fine.
“Perrin is dead, Jonah mutilated, my sister missing.” She took an agitated step, prelude to pacing.
He caught her arm. “Sleep.”
She stiffened against his hold. “No demon mind tricks.”
“No such thing. And the demon’s got nothing to do with it.” Recklessness loosened his tongue. “Wouldn’t it be easier if it did? Then we could deny what’s between us with a righteous heart, knowing we were denying sin itself.”
“It is a demon,” she whispered.
He stood, barefoot, and stripped the shirt over his head. Then he faced her. “I don’t see the demon in your eyes.”
But he was playing with some kind of fire. He called himself a hundred kinds of fool as he took a step nearer and closed his fingers around cool red leather.
He slid the coat over her shoulder, down her arms. He trapped her there for a heartbeat, felt her sway toward him. He steeled himself for a head butt. Instead, her cinnamon-honey eyes were half closed, as if she were falling asleep in his arms.
He gave the borrowed coat another nudge, and it pooled in crimson at her feet. Underneath, she was in the same unrelieved black as his other people.
But she wasn’t like the others. And that’s what would get him in trouble. That’s what would destroy the world.
Still he could not release her.
Instead, he knelt, trailing his hands down her arms. His knuckles brushed the outer curves of her breasts, and she trembled. Down he went, pausing at her midline. He lifted the bottom of her T- shirt. The shrapnel gash in her side had knit to tender flesh, her reven swirled around to encompass the fading scar with the inky darkness of dormant demon.
With a flick of his thumb, he unfastened the button of her low-rider jeans and eased the denim over her thighs. Good little talya. Even her underwear was black.
He lifted her feet, one at a time, from the loosened laces of her boots. She braced her hands on his shoulders and looked down at him.
And he stopped cold.
He’d seen her charge salambes, leap across voids, tease the Veil that separated the realms, without fear. In her eyes now he saw the fear that he would hurt her, that he would not be what she needed.
And she was right to be afraid. Not of herself, or what she could do. Of him.
> He didn’t speak, only rose to his full height and swept her into his arms. She didn’t resist. He carried her to the bed and laid her down. It was all his muscles doing the resisting as he tucked her against his side without desiring more. Or at least without reaching for more.
“Just sleep.” He didn’t recognize his own voice.
For a long minute, he listened to the grind of her teeth. But finally her fist, hard as a rock on his chest, loosened, and her breathing smoothed into sleep.
Gingerly, so as not to wake her, he smoothed her fingers over his heart. He stared into the dark as his pulse matched itself to hers.
CHAPTER 24
Jilly awoke at a cool breeze running along the small of her back, like fingers.
That better not be anyone’s fingers.
She bolted upright, wrestling a moment in the covers that had been tucked around her. She wasn’t exactly cool, she realized; she’d just been warmer before. With that comforting weight at her back.
Liam eyed her warily from across the room, where he had pulled back the curtain just a bit. He reached for his shirt. She’d seen enough when he’d taken the shirt off, so she knew she should avert her gaze as he dressed. It wasn’t like he was some great work of manly art. The lean length of him was more whipcord than stud, and the wild tangle of his hair was definitely the work of demons rather than modern haute couture.
And yet she didn’t look away. Her fingers tightened on the sheet with the ancient-by-now memory of gripping his flanks as he eased into her. Only the faintest evening light trickled into the room, but traceries of old scars glimmered on his skin as her demon roused to the coming darkness. And the tripping pulse of her heart.
He did up the buttons of his shirt with quick fingers, as if it were some kind of armor. “I was hoping you’d sleep a little longer so I could change before I had to come back and make sure you didn’t run off.”
“You could tie me down.”
