Demon Bound

by Meljean Brook

  CHAPTER 13

  Alice didn’t want to open her eyes. They were still in Hell; she could feel it on her skin, hot and arid, and against her mind, as if the dark psychic stain in the Pit permeated the entire realm. She could feel it in her parched lungs—though the stench wasn’t as terrible. Either she’d become accustomed to it, or the odor had lessened as they’d traveled farther from Lucifer’s territories.

  But there was no point in hiding. She sensed the tension in Jake’s arms, the subtle change in his gait. He’d realized that she’d woken.

  Her hair fell away from her cheek as she lifted her head. What a mess she was. Jake stopped, but she didn’t look at him—didn’t want to see if he was looking—when he set her down.

  The sand was hot beneath her bare feet. Her skin flushed, and she quickly called in her boots and stockings, her drawers and dress. Almost instantly, she replaced the armor with them, and turned her back while she fastened and arranged everything.

  “I didn’t peek,” Jake said in a low voice.

  She believed him—and felt doubly wretched. When scales had covered her demonic body, she hadn’t given a thought to being exposed. It shouldn’t have been different, yet it was. And though she had much to thank Jake for since they’d come to this realm, she’d have resented him if he had looked.

  Now she was grateful that resentment would not be an issue.

  “Thank you.” Without glancing up, she began to braid her hair. Her fingers caught in the tangles. She tugged, pulled—then forced herself to stop and simply wind two sections back from her face and pin them.

  “Of course, now that you’re not unconscious, I’ll probably try. I’m hoping for a nice gust of wind to blow your skirt up.”

  “How unfortunate for you that there is not even a breeze,” she said, giving in to a smile. It faded when she caught sight of the two hellhound puppies in the distance. A scan of the horizon revealed nothing else but sand and rock—not even Lucifer’s tower was visible.

  They must have jumped much farther than she’d thought. “Where is the mother?” she asked.

  “I dunno.” Jake pointed to a distant, tall pile of jagged stones. His footprints led away from them. “A while back, I passed that rock—I’m calling that south, by the way—and heard the puppies. They started following me, but I haven’t seen any sign of her. I’m not sure if they care for their young anyway.” His gaze moved over her face. “How are you, goddess?”

  Her shoulder was sore, but the weakness had gone. “Very well.” She studied him, aware of a difference that she couldn’t pin down. He looked older, perhaps—but she didn’t think his features had changed. He hadn’t become rugged or developed any lines. “Are you well?”

  “Yep. I have an earworm, but other than—”

  “A what?”

  Jake rolled his toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other. His expression told her that he was laughing, but trying to hold it back.

  Her heartbeat slowed again. “You don’t have a worm in your ear,” she guessed.

  “Nope. A song stuck in my head.”

  “Oh. Yes, that can be quite annoying.” His scrutiny of her features continued even through his amusement. Unsettled, she struck out in the direction he’d been heading before she’d woken. When he came abreast of her, she asked, “What song?”

  “Just one about a guy who walks five hundred miles. Then five hundred more. I have it on my 1980s playlist.” He shook his head, looking pained. “There are days I wonder why I bother catching up on that decade.”

  “I’ll be certain never to borrow that list from you, then.” Five hundred miles? She frowned, and watched as he turned, began walking backward so they wouldn’t have to keep glancing over their shoulders. “How long did I sleep?”

  “Not quite sixty hours.”

  Astonishment dropped her mouth open, and she slowly closed it. She had nothing to say in response. And she was well now—there was no reason for her chest to be squeezing with fear and uncertainty.

  She tilted her head back. The sky was a burning red that bordered on night, like a bruised, rotting pomegranate that had been split open. No moon, no sun.

  “I wish there were stars,” she said quietly.

  “I wish there was a Gate to Caelum.”

  She laughed, and lowered her gaze to his. “Jake, there is no immediate threat. Do you think that you could anchor to this spot and teleport—”

  “No. If Mommy Hellhound shows up, and you run—then we don’t find you again.”

  “I could fly into the air.”

  He pointed into the eastern sky. “I think those are bats.”

  Alice saw the dark cloud, and clenched her teeth in frustration. “Damn Lucifer for not leaving well enough alone,” she muttered. If not for the danger these creatures posed, she had no doubt that Jake would attempt to seek help.

  “So says the woman who feeds vampire blood to her spiders.”

  With a narrowing of her eyes, Alice turned to stare at him, and found his hands held up in surrender and his mouth curved into a smile.

  “Hey, I’m not complaining—by the time the first sentinel hit your web, I loved those spiders as much as you do. In any case,” he continued, “I think the ‘damning’ part is pretty much a given. For Lucifer, that is.”

  “Yes.” Hopefully not for her, though.

  “And there weren’t as many as I thought there’d be.”

  She was becoming accustomed to his jumps during a conversation. “In the Pit?”

  “Yeah. Considering how long there have been people—and how many people die a year—I thought there’d be more. A lot more.”

  “Yes. Perhaps they were somewhere else,” she suggested, although that didn’t seem right.

  She had seen the edges of the Pit, the black cliffs that had risen all around it—but more than that, she had felt them. And she’d been disoriented, but thinking back, she couldn’t recall seeing many more humans in the Pit than demons on the battlefield.

  She related the same to Jake, and he nodded his agreement. “Did you see who was screaming outside the prison? Screaming before you freaked them all out with the spiders.” When she shook her head, he said, “They were demons, not humans.”

  Alice considered that. If Belial was to be believed, he had just taken over Lucifer’s territory. “Torturing the enemy for information?”

  “Or for fun.”

  She glanced down at her hands. Despite the heated air, she could still feel the burning cold against them. “And the frozen field?”

  “I couldn’t count them all,” Jake said. Then he added quickly, “But, Alice—most of them must be demons.”

  She looked up at him, curious. And, she acknowledged, eager to think of anything but humans in that field. “How do you suppose?”

  “Well, they promised to serve Lucifer after the First Battle. So all of Belial’s demons reneged on that bargain when they rebelled against Lucifer’s rule—and as soon as they die, they’re in that field.”

  The image of all those killed in the recent battle filled her mind. “What do they gain,” she wondered, “that they would risk it?”

  “You don’t think it’s a return to Grace?” Jake gave a wry grin when she snorted her response. “You don’t think Heaven will take them back?”

  “Surely I couldn’t speculate what those Above—”

  “Yeah, you can. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t want those Above to think exactly the same way they do. So, what would you do?”

  “Keep Belial roasting here forever—preferably on a spit.” When Jake’s eyebrows lifted in mock surprise, she went on. “I think a human wearing wings offends him. I think that he blames Lucifer for their fall, and can’t admit to his own complicity in the rebellion—even as he covets the throne Lucifer gained. And I think that although he might want to return to Heaven, it is because he sees that return as an affirmation of his superiority.”

  “Is he better than Lucifer, though?”

  “I d
on’t know,” Alice said. “It is like asking who is the better man—Hitler or Vlad the Impaler?”

  “I’m pretty sure that if we hop over to the Pit, we could find out.”

  How awful was she for laughing as she imagined those two tortured there? But there were some things she could not feel sorry for. Jake was not, either, she saw. His laugh didn’t contain even a hint of chagrin.

  They spoke at the same time. “Did you know that Hugh—” She broke off, waited for him to finish. But his smile only broadened, so she said, “So Hugh told you about his encounter with Vlad, as well.”

  “Yeah. Considering how I died, I thought for sure Vlad must have been a nosferatu. Maybe a vampire.”

  But he’d just been a human who’d made a bargain with Lucifer. He likely wasn’t in the Pit, but the frozen field.

  Why couldn’t she laugh at that?

  Alice’s amusement left her on a troubled sigh. She tore her gaze from Jake’s and continued walking.

  After several miles, she realized that Jake’s attention wandered not just during conversations, but during silences. When she glanced at him, she found the unfocused expression on his features almost as often as she encountered his keen, watchful gaze.

  And as the quiet between them was slowly annoying her, the tenth time it happened, she could not stop herself from asking where it was he went.

  Then she had to ask again, when he didn’t seem to hear her.

  “Jake?” She lifted her hand, and the motion snapped him out of it. Exasperation shortened her temper. “What are you thinking about?”

  His slow grin heightened her irritation. “Sex.”

  Blast. She lifted her chin, stared ahead—but she had no one but herself to blame for asking. “You do it rather often. I suppose the scenarios are quite varied.”

  “Yeah,” he said easily, as if he hadn’t registered the pique in her voice. “In this one, I had you on the sand. I stripped you naked, got handfuls of your hair, and when you interrupted me I was in the process of fucking you silly. So neither of us got to come.”

  Her mouth was open, her gaze locked on his. “Oh, dear,” she said weakly. “I’m so very sorry.”

  Jake shrugged. “I had the same one about five hours ago. Since then it’s been you on your chair in the Archives, after I went under your skirts and had my mouth between your legs until you begged to ride me. And there was one where you were sketching the frescoes in a temple, and you turned to me and said, ‘How sexy you are, Jake! Ravish me!’ So I did. Then I had you in Onan’s Bathtub—”

  “Onan’s Bathtub?” she sputtered, uncertain whether the prickly heat that had taken up residence beneath her skin was from embarrassment or arousal.

  Had he intended to shock her? He had managed, but not for the reason he probably assumed. These were situations that she could be in—not generic fantasies with interchangeable women.

  “Yep.” He slid his toothpick into the corner of his mouth, worked it with his tongue for a moment—and Alice wanted to close her eyes. She didn’t. “Considering that it’s the luckiest tub that ever existed, it deserves an official name.”

  “And you chose Onan?”

  “Hey, I’m from the Bible Belt. You don’t just go blind for stroking one out, you die. So Onan’s a hero—a martyr for the fourteen-year-old-male cause.” He continued over her laughter. “So you were straddling me in the water, and I was sucking on your nipples. Are they like blackberries? Because that’s how I’ve been picturing them, and I’d hate to be wrong.”

  Alice pushed her gaze to the horizon again, controlled her breathing. Jake thought about her nipples more often than she did. But she was aware of them now, tight beneath the silk of her bodice.

  She needed to turn this conversation, somehow. “How in heaven’s name did you go from not thinking about sex with me at all, to this?”

  Dear God. That had been as ill-considered as her original question. It was not a turn at all, but a leap in the same direction.

  “It was your bargain,” he said, which was just as frustrating as the “I don’t know” he’d given after kissing her in Caelum—because she couldn’t make sense of how her bargain was an attraction. “Anyway, you shouldn’t bring that up. It was a stupid thing to say; I admitted it, and apologized for it. You accepted the apology, and should be telling me how sexy you think I am.”

  He was teasing, but she grabbed hold of her frustration, and pulled it close. “No,” she countered. “The apology I accepted was over your assertion that I wasn’t a real woman. I was not upset by the other. Why would I have cared whether you found me attractive?”

  A muscle in his jaw ticked, but his tone was still light. “Why indeed? You don’t care what anyone thinks.”

  Frowning, she came to a halt, crossed her arms over her breasts. “That is not true. There are people I love whose opinions I care about very much. But why should I care for the opinions of people who don’t matter to me? Do you?”

  “No.” His gaze had hardened, and she hoped that would end it—but he didn’t let it go. “So if the right guy comes along, and you care about whether he wants you, you’d start parading around in little skirts?”

  She clenched her teeth, but the idea was so disgusting she couldn’t prevent herself from answering. “No. I have no desire to let anyone look as they please.” Only as she pleased.

  “What, a little skirt isn’t modest enough for your Victorian sensibilities?”

  She forced herself to move again. He was deliberately goading her, but her resentment overrode her discretion. “I do not allow liberties to all and sundry,” she said coldly as she passed him. “And I will never expose myself unless I believe he has as much interest in my pleasure as his own.”

  It was a miracle that she did not stumble when his answer came after her, as solemn as a vow.

  “I would.”

  “I will keep that in mind,” she managed stiffly. It would not be difficult. Instead, it was an effort not to keep it in mind.

  She blinked away the image of his hands in her hair, the hot sand at her back.

  “Drifter’s one of them.”

  Alice spun around, her eyes wide with disbelief. “What a ridiculous notion. Ethan and I have never—!”

  “No.” Jake was grinning again, and she realized her reaction had been exactly what he’d intended. “One of those whose opinions matter.”

  “Well, yes—of course. He is one of my dearest friends.”

  “Yeah. He’s so close to you, but you haven’t told him about your history? Right.”

  This time, she did not let herself be provoked. “You are mistaken. He knows my history.”

  “You were worried I’d told him about the bargain.”

  “I may have left out portions of my history.”

  His brow creased. “Why? Do you think he wouldn’t help you? That he’d threaten you?” He was shaking his head, as if discarding the idea even as he spoke it.

  “Oh, no,” Alice said lightly. “I expect that of others.”

  “Irena?”

  He didn’t miss anything, she thought. And there was no point in denying it. “Only if I follow through on the bargain. And, no—I know Ethan wouldn’t.”

  “Then why not tell him?”

  Surely Jake knew—surely he’d realized the moment he’d learned what her bargain entailed. “I do not want him to know what a coward I am.” She laughed without humor. “Too much of a coward, even, to tell him that I am one.”

  “A coward.” Jake stared at her strangely. “I don’t see it.”

  Her smile was faint. “You are too kind.”

  “Or missing a big chunk of the picture. Care to fill me in?” When she didn’t reply, he gave her a wry look. “No? I didn’t think you would. All right. So, you got pissed because of the ‘real woman’ thing?”

  Now they would head back there? She sighed. “Yes.”

  “That was even a stupider thing to say than the not-sexy thing.”

  “On that, we are in ag
reement.”

  “Yeah, but if you didn’t care for my opinion about one, then why get pissy over the other?”

  “I believe anyone would find it offensive to be told that their value as a woman—as a person—resides in how attractive someone finds them. And I can’t imagine that you cared for my opinion of you, but tell me: Did my response about learning to be a real man sting?”

  He grimaced. “Point taken.”

  She was not done. “And I also find it offensive that I have only become a real woman to you because you now find me sexually appealing.”

  “Hey, just flippin’ hold on a minute.” He stopped walking, a frown darkening his face. “You’re all backwards there. I started thinking about banging you after I noticed you weren’t just a creepy, mechanical, spider-loving freak—Ah, fuck.”

  “I see.” She concealed her smile as she passed him and collected the five dollars he held out. After several minutes, during which his psychic scent ran from the heat of self-directed fury to the bitterness of remorse, she said, “They are like blackberries.”

  She heard the breath he sucked in, the hitch in his stride. “Jesus. You’re not just creepy. You’re evil, too.”

  Her sound of agreement was met with a deep chuckle, and he caught up to her, resumed his backward-walking vigil.

  She glanced at him sidelong. “Perhaps we ought to return to our safe zones. What manner of temple was I sketching?” At his puzzled expression, she added, “When you ravished me.”

  He groaned and linked his hands behind his neck, his elbows angled up toward the sky. She took a moment to blatantly admire the way his shirt stretched over his chest, how the raised hem revealed the tanned skin above his waistband, and the line of short dark hair that trailed down from his navel.

  And she reveled in how the simple touch of her gaze stirred him to obvious arousal—and that he didn’t attempt to hide it.

  “You’re killing me, Alice.”

  She cackled, and he burst into laughter.

  Finally, he shook his head, gave her a narrowed look. “Okay, the temple. Jesus. In ’74 or ’75, I found a journal in the library. It had notes and sketches by one of the archaeologists at el-Amarna in the 1880s. I kept it for about a year, reading through it. So I based it on those.”