Demon Bound

by Meljean Brook

“Kansas. Then SI. Then I took Pim to Malaysia to see her brother. Then back to SI. Then Baghdad. Then here.”

  So many jumps, but the first was the key. “Did you not find your family in good health?”

  “They’re fine.” He swallowed with, she thought, some difficulty. But the wry humor in the glance he flashed at her was genuine. “All things considered, they’ve probably been better off without me.”

  “No.” Alice sat, her back straight, her hands in her lap. Her gaze did not leave his face. “That is not the way to phrase it.”

  He stared at her for a long time. But not, she imagined, for as long as he’d been sitting here, trying to balance the relief of finding them well against the ache of witnessing how removed he was from their lives.

  Men made life far too difficult when they insisted on neatly categorizing their emotions. When emotions became complicated, they brooded and struggled so mightily in an attempt to simplify them again—when, given time, everything would sort itself out and slide into its place.

  As rational as Jake was, he’d have known his family would have moved on—but that knowledge was likely at emotional odds with the sense that he was unnecessary.

  And he’d had forty years to prepare for it, but only hours to accept it. Surely he must know it would take more time than this.

  Or perhaps he was only now realizing it.

  Alice watched the tension ease from his body, and he finally said, “All things considered, everything worked out in the best possible way for them.”

  “And for you, too.”

  “Well, yeah. But considering I ended up a Guardian, and a couple of hours ago you had your legs around me, that goes without saying.”

  Alice smiled, vanished her boots, and curled back into the chair. “You met your daughter, then? Did you like her?”

  His expression softened. “Yeah. And look—she gave me this.”

  Alice reached out to turn the heavy wooden book podium that appeared on the table. Apostles marched around the base in bas-relief, their features and robes exquisitely carved. “This is lovely. Did she create it?”

  “Yep. She builds custom furniture by trade, but makes these on the side and sells them online. They’re for displaying family Bibles. But I think we could use one of the illuminated manuscripts around here.”

  “In the Archives? You don’t want it for yourself?”

  “She said she was making me a personalized one. This was just something to take with me.”

  “So she plans to see you again.” The painful threads wrapping around her chest loosened. Relief, for his sake.

  “Yeah. I’ve got a standing invitation to Sunday dinner and under-the-bed monster slaying. And if you’ve got a few free hours one of these upcoming Sundays, I’ll be taking Lindsey to see the pyramids at Giza. You want to come?”

  “Oh, but surely I cannot—” She touched her fingers to her lips, halting the automatic response. She could.

  What she could not do was recall the last time she’d made any plans that were more than a couple of hours in advance. She’d always feared that Teqon would reappear in her life, disrupting it entirely. And there were many reasons not to make plans now—Khavi’s warning foremost in front of them.

  But how many years now had she lived in fear, expecting her life to shatter around her at any moment? Far, far too many.

  Even if that Sunday never came to pass, she would not let anything prevent her from looking forward to it.

  “Yes, I would like to go,” she said, and her heart tumbled over when Jake heaved a great sigh of gratitude and muttered about the energy of four-year-old girls. “How on Earth did this arrangement come about?”

  “Grace asked me to make a point of telling Lindsey the places I’ve been, so that she’d grow up knowing there was a bigger world out there than a little town in Kansas.”

  How serendipitous. And utterly perfect. “So you told her you could do better than that,” Alice murmured.

  “Yep. And I’ll see if I can talk Grace into a few jumps, too. Since we’ve come back from Hell, I haven’t had a problem controlling them.”

  She had to laugh. “Except for—”

  “Hey, now, that doesn’t count. That was a higher power, kicking my ass to Kansas.” His grin told her he didn’t believe that any more than she would believe they’d opened a portal over her bed and he’d been yanked through it. “But—except for that—when I intend to jump, I’ve been going where I want to.”

  “Was it because of Hell?”

  “I have no clue. But, yeah, maybe jumping there drove the point home. Or maybe it was just knowing that if I fu—messed it up again, you’d be hurt. And that I couldn’t go back and fix it.”

  She looked away from him, waiting for the powerful emotions swirling within her to fall into place so that she could name them. They would not.

  “So,” he continued after a moment, “all things considered, everything is pretty darn swell.”

  He could not be serious. All things considered, “swell” was a gross understatement. She glanced at him from beneath her lashes. How unfortunate that he was not just attractive, but so incredibly appealing. There was nothing about him she did not like, so much that she admired, and everything drew her to him. He left no part of her untouched and unengaged; not her mind, not her emotions.

  And not her body.

  Oh, dear. Even now, as the result of a single glance, her breasts seemed fuller, her nipples tighter. Warmth spilled through her womb, and her mind was returning to the incredible pleasure she’d felt in his arms.

  But surely it hadn’t been so very good. Surely she hadn’t been so completely lost and overwhelmed. Surely her surprise had blown her memory out of proportion to the reality.

  Surely, in time, she would be able to go more than one or two minutes without remembering how agonizingly wonderful it had been, or thinking about taking him inside her again.

  “Alice?”

  The line of concern between his brows told her it hadn’t been the first time he’d said her name. She snapped upright, placed her feet on the floor. “My apologies. I was not attending.”

  He sighed, shook his head. “Ah, goddess. I’m guessing you spent most of the time I was gone looking over the prophecy.”

  Oh, heavens. She had not given it a thought. “I—Yes. Quite absorbed by it.”

  “So what do you think?”

  Alice called in the paper. It was still crumpled into a ball. She avoided his eyes as she smoothed it out. “The language is obscure. Do you think it is deliberate?”

  There was amusement in his voice, blast him. “I’m sure it is. What’s the fun in saying ‘vampire blood weakens the nephilim’ when you can write ‘the blood that heals will release the dead unto judgment.’ And even then, who knows if there isn’t another meaning in there?”

  It was difficult to find a clear-cut meaning anywhere. “ ‘She waits below. The dragon will rise before the lost two,’ ” she read. “The lost two what? Dragons?”

  “That could be the grigori,” Jake said. “Count ’em—she said there were ten. Three were killed and never became Guardians, then there’s Anaria, Michael, Khavi, Zakril, Aaron—”

  “Perhaps. She did not say Aaron was.”

  “Okay, yeah. But if he was, that adds up to eight. That’s two left. And the dragon—is that the one Michael killed? Did it already rise or is it coming? When’s ‘before’?”

  One line, and Alice’s head was already spinning. “ ‘The blood of the dragon will create one door and destroy another.’ ” She looked up at Jake, who spread his hands. “ ‘Caelum’s voice will sing it closed with ice and fire and blood, and be lost until she claims her new tongue and the dragon’s blade. The blood that heals will release the dead unto judgment, and the judged unto Heaven. And upon the destruction of Michael’s heart, Belial will ascend to the Morningstar’s throne.’ ”

  Finished, she carefully laid the paper flat on the table. Her blood pounded in her ears. “And this gibberis
h is why Teqon trapped me into this damnable bargain?”

  “It’s useless,” Jake agreed. “Even if it’s all true, it doesn’t mean anything until you look at it after the fact.”

  Yes. There was nothing specific; it was almost all open to interpretation. The only clear reference was Michael’s heart.

  But perhaps someone more familiar with demons would recognize something they could not. “What did Lilith say?”

  “That Khavi was a nutcase. And a bad poet. She said it rhymes in the Old Language.”

  She tried very hard to smile. And could not. Before she could tear up the paper, she pulled her hands back from the table, wrapped her arms tight around herself.

  “Hey,” Jake said. He vanished and appeared, kneeling beside her. His hand cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing her compressed lips. “So Khavi gave us nothing. But listen—”

  “Blast it all, Jake. There is something she gave us. And it is specific. I ought to have told you.”

  “Yeah, that I was going to die because you don’t fulfill your bargain?”

  Shock rendered her speechless. How could he be so blasé when the very thought of his death tore her apart?

  He smiled a little and shook his head. “Come on, Alice. Don’t tell me you’re going to believe it.”

  “Believe—? You think she lied?” Khavi had been truthful about everything else.

  “Nah, not really. But, think about it. She’d give us answers to questions that she saw us ask, right?”

  “Yes,” she said, wondering how on Earth that would make her less inclined to believe Khavi’s predictions.

  “But we never asked the questions. She saw something that we would have asked, no doubt about it. Each time, the question was right there. But because she’d already seen it, we didn’t have to say it. And hot damn, you’re sexy when you’re confused. How about you just tap my shoulder when you’ve figured it out.”

  With only that much warning, he braced his hands on the arms of her chair and lifted himself to her mouth. Oh, she thought, when his tongue slid past her lips. He tasted of chocolate and something light and sweet that she couldn’t identify.

  And he would have a very long wait if a functioning brain was her requisite for stopping him.

  Especially now that his hands moved down to her waist, tugging until she half reclined in the chair. He pushed up her skirts, pushed himself between her legs, and then he was rubbing, rubbing.

  His lips left hers and for an instant she decided to kill him. Until his mouth covered her breast, his teeth scraped over steel-strong silk, and his wet tongue circled her hardened nipple.

  “Oh!” Dear heavens, how that lick made her ache. She pushed at his head, then pulled him back, loving the rasp of his hair against her palms. He suckled, and her body melted—except, it seemed, for the very tips of her breasts, which stood like buttons beneath her bodice.

  He lightly pinched the nipple he wasn’t licking, and her legs tightened around him, rubbing faster, faster.

  His hands were traveling up her outer thighs when he froze.

  Oh, no. He could not stop. “If you jump, I will feed you to Nefertari,” Alice said, but her threat was ruined by her breathlessness.

  “No. I just . . . Oh, God,” he groaned as he withdrew from between her legs. “No way.”

  She could not see a problem. His penis rose thick and tall behind blue denim, her drawers were damp at the juncture of her thighs. Everything was as it should be, except that neither of them was yet bare, and there was empty space between them.

  “Bloomers,” he said in awe. “You have bloomers.”

  “Oh,” she exclaimed, laughing, delighted. In truth, they were not precisely bloomers. Her simple black drawers were not gathered at the knee, but fell loose like a long pair of shorts. Only a small bit of lace decorated the hem.

  However plain they were, Jake seemed quite taken with them. Her hips jerked when he dragged his finger up her wet center.

  His voice was guttural. “Do you have any with an opening? Like a slit here?”

  Her lips formed an O before she cackled merrily. “I shall make a pair.” They wouldn’t be of spider silk, but she didn’t need armor with him.

  “Get them on.” He leaned over, his mouth just above her left nipple. “And I’ll get you naked next time.”

  How depraved they were.

  Alice lay on her stomach beneath her worktable, the marble floor cool beneath her cheek. It was odd to be thankful for a slit in her drawers, but she supposed that if the opening had not been there, her bottom would now be exposed, and she simply did not have the strength to cover it.

  Who could have anticipated that animal positions would be so draining? It was not as if she’d had to do much more than brace herself. Yet here she was.

  “I have figured it out,” she said with the little energy she had left. “What Khavi sees has a high probability of occurring, but is not inevitable.”

  Jake made a noise that sounded like assent. He, at least, had refastened his jeans after he’d rolled off her. His right hand rested on his taut abdomen, just above the bunched hem of his T-shirt, and his left forearm covered his eyes.

  Depraved and satisfied, though they were both fully dressed.

  She and Henry had always been clothed, as well, and some part of her had named that as the primary reason their lovemaking had been such a failure. But it had only been a symptom of the passion missing between them, not the cause.

  And the cause was not that she had lacked passion—but that it hadn’t been between them. Never shared, and so never flourishing.

  What a rare and wonderful feeling it was when it did flourish. And so very frightening.

  She only had to move her hand a few inches to touch him. It had never been difficult before—but before, there had always been a reason: to teleport, to comfort him, to steady herself, out of need and arousal.

  Now, when it was simply because she wanted to, when it was only because it would please her, she hesitated.

  In her marriage, she had touched Henry easily, without thought—coming up behind him to kiss his neck while he sat in his dressing room, linking arms when they went walking. That playful, innocent contact had been permissible between a man and his wife.

  And she’d seen the ease with which Jake and the novices exchanged friendly kisses and embraces, his familiarity with Charlie and Selah. Why could she not do the same?

  He would likely never know the courage it took to slide her hand across the marble and rest her palm in the crook of his elbow.

  Or perhaps he would. He stilled, and raised his forearm from his face to look at her. She held his gaze, willing him not to say anything.

  He moved her hand from his elbow to his palm, clasped her fingers, and turned onto his side. “Listen, Alice. There’s something we haven’t talked about, but we need to.”

  Oh, dear. “There is?”

  “Yeah. About your bargain.”

  “Oh.” She frowned, and came up on her elbow. “There is?”

  His gaze was direct. “There’s still a trade we could make: me. If Belial ordered Teqon to release you from your bargain—”

  “No.” She yanked her hand from his. “Do not even speak of it.”

  “I am speaking of it. We could put a time limit on my service to Belial, say fifty years of—”

  “No!” Alice fisted her hands in her hair, closed her eyes as if she could shut him out.

  He fell silent. But only for a moment. “Okay, then there’s something else we could try. We’d intended to use Belial’s demons to get information about the prophecy. We’d have to go a lot further with Teqon, but I’ll do it.”

  Her lungs seized up. He meant that they could torture Teqon. And not anything like what they’d have done to Belial’s other demons—those, she and Jake would have frightened, threatened, perhaps stabbed once or twice while subduing them. But they wouldn’t have done more than that. If the demons had remained silent, they’d have been slain.

>   They’d have slain them anyway.

  But Teqon . . . would take more than subduing. He had the advantage of knowing they would never go far enough to kill him, and that he would heal from anything they devised. It would have to be so terrible that he would beg for mercy, beg to release her. It would have to be like something from the Pit: slow, relentless, excruciating.

  And inhumane.

  “You cannot,” she said quietly. No one with even a little compassion could stomach that sort of torture. And if Jake forced himself through it, he couldn’t walk away undamaged by the experience. “Even to a demon.”

  “I will. You asked me once what I’d do if I had to make a choice. I can tell you now, my choice would be helping you.”

  “No.” She drew a shaky breath. “If it has to be done, I should do it. And perhaps I could use my Gift to open myself to my widows so much that I would not feel any soft emotion.”

  His voice was oddly flat. “Could you come back from that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There’d be no point to freeing you if you just became a freak spider woman who wouldn’t care if her soul was trapped in Hell anyway. And what if we have celebration sex afterwards and you bite off my head?”

  “You said it was a good way to die.”

  “Well, yeah, I say a lot of stupid stuff.” His gaze searched hers. “We don’t have to decide this second. But we should keep it in mind. At this point, I don’t see many other options.”

  Neither did Alice. She stared down at the marble, at her fingers trembling against the stone. And then cried out in surprise when Jake pushed her onto her back and came down over her.

  His jaw was clenched, his expression tight, but warmth spilled from the blue glow of his eyes. “Scream,” he ordered.

  “What?”

  “Scream.”

  “You cannot be—”

  “Just for practice.”

  “It won’t help.”

  “Oh yeah?” He caught her wrists, pushed them over her head. “Try it.”

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or to hit him. “If I do, you will be the reason.”

  His cocky smile flashed. “Yeah, I bet. Do it.”