Forged of Shadows: A Novel of the Marked Souls Read online

  She shot up a hand before he told her what she smelled like. “That’s annoyance you’re seeing. Because I’m thinking about killing you.”

  “That would be the demon,” he said patiently. “Jilly, we’ve all been through it, we talyan. Unlike Andre, you may still be saved. In that, at least, your demon didn’t lie.”

  She walked slowly toward him. “And you’re going to give me that chance, lead me out of danger?” Eyes half lidded, he watched her as she edged between his knees to stand over him. “You going to be my hero tonight?”

  He angled his face up. She bent just a little at the knees.

  And reached sideways to grab the lamp by its base. She hefted the ceramic over her head, and brought it smashing down on the table. The cheap lamp exploded, and the cheaper table crumpled under the blow. Impossibly, in the indirect light from the kitchen, she glimpsed the arcing flight of the tiny black transmitter.

  Liam watched her with one eyebrow raised as she snagged it midair.

  She crushed the transmitter. The sting of crystallized components biting into her palm stirred a sharp delight. “Well. Now we are alone.”

  Liam pursed his lips. “What will Lau-lau think?”

  “That we’re having mind-blowing sex. That is what we’re going to do next, right?”

  He stiffened. Not the part of him she was leering at, but the rest of him. “We were just getting information from her, not actual marital aids.”

  “You haven’t kept pace with the times. You don’t have to be married anymore to have sex. And you obviously haven’t talked to Sera about the birds and the bees and the demons.” She tossed the transmitter over her shoulder and started to turn away, bumping his knee aside.

  He grabbed her wrist and—in a move she couldn’t quite reconstruct in her head, although it had something to do with putting her over his knee—had her flat on her back on the couch. He loomed, pinning her arms above her head. “What do you mean? What haven’t I been told?”

  Oh sure, threaten to beat him to a pulp and he yawned. Imply that his troops weren’t marching neatly in order and he snapped. She strained against his hold until her joints creaked. To no avail. Possibly that’s why he yawned when threatened.

  The bracelet pressed hard against her flesh. She relaxed, the better to lure him into a false sense of security. “I figured Sera hadn’t actually told you how she and Archer made sure she survived the ascension of her demon. She seemed a little embarrassed to be pimping for the big daddy.”

  Liam scowled down at her, a deep V between his brows. “The veteran talya has to make sure the tyro isn’t ripped apart in the tangle of intertwined demon and human energies. Ancient league texts detail a prescribed formula of meditations and purifications to mark the first ascension. But usually the two talyan go out drinking and fighting and that keeps the novice nailed down in this realm.” He trailed off.

  Jilly knew she shouldn’t be enjoying his fumbling so much. “Yeah, go back and think about that nailed part.”

  He reared back, glaring at her.

  She caught her breath, not at the fierce look, but at the grind of his thighs against hers. She wasn’t in the best position to tease him.

  Or, actually, she was in the perfect position to tease him, but she wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

  Or, more actually, she was perfectly sure it was a terrible idea, and yet . . .

  She stared up at his aghast expression and started to wonder whom the joke was on. “Is it so hard to believe that a man and a woman facing possible destruction, not to mention evil at its core, would join up against it in the most intimate way? Or is it just that it wasn’t your idea first?”

  “I’d do whatever it takes to keep my men—my people—safe.” He made it sound like a desperate prayer.

  “Including step out of the way?” She lifted her hips, denim against denim hissing. “Or including this?”

  He jumped off the couch so fast the breath whooshed back into her lung almost painfully. Maybe it was just the speed of his dismount that stung.

  “I guess not that,” she murmured to herself. So much for praying.

  “This is demonic work indeed,” he muttered darkly, even more to himself.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He stood staring at her, hands fisted at his sides. “I cannot—”

  She refused to drop her gaze halfway and snicker like a silly teen, but thanks to the snug fit of his jeans, the problem was quite obviously not that he couldn’t. “I don’t mind drinking and fighting. Although I hear dying is out of my hands now.”

  The twist of agony on his face only made her more furious.

  “Maybe we never had a chance after all.” Her voice came out harsh, cracking into a second octave not her own.

  Despite the implied violence—or maybe because of it—his expression finally calmed. “Perhaps not, but if I can save you, then I will.”

  She backpedaled on the couch. “Never mind. I wouldn’t want to be a burden.”

  “No. You will be a league fighter. If you live.” His jaw flexed. “So you will live.”

  Okay, knowing that he saw her as merely another tally on his checklist was even more insulting than being a big flapping albatross around his neck.

  He advanced on her, gaze intent, and she scooted up against the arm of the couch. Her back rammed against the insufficient stuffing, wood hard against her spine. Every nerve ending tingled in anticipation.

  He kept coming. She held up her hand, straight-arming him with her palm centered on his chest. The bracelet glinted dully in what light shone from the kitchen.

  “I won’t be letting this change take you from me.” His voice rumbled through her hand, the touch of Irish brogue deepening.

  “Maybe you won’t have a chance to do anything else.”

  “Oh, I’ll take it.”

  His heart thudded under her fingers until her pulse sought to match itself to his, as if he would take her over in place of the demon’s ascension. Which was more of a threat? Some crazy demonic possession when she’d never particularly believed that hell was anything besides a human construction of bad choices? Or the glimpse of heaven on earth she must be imagining in his blue eyes?

  And when exactly had her admittedly hazy concept of heaven included a bad boy like this? Oh, right, when her only chance at salvation lay in his big hands.

  She curled her fingers into his shirt. The fine material parted under her grasp, though she hadn’t meant to be rough. This wasn’t her, playing power games with a man who didn’t know the meaning of play, unless it was play for keeps.

  Or playing with fire. Heat radiated through her, tracing down her arm. But it stopped at the bracelet, as if she couldn’t quite break through to him.

  A chill washed back along her skin, creeping inward until her vision dimmed.

  “Jilly?”

  His voice barely reached her, the tone warped as if across a vast expanse. She tightened her numb fingers, but the edges of herself seemed to blur. Like when the knife had slipped free of her flesh, the blood had poured out, and with it her life.

  Like she was dying again.

  “Jilly.”

  Liam pulled her close. The shock of his chest hard against hers, with only her manacled wrist between them, jolted her free of the threatening oblivion. Whatever distance she’d imagined was gone now.

  “It’s coming,” he murmured.

  One slow breath pressed her breasts against him. Her desire swelled at the intimate contact. “Takes me more than ten minutes.” Maybe not, this time.

  He frowned. “The demon.”

  “Oh. Right.” She swallowed. “Is it too late to go drinking?”

  His gaze dipped to her mouth, so intense she felt it like a touch. “Much too late.”

  “Well, then.” She wrapped her free arm around the back of his neck and pulled him down to her kiss.

  Lips fused, hot and damp. She tasted Lau- lau’s potion on his tongue, but her gasp brought her the richer, more subtle brew
of aroused male.

  Even as the blood rushed to his head, Liam told himself to keep his mind on the task at hand. So close to his hand. Where he gripped her upper arm, the curve of her breast brushed the backs of his fingers.

  He struggled to rein in the flare of excitement. No, the only task was to shepherd her through the demon’s ascension. If the task was achieved through more pleasurable means than was usual in his deadly line of work, that didn’t change the urgency.

  God, whom was he fooling? If anything, the urgency here was more deadly. His body tightened from the inside out—not the demon coiling, but just plain old human sin of the more primal sort—and he groaned against her mouth.

  Though he closed his eyes, still she shimmered in front of him. Waves of ether pulsed in a chaotic pattern that set his heart hammering. He wanted to spread her beneath him and coax that trembling over the edge. He willed himself to go slowly, not rising to the lure of her need, though her fingers twining through his hair was goad enough to shatter him.

  How long had it been? Did he trust himself to this task?

  He lifted himself just enough to clear her lush lips. Her dusky skin was flushed from the force of the kiss, her golden eyes half lidded. He touched the corner of her swollen mouth. “I should not be the one for you.”

  “And yet you came up with no one else.” She strained back as if to escape him.

  The exposed column of her throat drew him down again to set his teeth none too gently against her pulse. He growled when she speared her fingers through his hair and guided his head down. Down past the V neckline of her T-shirt.

  The invitation was more irresistible than any temptation ever laid before him. He lifted the bottom of her shirt even as she shoved back the lapels of his coat. Their arms tangled briefly, and she gave him a flirty upward glance and a breathy laugh that snagged his heart.

  When he paused, she tugged what was left of his shirt. The fabric sighed apart, and then her palm was scalding against his bare chest.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered. “It’s all around us now. Do you see it too? It’s the end.”

  He saw nothing but her, the dip of her waist, the generous flare of her hips under stretch black denim and a rivet-studded belt. “It’s beginning.”

  He nudged her shirt up and groaned again at the ripe flesh displayed in orange lace and wire. She arched her back, not to escape this time, but to tempt, and draped her arm over the back of the couch. The demon bracelet clunked against wood, a sullen reminder of why they were there.

  “Fuck that,” he whispered harshly.

  “Please do.” Her smile was wicked and welcoming.

  He pressed a kiss to the center of her cleavage, where the fleeting wild scent of her hid like a secret only he’d uncovered. Sweet skin and lotus and excitement. “God, I love these new corsets.” He skimmed his fingers along the wire underneath each breast, the texture of the lace tantalizing his fingertips. “All the beauty.” His thumb found the catch. “None of the laces.”

  With a single flick, her bounty was his.

  The butterfly tattoo no bigger than a postage stamp rode the upper curve of her left breast. A delicate thing, its trailing wings outlined in the thinnest black lines, the tattoo brought him up short. “Not a tiger,” he murmured. “Or a dragon.”

  He brushed his thumb over the pale swell and she shuddered. “It’s just art, not a spirit guide.”

  “Actually, moths have often been associated with the spirits of the dead.”

  “What with me maybe dying and all, can we not talk about this now?”

  He cupped the high handful of her, and his ring finger found the remnants of scar where the knife had gone. Rage flashed through him, a deep hatred that summoned the ravager demon within. The room blackened except for the point of his focus, and he realized he did not have anywhere near the control he fancied. “You could’ve died.”

  “If I had, we wouldn’t be here.” The tremble in her voice made him pause.

  She didn’t mean to state the obvious, he understood. She was asking him whether it would have been better to die. In the face of her vulnerability, having nothing to do with her nakedness, his demon quieted, and he foundered in the sudden loss of its bracing fury. “You couldn’t save your sister, or yourself at that moment, but what you will become now may help us save the world.”

  From the flicker across her face, he knew he had not said the right thing. But it was only the truth, or the only truth he had anyway.

  “That is all I can offer,” he said softly to the unspoken disillusionment in her eyes.

  “I guess that’s more than I had before.”

  A gray shadow like encroaching ice rimed her gaze. He felt the chill on her skin. “No. Whatever sorrow started you down this path, you cannot return there. You strive forward or your soul is forfeit.”

  He flattened his hand in the small of her back and raised her up against him. Her dark nipples were a lure he could not resist. He skimmed off her shirt and loose bra in the same motion as he dipped his head so that her gasp of surprise filled his mouth with her warm flesh.

  But she was no quiet lover to let him feast in peace. Her hands roamed from his shoulders to his flanks, her nails raising shivers from his bones.

  When she fumbled down his fly, a chill of caution swept in along with the breath of air on his cock. He lifted himself awkwardly on the angles of the couch to stare down at her.

  She must have seen the hesitation in his eyes because she clamped her hands on his hips. “I won’t let this thing take me to the dark place. I told myself I’d never let anyone do that to me again.”

  He wanted to smash all those unnamed anyones whose inflicted hurts had so toughened her. Regret that he was her only choice—her only chance—swept him. As league leader, he had failed her already. But he’d told her their only way out led forward. Outside, the day had faded, and in the gloom, her skin flushed with restless demon ethers he sensed more than saw. He had to channel that confusion of power until she could control it herself. He could give her that, at least. Then she’d be free of him, if not of her demon.

  Deliberately echoing the pattern of her hands over his body, as if he could re-create the ancient meditations that had once guided the league possessed through ascension, he unbuckled her belt and slid the denim down the width of her hips, the generous arch of her backside.

  Even the light dance of her hands threatened to unbalance him, so he slid free of her touch, dropping kisses along each inch he uncovered, from her navel, across the matching red and orange panties, down her thigh to her raised knee. She had barely finished fumbling with the laces on her big black boots when he yanked away the whole tangle of denim and lacy underwear and leather and fell back on her, afraid to let her go.

  Because now he sensed it too, the yawning of the abyss, hell as close as it ever came, as her demon ascended and other-realm mists breathed around them.

  He said it aloud, for anything listening. “I won’t let you go.”

  “How will you get your pants off?”

  “You started this.”

  Then his jeans were somewhere in the pile with hers. His knees drove into the couch cushions, rocking her toward him as he centered himself between her thighs.

  “Now,” she said.

  “No.” He anchored her hips by the double handful. “Take it slow.”

  “Why?”

  What to say? Because he needed a moment to remember how this went? He didn’t want her to laugh. Because he feared no such chance would come to him again, and he wanted to savor every feeling? That thought revealed even more vulnerability than the first.

  Rather than speak, he smoothed his erection over her cleft. That silenced her, and widened her eyes so the cinnamon-honey gleam eclipsed the creeping icy gray. When she gripped his shoulders, the force of her fingers drove muscle almost painfully against bone. He didn’t mind. If only she could leave bruises to mark him forever.

  He slid against her, down to cover her
mouth with his. He tasted the lotus, sweet and innocuous, not the dream-inducing drug of legend. And yet somehow . . . He slid lower yet, his lips finding the puckered flesh of her nipple, then the taut quiver of her belly as she caught her breath, and then . . . Ah, there was the bloom he sought.

  The dark flowering between her thighs was no sweet dream but a wild fantasy of silk curls and musk. She opened to him with a sigh that started as his name and ended as a hum of passion, and his entire body zinged with the force of shared pleasure between them, a ratcheting tension that threatened to destroy his hard-won equilibrium.

  The hunger in him grew despite the attention he lavished on the core of her. This time, when her fingers raked his shoulders, urging him up, he did not resist but surged over her.

  He paused with his cock at the ready. If Sera had explained about talya sex, Jilly already knew he carried no disease and could never give her children. She’d bear no consequences from this liaison.

  Would he be able to say the same about himself?

  Poised on the desperate, heedless edge of his oblivion, he struggled to remind himself of his mission. If he couldn’t keep himself in hand, how could he hope to control the fierce and brutal talyan? If he found solace in her touch, how could he still expect those wounded souls under his command to fight on, eternally, without release?

  The bone-dust winds of the demon realm coursed around them. Right. Death and damnation, just as he’d warned Archer.

  He could not leave her to face that alone. For her sake, for the league, for the world itself. Ah, the sacrifice.

  He buried himself in her with a hiss at the exquisite hot grasp of her flesh around him.

  When he would have gathered her close, she held him at arm’s length, palm braced against his chest. The bracelet fell to her elbow, and the dull metal gleamed at him. He took her hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist where her pulse surged with frantic power.

  Another kiss, then tongue, then his teeth nipping lightly at her flesh until, with a moan, she loosened her locked arm and let him closer.