Demon Bound (22 page)

“Would you?” He crossed the distance between them quickly. Alice drew in a short breath, but he didn't touch her, didn't swing her up, didn't kiss her. In a tight, low voice, he asked, “So you'll let me?”

To say no, to deny him whatever satisfaction he gained in using this against her, was also to retreat. If she backed away, he won this.

How strange that she had no idea what would be won. Maybe it was only her pride. But if there was only a tattered scrap left, it was well worth fighting for.

And if she managed to convince him that she was impervious, perhaps he would no longer use this part of his arsenal.

“I will if I must,” she finally said, and closed her eyes. “I shall bear it by thinking of England.”

He was not breathing. Birds twittered, the breeze brushed her skirts against her legs, and the pale morning sun warmed her face. But Jake was not moving.

Perhaps this had been a joke. If so, she hoped that she had ruined his punch line.

And indeed, when she opened her eyes, there was nothing in his expression that suggested he was laughing—or even that the battle she imagined earlier was
between
them. As he stared at her mouth, the battle seemed firmly lodged within him instead.

“Jake?”

His gaze snapped up to hers, and held it. Then he shook his head. “Forget it,” he muttered. His shoulders rigid, he turned and walked away. “Just forget I asked.”

CHAPTER 10

Had she thought they got along best when they didn't speak? She'd been wrong. And the companionable hours they spent in the hypogeum had apparently been a fluke.

As they finished with the skeleton—and then teleported to the Archives in Caelum to search through her files for any clue to what the Scroll might have said—she and Jake were silent but for the occasional question or comment about the work.

And it was
irritating
. How polite they were! He sat at the opposite end of one of the Archive tables, surrounded by pictures and reference books, his music playing in his ears and his laptop computer open in front of him. He tapped constantly at the keyboard. Tapping tapping tapping. Remapping the sites, recording their dates, trying to determine the route of the Guardians who'd built them.

As if she hadn't already done that. Not on a computer, perhaps—but it lay in her notes, somewhere.

Yes. Absolutely irritating. And maddening, to find nothing useful here. To be always aware of him. To glance up and see that even if he was looking at her, his gaze was unfocused and his thoughts obviously elsewhere.

And when her laptop began to blink its familiar warning, she was doubly annoyed by the realization that his battery lasted longer than hers.

Well, she would rather feed her entrails to pigs than change it in front of him. She snapped the lid closed, began arranging her notes. If she did not pay attention to what she put in her cache, she would never find it again.

“You're taking off?”

“I must attend to a few chores,” she lied. But perhaps she would go to her quarters, set the shielding spell, and scream and scream. “And it is time for you to leave for your session with Alejandro, isn't it?”

“Tonight, yeah, in a little while. Tomorrow? Nope.”

Alice frowned and looked up from her notes. “Surely you are not stopping your sessions now that you've been given full status.”

“Nuh-uh.” Jake had tipped back in his chair, his hands laced behind his head. His T-shirt was mocking her again; when she finally deciphered the stylized letters, she realized that they spelled “kiss.” “I'll still be getting an intensive session a couple of times a month from Alejandro. But everyday practice, I'll get with you.”

“Alejandro will teach you more about fencing than I can.”

“Yeah, but if we're going to be working together, shaking down Belial's demons, it makes more sense for us to get a good feel for each other first. Find out where you're strong, where I am. And where we need to compensate.”

She could not argue that. “Very well, then.”

He let his chair rock forward. A second computer appeared beside his first, and he began tapping again. Alice drew in a long, calming breath, and vanished everything from her end of the table.

She did not get up, however, but let her gaze run over the cases of books and Scrolls. When she was amid the long rows of marble shelves, the scent of bindings and paper and parchment, her bargain usually felt very far from her.

It didn't now. Not when the prophecy and her work had become so unexpectedly entwined. And yet, after twenty years and seventeen sites, she still knew so very little.

Too little
. It was the same lament and frustration that everyone she'd ever known who had studied an ancient site felt, and she'd always laughed at them for asking too much. Awe and discovery should have been enough. She could have laughed at herself for succumbing to the same.

Would have laughed, if her life and soul hadn't depended on finding the answers.

Maybe a cackle would do, however. She narrowed her eyes at Jake. My, wasn't he so very comfortable down there, with his music and his computers. Here she sat, prickly and despondent, contemplating the terrible fate that awaited her, and he was . . . no longer tapping, but using a controller of some kind.

“Are you playing a
game
?”

“Yep. DemonSlayer. I'm almost—” He made a dismayed grunting noise. “Dead.”

Alice stared at him, and he flashed a grin at her over the top of his computer screen.

“Hey, it's personal time. It's either this or porn. And this takes my mind off . . . other things.”

“I see,” she said. She didn't, though—and now she was trying to fit this into what she knew of him. “So you are a geek.”

His controller clattered to the table, then disappeared. So did his computers, giving her a clear view of his dumbfounded expression. “A what?”

“A geek. It means—”

“I know what it means. How do
you
know?”

She lifted her chin. “I'm not completely ignorant of contemporary culture.”

The most convenient locations to charge her computer batteries were human libraries—and even she found herself tempted by magazines and the Internet.

“Just mostly ignorant,” he countered, and she decided it wasn't worth arguing. She'd lose. And it gave her some pleasure that he was looking disgruntled now. “Anyway, I'm not one. I'm not dedicated enough.”

She hadn't known there was an element of commitment to it. “What are you dedicated to, then?”

He looked at her longer than the question warranted, but it wasn't until his voice lowered that she realized he'd taken it more seriously than she'd intended. “Being a Guardian. A
good
one. This.” He tapped his fingers against the photographs on the table. “And helping you.”

It was as if he rolled her wretchedness over, like a pitted dark stone—and revealed something sparkling beneath. His eyes were the most striking blue, her heart was pounding, but still she managed to ask, “And what if being a good Guardian means that you cannot help me?”

“I'm hoping it won't be an issue.”

“Optimism, once again.” Yet she appreciated it; she had so little of her own. “I will try to keep it from becoming an issue.”

He nodded and released a heavy sigh, sliding his hand over his head. Her gaze followed the movement, then returned to his when he paused.

He let out a short laugh. “Go ahead.”

“What?”

Jake stood, strode the length of the table, then crouched beside her chair. “Rub it.” When her mouth fell open, he shrugged. “Women want to. I don't know why, and I don't think anyone asks Michael as often as they ask me. Maybe it's the puppy thing. Dunno. But feel free.”

She curled her fingers. Unto death, she would deny how very much she wanted to. “That's ridiculous. I could shape-shift and have my own hair as short in an instant.”

“You could.” He grabbed the front legs of her armchair. Wood scraped over marble as he hauled her around to face him. “But then you'd have to redo your braid when you shape-shifted back.”

Oh, dear. She was either going to laugh or throw herself onto his head. But, she reasoned, there was no need to
admit
she wanted to. “It does seem an unnecessary effort when yours is right here.”

“That's right, goddess. Talk yourself into it. I'll just sit and try to keep myself from jumping your bones.”

Some of her amusement dissolved. She wished he wouldn't watch her, but she couldn't order him to look away. Thank heavens he closed his eyes. He was probably imagining that her widened fingers were creepy spider legs, she mused, and pushed their tips from his hairline to the back of his head, until she was cupping it in her palms.

That was all she'd meant to do. But his short hair was so surprisingly soft—she'd thought it would be as coarse as whiskers. She drew her fingers back up. Not rubbing, but stroking—yet Jake didn't object. He bent his head over her lap, and the hollow at the base of his skull was revealed to her, looking oddly vulnerable despite the severity of his haircut, the strength of his neck. She trailed the pad of her thumb through the hollow. Like silk on the downstroke, and slightly abrasive coming up.

A shudder wracked his body. Alice froze, but he didn't move. He was still looking down, a hand on each of the chair's front legs, and his muscles were as rigid as hers when he said, “You're not wearing your boots.”

She resisted the urge to curl her toes, to pull them back beneath her skirts. Her stockings were adequate covering. “I vanished them an hour ago.”

And if she'd been alone, she'd have tucked her legs beneath her as she worked. She'd have let her spine touch the cushioned back of her chair.

His hair skimmed deliciously beneath her fingers when he lifted his head. Her breath caught, and his eyes locked with hers. They burned, as if lit from behind by a blue flame.

Were hers? Oh, dear heavens—did hers look the same? It felt like they must.

His breathing was harsh and shallow. “Alice. I'm trying very hard not to.” His jaw clenched and released. “But I'm afraid I'm going to jump—”

Jake disappeared—and took her chair with him. Alice cried out in surprise, but it was cut off as her bottom thumped against the marble floor. Pain shot up her tailbone.

Oh, but she would kill him. Alice stared at her skirts hitched up around her bent knees, and hastily closed her splayed legs. Kill him, and then . . . and then . . .

She didn't know what. Shove his head between her thighs and rub herself raw, most likely. She contemplated that, and couldn't decide whether to laugh or to slide her hands down and use them as a replacement.

But what a strange picture she would make if he returned to find her settling her nerves on the floor—or if anyone else should happen by.

No, she thought. That would not do at all. So perhaps she would go home and attend to a few things after all.

 

Goddamn. Jake lay facedown on a wooden floor, his cock painfully stiff beneath him, his hands still locked on the chair legs.

Alice was going to kill him. Or feed him to her giant spider.

And had she really looked like
she'd
wanted to eat him? Sweet floating Moses, let it be true.

But maybe it had just been wishful thinking. And it would be best not to think that way at all, or he'd end up humping the floor instead of figuring out where the hell he'd landed.

The room smelled clean, powdery. Beside him, ruffled white cotton hung over a knotted rag rug. Dust bunnies and a ratty stuffed bear lurked in the darkness beyond.

A bed. Oh, shit.

He listened, and rolled over onto his side, came up on his elbow. The racing heartbeat and the quick, shallow breaths had the same effect as an ice bath. A psychic probe told him it was a kid. Awake, and scared as hell. Shit shit shit. He could try to leave . . . but freaking a kid out and then taking off didn't feel
right
. An adult might talk themselves out of whatever frightened them; a kid, not so much.

The bed squeaked. Jesus, who should he look like? What did kids watch on television nowadays? He had no flippin' clue.

Too late, anyway. A pair of wide blue eyes peeked over the edge of the mattress. Maybe four or five years old. Her long brown hair was in two braids, and they dangled toward him.

Kansas again. But this time, he hadn't brought the Wicked Witch.

“Hey, Rapunzel,” Jake whispered. Soft and easy, so she wouldn't take off screaming for the two other women in the house, whose minds were heavy with sleep. “Did you lose your teddy bear?”

Her braids swayed as she shook her head.

“But there's one right here under the bed. Want to see it?” He vanished the bear into his hammerspace, then made it appear in his left hand.

The girl blinked.

“Just a little magic,” he said, and turned the bear's face up. One of the eyes was missing, and stuffing puffed out of the hole. “Ouch. Something under there got him, huh?”

Her eyes went impossibly wider. “Monsters?”

Ah, damn.
Real slick, dickhead.
“Nope,” he said quickly. “I used my magic, made them all go away. Teddy here helped; check out his sword.” Jake called in a dagger, held the handle against Teddy's arm, waved it around. The giggle told him he'd done something right. “Yeah. We'll just get rid of this, though. He'll make it appear again if he needs to protect you with it. But I'm pretty sure they're gone for good.”

He vanished the knife, lifted the bear. Her fingers brushed his when she took it, and something clamped tight in his chest. “So, Rapunzel—do you have a name?”