Jessa Slade - Forged of Shadows

Sera tsked. “Unfair. But I’ve read your dossier, and that pimp stopped after merely sticking a knife between your ribs. What’s coming is far worse, far more intimate, and will leave you with your soul—not just your lung—in tatters.”

Jilly fisted her hands, as if Sera had feinted at her, though the other woman made no effort to rise. “You don’t know anything about me.” Despite the tension in her body from frustrated desire, her fuming breath moved easily through her for the first time in more than a year, and she wondered, did she even know herself anymore?

Sera fanned her fingertips along the edge of the table, the only betrayal of her own tension. “The league has entirely too many tough guys, Jilly. If you have to lower those impressive defenses of yours long enough to let one of our fighters save you, then by God—should I say, by the demon possessing you—that’s what you are going to do.”

If Liam thought he’d sent Sera to be sympathetic, Jilly decided she’d have to disabuse him of that notion. “Whatever info you’ve been collecting on me, at the very least you should know I don’t back down from vague threats.”

“Sometimes vague is all we get. But I do know that one of those talyan saved me from something awful. And I’m not just talking about demons.”

“What could be worse?” Jilly muttered. But she already knew some of the answers, though she couldn’t picture tall, blond, self-confident Sera ever making the sorts of bad decisions where demonic possession looked like a self-improvement project. The uncertainty kept Jilly on her feet, but she didn’t walk away.

Sera must have sensed her victory, but she didn’t gloat. She stood in a rush of red, startling the crow into the sky. “It’s not all bad. Repenting, I mean. You get a place to stay. A mission to last the rest of your potentially very long life. And there are other perks.” She ducked her head and gave Jilly a sidelong glance.

“Nothing else about lovers,” Jilly warned. Bad enough that her breath caught with the vague claustrophobia of sharing her skin with a demon. Sharing it with a daunting male like Liam Niall . . .

“No, no.” Sera’s gaze wavered. “I was just thinking, maybe I get a sister in a houseful of men.”

The genuine wistfulness snagged at Jilly’s resistance, though pain flared as quickly behind it. “I make a terrible sister.” She ignored the flicker of disappointment over Sera’s face; if the other woman had read her file, she’d understand. “I only want to find out what happened to Andre. So show me this league of evil-undoers.”

They fell into step and headed uptown. The crow wheeled once against the white clouds and was gone.

The lantern tipped. Flames raced across the straw. A glint of steel, and his temple exploded with a flash of light across his eye. Then darkness. Endless darkness.

And pounding.

Liam jackknifed up and shoved away the entangling bedcovers. The darkness and pounding endured, but at least he was awake. He touched his temple and winced at the flicker of demon violet that illuminated his shaking fingers.

“What?” He winced again when the word came out as a roar.

The pounding at the door stopped. “Sera called. She found Jilly and is bringing her in.”

Liam rolled out of bed and pushed aside the blackout curtains over the windows. The stark sunlight narrowed his eyes but brought no warmth to his naked flesh. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“You’ve got ten.” Archer’s voice was brisk. “Use it. I can smell your nightmare through the door. You’ll scare her off before she’s even gone through the teshuva’s ascension.”

“Insolent bastard,” Liam muttered.

“I can hear through doors too.”

Liam waved his upright middle finger vigorously, though Archer was stomping away. Liam dropped back to the bed. He’d avoided going back to Jilly’s apartment last night, knowing Archer was keeping watch. So he had no excuse not to have managed a good night’s sleep.

No excuse except those dreams that always ended in flames and darkness.

He pounded his head once into the pillow and stared up at the ornate headboard above him. Entire grave-yards boasted fewer chubby, cavorting cherubs than this oak behemoth. He couldn’t imagine what the wood-worker had been thinking. It would be impossible to have sex in this bed.

Yeah, that could be the other excuse for no good night’s sleep.

In five minutes, he’d run a cold shower, downed a cup of burned coffee, and ensconced himself behind his desk.

After the league’s last refuge had been poisoned in the tenebrae attack, they’d retreated to one of their holdings fronted by an architectural-salvage warehouse. The warehouse lacked the style of their previous retro hotel, but it had a kitchen, a few apartments, a dormitory, and an armory. If there was one thing the league did well, it was break things and pick up the pieces. The three-legged walnut desk he’d propped up on a knock-off Grecian urn at least had a certain presence. Anyway, it was big.

He gripped the thick edge and waited for Sera’s knock. She entered and stopped just inside the door, while Jilly marched up to the other side of his desk and tossed her puffy silver coat on the guest chair.

She planted her hands on her hips, which puffed up other parts of her. Under her snug short-sleeved T-shirt, the roundness of her breasts seemed counterintuitively soft. He found himself distracted by the butterfly tattoo that rode the upper curve revealed by the V neckline, the navy cotton setting off her anger-flushed tawny skin.

“What the fuck?” she snapped.

Good thing it was a big desk. He slanted a glance at Sera, who grinned and sidled out.

He returned his attention to Jilly and wondered if the oak headboard would have blocked more of the fury that vibrated off her. No. No thinking of Jilly in his bed. “Which part is fucked?”

She glared at him, and for a moment he was mesmerized by the golden snap in her eyes, the tint of flames in straw.

“If you wanted to recruit me, sell me yourself.” She faltered, as if that hadn’t come out as she intended. “You knew I’d come, given the chance to find out what’s happening to the kids on the street. You didn’t have to send Sera.”

“She had the best chance of convincing you.”

“And do you always use people for what they can do for you?”

He steeled himself against the sting of her words. He was spread too thin to regret delegating when necessary. Not when he knew that strain would bring him one step closer to a break the league might not survive.

Not when her burning eyes were the straw to break the beast of burden.

“I save myself for the fun parts,” he said coolly. “I’m sure Sera explained what we’re up against.”

“She explained a lot.” Jilly set her chin off-kilter, as if she was holding back words. “What are we doing to chase these monsters—what did you call them?—these tenebraeternum off the streets?”

“ ‘ We’?” Liam leaned back in his chair and templed his fingers. He waited for the flare of triumph at bringing another tyro aboard. God knew, he needed this ardent young fighter in front of him. Instead, her fierce zeal made him feel older than the dirt that crept into every nook of the league’s salvaged stronghold.

And his need would never be assuaged.

“The tenebraeternum is the place where the demons come from,” he said. As if reciting the chronicles of league history would relieve the ache that arrowed through him. “The lesser demons en masse we call the horde-tenebrae.”

She wrinkled her nose at the impromptu lesson. “Sera already made it clear I might not even survive my demon’s ascension. If I only have another hour or another day, then I want to find out what happened to Andre and make sure the things and the place never bother any of the kids again.”