Meljean Brook: Demon Marked

“I’m certain,” she said. “Wouldn’t you prefer it, too? Any amount of pain is worth feeling like this, no matter how short of a time we have.”

“It’s worth it.” He drew her in, kissed her hard. “I’d have gone to Hell and picked you out a hellhound puppy, but I think Sir Pup would eat it, defending his territory.”

God. “He won’t eat a terrier puppy?”

“I asked Lilith. She said we should bring the puppy in during training, that it would do Sir Pup good to learn restraint, and that he could teach the puppy how to be a halfling’s companion.”

An evil puppy at Ash’s heels? She could get used to that.

“She’s grooming me,” Ash said. “I’m going to be just like her in two thousand years.”

Nicholas’s face darkened slightly. “I hope not.”

Oh. She looked up at him, and knew he was remembering the cabin, Lilith’s manipulation. “I think she lied, you know.”

“Which time?”

Ash had to smile at that. Yes, that fit Lilith very well. “When she said that she’d sacrifice one for the good of all.”

“You don’t think she would?”

“Maybe.” If pushed to her limits. “But she’s not stupid—and the smartest thing she could have done in that cabin would be to let Sir Pup kill me, then and there. To not take any chances that Madelyn might find me, that the Gate might be opened. She didn’t do that. I believed she would, though.”

“So did I,” Nicholas said.

“And why wouldn’t we? Two thousand years, that’s a lot of people who must have died around her. So what’s one more person? It wouldn’t mean anything, right? But I think that’s where we went wrong. Because when you see all of those people die—or just a few like the Boyles, like Rachel or your parents—then one more person isn’t nothing .”

“It’s everything,” he said. “One more person means everything.”

“Yes.” She rose up, kissed him. “So I wouldn’t mind being her in two thousand years.”

“I think you’ll be better.”

“Because you love me.”

“I do.” Palms sliding to her ass, he lifted her against him. “So what’s your plot today?”

She ran her fingers down his stomach, closed over his thick length. Hard, ready for her. “I plan to see whether I can reach your limit with just my hands.”

His grin offered the sweetest challenge. “That’s it? That’s what a demon would do?”

Not at all. That plan was much, much simpler—she would love him forever, stay with him until the end of time. Maybe it wasn’t what any old demon would do.

But it was exactly what this demon would do.