Sarah Brennan - The Demon's Covenant

“Shhh,” she said, frantic, between kisses. “Nick. It’s all right .”

It was so different from the first time. She’d been concerned about him then, too, but it hadn’t been this wild, intangible thing, she hadn’t felt her heart beating like a frenzied bird trapped in her chest.

“Shhh,” she said against the corner of his mouth, and ran a hand up along the center of his chest, flat muscle under soaked cotton. Her fingers caught on the talisman and the scar beneath it.

He almost smiled, though the smiled twisted in on itself and disappeared. “Mavis,” he said, his voice scraping away from the edge, and she told herself she didn’t like it.

He was calmer now, she thought, and he might listen. She should pull back, deal with him calmly, be in control.

He kissed her again, sharing a shuddering breath from his open mouth to hers, his body pressing her down against the storm-washed roof tiles, and Mae kissed him back. She was burning hot in the middle of a storm, so hot she was shaking with it.

“Shhh,” she said, nosing blindly along his cheek, kissing the sharp corner of his jaw and then sliding her mouth down the pale rain-slick line of his throat.

He didn’t make sounds like other boys did, so she had to pay attention to every little detail in the small lightning-soaked space between them. She bit down on the curve where his neck sloped into his collarbone, tasting the warm rainwater pooled there and the cool skin beneath, and felt him tense above her.

“Come here,” he ordered, and she pressed her lips against his throat and smiled.

Nick peeled the wet material of her shirt away from her skin, fingers sliding under the collar, and ran the shocking-cold metal of his ring along her mark. Mae arched up into him, and he caught her mouth and the small sound she made, his teeth running along the line of her lower lip.

“I have a—” Mae whispered into the slow, hot kiss, drunk on Nick all around her. She was tempted to thump her head against the roof tile in a desperate effort to clear it, but instead she kissed Nick some more. “I—oh God—I have a plan.”

Her plan had not been to push the drenched cotton of his shirt up so she could run a hand up his ribs, skating over the leather band where he kept a knife hidden, but it was happening anyway. Nick was sitting up a little, she was levering herself up on her elbows to help him, to strip his shirt off so she could have wet smooth skin under her hands.

“This is becoming a habit of yours, Nick,” Alan’s voice said coldly from the skylight, and they both froze.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” Alan continued, and disappeared down the ladder before Mae had even registered the expression on his face, though she could tell from the tone of his voice that it couldn’t have been good.

Mae swore between gritted teeth, and Nick bolted backward, lunging away from her and toward the skylight. She pressed her forehead against the heel of her hand and cursed herself silently and at length. She was so stupid, how had she done this, and after what Alan had said to her on the high street. How he must feel now.

She scrambled to her feet and went for the ladder, making her way shakily down it, legs not working particularly well, as she heard Nick thundering down the attic stairs.

“Alan!” he shouted, but there was no answer back, not even a shout.

Mae was stumbling down the stairs to the hall when Nick caught Alan in the kitchen, the door open and the fluorescent lights on. Alan was standing beside the kettle, which he’d switched on. He looked pale and determinedly casual.

Nick had hold of the kitchen counter. The way he was gripping it and the fact that he was disheveled and soaked to the skin combined to form the impression of a drowning man.

“Alan,” he said, “I want to talk.”

Mae was at the foot of the stairs now, making her way slowly to the kitchen door. She wasn’t sure if she could help by getting involved. She couldn’t leave the explaining to Nick, but she couldn’t blame Alan if he did not want to look at her right now.

Apparently Alan didn’t want to look at his brother, either. He was staring down at his empty cup.

“You do?” he asked Nick, his voice clipped. “Well, that’s new and different for us. What do you want to say?”

Nick looked at him, eyes glittering under his wet fall of hair. Every muscle in his body looked tense, and Mae remembered what she had told Nick, realized how much he might hate Alan at this moment, and waited with her mouth gone dry to hear what Nick had to say.

Low and cold, Nick said, “Betray me.”

Alan’s head snapped up. “What?”

“Betray me,” Nick said again, still in that terrible toneless demon’s voice, hands clenching on the kitchen counter so hard Mae thought it would break. “Turn me over to the magicians, take the magic, do whatever you think you need to do, I do not care. But don’t leave.”

She’d had it all wrong, Mae thought, feeling numb all over. She’d known Nick was afraid of something, learning fear the way she’d described it: feeling paralyzed even though you know you have to act, because you’re sure that if you even move, the most terrible thing you can think of will happen.

She just hadn’t understood.

From the look on Alan’s face, he hadn’t understood either.

“Oh, Nick,” he said in a soft, amazed voice. “No.”

He limped the few steps toward his brother, then reached out. A shiver ran all the way through Nick, as if he was a spooked animal about to bolt, but he didn’t bolt. Alan’s hand settled on the back of his brother’s neck, and Nick bowed his head a little more and let him do it.

“No, no, no,” Alan said in his beautiful voice, turning it into a lullaby, soothing and sweet. “Nick. I would never leave.”

Mae had no place being there right now, so she closed the kitchen door softly and walked home.

Outside it was still dark, but the tattered storm clouds were curling around one another almost gently, the storm calmed, the sky full of possibility.

The rain had stopped.

20

The Demon’s Price

Mae woke on the day of the Goblin Market to the sound of her phone ringing by her ear. It was Sin, freaking out about cover for her people. Mae sat up in bed, grabbed her laptop, and got some maps of Huntingdon Market Square up onscreen.

“Look, Sin,” she said. “Think. The square’s in the middle of town. There are houses on every side of it! Well, one side’s a church, but you take my point. There is absolutely no chance that the magicians won’t be shielding themselves. Trust me, I saw the Aventurine Circle do this on the Millennium Bridge. They’ll be giving us cover. All we have to do is use it.”

“And if they decide to take it down?”

“They’d expose themselves as well as us,” said Mae. “It’s going to be fine.”

“It’s not,” Sin told her quietly. “People are going to die. I think it’s worth it, to eliminate the magicians. You’re not Market, though. Not yet. Can you handle people dying because of your plan?”

Mae rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand, fuzzy morning vision coalescing to St. Leonard’s fragile Gothic spire outside her window, stretching up into a clear blue sky.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly, and shut her eyes. “I guess we’ll have to see.”

Sin was silent for a moment. Then she abruptly switched topics. “The demon’s agreed to the plan?”

“Yes,” Mae said automatically, because if she even hesitated, Sin would know something was wrong and call the whole thing off.