Demon from the Dark (Immortals After Dark #10)(25)

She hissed in a breath, her limping more pronounced. Whether noblewoman or slave, she was clearly not accustomed to a place this harsh. She rubbed the back of her neck, pinching the muscles there. At least her wrist seemed to be healing.

Eventually, she hobbled over to a bone tree stump, sinking atop it. With a look of dread, she peered at her boots. As she gingerly drew off the first one, she bit her bottom lip to keep from crying out.

The short black hosiery beneath was affixed to her blisters. As she removed the second boot, he winced for her, but she never made a sound. His female was strong in resolve, if not in body.

When she twined the length of her hair into a knot atop her head, he saw the faint outline of his bite. The night before, she’d sneered the word vampire just before she’d sent blazing shots to his chest. If that was how she saw him, perhaps she hated them as much as he did.

She’d seemed more furious about his biting her than his shoving against her body for release. He understood her aversion. He’d been drunk thousands of times.

It had never grown any easier to take.

Yet it would be impossible not to enjoy her neck again, now that he’d experienced the bliss of it. He narrowed his eyes. Give and take. For years, he’d ceded his blood. I wear my scars—I am owed! Her blood would be a small price to pay for his protection.

Malkom didn’t know how she’d gotten herself exiled into these infernal wastelands; he did know that she was damned lucky to have a strong arm to protect her here, considering her fragile nature and inconsistent power.

Perhaps she needed a token to remind her of how much she needed him.





9




Just after she’d somehow stuffed her swollen, pulpy feet back into her boots, she spied a blur of motion in the smoke beside her, heard a thump. Something had landed a couple of feet away, and it wasn’t moving.

What now? Exhaling irritably, she leaned over.

Sightless eyes stared up at her. She scrambled back, tumbling off the stump onto her ass. There lay the head of one of the ghouls from the night before, its throat slashed, slime still oozing from serrated arteries.

She gazed up, squinting through the miasma, detecting a large form on the cliff above her. The demon.

Why would he do this? Was it some sick kind of warning?

Her temper ignited, melting away any fear of him. “What is wrong with you?” She leapt to her feet, ripping open every remaining blister on them. I am so over this!

She was exhausted and battered, her temples beginning to pound. Her feet felt like someone had poured acid on them. Her pierced neck was in the itching, reddened stage of healing. “That slime got on my boot! Disgusting demon!”

The last twenty-four hours had been the worst of her entire life. And he was going to keep at her? “You think a decapitated head will scare me? You think it’ll cow me into accepting you? Your ‘attentions’?”

She snatched a softball-sized rock from the ground and flung it in his direction, heard a grunt. “I’ve had stalkers before, you *!” Some really demented ones, too. One of them had strangled Mari’s cat, leaving it on the front porch at Andoain. Mari had tried to resurrect the poor animal, but the process had devolved into Pet Sematary territory, or as Mari had sniffled, “Tigger came back . . . wrong.”

To make Mari feel better, Carrow had cursed the stalker to fall in love—with cacti.

When I get my powers back, demon . . .

The thought made her hesitate. Why would she ever expect to get them back here? Everything was just as miserable as she was. Hell, diddling the freaking vemon was her best hope for energy.

No, she wasn’t there yet, wasn’t ready to accept Slaine’s “claim.” There had to be another way to save Ruby.

Carrow listened for a response, heard nothing. “Whatever you’re going to do, do—it—now!”

Again, no reply. As long as she was utterly vulnerable, maybe she shouldn’t antagonize the mythical abomination.

She gave a start when he dropped down just before her, crouching beside the head. She braced for another assault, but he merely watched her, calmly appraising.

His eyes were blue, not an enraged black. Instead of the mindlessness of the night before, there was intelligence burning in them, an animal cunning that kept her on edge.

No imminent attack? Could she be so lucky? She let out a shaky breath. Maybe he’d just wigged out because of his vampire blooding?

Able to see him more clearly now, she surveyed his appearance. He’d braided some hanks of his hair as warriors did in olden times, but the rest hung down, covering a good deal of his face. His hair and horns were so sand-coated, she couldn’t determine their color. She was going with darkish for both.

There were bands of something like greasepaint streaked across his cheeks, reminding her of the camouflage the special-ops boys used on missions. Maybe that was why the vemon had seemed invisible last night?

His jaw and chin carried stubble that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a beard or not. She wished she could see his face clean-shaven—or hey, just clean. His nose was crooked, probably from an early break that hadn’t healed right. It made him look like a bruiser.

Of its own accord, her gaze dipped to his mouth, a harsh slash with barely noticeable fangs. For some reason those fangs made Carrow think of the women she knew back home who loved being bitten . . . .