Demon Marked Read Online Free PDF Page B

through the door he’d shut—a feeling that wasn’t hot but bitter withering cold, and Ash recognized the hate behind it before he hid that from her, too. She should have moved then. The hate felt like a warning, and she disliked the cold, but when he opened his lips over hers, his taste was fascinating—mint, because he’d readied for bed, and there was something else that was familiar, so familiar here. She knew the touch of his mouth, the heat that slipped through her like a warm drink when his tongue sought hers. So she remained still, searching for the connection sparked by the kiss and lurking in her ruined memory.
    She didn’t find it before Nicholas lifted his head. Ash wanted to follow him up to prolong the contact, but she remembered— don’t break the Rules, respect their free will —and waited, panting, not needing the oxygen but relishing the sweep of air over her lips, wet from his kiss.
    She’d felt all of this before. She’d felt—
    A cold prod against her throat. Ash’s eyes widened— this was surprise! —and she heard a click. Pain stabbed her neck. White-hot, it yanked her muscles taut and raced up behind her eyes.
    Then, for the first time in three years, darkness fell over her mind, and she felt absolutely nothing at all.

CHAPTER 2

    The moment Nicholas had spotted the woman’s pale hair, hope had shot through him. Rachel had become a Guardian.
    Even though the Guardians had told him that Rachel hadn’t been transformed into an angelic warrior, no one could explain to him why she wasn’t one now. After sacrificing her life to save Nicholas’s, she should have been transformed into one of their kind. So despite the demonic symbols tattooed over the woman’s face and her claim that she wasn’t Rachel, he’d hoped her sudden appearance meant the Guardians had lied to him.
    He’d hoped . . . until the feverish heat of her mouth instantly revealed that she wasn’t a Guardian or human. Neither of those beings had such high temperatures.
    Goddammit. The woman was a demon.
    Fortunately, he’d been expecting one—and kissing her had brought him close enough to the tall mattress that he could reach the modified Taser beneath the pillow.
    He shocked her with enough juice to kill a human. The demon only seized once and shape-shifted. Her clothes vanished, revealing suddenly crimson skin. Gleaming black horns curled from her forehead around toward her ears; leathery wings snapped wide, the sharp talon at the left tip scoring a long vertical line on the wall. Nicholas released the trigger, cutting off the electric current.
    The demon crumpled to the floor in a pile of loose, naked limbs. Her wings folded over her body like a blanket. She hadn’t fully transformed: She wore skin instead of reptilian scales, her knees weren’t jointed backward like a goat’s hind legs . . . and her slack face still resembled Rachel’s.
    It didn’t matter. He knew who this must be.
    Madelyn.
    He’d spent years trying to find the demon who’d replaced his mother, destroyed his family, and murdered Rachel. At the beginning, Nicholas hadn’t known how impossible it might be to find her. Hell, at the beginning he hadn’t even known what she was—or that Madelyn could shape-shift to resemble any person she chose. But after he’d learned how unlikely his chances of finding her were, Nicholas hadn’t stopped looking.
    Though he hadn’t found Madelyn, Nicholas had found a few answers—and enough information about demons that he learned how to look for her.
    He’d learned that demons were creatures of habit who followed familiar patterns, particularly if those patterns had been successful in the past. So instead of searching for a woman who resembled Madelyn, he’d searched for a family who’d been ripped apart as his had been.
    That search might have taken him forever, he knew—but he’d also learned that demons were vindictive and possessive. That suited Nicholas. He was vindictive and possessive,