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Chapter Eight
Ihad to do something! Maybe I could use my powers to send out a text message to get Denise some help?
As quickly as that hope flared, it died. Even if I could use enough of my borrowed telekinesis to do that, anyone I called would be stricken by the contagious spell mere minutes after they got here. I might already have condemned Denise. I couldn’t condemn anyone else—
Shadows suddenly swirled between me and Denise. In seconds, a tall, extravagantly handsome man with short black curls, deep brown skin, and walnut-colored eyes appeared. Never let it be said that demons failed to make a memorable entrance.
I stared at Ashael as he brushed imaginary lint from an expensive-looking peacock-blue suit. Then, red lit up his dark brown gaze as he glanced at Denise, at me, and then back at Denise.
“Got into a bit of trouble, haven’t you?” he said with an appreciative whistle.
Denise groaned and sat up.
I was so shocked that I barely noticed Ashael pull out his cell phone and say, “Don’t wait up,” to whoever was on the line.
Had Ashael done something to Denise so she could move again? If so, thank God! Or thank…whoever, since he was a demon.
“Whole…body’s…stiff,” Denise said with a moan.
Ashael’s snort managed to be elegant. “Of course. From what I see, you’ve been doused with a powerful immobility spell. You wouldn’t be able to move at all, except for those brands. Magic doesn’t work on demons, and you have enough of our power in you to avoid being a living mannequin like your friend over there.”
I wasn’t even insulted. I was more stunned that Ashael knew that Denise was demon-branded. That was a closely guarded secret. Only me, Bones, Ian, Denise’s husband Spade, and Denise’s relative Nathanial knew about it, or so I’d thought. And how had Ashael known we’d been hit with a spell?
“Good thing both my natures protect me,” Ashael went on. “Now I know why you sounded so desperate. Anyone else you called would only end up stricken by the contagion in that spell.”
How could he know any of this?I mentally raged. How?
“Can you get…this spell…off us?” Denise ground out.
He paused. “Yes and no.”
Always a bargain with demons, and those bargains rarely ended without a lot of regret on the bargainee’s part.
Denise gave him a baleful look. “Do the…yes part.”
Ashael came closer. “Are you sure? Neither of you will enjoy what it takes.”
That sounded ominous. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.
Denise must have read my reluctance from my expression because she said, “Do me first, then.”
Wait! That wasn’t what I meant at all!
Ashael’s lips twitched. “If only I had a dollar for every time I heard a woman say that…”
“You’d be rich?” Denise finished, managing an eye roll.
His grin widened. “Richer.”
With his sin-wrapped-in-seduction looks, I didn’t doubt it, but that wasn’t what grabbed my attention. It was the haze of light that now glowed from Ashael’s hands, and how his gaze had gone from red highlights to twin beams of silver.
Holy shit. This must be Ashael’s other side. I’d never seen it before, our previous contact being very brief, but I’d seen it from his half-sister, Veritas. And she’d almost leveled a house with that otherness after a mere mood swing.
“If you consent,” he said to Denise while power thickened the air, “give me your hands.”
Denise stretched out her hands. As soon as Ashael clasped them, that glow from his hands increased, and Denise screamed.
I didn’t even have to concentrate. Every single bottle from the bar suddenly slammed into Ashael. Glass, alcohol, and then blood covered him from all the flying, cutting shards.
