Read Online Forged of Shadows: A Novel of the Marked Souls by Jessa Slade - Free Book Online Page B

obvious—them—of course.
    She slammed away from the fence. “You’d think I’d know better than to listen to sweet lies. Even if—especially if—the lie comes along with a bribe.”
    From stillness to a blur of motion, he spun on his heel and grabbed her arm. “The teshuva gave you a gift?”
    She tried to wrench free, but his grip was unbreakable. “Now don’t you feel bad about not offering at least paid sick days?”
    “You won’t get sick,” he growled. “You’ll just get dead. What was the bribe? A stone? In a pendant?”
    His intensity unnerved her, so unlike the habitual reserve that carried him above her even more than his height did. She shook her head. “A bracelet. Woven metallic.”
    He pushed back her jacket sleeve. “Where is it? You didn’t lose it, did you? Are you wearing it?” His grasp scalded her flesh.
    As if he had the right to handle her. Oh, she knew how that went. She’d watched her mother submit, over and over, until cowering looked more natural than standing upright. She’d made the same mistake once—only once. This time, she summoned a furious strength and shoved him hard enough to make him stagger. “Get your hands off me. Don’t you ever . . .” To her horror, her eyes prickled with hot tears.
    He took a long step back. With his height, that step carried him a ways. He raked his fingers through his hair. “My fault. Don’t reach for your demon.” The tattoo beside his eye seemed blacker than black. “I’m sorry.”
    She gathered herself, wrapping layers of anger around the hurt as she’d learned to long ago. “Sorry because I won’t let you push me around.” She hardly recognized her own voice, harsh with the anger and still trembling with the hurt. The twist of the two made her chest ache more than the negligible twinge of her wrist from having yanked away.
    “That push is the demon,” he said.
    “Mine? Or yours?” She refused to look away when his gaze snapped up to her. “You are not so in command as I thought.”
    He straightened. Not in threat, she realized, but as if she’d caught him out. His fists clenched, then fell open, empty. “And that was little enough indeed.” The Irish lilt was stronger for just those words.
    They stared at each other a moment. Finally, he added, “The battle isn’t what it was, Jilly, and I am struggling to keep ahead of the changing tide, lest we all be washed away. The bracelet may be a relic from the tenebraeternum. It may be a weapon we can use.”
    “You said the solvo was a demon weapon too. Seems like demon weapons are a bad thing.”
    He hesitated. “Could be. But as you’ve noted, we’re not entirely good ourselves.”
    “My demon might’ve mentioned the weapon part if it wanted to be helpful.” She manacled her wrist over the memory of cool metal and Liam’s urgent grasp. She didn’t have to forgive him; she was possessed by a demon, not an angel, after all. And even before he told her about demonic energy sinks, she’d known how to lock away her feelings.
    Keeping her voice level, she said, “I found the bracelet after the . . . after the demon came to me. I thought it was just a weird dream. I hadn’t been sleeping well, and I thought maybe one of the kids had hidden it in my bag as a going-away present after I got fired. Or . . . I don’t know what I thought. Lau-lau said it was a good-luck charm. I just put it in my jewelry box before I went to meet up with Iz and Dee and forgot about it.”
    He settled back on his heels. “Who is Lau-lau?”
    “My landlady. She lives downstairs from me.” She shot him an arch glance. “When I moved in, she asked me to call her grandmother in Chinese. She can’t possibly be a demon.”
    He didn’t respond. “We need that bracelet.”
    “We?”
    “You. The league. It’s all one now, Jilly.”
    She stiffened. “Is it?” So much for their little détente.
    A violet light glimmered in his eyes. “That’s what the demon promised you, isn’t it?