Instantly, the demon’s affect changed.
Gone was the breezy conversation bullshit.
“Now give me my fucking Book,” she gritted out.
Mae grabbed the tome and held on to it with both arms crossed over her chest. “No. You’re not taking this from me.”
Black eyes glittered. “Give. Me. My Book.”
Mae shook her head slowly even as she started to shake. “You’re going to have to take it from me. Go ahead. You’re so much stronger than I am. You’re so fucking powerful. Come and take it.”
The demon’s beautiful face grew ugly with fury, and the air around her warped. “You don’t know who you’re fucking with.”
“Yes . . . I do.”
Even as she wondered what the hell she was doing, Mae unfurled her lower arms and laid the Book out to the demon.
“Take it.”
The snarl that vibrated into the tension between them was that of a predator, low and deadly. “You fucking—”
“Mae,” came a deep voice.
The door into the garage closed with a bump at the other end of the house.
“I’m just here to get my guns,” Sahvage called out. “And then I’m gone. Don’t frickin’ worry.”
The demon straightened. And cocked a delighted smile.
Then she whispered, “Looks like I’ve got a little leverage all of the sudden, don’t I.”
In a louder voice that sounded exactly like Mae’s own, the demon said, “I’m down here. And I need you.”
As the demon winked, Mae tried to call out. Tried to warn him. Screamed as loud as she could. But she couldn’t seem to make a sound.
It was as if her voice had been stolen.
Natch.
It was like a nightmare.
As Mae heard Sahvage’s heavy boots come down to the bathroom, closer and closer, she desperately tried to warn him. But then he stepped into the open doorway.
As he stopped short, tears fell from Mae’s eyes. I’m so sorry, she mouthed.
“Hi, honey,” the demon pronounced to him. “Evidently you’re home.”
Before Sahvage could respond, his body was slammed back against the hallway wall, the same kind of invisible-hand pressure that had hit Mae back in that underground lair making him strain and fight to breathe.
“So,” the demon said to Mae in a reasonable tone. “Here’s how this is going to go. You give me the Book, and I give you him. And before you go-off-sis with a bunch of exit demands, yes, I’ll leave. No offense, but this house, just like you, isn’t my style at all. Frankly, it needs a good goddamn fire. Do we have a deal? You give me what’s mine, I give you what’s yours. Even, Steven.”
Over on the wall, a good foot off the floor, Sahvage’s lips peeled back off his fangs from the agony, and the veins in his neck stood out in sharp relief.
“Oh, and P.S.,” the demon pointed out, “his life is your Jeopardy! theme. So when it runs out, you run out of time, and though I have other options to work with, he’ll be dead as a door handle. Or is it knob? I think it’s knob.”
Mae looked to the tub. Looked back to Sahvage.
As she met his eyes, she knew what she was going to decide before she was even aware of making a choice.
Standing in the face of such a source of great destruction, Mae recognized how destructive she herself had been. In her desperation, she had sacrificed too much; in her grief, she had taken herself over the edge . . . in her refusal to accept tragedy, she had brought so much of it to herself. To others.
Sahvage wasn’t the coward. She was.
“Have the Book,” she said loud and clearly. “Just have it. I never should have gone down this road to begin with.”
As she tossed the heavy weight over, the demon had a Christmas-morning expression on her face, all fury gone, nothing but delight. And then she was the one clasping the old, ugly thing to her perfect breasts.
There was a moment where her black eyes closed, as if in relief.
And then her lids popped open.
“Thank you,” she said with a strange sincerity. “You did the right thing. And I’m sorry about your brother. But honestly, you’re better off not fucking with death. It’s the one thing even I am careful about.”
Out in the hall, Sahvage’s straining body was slowly lowered back to the floor. And then he shook himself, as if he were casting off shackles.
“Mae,” he said as he reached out his arms—
Without warning, his head spun on the top of his spine with a sickening crack! and his body dropped to the floor in a heap.
The brunette went saucy-hip and forefingered the air. “Psych.”
“Sahvage!” Mae screamed at the top of her lungs.
OMG, the night was so picking up, Devina thought as she delicately sidestepped out of the female vampire’s way. She’d been in a really bad mood to begin with, but this display of tragic emotion? Come on.