Corson took a startled step back, holding his hands up as he moved away. “Easy,” he said. “I have no interest at all in it.”
I continued to glower at him, but my fangs retracted before I turned my attention back to River. A girl giggled and brushed one of Corson’s dangling, unicorn earrings with her fingertips as she walked by him.
“You could always bring me a set of yours if you came to the fire tonight, love,” he told her in English and winked at her.
She giggled again, blushing prettily as her eyes fluttered. “Maybe,” she replied and hurried away with one of her friends.
He turned toward me, the smile instantly slipping from his face when I scowled at him.
“We know what those marks mean, but the humans don’t,” Shax said, slipping back into our native tongue. “There’s already been talk among them that the two of you are screwing; this will confirm it in their minds. They’ll have no idea what to make of this.”
“Am I supposed to care?”
“After yesterday, yes. They’re already more wary of us,” Bale said.
“The humans barely go near her as it is. They don’t know what those marks stand for, but they’ll recognize she’s under my protection and leave her be,” I said. “The men will know to stop looking at her too.”They had better know.
“She’s the key we’ve been searching for; you risk everything if things go badly between you two.”
“Nothingwill go badly between us!” I snapped. “She is my Chosen; I cannot stay away from her.”
My gaze instantly returned to River in the crowd of humans. All I wanted was to pull her from here and shelter her from the glances and whispers swirling around her. She didn’t pay them any attention, but I knew she felt betrayed by her own kind. A kind she may save from becoming extinct. I’d like to tear every one of the ungrateful pricks to pieces with my bare hands.
“Thereisno staying away from one’s Chosen,” Shax murmured. “And judging by the bite I see on your neck, there is more demon in her than I think any of us believed there to be.”
I hadn’t tried to cover her mark on me; I wouldn’t. River may not feel the Chosen bond as strongly as I did and may be uncertain about what it really was between us, but a part of her recognized me as hers also, and I would wear her brand for the rest of my days. Or hers. I loathed the reminder of her mortality.
“Such an interesting change of events,” Bale murmured.
Beside her, Corson laughed. “Yes, it is.”
“Taken down by a human and Lucifer’s daughter to boot,” Shax snorted. “I never saw that one coming.”
“I could have a vision every day, and still not have seen that one coming,” Bale laughed.
“She’s not a human,” I reminded them, trying not to let my irritation show. Around us, humans glanced questioningly our way when the others continued to chuckle and elbow each other.
“She’s not,” Corson agreed, the first to regain complete control of himself. “And that’s what makes this riskier. You know what she is, know she may be the only hope we have of ending this with Lucifer. The only hope we have of surviving. If the others get their hands on her—”
“That’snotgoing to happen!” I interrupted brusquely.
“Then they would also control you,” Corson continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “There is no denying you’ve claimed her as your Chosen. She has also claimedyou,though I’m sure she doesn’t quite comprehend the strength of the bond or the power that will start to come with it. But with more power comes new weakness.”
“More checks and balances,” I muttered. “I have explained to her what has happened between us, what those marks mean. She may not grasp it in the same way as a demon, but she understands.”
“And the mission?” Corson pressed.
I raked him from head to toe with a scathing glare. Shax took a step away, but Corson held his ground. “I understand the mission comes before she does.”
No matter how much I would prefer not to have River involved in this, I had no choice. The lives of thousands of demons depended on me; they had since the moment I’d been forged as a weapon against Lucifer. There had never been any doubt that the fires had created me specifically to defeat Lucifer.
There was a reason many of my ancestors since Lucifer arrived in Hell barely made it a century while I had lived fifteen hundred years. There was a reason I bore the mark of Ziwa and the hounds when no other had before me. Those fires had forged me to reclaim Hell from Lucifer, and I could not turn my back on the many who depended on me to do so. The humans depended on us too; however, I cared less for them than my demon brethren. I didn’t want River involved, but I would keep her safe and do what must be done.
“You say that now, but if something were to happen where she fell into the wrong hands, then what?” Shax inquired.
“It won’t happen,” I replied brusquely and focused on River in the line again.
She grabbed a sandwich and placed it on her tray as a blonde woman stepped into line behind her. The woman looked oddly familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place her. More filed into the line behind River; they maintained their distance from her but also blocked my view. I knew she was there, could feel her as clearly as if she were still against me.
