Page 3 of Broken Moon

He laughed and his voiceencased my heart with ice. “I don’t think you like it very much. I don’t thinkthat atall.”

“Doesn’t matter what youthink,” I told him. “My pain is my own, and it has nothing to do with you. Letme take the girl home, demon. You have the three who summoned you. You don’tneed her.”

“She has an innocent soul,” hemurmured. “I can almost taste it. She was given to me, and I will take her. ButI will let you stay in your world. I think you would cause me too much troublein mine.”

I laughed. “You’re probably right. But I’ll be keeping thegirl.”

The trio was now screaming interror, their voices so distracting I was tempted to take my attention off thedemon to look at them. I didn’t, though. There was something in his eyes, and Iknew he was going to strike. I had to be ready when he did.

Despite what he’d said, hedidn’t plan on letting me go. Demons were liars, tricksters, and sadistictormentors. They were also extremely greedy.

“Summoned like common trash,”he muttered, “by lowly humans.” He was genuinely offended. And finally, he drewhis gleaming demon dagger.

I was good with a knife. I’dbeen training since I could hold the little rubber sword my father had given mewhen I was two years old. But against this demon with his demon blade, I wasn’ttoo confident in my abilities.

I channeled my wolf’s agony andturned it into rage. Sometimes I was fearless, always I was fierce. I didn’thave any other choices. Since birth, my life had been made of violence. It wasall I knew.

And I didn’t shrink from it.

I didn’t wait for him tostrike. I went for him, surprising him a little, which gave me an advantage,however slight. I sliced his upper arm and had time to see a silver lightshining through the gaping edges before he moved with demon speed and got hisrevenge.

A fiery pain added itself tothe agony I already felt, but instead of being eclipsed by the wolf moon, itmultiplied. Impossibly, it multiplied.

I screamed and staggeredagainst the unbearable torment as blood poured down my chest, but in the backof my mind was my father’s voice.“Suck it up, Princess. Use the pain andfight like a warrior.”

I stiffened my spine, shovedaway the agony, and went after the demon. I’d fight him and either he woulddie, or I would. Those were the two possibilities.

“Strong wolf,” he roared. “Youplease me.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled, and withmy anger and pain fueling me on, I fought the demon. I have to admit it wasonly sheer luck that let me take his blade from him.

Luck and a little help from thebound girl on the altar—Lucille opened her mouth and screamed. There wassomething in that scream that drew his immediate attention, and I stepped inand nearly severed his right hand from his arm. The blade fell, and I didn’thesitate. I scooped it from the ground, leaped, and drove it into his black demonheart.

Maybe he wasn’t such a badassafter all.

I didn’t gloat for long,though, because not even sticking a demon through his heart was going to keephim controlled for long. But as I took his blade and ran to the girl to cut theropes that bound her, the demon roared, and he fell.

The sharp blade sliced throughthe ropes like butter, and I barely waited for them to part before I turned towatch the demon. Lucille surged from the log and threw her arms around mywaist. She was a little thing, maybe five feet three inches tall, dark blondehair, big blue eyes, pink cheeks and pale skin. How the hell had she ended up here?She should have been back in the city baking cakes and muffins.

There was little time to wonderas I watched the demon reach his end. I still didn’t know how I’d killed himuntil abruptly, my gaze caught on the deeply serrated demon blade and I saw myblood there, dripping, bubbling, moving.

My blood boiled into the demonblade, and I tucked the information away to study later. My blood alone hadn’tkilled the demon, but combined with the blade, the blade forged in hell, it hadapparently cooked up a lethal combination.

The demon gave one last roarand from his gaping maw burst a huge blast of fire and black smoke, and it camefor what seemed like hours.Days.Something shifted inside me, and Iswear the unending pain lessened. I felt the difference.

Then the demon’s body cracked,turned into something black and burnt, and fell upon the ground, a man-shaped pileof ash and embers. He died.

Supposedly, a cast out demoncould never find another body to inhabit, not if he was out of his world and inhis body when it happened. He’d be forced to wander my world forever, his powergone, his people gone, his hope gone.

Supposedly.

But for a breathless second, Ifelt something. My body broke out into gooseflesh, my heart stuttered to ahalt, my brain froze. Electricity danced along my skull and I stiffened into afull body muscle contraction, a spasm that was as unbearable as it was brief.And then, it was just…gone. My usual pain roared back into the suddenly silentnight, and I gripped the blade, alive. I was alive.

The black lasso holding thetrio disappeared and they stared in shock, their screams silenced, unable to somuch as move. They were caught somewhere between the demon’s world and theirown, and though I didn’t know where they were, not really, I would have tobring them back. I couldn’t leave them trapped, despite my anger and disgust.The idiots had likely learned a lesson, and chances were slim they’d everattempt to summon a demon again.

“That was…insane,” Lucillewhispered. “That was unbelievable.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. I pushed heraway from me, but gently, and slid the demon’s blade into the sheath on my hip.I’d get a new one for it, because I would wear it forever. It was mine now.