Page 61 of Mortal Heart

She rolled away from Atonoskelis’s hoof, but that put her close to the wall and reduced her room to maneuver. The demon’s next kick connected with her side. She hit the wall, her jaw clenched so she didn’t cry out. The demon guards cackled and danced and mimicked her facial expression, much to each other’s merriment.

Atonoskelis towered over her. Her tail swished back and forth almost like a cat’s. Ronan’s bloody handprint was still visible about midway down its length. Arkady felt torn between relief he was here and guilt that she’d held onto him and pulled him through the portal. She had no doubt he’d intended to go through with her, but now he might die in that blasted cage. Somehow, she had to make sure he didn’t. He deserved better than that.

“Scream, little human.” Atonoskelis smiled down at her. “The tougher you act, the worse I’ll make it for you.”

Arkady hated avoiding looking up because not making eye contact made her feel cowardly, but from that angle if she wasn’t careful she’d get another eyeful of Atonoskelis’s barbed genitals. She’d already had enough of that sight to last several lifetimes.

“It’s not an act,” she managed to say, her good arm wrapped protectively around her ribs. “I really am this bad-ass.”

She braced herself for another kick, but instead Atonoskelis chuckled. “I really do think I like you. Are you being brave to impress your lover? I wouldn’t bother, darling. One way or the other, he’s going to die in that cage. The question is, which one of you will I kill first, while the other one watches?” She leaned down and caressed Arkady’s cheek with the back of her clawed hand. Her skin felt rough and hot, like a lizard’s. “Will he lose the will to live if he watches you die?” she mused. “He fought so hard to follow you here, hoping to save you. He was a broken man before you gave him a reason to fight. Without you, why would he want to live?”

Arkady snorted even though it hurt. “He and I slept together. That doesn’t mean we’re each other’s only reason to live. He followedyouhere, you moron. He wants to kill you. So do I.”

Atonoskelis’s harsh atonal laugh made Arkady’s hair stand on end. “I’m sure you do, but neither of you have any weapons, and I have no intention of dying just to please you.” She tilted her head. “But perhaps you could both die to please me…or pleasing me.”

“Hard pass.” Arkady sat up, her back against the wall, and cradled her broken arm in her lap. “Honestly, you’re just not my type.”

“Darling, I’meveryone’stype.” Atonoskelis stepped back. Sulfuric magic swirled around her, hiding her body from sight for a few seconds. When it dissipated, she was back in her human form, complete with red hair.

“Still no.” Arkady got to her feet using the wall for support. “You can dress yourself up however you want, but a demon skank by any other name is still a demon skank.”

“You are making two key mistakes,” Atonoskelis said, posing with one hand on her hip. “The first is thinking I care whether my partners are voluntary participants in our activities.”

Arkady’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, that figures. And the second thing?”

“That it’s you I intend to kill first.” Hips swaying, the demon sauntered toward the cage. “Perhaps you are less of abad-assthan you believe. Let’s find out.”

As she walked, Atonoskelis turned into a kind of black mist. The mist drifted through the bars of the cage to hover above Ronan’s unmoving body. Only her mouth was visible in the cloud, smiling and full of jagged teeth.

Arkady jerked. Katy’s drawings. A black mist with a single line, floating above a sleeping figure. She’d thought the sketches were creepy, but the reality was so much worse.

And then, as if the cloud wasn’t bad enough, it turned into an almost-perfect imitation of her own naked body. She went cold all over.

“Ronan, I want you,” Atonoskelis called in Arkady’s voice. She drifted down until she was straddling his hips in a grotesque parody of Arkady and Ronan’s earlier lovemaking. The sight made Arkady’s stomach rebel. “Rooooo-nan…”

Finally, his eyes opened. He blinked slowly, clearly disoriented and unable to focus very well. “My Valkyrie,” he rasped and reached for Atonoskelis.

Limping badly, Arkady ran toward the cage. “Ronan, don’t! She’s the demon!”

Atonoskelis hissed at her, then turned back to her prey. “My Ronan,” she cooed. “I will make you glad to be alive.”

Desperate to break the demon’s hold over Ronan, Arkady toed off her boot and threw it as hard as she could. It hit the bars of the cage and bounced off. Atonoskelis laughed, her voice a stomach-churning mix of her own and Arkady’s.

To Arkady’s shock, Ronan took advantage of the distraction and stuck his fist straight into Atonoskelis’s chest. With a scream of pain and rage, she turned back to mist, flew out of the cage, and crossed the room to its far side before reverting to her red-skinned demon form. She doubled over in obvious pain, clutching her abdomen with her clawed hands.

“I ordered you both to search him!” Atonoskelis shrieked at the demons who cowered beside the cage.

“We did, my lady!” the more scarred of the two wailed. They groveled even lower, their claws scrabbling against the stone. “We did, I swear!”

Ronan got to his feet using the bars of the cage for support. In his hand, he held an amulet Arkady hadn’t seen before. “Where’d you have that stashed?” she asked, clutching her side.

“You don’t want to know,” Ronan rasped. He looked terrible, his face drawn and pale. It was the way he looked at her, though, that really rattled her. She saw fear in his eyes…and guilt. She recognized that look. He knew something she didn’t, and she didn’t like that one little bit. What the hell had he kept from her and why?

With a screech, Atonoskelis flew to the cage and fell on the demon guards. Their screams and pleas for mercy went ignored. Blood and leathery flesh splattered everything in the room as she ripped them to shreds.

“A knife.” Ronan reached through the bars for Arkady while Atonoskelis was occupied. “She’ll kill you.”

The way he said it—not as a danger, but as a certainty—caused her to go still. Before they’d left her house for Carmody Tower, she’d done a quick online search for his angelic name and skimmed what little information was available. Most of it was speculation, but one thing that had stuck in her mind because several sites mentioned it was that Remiel, also called the Thunder of God, supposedly had the gift of foresight. Suddenly Ronan’s fear and guilt made sense.

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