Page 62 of Mortal Heart

“Bastard,” she breathed. She took a step back. They stared at each other. “I called you an honest man,” she added bitterly. “And you kept this from me.”

He offered no defense of himself, probably because there wasn’t one. Instead, he gripped the bars of the cage and tried to pull them apart. “Release me, Atonoskelis,” he demanded. Though still weak, his voice had that imperious tone she’d heard him use on the vamps. “I will fight for our freedom. A human is no worthy combatant for a powerful demon.”

Angered by both his tone and words, Arkady inhaled sharply. He returned her glare with one of his own. “Look at yourself,” he said coldly. “She has already beaten you. You live only because she is toying with you. What can you do against such an adversary, without even a knife to defend yourself? You are not an opponent. You areprey. You’ll go down with a knife in your heart, dead, just like Alice.”

She frowned.Dead, just like Alice…?To her knowledge, Alice had never been stabbed in the heart, by a knife or anything else. What the hell did Ronan mean?

Atonoskelis laughed. “This is all so wonderful, darlings.” She was covered in dark blood and bits of flesh. There wasn’t enough left of the demon guards to fill a cup. What she hadn’t eaten, she’d flung around the room. “Moments ago, you were lovers. Now you hate him.”

“I don’t hate him.” Arkady didn’t look at Ronan. “I don’t feel anything for him at all.”

Atonoskelis’s forked tongue flicked out. “Such anger. It tastes like honey.” She picked up two knives from the puddle of blood at her feet. They were Arkady’s own knives, confiscated by the guards when they’d arrived through the portal.

She held them out to Arkady with a mocking smile. “Choose a weapon, little human. The pathetic fallen angel has made a fair point. You’re no worthy adversary against my claws and poison, but knife against knife, perhaps you will have a chance.”

Not much of one, Arkady thought grimly. Ronan’s comment about her dying from a knife wound had obviously given Atonoskelis the idea. Against any human, Arkady liked her chances in a knife fight, but the demon bitch was still larger, faster, and far less hindered by injury. And if Atonoskelis really meant what she said about not fighting with her claws, teeth, or tail, Arkady would eat Ronan’s motorcycle boots.

Ronan had to have an ulterior motive for suggesting they fight with knives. He clearly couldn’t tell Arkady what it was, so she would have to figure it out.

Maybe the clue was in his strange statement.You’ll go down with a knife in your heart, dead, just like Alice.

Dead, just like Alice—who wasn’t dead at all. Suddenly, it all made sense. Arkady had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.Son of a bitch fallen angel.He’d remembered.

She chose the larger of the two knives that Atonoskelis offered her. “I’m not much of an adversary with a broken arm and cracked ribs, either,” she said, fumbling to hold the knife though she was almost as good with her left hand as her right when it came to wielding a blade. “You want a good fight, give me that healing spell I had in my pocket and let’s make it less lopsided. Otherwise you might as well just shish-kabob me with that fancy tail and be done with it.”

“Oh, very well.” Atonoskelis glanced through the remains of her guards and pointed. “There. Use it.”

Arkady took the crystal containing one of Malcolm’s mid-range healing spells and retreated to the far corner of the room before she invoked it. The damn thing hurt almost as bad as when Atonoskelis broke her arm in the first place. She clenched her jaw as the pulses of Malcolm’s familiar earth magic healed her arm and what felt like three or four cracked ribs, plus assorted minor injuries. It seemed to take forever, and when the last of the magic rolled through her, she had to take deep breaths to get through the nausea.

Atonoskelis didn’t give her much time to recover. “Get up,” the demon said impatiently, her hooves clacking on the stone floor as she paced. “Get up, or I’ll kill you where you lie.”

“Oh, eat a dick.” Arkady said it before she realized Atonoskelis probably did that quite literally with some regularity. With a groan, she rolled to her hands and knees and then staggered to her feet. “Give me a minute, okay? Healing spells suck. I think I’m going to throw up.”

“If you vomit, I will make you eat it,” Atonoskelis snapped. “Pick up your knife.”

“What’s the hurry? You got somewhere to be?” She toed off her other boot, peeled off her socks so she could fight barefoot, and flexed her right arm experimentally. Her elbow felt stiff. Not surprising, but disappointing. She’d hoped for full range of movement. She hadn’t really expected Atonoskelis to let her use the spell at all. Maybe the demon really did want a good fight.Fair enough, she thought. If there was one thing Arkady Rose Woodall could do, it was fight for survival. She’d been doing that as long as she could remember.

Atonoskelis attacked first with three quick slashes aimed at Arkady’s midsection. She seemed decent enough with a blade for someone whose primary weapons were claws and a tail, Arkady decided as she jumped back just in time to avoid being gutted. And she did seem to be sticking to what she’d said about only fighting with a knife, at least for the moment.

She spun, slashed with her own knife, and scored a deep cut across Atonoskelis’s left shoulder that made the demon howl. “First blood to me,” she said as they circled each other. “Still time to tap out if you want to. I won’t tell.”

With a hiss, Atonoskelis attacked again, this time aiming for Arkady’s right arm. The knife sliced through her sleeve and left a shallow cut that stung and trickled blood. Arkady feigned serious injury, gripping it with her left hand and crying out as she rubbed it to smear the blood around and make the wound appear worse than it was.

She didn’t spare Ronan a glance, but out of the corner of her eye she saw him still trying in vain to bend the bars of the cage. Just the fact he was alive after being wounded and poisoned was remarkable. He was stubborn—she had to give him that. Hopefully stubborn enough to find a way out of that cage.

“Mmm…delicious.” Atonoskelis licked Arkady’s blood off the edge of her knife. “Still time to tap out if you want to,” she added, mocking Arkady’s earlier words.

“It’s just a flesh wound.” Arkady made a show of gritting her teeth and let Atonoskelis get a good look at her bloody hand. “I’ve had worse paper cuts.”

They traded threats, insults, and minor injuries for several minutes. Arkady pretended her wounds were far more debilitating than they really were, hoping to catch her opponent off guard, but Atonoskelis proved to be a skilled fighter and didn’t give her any openings. They were closer to an even match than she’d prefer—and that was without factoring in her teeth, claws, and tail.

And then, without warning, everything went to hell.

The ground and everything around them rumbled and shook violently in a sudden earthquake. Thrown off balance when the floor heaved, Arkady stumbled. Atonoskelis pounced, jabbing her knife deeply into Arkady’s upper back near her left shoulder blade.

Despite the pain, Arkady managed to hang onto her own knife, but she couldn’t avoid Atonoskelis’s brutal kick. She hit the wall hard and crumpled to the floor, dazed.

“No!” Ronan shouted, furiously pulling at the bars of his cage. “This isn’t how it happens!”

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