Page 53 of Till Death

Gross. Super gross.

I had to take this one down first, if only to get him to shut up before it made me sick.

“Is this how you defeat your opponents?” I asked, aiming for his gut and landing a punch near his hip instead. My knuckles grazed against bone. “You nauseate them by dredging up the past?”

“No. Usually all it takes is showing them my true form.”

Suddenly, Lust wasn’t in front of me anymore. At least, the dark-skinned man no longer existed. Lust shed his skin and now he loomed, a seven-foot-tall demon with teeth like a shark and glowing coal-black eyes. Sharp spikes grew out long and wicked from each vertebra.

The smile…

“Do you like what you see, Jade?” he asked.

Well, crap. And there I was without a weapon to my name.

“You got what you wanted, Jade, didn’t you?” He struggled to speak over the crowded teeth in his mouth. “You got your boyfriend back. You’ve gotten out of more deals than the devil himself, and now you want to stroll out of Hell like you own the place. Do you think anyone is that lucky?”

“Hey, you don’t know what kind of deals I’ve made lately,” I postured. “I might own the place.”

“Stop trying to talk your way out of this and actually do something for once!” Tamara’s voice cut through the tension. “Unless you’re seriously deluded, your friends are getting creamed back here and I don’t want to be the one left walking this dog once you’re dead.”

Did she seriously call Cole a dog?

I’d had the same thought but damn, I hated it coming from her mouth.

I went for Lust’s jugular with my fist, hoping to distract him and hopefully dodge the claws on my way. The jump cost me a little with that wound in my leg but I made it about chest high. Not close enough to the jugular but it had been a pipe dream anyway.

Gotta think fast.

With fear racing through me, I grabbed Lust by the arm instead and rolled, taking him down with me. He went down on his back but used my momentum against me. The next thing I knew, he had me pinned.

He drew in a deep breath. “Mmm, so sweet. Now I see what Monnie liked about you.”

Sweet enough he might not expect my next move.

As his claws reached down for me, tangling in my hair, and me not really having the maneuvering room to do much else, I kneed the bulge between the legs. Hard. Lust hissed at me before falling to his side. My bone cried out in protest but hey, if it worked, it worked.

“You…you are—”

Lust struggled to get out even a single word.

I scrambled out from underneath him and managed to put a little bit of distance between us. “What’s the matter?” I asked breathlessly. “Do you want me to kiss it and make it better? Or have you realized that size really does matter?”

My heart beat so fast that it threatened to explode out of my chest, the muscles of my torso clenching as I made the last second decision to go for Bertha. She was close enough, if I managed to keep ahead of Lust. My light power was still MIA. Now I only had the sword. It was my best bet in ending this quickly.

Keeping eye contact with Lust, I dove. The world slowed around us. The darkness of the chasm beckoned with my sword poised directly at the edge. Shadows moved, the light faded, and I focused on each breath. Lust moved behind me with heavy footsteps pounding on the dry earth, a roar caught on his throat.

On cue, Eli landed in between us with his spear in his hand. “No further, Lust.”

Something about the scene felt oddly familiar to me but I didn’t stop to think about it. Because this time around, Eli was the decoy. He jabbed his spear through the air straight toward the demon’s stomach. Lust roared, trying to sidestep the jab but he wasn’t fast enough. The golden metal slashed across his leg and hip. Black blood gushed from the wound.

He screeched in Eli’s face and the sound shook the area where we stood. It took every ounce of strength still left for me not to cover my ears against the sound.

And the wound wasn’t nearly enough to slow him down. But it was enough for me to grab Bertha.

Not wasting any more time, I grabbed the sword and swerved, rantowardthe danger instead of away, ducking to avoid Lust’s grabbing talons and trusting the girls to keep Pride busy while I took care of the problem.

These guys were just as powerful as the other demons I’d fought, just as powerful as Monnie had been. Why did they seem so much worse right now?

---