Life Cycle (5 page)

Every fiber in her being screamed to kill him, not
that she could. The second best option would be to seal him in a
jar and bury it in the middle of his desert where no one would ever
find it—an option she was considering.

“I’m not going to be your concubine.”

A smirk. “Of course you are. What other option do you
have?”

Smug bastard.

“I’ll get another demon to do it.” Though any demon
she asked could just do what Cain had done. Before long she’d be
the demon slut with a death wish. Gross. And anyway, there were no
guarantees any given demon would be strong enough. Some might be
too young. Did she really want to risk starting a new cycle? Cain
was a sure thing.

“They won’t do it. They’re afraid of me. You should
be, too. I can do a lot more interesting things than kill you.”

He left before she could form a retort. She hated
that demon.

Chapter Two

When Cain stepped outside the tent, a group had
gathered, murmuring and whispering. “That witch is mine. Anybody
who touches her will face imprisonment. And I’m not in the mood to
make it a light sentence.”

A few throats cleared and a couple
of
Yes sirs
filled the air.

“Good. Spread the word. Nobody touches her.” He
selected two demons from the group for the first guard duty and
left the city to go to the one place he always went to think: the
caves that served as the dimension’s prison.

Each disobedient demon was in his own pod, the stone
sealed tightly around him, starving and going mad. But anyone
stumbling upon the caves wouldn’t know that.

It was silent and peaceful in the dark, twisting
caves. It was a place Cain could wander to think without fear of
being disturbed. No demon in his right mind came near this place.
They all feared it. It was their one symbol of abject terror, much
like the humans feared Hell. No one walked in willingly, except the
man with the keys to the place.

Cain sat on a large rock and put his head in his
hands. He shed the glamour he always wore to attract prey and ran
his fingers along the scar on his forehead. He was so good at
betraying and killing people, so why hadn’t he killed her?

It wasn’t a simple motivation to untangle. Part of it
was jealousy—the fact that she could waltz in and demand freedom
when he had no such recourse. He was stuck in this form for
eternity, why shouldn’t someone else who’d made that bed lie in it?
Why should she get off so easily? The witch had actively chosen
this.

Another, more subtle reason pushed from beneath the
surface like grass fighting through the cracks in concrete. It was
a reason he didn’t want to analyze too deeply. She was two thousand
years old. He might have six thousand years on her, but at some
point the years blended together. It wasn’t as if he wanted to make
her his mate, but if he ever wanted something like that with
someone, Tam represented the only woman who could be remotely
suitable. Killing her before he was sure he never wanted that
didn’t seem prudent.

Human women now were such silly things. But he could
feel the age on the witch in big and small ways: her nonchalance at
the prospect of death, the deep wisdom in her eyes, her unconcern
with her own nudity in the presence of strangers. Most
women—without thrall—would have rushed to cover up if they weren’t
playing the role of seductress. They couldn’t have just been there
with him and the other demons and it not even occur to them that
they should cover up. Tam had stood there in all her naked glory,
too old to have sexual hang-ups.

She’d also been strong enough that
she could fight his thrall—to some degree. That had never happened.
The fact that she could make a snide remark in the middle of
everything... it was hard not to respect that. How could he just
snuff that out? He sighed.
Within a week,
I’ll be bored, then I’ll be able to do it.
And if he couldn’t? He might as well seal himself in a magic
bottle. Getting involved with a witch was too dangerous.

He wandered the caves, not ready to go back to town.
He didn’t want to look at her or deal with demon whisperings about
why he’d kept a powerful witch alive in their camp. They surely
knew by now why she was here. It had to have crossed all of their
minds that it was simpler and safer to kill her than to protect
her. As long as it wasn’t by The Cycler’s hand, it was a clear
win.

But despite the things that made him want to kill
her, she’d fought with him—on his side. She’d pledged allegiance to
fight with his kind and bring her coven with her. He hadn’t felt
such conflicting emotions about a human in a long time, so long he
thought he’d lost the ability to think of them in any terms but
feeding. Disposable microwavable dinners in flesh cartons. A bit
cuter, but that was the basic way he classed the species as a
whole. Now he had a two-thousand-year-old, magical gourmet feast
and he’d just left the table.

He needed a drink.

***

Tam posed in front of a freestanding, antique mirror.
The reflection was cloudy, like old mirrors are, but she could see
enough. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t like the dress, but
no way was she flouncing about looking like some Underworld God’s
concubine. She wouldn’t give Cain the satisfaction.

And she didn’t need protecting from the other demons.
She had magic. The only reason she’d been subdued by his thugs in
the first place was that three had rushed her all at once right
after she was depleted and disoriented from screwing Cain. Plus
there was the earlier packing spell. It was a lot of energy to use
all at once, ungrounded by other magic users—even with her age.

She made a face at the mirror, angry with herself for
sleeping with him. She should have known he’d go back on his word.
But why? What purpose could it serve? She had no illusions that she
was some amazing sex bomb. He’d had so many women that the odds
there was something magical about her lady parts were so slim as to
be idiotic. And at nearly two thousand, Tam didn’t harbor those
kinds of female delusions.

Even so, sex with the demon was
everything she’d ever thought it would be. She hated that he’d been
right about the fantasy thing. Yes, Cain had starred in a few, but
he was just so hot and evil. That was like moth and flame with her.
After all, once upon a time, she and Jack... She squeezed her eyes
shut.
Not thinking about that.

Their past affair wouldn’t stop him from hunting her,
but she’d also known he might save her for last. She made a valiant
effort, but she couldn’t help thinking about it.

Tam rolled over, wrapping the sheets around herself.
She smiled when she saw Jack standing in the doorway. He was fully
dressed, like he’d been out. She frowned. Was that blood on him?
There was a dark gleam in his eyes.

“
I killed Michael,” he said, his voice flat of
emotion even as his eyes danced with glee.

One of the coven.

“
What? Why?”

“
We had a fight. It was an accident.”

“
Where is he?”

“
Buried.”

The word held so much finality.

“
Buried? Why? He’s coming back.”

Jack shook his head. “No. He isn’t. It’s the
loophole, Tamar. The one I didn’t think about when we all bound our
blood together. We can kill each other. Really kill. No more
cycling.”

If that were so, shouldn’t he be grieving? Shouldn’t
he display some sign of remorse or guilt?

Tam got out of the bed slowly. With that crazed look
in his eyes, bolting like a spooked deer would do her no favors.
But surely he didn’t want to kill her, too. There had always been a
darkness in him, one she’d ignored... or been drawn to. But things
had changed.

“
I feel different,” he said. “Very different.” He
crossed the room and pulled her into an embrace. “Something is
happening,” he whispered. “I want you to scry and find out
what.”

She’d done as he’d asked and still wished she’d
refused and found a way out of there. Once he’d known killing the
others could make him stronger, he’d promised they could still be
together. He’d let her have some of the kills, split his power with
her, then they’d do another spell to boost it. But she’d been
disgusted by the idea of going on a killing rampage for power,
especially killing those who had stayed near and dear to her for
centuries. They were the only people she didn’t lose. Her only true
family after everybody else had died off.

She’d fled and warned the others to disperse and
hide. A few of the women had come together again in London in the
early 1800s, missing each other and convinced they were stronger
together—especially with the unlikely identities they’d created.
But he’d sensed their combined power and hunted them like dogs.

Tam stood frozen as Jack looked up. She retched when
she saw the bloody tableau in front of her. He put the knife down
and smiled, his creepy gaze panning her body as if they’d been
lovers only yesterday.

“
You’re a fast little rabbit, but not fast
enough. We can still be together. I’ll let you have the other
kills.”

She shook her head and bolted down the alley,
fighting to erase the image of her friend from her mind, Jack’s
horrible laughter following her well past the point she should have
been able to hear it.

Tam couldn’t look at herself in the mirror again. She
didn’t want to see the guilt or the tear streaks. All of it was her
fault. She’d used her gift to find the cavern. She’d written the
chant. She’d scried for Jack after his first kill. Her evil former
lover was hunting her, and the evil lover she’d just been with
wanted to keep her around until he got bored. No matter how many
times she and Cain slept together, she wouldn’t fall for a pretty
monster again. She couldn’t.

Once she’d recovered enough power, she put her things
in the middle of a circle on the ground, opened her magic book,
poured the salt, and lit the candles. It took less energy to undo a
spell than to create one—at least when you were the creator of the
spell. Undoing another witch’s magic was a near impossibility half
the time.

Just as she finished, a demon burst into the tent.
She summoned an energy ball and threw it at him, scorching him in
the shoulder before he could go noncorporeal.

He growled. “What are you doing, Witch?”

“Unpacking my things, Demon.”

He regarded her and the pile of boxes and bags in the
circle suspiciously.

“Go get me something to eat,” she said, suddenly
famished. Well, yeah... running and sex with a demon and all that
magic. Anybody would be ravenous. “I’m human. I still need food.
Did you think I survived off sex with your evil leader?”

He grumbled but left the tent, presumably to address
her food demand.

She stepped outside to yell after him, “Oh, and I
better see a cheeseburger and some fries when you get back—nothing
stupid an herbivore would eat like an apple or vegetable.” Who knew
what demons thought most humans ate?

When he’d gone, she peeled the dress off and returned
it to the trunk, then changed into something less slutty: jeans and
a T-shirt.

Tam sat back down in the circle and pulled her tarot
deck out of a bag. She unwrapped the red silk, shuffled the deck,
and laid the cards out, focusing on her intent as best she could at
the moment.

Not good. The death card was still
in there, and the tower, and the lovers. The pretty epic major
arcana cards. Ick. It looked like the kind of reading Romeo and
Juliet would have gotten before that poisoning episode. The tower
usually represented a rude awakening, war, or some type of dramatic
shake-up in one’s life. The lovers, of course, were
self-explanatory. And the death card... in this spread? Well, it
didn’t seem like just a
big
change
. But then, if death was her goal,
why was she filled with so much foreboding over it?

It could mean anything. The cards could mean Jack was
going to kill her, or Cain was. It could mean any kind of struggle
or fight or revelation was soon to go down. It could be about her
former relationship with Jack or sleeping with Cain now.

Tam made a frustrated sound and scattered the cards,
not wanting to look at them anymore. In the scatter, they all
turned face down—except the death card. It was hard to read one’s
own cards anyway. You couldn’t be as objective, always seeing what
you wanted instead of what was there. Though there was no
interpretation of those cards that sounded like a fun time.

There was a disturbance outside the tent, raised
voices. Tam gathered the cards and wrapped them back in the silk
before moving toward the doorway. She heard Cain and a demon guard
on the other side.

“Why is only one of you still here?” he snarled.
“What is with this sudden rash of disobedience?”

“That witch of yours was doing magic in there. Mace
went in to check it out and came back with a scorch mark on his
shoulder. She sent him on a cheeseburger run. I don’t know why
we’re keeping her alive. She’s a danger to us. We should kill her
now. We don’t owe the other preternaturals anything.”

Cain growled. “I’ll be the one to
kill her. There is no
we
in this equation. And I’ll kill her when I’m good
and damn ready.”

“Y-yes, sir,” the demon said, losing his
bravery.

Tam stumbled back as Cain ran into her. He arched a
brow in that sexy way she didn’t want to overthink.

“You sent one of my demons on a cheeseburger
run?”

“I’m
hungry
. Do you understand humans eat
food?”