23. Okay, Leech, Let’s Get in Formation

The Hallway Moment—capital letters, fucking sue him—lasted about as long as a snowball in hell. Within hours, Liora was back to trying to murder him. She called it training.

He called it foreplay.

She’d left for an hour that day to scout out new locations. A new rotting venue to paint with his blood and her shadows.

Fantastic, so predictable he’d laughed silently behind her back. He could read her like a book. She was a feral cat cornered in that penthouse with him.

Claws out, hackles raised, as though she was waiting for him to try taming her. Domesticating her wasn’t what he wanted.

No, feral Liora meant fun Liora. And fun Liora meant violence. Their mother tongue. For three weeks, they’d taken over a derelict theatre and used its once grand stage to play soldiers on.

The opulent touches had mostly turned to ruin and dust. But glimmers of tarnished gold railings, crumbling scarlet velvet chairs, and sagging balconies still showed it once thrived.

The moth and mold eaten crimson curtains hung like boneless dead men as they stared at each other. He’d just picked himself up from the last time she tossed him across the room.

He straightened, back aching, trying not to breathe too deeply as the dust and sickly sweet decay soaking the air made his throat itch. She glared at him.

I wonder what it would take to make her smile? Wearing my intestines as a necklace? Or letting her gut me like she keeps threatening?

He shoved the questions away as her pissed-off voice sounded.

“You should have seen that coming, leech.”

She was back in her battle braids and leathers. Closed off. Untouchable, or so she thought... his mind ticked away behind his glinting eyes.

He chuckled, winked at her, and said, “Sorry, Red. I told you. I can’t concentrate when you wear that.” He waved a hand at her. Every filled-out curve on explicit display. “I keep waiting for you to whip me.”

Christ. I shouldn’t like the idea of that so much. The dominatrix getup is impossible to ignore.

She shook her head, dark eyes narrowing, shadows hissing at him even as they tried to curl around his ankles.

“Because of you, we have a war at our backs. Stop with the jokes. Hit me. Best me.” She paused as she eyed him critically. He didn’t need to hear her thoughts to know she was cursing his name. “Stop wasting my time. You should have won a fight by now.”

True, he should have. He hadn’t because he didn’t want to. He enjoyed watching her get mad at him. When that pink flush crept up her neck...

enough, focus. He enjoyed learning her moves and predicting her more.

His smirk sharpened as he tossed his iced-iron dagger between his hands. Her weapon was shadow-forged, a black crescent-moon that had nicked his ribs, sliced his bicep, and almost severed his spinal cord.

“Again, think with your big brain this time,” she snapped when he didn’t respond.

He snorted. Shoulders squaring and fingers tightening around his knife. Fine. He’d give her what she wanted.

Ash lunged, a blur of cold precision. No wasted movement. He had none of his old tells. They were her tells. Theirs now. She didn’t back down as he aimed for her throat.

She brought hers up to block him. Their blades met—iron dagger against shadow-forged sickle. Sparks erupted, brief as dying stars. Her pulse quickened.

“Better,” she admitted, feinting left. “But predictable.”

Ash pivoted, catching her kick against his forearm. The impact shuddered up his bones. He gritted his teeth. “Says the woman who’s used the same three traps since 1892.”

Her smirk, rare and annoyingly beautiful, almost matched his. “They work.”

“Worked.” He ducked her sickle, slashing upward. “I’m not your past meals, Red.”

The dagger grazed her ribs. Dark leather split. Black blood welled. Bright and burning, his fangs dropped as its lure hit him.

Liora’s pupils dilated. He doubted she felt much pain from it. It was hunger sparking to life with the hurt. He’d added it to his files long before now.

He kept his expression empty as they broke apart, breathing and blinking in sync. Her restless shadows coiled. His veins hummed with her venom.

“You’re holding back,” Ash goaded, twirling his dagger. “Afraid I’ll break?”

“You wish.” She struck low. Shadows formed into a thousand razors and surged like a tidal wave.

He waited until they got close enough to touch and jumped into them. Tanking the hits as he let his frost spread crystalline fractures through the mass of blackness.

They halted, shivering, ice glittering until they split apart. They swept back to Liora. The ice shattered off the floor, glistening like diamonds. His laugh rattled off the walls, but it was short-lived.

She vanished. He spun, eyes searching the rafters. The sickle’s chain wrapped around his throat. Her knee jammed into his spine, forcing him to his knees.

He stifled a groan. Grinning as her heat warmed his sore back.

“That trick’s getting old,” she hissed in his ear, but her heartbeat elevated.

He’d pulled that move a few times now. Turned out, her magic liked to attack him here, but it didn’t like when he embraced that attack. Her darkness enveloped them both as her breath washed down his stiff neck.

His scars glowed as the warmth trickled across them. Her smokey vipers murmured in Dutch.

Let him win. He almost did it.

Liora never replied. He heard her jaw click, though.

“So’s your martyr act,” He said, throwing his head back—attempting to headbutt her. She phased away. “When do we drop the training wheels, demon?”

When do you stop denying yourself everything you so clearly want?

Liora spun, blade aimed at his heart. “When you earn it.”

Their weapons clashed again as he blocked her, metal sang too high. The battle raged on. He couldn’t keep track of how many times they nicked each other.

Blood flecked the floor—his, hers, indistinguishable. Shattered glass crunched underfoot. She wouldn’t stop. He kept coming back for more.

They could’ve been there for days for all he knew. She sent a legion of shadow snakes that caught him off guard. He braced as they flung him into the air.

He twisted as he fell, landing with a resounding thud. Wood cracked under the impact. He curled into a ball and rolled over the debris. He popped to his feet just a meter away from her.

He let her win until eventually her scent shifted to pomegranates and grave dirt. Fury ablaze in her amber and bruised violet embroidered eyes. Perfect.

“I refuse to die because you weren’t paying enough attention. Focus, leech.”

Ah, there it was. The main reason she needed to fight him before she could surrender to him. He was much easier to kill. If anyone wanted rid of her, all they had to do was end him.

She’d die by default. The thought was acid in his throat, ice in his veins, and maggots wriggling in his dead heart. No, he wasn’t a liability.

Not anymore. He couldn’t be. Ash knew the hunters were waiting for them to slip up. He’d let her waste energy chasing after hints of the foot soldiers searching for them.

The real threat was patient. It was watching.

And the longer they played their violent games in this dead theatre, the more of a beacon they became for the small-fry scouts hoping to make a name for themselves. Alright then.

If the demon wanted to lose, she’d lose.

He marked her stance, defensive as always. She’d twist on her left heel and slam her elbow between his shoulder blades if he lunged. If he swiped for her stomach, she’d drop to a crouch and attempt to cut his Achilles.

He chose neither. He chose speed and rushed her. His dagger aimed at her right side. A feint. She jumped back, sickle swinging for his neck.

He ducked and popped back up. Holding her blade off as she led with a flurry of attacks. Her heart pounded, sweat sprinkled her forehead, braids gradually unravelling.

Gorgeous. She’d walled off her mind again. She was getting too good at it. Even when he asked about her daytime city hunts, it never slipped. For three weeks, she’d been scouring the city for the hunter’s stronghold.

Each night, she came back with nothing but a fresh cut and a deeper scowl. She was only finding the small, roaming teams—the cannon fodder. She hadn’t asked him for his input.

And he hadn’t thought to tell her about the true legion, the one with the witches and the funding. The one determined to recapture him operated like ghosts after what he’d done to them.

He checked their servers every hour he could. They never came online. No new ones appeared either. It was more suspicious than the broad’s eyes Elvis once sang about. They would remain hidden until they chose to be found.

He refocused on the fight. He didn’t need to read her thoughts to know what to do.

After the next flash of her blade as it opened a weeping wound on his forearm, Ash feigned a stumble. Slow to recover from it as he held his breath.

Liora pressed, sickle raised, frustration at his thousandth loss shining bright in her scowling expression. But her scent was all burnt sugar—

—And he struck.

An ice-chain lashed her wrist now, yanking her off-balance before it melted. He wrapped a frosted hand around her nape. And pressed his knife against her throat.

“Checkmate,” he breathed, the word clouding in the tiny space between them. “Is this enough? You can give in now. You’re welcome.”

Silence screeched.

He thought someone had put the world on pause. He thought she’d gut him for his cheek. His muscles tensed at the mental image.

Her chest heaved. Blood trickled from her lip. Her eyes were hellfire softening to ember. Locked on his liquid mercury irises as her aroused fragrance went nuclear.

Then she kissed him.

There was no warning. Just heat and teeth and a growl that vibrated through his undead core. Ash froze—she never initiated; it was always him kissing her these past weeks—before reciprocating with a snarl of his own.

The dagger fell from his grip and clattered to the floor. The sickle dissolved into her shadows as his hands grabbed her face. Tongue sliding against hers as her claws sank into his shoulders.

If I’d known all I had to do was beat her to get her to make the first move, I’d have done it a week ago.

She was wildfire. Burning her way through him. Her teeth bit his lip until it bled, her heat making him desperate to sink into it. Her warmth seeped through his clothes and dripped down his throat with every glide of her tongue in his mouth.

She backed them up. He stumbled over broken support beams. His cock hardened to the point of pain as Liora shoved him against a shadowed wall. Her talons left his flesh with a satisfying snick.

He missed them for a split second, groaning as he realized her intention. Clawless hands tore at his tactical gear, fighting with the buckles.

She nipped his bottom lip every time she failed to get them open. He chuckled into her mouth, letting her choreograph this new dance.

“Patience, demon. Keep trying.”

She kissed him harder to silence him, bruising herself into him. They’d fucked four times since that night in the hall. She didn’t make it easy. It was always a fight he relished. But he had never seen her take the lead like this.

“You still talk too much,” she muttered, coarse, low, and exasperated, against his mouth.

“You like it,” he shot back, fingers hooking under her braids, yanking her hair to bare her throat.

He taunted her fluttering pulse with grazes of his human teeth, only letting a fang scratch the paper-thin skin before he retracted them. He didn’t draw blood, not yet. Still, none of it was gentle.

Good job neither of them wanted it to be.

He mouthed down the elegant stalk of her neck, making her breath hitch as he bloomed bloodied violets over her jugular. She moaned, hips grinding against his.

“I tolerate it. Barely,” she said in a ragged whisper.

He laughed, his hands moving to the straps of her leathers. “Barely sounds like a challenge, Red.”

Just as he unsnapped the first strap, a sharp hiss echoed from the periphery. His erection died, a chill stiffening his spine as their roaming fingers froze. They turned in sync, following the sound to its source.

Liora’s shadows weren’t with them.

They coiled tightly around a cracked pillar, their formless heads whipping towards the theatre’s main entrance. Lashing at the air as they spoke in languages he didn’t know.

Ash stilled, his gaze flicking from Liora’s dilated pupils to the agitated darkness repeatedly. “We have company.”

Her arousal-sweetened fragrance didn’t falter, but her body went rigid. “I know. Stupid mortals,” she growled and shoved away from him.

The chill returned the instant he wasn’t pressed against her. He resisted the impulse to curse and punch the wall as he righted himself and made sure she hadn’t torn his clothes open. Cock-blocking bastards.

He’d just won in more ways than one, and they had to ruin it. As fucking always. Now she’d likely close off again.

Great.

All that for nothing.

He observed as her shadows tidied her hair and formed a weapon for her.

She would have felt the warning a second before he had, he knew.

She hadn’t refreshed the wards this week. He should’ve mentioned it after he noticed the rain washed one of her runes away. Before she could dissolve into her roiling darkness, the barred door splintered inward.

Torn off its rusted hinges by an ear-ringing concussive blast.