Cipher (Demonica Underworld #8) - Larissa Ione Page 0,11

to say. Next you’re going to tell me that this is mind rape.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Or rape rape. Whatever.”

Well, yeah, technically...

As a fallen angel who had allowed the malevolence of Sheoul inside her, Lyre should embrace all acts and all things evil. But every once in a while, like now, her past and her memories rose up, all inconvenient and shit.

Her ex had been a vigilante of sorts, a demon who’d put his ability to cause nightmares to good use. Anyone who harmed others could find themselves victims of his gift, but rapists had been his favorite targets. He’d have paid to haunt Flail’s dreams until she went insane.

Lyre couldn’t haunt Flail’s dreams or drive her insane, but she could put a boot up the skank’s perfect ass.

“Get out, Flail.” She sent a mental flare at the door, and it creaked open. “He’d rather die than screw you, so this is pointless.”

Ignoring her, Flail again gestured to Cipher, inviting him closer. He snarled, his hatred hanging in the frosty air with his breath. But he shuffled toward her, his efforts to resist making his steps jerky and uncoordinated.

Son of a bitch. “I’ll call the damned guards,” Lyre ground out.

“And you’ll answer to Bael,” Flail shot back. “He ordered me here.”

As a baby fallen angel with weaker powers than most, Lyre was always outranked by every fallen angel she encountered, including Flail. But not here. Not as long as Cipher was in her charge.

Lyre came at Flail, ready to take the skank down with her bare hands. She might be pathetically weak when it came to angelic powers, but she’d spent a lifetime training in physical combat to help make up for her lack of supernatural ability.

“Bael ordered you to seduce him,” she said, halting at the very edge of the other female’s personal space, “but he ordered me to train him and care for him, and I say he’s had enough.”

Flail’s jaw tightened, her lips mashing into an angry slash, and Lyre summoned power to have at the ready if the other female struck out. Lyre was hopelessly outgunned and outclassed by Flail, but within the confines of the power-dampening cell where only low-level abilities could be used, Lyre could hold her own enough to avoid a serious ass beating.

Plus, she had a really sharp dagger at her hip.

“I’ll leave,” Flail said in a shockingly peaceful capitulation, “but only because you ruined the mood.” She leveled a warning look at Cipher. “I’ll be back tomorrow, and we will finish what we started. But your handler’s little stall tactic is going to cost you. We’re gonna do all of this again...but we’ll do it in the arena in front of an audience.”

Flail flicked her wrist, and the ascerdisc tore out of Cipher’s chest with a wet, ripping sound. He grunted and clutched at the bleeding wound as she stalked out of there, not even bothering to take her corset. No surprise. Flail had always been an exhibitionist.

Which was why she was probably already drooling over tomorrow’s arena sex show starring Cipher.

For some reason, the idea repulsed Lyre in every way.

She’d attended a lot of Bael’s erotic displays—he used the arena to host both pain and pleasure, and if they happened at the same time, even better. And she’d seen Cipher in the arena, fighting battles that could have killed him. But this would be a fight he couldn’t win, and death might actually be kinder.

After closing the door, she turned back to Cipher, who watched her with wild eyes, a wounded predator, in pain and more dangerous than ever.

“Let me heal you.” Like all her abilities, her healing power was limited in scope and strength, but she could at least take the edge off and jumpstart the process.

He bared massive fangs dripping with his own blood. “Don’t touch me.”

Of all the times she’d seen him following a death match, or torture, or forced hard labor, he’d never looked like this. Exhausted, yes. Bleeding and barely conscious, sure. Trembling and puking, yeah, once or twice. But no matter how battered he’d been, defiance had burned in his eyes. That same unyielding hatred still smoldered there, but now it shared space with doubt. And maybe a little anxiety.

Flail had gotten to him. She was famous for it. But what deep, emotional scar had she ripped open to do it? Cipher wasn’t going to survive the arena mentally intact, was he? He’d come out of it as evil as any fallen