time lower. “I am, and to prove it, I’ll tell you my race’s most closely guarded secret: we actually can’t damn anyone’s soul.”
“The fuck you say?” Ian sputtered.
My mouth dropped open in disbelief, too.
Ashael gave us a negligent wave. “Yes, I know—it’s a dirty trick, but a good one, right? Holds up well, too, because ninety-nine percent of the time, nice people don’t make deals with demons. Only terrible people do, barring the rare exception. So, when those people die and their souls go straight down? Boom!” Ashael clapped, and Denise jumped. “Reinforces our claim that we had the power to damn them. But we don’t. People damn themselves by their own choices. We have nothing to do with it, but far be it for us not to take the credit.”
“Then how did Dagon eat Ian’s soul after he died?” I asked, reeling.
Ashael grimaced. “It’s forbidden, but some demons have the ability to hold souls inside themselves to absorb their residual energy. Like temporary housing, with benefits. But they can’t do it permanently. Eventually, Dagon would’ve had to release Ian’s soul as well as the others inside him to their final destination, which he would have had nothing to do with.”
“You’re swaying,” Denise said in alarm.
I hadn’t been aware of it, but with how I was suddenly leaning against Ian’s new, tight grip around my shoulders, I must have been.
“You’re the one who should be shell-shocked,” I murmured to Ian. “You thought you were damned, and all along, it was a trick.”
“Yes, and that’s information that would have been very helpful before,” Ian said, with a hard look at Ashael.
“Don’t glare daggers at me,” Ashael said in a mild tone. “Dagon’s claim on you had already been dealt with by the time we became family through Veritas.”
Ian still wasn’t finished. “What’s the point in making deals with people, if in truth the demon gains nothing?”
“I didn’t say demons gained nothing,” Ashael corrected him. “I said that demons can’t damn souls. But the brands demons put on people after a bargain is akin to sticking a hose into a car’s gas pipe to siphon petrol. We obtain a tremendous amount of energy through the brand, all while leaving the vehicle—or person, to abandon the car metaphor—intact.”
“Nathanial,” Denise whispered. “For centuries, he thought a demon owned his soul. When he finds this out—”
“Don’t tell him.” Now Ashael’s voice was sharp. “Don’t tell anyone. You needed something to prove I could be trusted. I gave it to you, but if you start bandying this knowledge about, other demons will come after you like the proverbial wrath of hell. There’s a reason this secret has been kept for eons. People who talk about it soon find themselves permanently silenced.”
“Veritas needs to sit,” Ian said, which I thought was an odd change of subject, until I realized my legs were buckling.
“I’m just tired,” I said, surprised that my fangs popping out made me lisp the words. My fangs hadn’t caused me to lisp since I was a brand-new vampire, and . . . Mmmm. Denise smelled good.
“Mmmm,” I said out loud, leaning to take a deeper whiff.
Spade shoved himself between me and Denise, giving me an appalled look. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Smelling your delicious wife,” I replied without thinking.
Denise blanched. Ian tilted my face toward him, which I fought because the pulse in Denise’s throat was mesmerizing.
“When’s the last time you fed?” Ian asked me.
Gods, had Denise bathed in blood and baked goods before coming out here? She must have, because she smelled like a Cinnabon-flavored artery.
“Don’t know.” Dammit, I lisped again! That’s what I got for being so tired, even my tongue felt heavy.
“Judas’s bleached bones!” Ashael snapped. “Didn’t you feed from some of the blood bags I brought you?”
Spade flew Denise away before I replied. Statues on pedestals around the doorway smashed to the ground from his swiftness.
I swallowed. “I’m sure that wasn’t necessary—”
“It is if you haven’t fed in over two weeks,” Ian said, exasperated. “Why didn’t you feed from the blood bags Ashael brought?”
“I took sips here and there, but I didn’t take more because you needed them. I also didn’t count on being in stasis for almost a week.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “Endangering yourself to protect me yet again! I wouldn’t have died if you’d have fed from one or two of those bags, but you might’ve died if you’d ripped out Denise’s throat, because not even our centuries of friendship would have stopped Charles from trying to