Demon Fire (The Angel Fire Book 3) by Marie Johnston (top 10 novels of all time TXT) 📕

away. The warriors could hunt down Andy and they all could leave him the fuck alone.

He stepped out of the Gloom and refrained from furtively looking around. The less suspicious he acted, the more— Nah. Demons would be suspicious anyway.

He went into his house, opening his senses. He never locked it, or put traps around it. Then others would know he was hiding something and that meant they’d want it. Open or bolted, it was a risk.

He inhaled, filling his lungs with the stench. The fetid swamp at the base of the tallest hill around his house permeated every stone that made up his home. The rotten smell was so strong that even other demons gave his home a wide berth. A small price for some privacy.

The dirt floor revealed footprints that weren’t his. Another demon had been here and it wasn’t his sire. The prints were smaller and tipped with claws. Much like the rest of Sandeen, his feet resembled a human’s. His human form was a detriment in many ways in this realm, but he’d learned how to turn his weaknesses into strengths. Like differentiating prints.

He eased in and shut the door behind him. He waited while his eyes adjusted. Some demons could summon a flame. They bartered the ability. Sandeen didn’t dare make a trade. His eyes weren’t as strong as his counterparts and he had to keep his skills strong.

When he could make out details, he moved farther into the room. Awareness prickled along his skin and made his feathers twitch.

Another stench permeated the air.

“You’ve been gone long enough.”

Aw, fuck. The last time he’d been home, Gerzon had confronted him. He could handle the male again. But his second-in-command was another story.

Zanda reclined on the stone slab that was his bed. His dreams of sleeping on a nice comfy mattress tonight evaporated. He’d have to deal with her.

She had one leg crossed over the other. The way she propped herself on her elbows lifted her breasts into the air. She was nude. Her claw-tipped wings were half folded behind her and draped across his bed like a bony leather blanket. As far as demons went, she wasn’t the ugliest. Far from it. Her burnished brass skin was relatively unblemished with the typical pocks and boils that occurred while living in this type of environment.

Because she was attractive with dainty fangs and delicate horns, she’d become a coveted item. He shared a kinship with Zanda. He used his intelligence to keep on top of the power struggles that were a regular occurrence in this realm, and he’d had plenty of practice—his sire had loved putting him in the fighting rings. Zanda, too, used the way others naturally underestimated her to eviscerate her opponents at their most vulnerable.

They’d make the perfect couple. If he could stand her.

He tolerated her. They’d fucked. He used her and she used him. If he didn’t take what she offered, it’d be worse than a neon sign over his head that he wasn’t an ally of anything in this realm.

“Andy likes to make demands.”

She bared her black fangs. Zanda might be fine boned, but you never saw her coming in the shadows until those sharp fangs sank into your skin and her bloodred tongue suckled you dry.

He repressed a shudder. She liked to latch on to him during sex. He hated sharp things in his body. Weapons, claws, fangs. None of it, and not during sex. But that was his secret.

“Andy needs to be killed,” she hissed.

“Gerzon should go ahead and do it,” he replied blandly.

“Gah. That male is weird about the human.” She tilted her head to study him. She lied. She knew why Gerzon catered to Andy, but he didn’t challenge her. He was more worried she sensed Sierra’s blood. “Gerzon thinks you’re helping the fallen.”

“And Gerzon’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach set me back weeks. I almost had her willingly coming with me.” He grinned wide enough to show his own fangs. Zanda had a thing for them and he wanted to keep distracting her. She couldn’t find his new toy. “But it was fun watching a fallen take him down.”

Zanda barked a harsh laugh. She wasn’t strong enough to defeat Gerzon in an outright battle. Her tactics were more like Sandeen’s. Let others do it, or be there when the opportunity arose to chop his head off herself. “He doesn’t trust you.”

“Of course not.” That was why she was here. To spy on him. He wasn’t going to get rid of her easily. “Look, my host is a bust. I have to find a new one and get back to Sierra.”

“Where is she?”

“Now if I told you that, what would I have for Andy?”

Her black eyes narrowed to slits. “I go with you. We find two hosts. Stay together. Gerzon’s orders.” Orders that probably came from Andy.

Shit. He couldn’t surreptitiously disappear, and he couldn’t disappear at all without his stash of fallen blood. He crossed to the bed and dropped next to her. He fluttered his wings behind him to mingle them with hers.

“Here’s the thing. You don’t want to be Andy’s bitch, and I don’t want to be spied on.”

She uncrossed her leg and slid it over one of his. Her sex was bared. Her favorite signal to tell him she wanted to fuck. “What do you have in mind?”

Even harbingers of nightmares and pain didn’t want to hurt all the time. It was what gave him bargaining power with Zanda. “I tell you where Sierra is.”

And he would. Sierra was surrounded by warriors. If they couldn’t protect her, that wasn’t his fault. The ever-insidious guilt snaked around the base of his skull. He would not feel bad. Sierra wasn’t helpless. She might not know it yet, but she wasn’t.

“And you can bring her in for Andy. Show him that Gerzon is too much brute with too little brains.”

She flipped until she straddled him, but before her claws could dig into his chest and feel the little tool, he whipped his