Free Demon Marked by Meljean Brook

shouldn’t be obsessed with revenge?”
    “Why would I care about that?” How strange. Whether he pursued revenge or not wasn’t any business of hers, except that now she was bound to help him. Other than that, it didn’t matter if he did. “I want to know more about Rachel. So I wondered if she liked you, even though you’re not very likable.”
    He glanced up then, his gaze assessing—as if calculating his response, Ash realized. What would he come up with?
    To her surprise, he came up with an answer. “No. She didn’t like me, not at the beginning. Madelyn told her too much about me.”
    “Madelyn told her lies?”
    “No, the truth. Madelyn told Rachel that I intended to destroy Wells-Down—and destroy her —in any way that I could.”
    “So you were just as bent on revenge before Rachel died as you are now,” Ash observed. “And just as unlikable. But you changed Rachel’s feelings toward you.”
    Icy amusement touched his mouth. “I can be charming.”
    Ash didn’t doubt it. Though he was cold now, she thought Nicholas St. Croix could probably pretend to feel something when it was convenient. He’d know how to flatter a woman, to make her feel special. He’d calculate her every reaction, and add her response to a reservoir of data that he could use to further his agenda.
    “She loved you.”
    Though the icy amusement didn’t leave his expression, Ash sensed a hardening within him, as if he’d put another lock on the door separating her from his emotions. That , she thought, was his true response. He showed her one reaction, and although the hardness didn’t feel any warmer than his amusement and she had no idea what lay beyond that barrier he’d erected, the very act of strengthening that barrier told her enough. Some deep emotion lay within him, and he felt a need to hide it from her.
    “Yes,” he said easily. “She did love me.”
    “I suppose she must have. The police report said she threw herself in front of you.” That sounded like love—a rather dramatic, soap-opera sort of love, at least. Ash had her doubts. “What really happened? Who really fired the gun? You said that Rachel blocked Madelyn’s shot—but I can’t believe Madelyn tried to shoot you. It would break the Rules.”
    His eyes narrowed. “You think I lied about not killing Rachel?”
    “Yes.” Ash could almost feel Madelyn’s strong fingers digging into her arms, shaking her. Don’t break the Rules. Don’t! “Madelyn warned me not to kill anyone. It’s one of the few things I remember from before Nightingale House. So I can’t believe that she’d be foolish enough to shoot you.”
    “I see.” He gave her that assessing stare again before abruptly continuing, “Madelyn didn’t break the Rules when she fired the gun. I gave her permission to shoot me.”
    What? Ash hadn’t expected that. Astonishment leapt through her, new and intriguing. But as much as she wanted to concentrate on the feeling, his admission proved more fascinating.
    “You told Madelyn to kill you? Why would you do that?”
    “When I swung by Madelyn’s house that evening to pick her up after work, Rachel invited me in. Madelyn was still in the office upstairs.”
    “Did you know Madelyn was there, too?”
    His thin smile could have been a yes or a no, and Ash couldn’t decide which was more likely: She believed that Nicholas would have relished the confrontation with Madelyn, and she believed that Nicholas hated his mother enough that he wouldn’t have entered the house if he’d known she was there.
    In the end, she supposed it didn’t matter. He’d gone in.
    “Madelyn and I argued, of course.” He said it casually, setting aside his computer and sitting back, as if settling in for a comfortable chat. “Madelyn drew a gun from her desk, and I told her: Shoot me, then. You’ve wanted to get rid of me for twenty years. So do it. She did, but Rachel got in between. Then they disappeared.”
    So he had given permission. But