Forged of Shadows: A Novel of the Marked Souls by Jessa Slade

he’d been around long enough to amass scars of resistance.
    “I’m tempted,” she said, “to grab that spiked mace and take a swing.”
    He forced himself to focus on work. Pairing an unproven talya with the right weapon was vital. “If you want to try it out—”
    “Just on you.”
    Ah. He balanced on the balls of his feet as the demon shifted eagerly within him. “Always happy to help my tyros, my new fighters.”
    “Yours?” When she wrinkled her nose, the piercing there glimmered.
    Oh, so the ancient military term didn’t bother her, just the implicit hierarchy. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I am the boss.”
    Her hands clenched as if longing to wrap around that mace handle. Or maybe just his neck. “If you’re the boss, you should know human resources regulations don’t allow you to ask how people were lured to the dark side.”
    “You’re not a human resource anymore, and technically, we’re the repenting side, which is at least a half dozen steps from the dark side.” Thinking of her hands on his skin wasn’t helping his focus at all. But how had the demon cozened her if not through her boldness?
    He took a long step back—physically and mentally—and swept out one hand. “Choose.”
    In his many years commanding the league, he’d learned a new talya’s choice of weapon indicated something about the man and the teshuva inside him. He was getting ahead of himself, putting Jilly through his tests so soon, but the urgency that had ridden him since the appearance of her unbound demon strengthened when she was near.
    And with her hell-bent attitude, he suspected she might need all the weapons she could get.
    He held himself silent and still though every muscle twitched to follow as she stalked past him to circle the room. She paused near the mace, slanted a molten glance at him, and kept moving.
    She passed the white- men-can’t-jump wall of massive, double-handed swords representing a wide, bloody swath of European history. The aesthetically organized Asian collection of katanas and throwing stars earned not even a second look. Instead she came around again to the blunt-force-trauma corner. “No guns? No rocket launchers?”
    “Rocket launchers tend to get noticed. We try not to be. More important, our teshuva need to get up close and personal with the tenebrae to destroy them.”
    “I tracked down my sister’s pimp about a year ago, trying to find out where she’d gone. He stabbed me.” She put her hand against her left side, just under her breast. “Punctured a lung. Nicked my heart. But you already knew that—didn’t you?—from the dossier your people put together. Did it tell you that, even coughing up blood, I managed to knock out a few of his teeth?”
    Liam pursed his lips. “So you’re saying you don’t need a mace.”
    The protective cup of her hand slid around to settle on her hip again. “I’m saying I don’t need a mace.”
    He wanted to argue in favor of the mace, full Kevlar—never mind that body armor interfered with the draining of demonic emanations, which was the sole reason for their immortal existence—hell, throw in a popemobile too. After all, the ferales had sniffed her out for some nefarious reason. And she was the one who’d asked for a weapon.
    Ah, of course. He’d dealt with some angry, violent men in his time with the league, but nary a one as prickly as Jilly. She needed a weapon—she might even want one—but she wouldn’t want to need his. Or him .
    Understanding didn’t blunt the poke of annoyance at her rejection. Just what he needed: yet another fiercely temperamental, insubordinate diva to go with the others—female and male—he already had. The teshuva seemed inexplicably drawn to the type, himself excluded, which often made him wonder how he had ever become their leader. Despite her rebellious independence, she’d come back to him. He would make her see she needed his protection.
    And yet, he couldn’t quite curtail a pang of