Taming the Demon

by Doranna Durgin

  He shifted beside her, a restless motion; it reminded her of that first night. The moments in which he’d finally been able to pause but couldn’t quite be still. Beneath her hand, his breath caught.

  She flattened her fingers over the dusting of hair on his chest, deepening the contact. “Ajay,” she said finally, telling the story, “was tough. And he ran with some guys who were tougher— I never really met them, though he always thought I went behind his back with one of them. But this one night—” She shook her head. “He’d set something up. A meet or something, though I didn’t realize it until later. And it went wrong, and I still—” She hesitated. Were there even words? Blinding lights, the silhouette of conflict, a man staggering out to die at her feet, more blood—

  “More blood than I even thought a body could hold,” she murmured.

  “What?” Vague, that voice...not quite there. She stroked down his ribs—using the touch for herself as much as him, to keep her here, now. Not then, in the alley.

  “He died,” she said. “Right there at my feet. And Ajay, I still don’t know why, but Ajay went into that alley—not once, but twice. I thought he was going to die, too.”

  But it wasn’t Ajay’s face she saw in her mind’s eye, it was the dead man—his features obscured by blood, marred by a broken nose and a split lip. She’d seen only enough to know he’d been slightly older than she...features once handsome.

  And then he’d died.

  “Ajay?” There, now he was back with her.

  She spread her fingers over his side, kneading gently at faintly quivering muscle there. “Mad as hell over something. I don’t know. Didn’t get his way.”

  “This is the guy you were with then?”

  “Hey,” she said, digging her fingers in just a little. “Did I mention I was stoned a lot?”

  “Speed,” Devin said. “My crowd liked speed. But I had—” He stopped. More truth evaded. Or maybe not, for she felt his chest expand, the deepest of breaths. “My brother had—”

  But no.

  He wasn’t going to go there.

  He said, “So a man died at your feet, and it was your personal epiphany.” He laughed, a low sound, and she didn’t understand why except that it was dark and bitter and not aimed at her at all.

  “Something like that ought to be, don’t you think?” She hesitated as his arm tightened around her, and ran her hand down to the hard line of his hip. His sharp exhalation came in acknowledgment of her touch; he nuzzled her temple...kissed the skin just beneath her brow. Not demanding, not needy, just...

  Sweet.

  Damned sweet. One of those sudden grins, gone straight to her heart. Oh damn.

  “Yes,” he murmured, and threw a leg over hers again. Okay, that was needy. But it was fine by her. Even finer that he moved from her brow to her neck, still nuzzling...singing warmth back into her blood. “Something like that...is.”

  She wasn’t even thinking when she said, “Kind of ironic that place turned out to be one of the first Alley of Life projects. All that beauty, in that place of death...no one even knew.”

  The gentle breath stopped—held, for a long moment. “It—what?” And then, not to her—not to her at all—a sudden tension, a recoil, and the desperate sound of protest. “No—”

  Chapter 12

  “Not now,” she told him fiercely. As if she didn’t know the signs by now. As if she didn’t know that they came upon him when he pulled away from her. Responding to her story...to her life. Pulling away, and then losing himself.

  And oh, he did more than pull away from her—he jerked himself free of the shoulder blanket and rolled up onto his knees, his movement laced with an emotional panic new and ragged.

  Except she’d had enough. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and said, “No. You don’t get to do this to me again. Do you hear me? You don’t get to rip me open and turn away!”

  “I don’t—” he said, just as dazed as ever. “It can’t—” Upright didn’t quite suit; he lurched down to his hands.

  “I’m not kidding!” she told him, tears suddenly stinging at her eyes, unfulfilled in both heart and body. Bereft in both. “Not again! You make your choices, too!”

  But when he fumbled forward, it was away from her. Not enough to break her contact, only loosen it—at least not before he suddenly stiffened, and became, again, someone else altogether.

  Some thing else altogether.

  The disjointed fumbling snapped into focused tension. Her hands, slipped to his upper back, felt a vibration...a body-wide growl. “Where?” he snarled, and his voice didn’t sound like his, either—the knife, suddenly in his hand, couldn’t possibly have been with him all along. Not that full-length hunting knife with a sweet killing sweep to the streamlined belly of the blade, handle shaped perfectly to Devin’s grip and metal gleaming blue-white where the room was too dim for it to gleam at all...

  Strobing alley light, blinding her, dazing her—

  He lunged to his feet—lunged at her door, all swift deadly movement, but so very focused on whatever lay beyond that he literally flung himself at the door.

  Only to cry out in sharp surprise. And this time, when he went down, he stayed down.

  For a long moment, she just stared at him. Too hurt—the taste of rejection a bitter thing along her lips—to rush over to check on him. Too wary to get near that blade.

  And yet too compassionate to leave him alone.

  Slowly, she reached for the blanket he’d rejected; she pulled another from the back of the couch—soft and decorative. She tugged her clothes back into place, and eased over to him...not finding the knife at all.

  She covered him, sitting behind him...resting her head on his back. Holding her heart as safely as she could while giving him the only thing that had ever seemed to help.

  But the contact did nothing. Not this time. This time, he twitched and trembled and grunted and sometimes cried out—and if she’d never seen him fight his strange fugue, she’d have said he was simply caught in a terrible nightmare. A bad trip. A big mistake.

  Sometime before morning, she fell asleep.

  Sometime before morning, he left.

  He left her home, he left the estate...

  And he left the sad, deep part of her that had so stupidly come to love him.

  * * *

  Forgetting would have been a blessing. Going hazy...losing himself to the clawing edges of the wild road...any of those things.

  Instead, Devin remembered the night with a crystalline clarity. Not just the coat room and the wild abandon, the deep and mutual fervor that had taken them from one house to the other, shedding clothes and sense along the way.

  Every strand of her hair brushing his face, he still felt. Every curve and flex of her body beneath his hands.

  That, he could happily remember forever.

  Here at Enrique’s in the early morning hours, the heavy bag reverberated beneath his fists, a solid pounding rain of inner conflict beating its pattern on canvas. Jab, cross, left low kick...

  Because he could also remember the way he’d pulled back from her, even as she poured her heart out to him. He remembered her hurt—he remembered turning from her.

  And just because his body had turned into some sort of badly jointed puppet didn’t mean he hadn’t seen her shock—oh, please don’t do this—and then the hard acceptance.

  You did it.

  And especially, he remembered the part where her expression had said it loud and clear—And now it’s done.

  Because truthfully, there was only so much a man could ask. And he’d already gone above and beyond on the very first night they’d met.

  Bag chains rattled; dust sifted. Jab, cross, hook, right low kick...

  And then there had been the blade. Waking for no reason, prodding him into an oddly mindless and animalistic state he could only describe as territorial defiance. Mine. Raking him with its claims, trails of fire that had no business being in his brain or body. Leaving him so defensiv
e and wary that even now—

  High blitz kick series, slam, slam, SLAM... Sweat dripping, now, his breath coming in fast little explosive puffs.

  Yeah, forgetting would have been a blessing.

  “You gonna buy me another one of these again?” Enrique’s voice startled him, too close behind, too sudden. Devin whirled on him—saw that glimmering challenge in Enrique’s eyes, and pivoted back around to slam a final punch into the bag that lifted it on its chains.

  Not a macho challenge from Enrique—not “See if you can hit me.” But “See if you can NOT.”

  Control. Enrique knew it as much as Devin. Enrique had been the one to hold him the night Leo had died. Enrique had cried with him.

  And then he’d told Devin that he’d done the right thing.

  “You scared off my morning kids,” Enrique pointed out, coming around opposite to where Devin now simply leaned against the bag.

  “Good,” Devin grunted, panting. “That one kid—what’s his name, Greg? He’s got that look in his eye.”

  “Gregorio.” Enrique nodded. “It won’t be long now. Try not to break his nose.”

  Devin gave a short laugh, blowing sweat off his upper lip. “The nose is a given.”

  Enrique frowned. “His family cannot fix a nose. We should assign you both to a spar with helmets.”

  “Fine,” Devin said. “Whatever. Whenever. Maybe you’d better make it soon.”

  “Not for the boy,” Enrique said, understanding behind his narrowed eyes. “For you.”

  Devin looked away. “It got Leo.”

  “Leo didn’t know it was coming.” Enrique gave the heavy bag a push, just enough to make Devin take a balancing step back.

  Devin shook his head, snagging the Velcro on his hand wrap and ripping it free with a vicious twist. “Might not be enough, Rick.”

  Enrique pushed away from the bag, coming around to look Devin up and down. “What happened?”

  Devin laughed. “What hasn’t happened?” But this was Enrique, so he rerolled the first wrap and started on the second, shaking his head—but he answered.

  He offered the details Enrique hadn’t yet heard about the night Devin had been hurt, about the nights since then. What it was like, how hard it was to fight...how sometimes he didn’t even know it had him. How Natalie’s exercises helped, but...

  There’d been the old man. The way he’d lost himself in the private hallway. The way he’d killed but could find no evidence of the body. And then night before—

  All of it.

  Enrique snorted. “That part sounds more like a mean high. Peyote, maybe.”

  Devin scowled, finishing up on the second wrap; he tossed them both on the phone table to grab his sports bottle and squirt a stream of water down his throat. After he’d swallowed and before he bothered to wipe off his chin, he said, “It’s no secret what that stuff tastes like. I think I would have noticed—”

  But he hesitated. He couldn’t bring himself to voice it; he couldn’t even bring himself to fully think it. Would he have noticed it, during the previous night of spices and indulgence?

  “What happened at the end,” he said finally. “That was...it wasn’t the same.”

  Enrique shrugged, unwrapping the towel from his neck to throw at Devin. “You want all answers to be the same. Maybe there’s more than one thing happening here.” Now, finally, he hesitated, dark eyes careful. “You felt the wild road, yes? Now you think every failure comes from the call of that road.”

  “I—” Devin scrubbed the towel over his face, frowning fiercely. Thinking it through. “Yes,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for it, and now it’s here.” And they still knew nothing about it. Nothing about the knife. Only what they’d learned by hard experience, he and Leo. And Leo had told them things with an assurance Devin hadn’t understood until the blade had filled his own hand with claiming warmth. Terms, concepts...things he had once been told, but now he knew.

  And far too much that he didn’t.

  “It’s here,” Enrique agreed. “But is it the start of all these things? Or is it just part of these things?”

  These things. Natalie. A bad injury; a gruesome night. Compton and his estate, and a job he wasn’t suited for under the best of circumstances.

  The knife wanted motion. It wanted activity and prowling. If it couldn’t feed off blood, it fed off fear. And if it led Devin to innocents in peril, it did so in order to leach both blood and fear from those who had been the threat.

  For Natalie, he’d stayed at the estate. For Natalie...how could he have said no?

  She hadn’t learned it yet—she might never learn it. But he didn’t think he’d ever be able to say no to her. Not that astute blue gaze; not that mouth. Not the way she moved beneath him.

  “You’re thinking about her,” Enrique said.

  “Huh?” Devin said. “What?” And he glanced at himself.

  Enrique laughed. “It was in your eyes, hijo. Your face.” He shook his head. “Devin. You thought of the woman. Not the wild road. Don’t make this all about the wild road. Not all about the wild road.” He pulled the damp towel away from Devin’s unresisting grip, tossing it unerringly into the laundry service bin along the wall. “Listen to your heart, too. Your instinct.”

  * * *

  Devin had plenty of instinct. He’d just been too afraid to reach for it. Too afraid of where it would lead him.

  “Huh,” he said. “Wisdom with age, is that it, Rick?” And ducked, just barely evading a swift towel flick. He grinned and headed for the shower, shedding intensity for action. “Hey, what about this Sawyer Compton guy? You hear anything about him on that street radar of yours, or is he as clean as he seems?”

  For with Enrique’s perspective on board, he suddenly thought bigger. Wider. He thought of Leo’s death spot, turned to the very first Alley of Life; he thought of Natalie, beset by thugs near an Alley of Life who wanted Compton’s plans.

  Compton’s plans.

  Compton’s Alley of Life gardens.

  Because that was where it had started. The first step. The common factor from which every other tangled experience of these past weeks—these past years—had flowed.

  Not Natalie. Not the blade or the wild road. But Sawyer Compton.

  Chapter 13

  Natalie licked away the last gluey blob of hastily prepared instant oatmeal and rinsed the bowl, leaving it in the sink out of deference to Jimena’s need to load the dishwasher just so.

  “I’m so sorry,” the woman said, fumbling to line up fresh chives on the chopping board. “I don’t know what came over me last night. To have left this kitchen in such a state!”

  “It’s not your job to make my breakfast, Jimena,” Natalie said, giving the woman’s wan appearance a frank assessment. “I’m spoiled, that’s all. And if you aren’t well, you should take the day. You have plenty of personal days built up, I happen to know—and plenty of nutritious, absolutely delicious preprepared meals in that freezer. Mr. Compton would want you to take care of yourself, you know that. And you deserve a break, after the meal you pulled off last night.”

  Last night. Devin and his hands all over her and her body arching in responses completely out of her control—

  Devin and his startling rejection of who she was because of who she’d been.

  Devin and his wild eyes and his inexplicable pain and his need...

  Devin, gone.

  Jimena frowned at the chopping board, creating the neat, chunky garnishes for Compton’s late omelet. She opened her mouth, her brows drawn tightly together, and then shrugged ever so slightly, reaching for a single, perfect red chili.

  “What?” Natalie asked her.

  Jimena shook her head. She said, “It was a puzzling meal. I did my best with the request, but...for company...”

  “They loved it,” Natalie said. “It was unusual. And he took all the credit for the theme of it.”

  “Letting me off the hook, you mean?” Jimena shot her a dry glance, but looked quic
kly away. “I shouldn’t have said that. Whatever comes out of this kitchen is my responsibility. And...” She briskly gathered up the diced condiments, green and red and sharply enticing. “I have concern that the dishes might not have digested well together. But you heard of no one else who wasn’t well?”

  “No one else?” For a moment Natalie floundered—and then she realized, “You?”

  Jimena smiled, a little wryly. “Your young man left some pieces untouched. The others, too, if less so. I made myself dinner from them.”

  Your young man. Natalie hesitated—struck by how deeply those words hit, how absurd it was that it should matter. She said, “You think it was the—” and then saw the embarrassment on Jimena’s face and quickly shook her head. “No,” she said. “I haven’t heard anything.” Because with Devin there was no telling, was there? She added a quick, distracted smile as Jimena broke eggs into a bowl and reached for the whisk. “Take it easy today, okay? I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

  She left Jimena looking more relaxed as she headed upstairs, ducking only briefly into the guest hall bath to brush her teeth and check her appearance.

  The mirror offered no reassurance at all. There she stood, a grim young woman, impeccably dressed and presented—and as wan as Jimena, if in spirit instead of body.

  As if in teaching herself to make her own choices, she’d forgotten to allow herself to just be.

  Devin James...that grin of his, it knew how to grab the moment. His hands, his mouth...those knew how to grab the moment, too. They’d known how to grab her. From the inside out.

  She turned out the light and headed briskly for the office. Damned briskly.

  Compton had been working already—he would see this quiet day as a chance to work unimpeded, his workout accomplished early and his late breakfast break now imminent.

  Natalie pulled out her notes from the day before, entered the pertinent items into his online scheduler and printed out crisp, updated copies.

  Focus on the job at hand. It kept away the creeping memories from those days of what she’d once been; it kept away her endless, nagging guilt that if she’d just done something, said something, even screamed something at just the right time, then the man in the alley would not have died at her feet.