Taming the Demon

by Doranna Durgin

  “If I say it again, will you believe me this time? I set up the man’s schedule. He’s at a meeting this morning. Security will be light. The lower house is being cleaned; Jimena has the morning off.” She shrugged. “After what happened last night, did he cancel everything? Is he waiting for us? I don’t know. He’s a brilliant man, Devin. He gets what he wants.”

  Devin grumbled, deep in his throat. “That would be why we have to figure out what he does want.”

  “Yes,” she said, and the look she gave him held an affection he hadn’t expected. Desire, they had in plenty. A raw and naked attraction. But that look...

  That look said she knew him. She understood him.

  Maybe that they could—

  Leo. Blade. Doomed. And don’t forget it. What she could do for him was temporary. And even if neither of them was inclined to deny the moments they could have, that’s what they were. Moments.

  Don’t forget it.

  “Give me twenty minutes to freshen up at home and make it to the main house alarm, and you can come in through the kitchen. I’ll meet you there—we’ll use the back stairs and head straight to the private wing. In and out, everything’s quiet, and we can decide where to go from there.” She gave him a wry smile, glancing away from the road to do it. “If something’s there to find, I have the feeling we won’t be left wondering.”

  He laughed shortly—a dark sound, little humor. “Yeah,” he said, and when she looked back at him again, a little startled, he found himself looking away. You have no idea.

  Chapter 19

  Just as planned.

  Natalie breathed a sigh of relief when she found her phone in front of her little home; she breathed a further sigh of relief at the completely undisturbed nature of the door and the living space beyond.

  And she never forgot she was on camera.

  Didn’t matter that he might not be watching this moment—he clearly had the capacity to store the recordings...as well as the inclination.

  Although perhaps that night had been a special one. If he’d truly drugged Devin...if he’d wanted to keep track of the results, whatever his purpose behind it...

  Oh, God, we nearly made love right there on the floor.

  But they hadn’t. They’d had that particular moment in privacy, and now she’d come back to reclaim her life.

  Devin’s life.

  So she for sure didn’t look up at the spot she knew the camera occupied—probably in the smoke alarm. She made a show of examining the recovered phone, and then of plugging it into its charger, and then she did as she might normally do—she shrugged out of her coat, dropped her purse on the couch and unsnapped her slacks, shedding them on the way to the bedroom. Eat your heart out.

  From there, she made quick work of it—pulling on fresh underwear and jeans, taking a few moments to gather up her hair, clipping it into a casual twist at the back of her head, the back length of it still tumbling free.

  It was, she realized, instinctively calculated. As if she’d suddenly allowed herself to see that Compton had always treated her as more than just a personal assistant. Something controlled, something desired...something owned.

  Something wanted.

  But if he wanted her, then that gave her power in return. So if she ran into him, and if she could throw him off balance—even just a little—she’d take that power.

  She didn’t need much makeup; her skin still shone burnished by kisses. She gave her eyes some drama, made the blue of them pop—and then tucked Devin’s shirt into the jeans.

  Compton would know. Let him think about that, instead of whatever plans he’d made and inflicted upon her. Upon Devin.

  Supposing he was here at all.

  Please don’t be here.

  It’s not what this day was about. Even Devin didn’t want it that way.

  Not yet.

  She pulled her coat back on and headed out the door at a brisk walk. Natalie, making it to work late after a night out. No precedent for it, but she didn’t owe this estate her life...much as she’d somehow ceded it that very thing.

  The security, as usual, was invisible. Whoever watched her did it unseen. She slipped in the front door, quickly disarming the security system—and, through force of long habit, snagged her coat over one of the hooks just inside the coat room.

  Normal is as normal does.

  Except she didn’t quite make it to the kitchen door in time.

  A woman’s cry of alarm, a harsh sound, a slamming door and then metal clattering across tile—for an instant, Natalie froze. Jimena? But this was her morning off—

  A high, thin cry, Spanish words cut off in midvoice, and Natalie found her feet again—started running, reckless through the kitchen door and breathless not at the short sprint but at what awaited her there.

  Devin, jammed up against the closed back door, his expression hardly Devin’s at all. Calphalon pans scattered across the floor, a saucepan canted at the edge of the counter—and a pan tipping out of Jimena’s fingers where it had quite obviously been clutched as a weapon.

  Jimena’s gaze, dark and frightened, darted between Natalie and the eight-inch Wusthof chef’s knife just out of her reach. Help me.

  Oh, Jimena...

  “Devin,” she said, deliberately releasing a deep breath—one he would hear. One she hoped he would key in on. Relax. Because what she saw in his eye—

  No. Not Devin at all. And nothing like the man she had left only moments earlier.

  His hand closed around Jimena’s throat from behind. And that throat suddenly looked so very fragile...that hand, so very strong. Long fingers, scarred over the knuckles...knew how to take a beating, knew how to give one.

  Bloody fingers.

  Finally, she saw the sleeve of his coat—the rent material, the blood staining the edges. Nothing like what he’d lost the night before, but so violent—

  “The dog,” she breathed. “I heard a dog—”

  His expression went glowering dark. Jimena, faltering as she began to understand that Natalie wasn’t going to help save her from this version of Devin gone mad, whispered desperately, “Mr. Compton brought it in last night.”

  Now? It had been two years since the last one. Longer. Almost since Natalie had first arrived. Now?

  No coincidence.

  She looked at Devin, and suddenly understood. “It came for you,” she said. “You killed it.”

  He held out his other hand, palm open, the agate-handled knife displayed...traces of gore over bright blade. Jimena stiffened, her thoughts writ clear on her face. She couldn’t reach the knife on the counter, but this one—

  “No, Jimena,” Natalie said softly, and she stepped closer. She took the pan from the woman’s hand and set it aside, never removing her gaze from Devin’s—hunting some hint of the saner man within.

  He hadn’t been prepared for violence. He hadn’t been strong enough for it. Oh, strong enough to survive it—but not to keep the blade out. “Come back to me, Devin. Jimena won’t be a problem.”

  Jimena’s mouth opened; Natalie saw the words in her expression. The protest that they had come like this; the awareness that they were, somehow, working against Compton’s interest.

  Devin’s hand gave a reflexive twitch at Jimena’s throat; she stifled a cry.

  It was the rebellious nature of his own hand that seemed to do it. He took a sudden, sharp breath, jaw working and nostrils flared, and quite suddenly pushed Jimena away from him—a hard shove at that.

  Jimena stumbled, but it didn’t stop her from making a snatch at the blade in his open hand. Something dark ruffled through the air—it might have been a silent laugh, as Devin closed his grip around the knife and moved it aside, an unhurried motion, skating just aside from her grasp.

  “No!” Natalie put herself between them, taking Jimena’s arm—leading her a few more crucial steps down the counter and, while she was at it, making sure there were no more potential weapons to hand. “You need to leave us to this, Jimena. It’s import
ant.” She glanced back at Devin, found him shaking it all off...the knife, out of sight.

  The look he gave her then was rueful and matter-of-fact. “She met me at the door with that fry pan. Nearly got me, too. But I—” he stopped, hesitated. “I wasn’t in the mood for it.”

  No kidding.

  Jimena straightened with some pride. “This is my kitchen,” she said. “You shouldn’t be here.” But she, too, hesitated. “I didn’t realize it was you when—” She glanced at the pan on the floor.

  Natalie picked it up, set it firmly on the counter. “What are you doing here? If I’d had any idea, I would have told him to knock.”

  Jimena scowled, shaking back wavy black hair normally captured in a hairnet. “I said. This is my kitchen.” She looked directly at Devin. “You became ill. So was I.”

  Natalie suddenly saw the signs—supplies in the sink, a few remaining items of food at the end of the counter. “You were cleaning.”

  “Trying to find—” Jimena stopped, lips pressed together. “At least cleaning to be sure.”

  Natalie exchanged a glance with Devin, who shrugged, rubbing his arm...fisting his hand and then shaking it out again. He said in a low voice, “I’m sorry about the dog. That wasn’t right.”

  “You need to go,” Jimena said firmly. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not right for him to be here.”

  “You’re right,” Devin said. “It’s not. But Sawyer Compton drugged me. He’s been using me. He’s been using Natalie. For years, both of us. Maybe we’ve been a little slow to catch on, but...” He grinned. Nothing of the exuberance, the honest humor—all teeth and darkness. “We’re catching up now.”

  Jimena turned a troubled face away from them—only a swift glance to check Devin’s reaction as she reached for her errant knife and placed it into its block with the set.

  Finally, the words lingering behind that troubled look came out. “I found a powder spilled in the back of the True, where I chilled the finished servings. Very bitter.” She looked at Devin. “Lo siento, but still, you stay out of my kitchen!”

  Devin grinned at her, and it was back—just for a fleeting moment. Honest and right through to the heart of him. “Lo siento, Jimena.”

  She pressed her lips together again—glanced out into the main house...lowered her voice. “That man of his was here this morning. He stayed the night, I think. He left a mess! I heard him arguing with one of the others. About a shooting...a beating. I don’t like that man; I don’t understand why Mr. Compton keeps him around.” Scorn crossed her oval features, filled her voice. “Ajay Dudek.”

  Ajay.

  Here. Now.

  A glance at Devin told her everything. The recognition, the rising anger. Apology, and, dammit, compassion. She couldn’t keep the accusation from her voice. “You knew.”

  He lifted one shoulder. “I’ve been putting it together.” But then he hesitated. “Last night, he almost killed Enrique. He—” He glanced at Jimena. “He had the gun.”

  He’d shot Devin.

  “Natalie.” He took a step into the kitchen; the wild ferocity of the blade had deserted him. Now he looked every bit of what he’d been through the night before. Now she could see how he favored his leg, held his body to protect his back. “Now we know,” he told her. “We know it goes deep, and we know it goes long.”

  Right. Had she just been coincidence back then? Tangled up with a man she’d never truly known, and then turned into a pawn over the years?

  Maybe it didn’t matter. She knew enough. She knew she’d been used—then, and ever since. None of her careful choices had truly been choices at all.

  “Okay,” she said, and forced the words through a tight throat. “Now we get to find out why.”

  Something sparked in his eyes—a deep smile...a deep pride. He didn’t have to say the words that came next, and neither did she.

  And then we stop him.

  * * *

  Compton turned away from the table at which sat his hopefuls—restaurant manager, hostess, chef—earnest people, ready to fire his Alley of Life project into reality. The project was now heavily supported by the city, various charities and a plethora of high-society leeches, in spite of considerable opposition from those who felt the whole project would create an unfair advantage for this particular restaurant over others.

  For Compton, there was no downside. None. Not even if the project took years to turn a profit. The goodwill attached to his name was already priceless, and the project had already created allies among the valley social services—the food shelves, the shelters, the unwed mothers and battered women. To Sawyer Compton, all resources of the sort his grateful new cohorts never even imagined.

  Vulnerable. Easy. Seldom missed.

  His body flushed with the remembered warmth of the hunt, and how he had already taken advantage of that, too. The thought of his sycophantic wannabe counterparts, feting him and worshiping him with no idea what blood he’d washed off his hands only hours earlier...

  Amusing.

  But he was not amused now.

  “I understand,” he said into the phone, upon hearing of the newly discovered dead dog.

  He’d underestimated Natalie—he’d thought her fled from it all. But that she’d not only gone to Devin James, but somehow become involved in the events of the previous evening and now had the nerve to return...

  Oh, yes, he’d underestimated her.

  “Find them,” he said to the man on the phone, striding away from the conference table. He spoke with sharp precision and no hesitation. “Detain them. Do not engage. Do you understand?”

  “How—?” the man said.

  His voice, razor sharp and pitched low, cut the other man short. “They’re heading for the private wing.” He’d seen Devin James’s awareness of the blade room—seen him falter in the grip of it.

  That was nothing compared to what awaited him now.

  “Let them pass unmolested, and keep them there. If they aren’t, encourage them. And there, speak the phrases you were taught upon entering my employ. Do you understand?”

  “But—” the man said, no doubt thinking of comrades dead and Ajay Dudek disgraced.

  Compton took his voice lower yet, as if that could hide its cold menace. “Fail to heed me, and you will undoubtedly die. Fail me, and you will wish you had.” Ah, it felt good to let the teeth come out every once in a while. “I’ll be there shortly.”

  It was then that the amusement trickled back in. Never mind that Natalie and James had been unpredictable—that they’d broken the pattern of his hunt by coming back to check Compton’s own trail. That to some extent, they must already be aware of Compton’s efforts—and that surely, Devin James must understand, even if not consciously, the forces in play.

  Because no matter the healing the blade had done for him, it wouldn’t be enough. And now they would both be trapped. Under Compton’s control.

  Awaiting his pleasure.

  * * *

  And then we stop him. Words unspoken, clearly understood.

  A response floated through Devin’s thoughts unbidden, and he recognized it in only a bemused way as his own. The sooner the better.

  “Devin,” Natalie whispered. “Are you—”

  “Yes, dammit!” he snapped, keeping his voice just as low—even if they did believe themselves to be alone here in the house. “I’m fine!”

  Because of course he wasn’t, was he?

  But he’d told her he could do this.

  He hadn’t been expecting the dog. More than just an arm turned to temporary sausage beneath his coat sleeve...it had been an opening for the blade. Wanting, pushing, demanding.

  It was, Devin thought, as confused as he was. In its way, as battered. What did it take from the blade, to do a major healing? How much of the rising threat did it really feel?

  How much of Natalie could it feel?

  Nothing, he thought fiercely at it. She’s not for you. Not any part of her.

  The b
ack stairs, tight and enclosed, spit them out at the end of the guest wing. The blade hummed in his hand, warm and anticipating. Hunting.

  Well, let it. There wasn’t anyone up here, and maybe it would keep busy. Keep out of his head.

  “Devin—”

  She’d turned to him again. He grabbed her arm, pushed her up against the textured paint of the wall, footsteps echoing like whispers in this soaring, open hallway and spilling out to fall silent in the high, vaulted ceiling. “Look,” he said. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. Let me deal with it. You deal with you.”

  She jerked her arm away, rubbing it—hurt and offended and not hiding it. “That’s not how this goes,” she told him. “That’s not what we’re about any longer. Don’t you dare pretend otherwise!”

  He growled. Nothing else, just growled, jerking away from her. Not failing to see in her eye that she recognized it for the frustrated capitulation that it was.

  The blade hummed. He got the distinct impression that the discord pleased it. “Bastard,” he muttered at it.

  “Wait here,” Natalie said, pressing him against the wall before they emerged on the mezzanine. “I’ll cut the video feed.”

  Compton would figure out that they’d been there. If nothing else, the dead dog...also a dead giveaway. But that didn’t mean they had to leave him a road map.

  She slipped off to the office end of the mezzanine...returned within moments. “Now let’s see what’s down here. I’m going to be really disappointed if it’s a red velvet porn room.” Past the workout room, there to where the wide-tiled hall led to the bright solarium.

  And the blade snarled to life. Fiery resentment, territorial ferocity...

  Fear.

  All those things it had fed him from the alleys, multiplied and echoing and slicing sharply through his mind. Raw surprise tore from his throat; he staggered into her.

  This time, she didn’t ask. She took him—not supporting, just touching. Slender but strong, the shape of her a familiar thing. Just being.

  And the reality that was Natalie sliced right back through the blade’s effects, so Devin sucked in a deep breath. “Took me by surprise,” he said, easing himself straight—testing soreness and even function.