She was more afraid of herself than Creed, and what this inundation of strong emotions might mean for her sanity.
And to her son, because she felt Asher slowly and inexorably slipping away.
He should be first in her thoughts.
Always.
She could not allow any distractions. Any division of purpose. If she did not think of Ash constantly, if he did not remain her priority, she might forget him again. The possibility terrified her.
Somewhere, her baby waited for her.
Creed had gone rigid in the saddle in front of her. The lazy, rolling motion of his body as he moved with the hross ceased. Tension radiated off him, as if he knew what she was thinking.
The thought of the two of them sitting so close, with her legs and arms around him for the next half hour, grew unbearable, even though they had been in this position for most of the day already. And indeed, for the better part of a week.
“I want to walk,” she said.
She needed his help to dismount. Her skirt was an impediment, and the drop was a long one. Creed made no comment, only half turned, slid one arm around her waist, and swung her carefully to the ground. She smoothed her skirt over her hips.
He looked down at her for a moment. He did not try to ease or dismiss her nervousness. He also had to know that he couldn’t have done so. Not with this sexual awareness so strong between them.
She was not innocent or virginal. And he was a demon.
He was very beautiful, she found herself thinking. He wore no hat, and right now his shirt sleeves were rolled to the elbow, yet the hot sun made no significant change to the warm golden coloring of his skin. She felt so pale and insignificant in comparison that she could scarcely understand what he found attractive about her, but that he found something was unmistakable. Two pale blue diamonds, set between thick black lashes, glittered as he gazed at her.
“When you get tired of walking,” he said, “just say so and I’ll trade places with you.”
He urged the hross forward, keeping the impatient animal to a slow pace that Nieve had no difficulty maintaining. She trudged along the dusty, broken trail beside him with her thoughts in complete disarray.
And torn in two very different directions.
…
Creed could not spend the night in a hotel with Nieve as he’d planned. Not when his demon had been roused and every male instinct in him urged that he possess her. Whether she understood it or not, just now she had claimed him.
He’s mine.
He had heard the thought as loudly as if she’d shouted it from the top of the town wall they approached.
But he would not be a demon. He had always controlled that side of himself, even in these past months when it had become stronger than he’d ever imagined possible. It frustrated and unnerved him to discover that Nieve, who was terrified of it, seemed to bring it out in him, in the worst ways and at the wrong times, when he would have done anything to protect her from it.
The town was within sight. Comfort beckoned. So did temptation. Creed brushed a droning hoverfly from the back of his neck, the tattoo itching and burning where she had touched it. He debated what was best to do. Being around strangers right now, when his demon was so restless and possessive of her, was not wise.
She might have claimed him, but she had chosen not to act on it. She might never do so, which he would do well to remember. She wanted her son. He wanted Willow. He had duties to consider, and his demon’s fascination with Nieve sometimes made him forget them, or set them aside when he should not, because he’d stayed close to the Godseeker Mountains for her sake.
He could not continue this obsession with Nieve and her wishes.
On a whim, Creed set off from the main road toward the sprawling, red-soiled hills speckled with green clusters of shrubs that were bisected by a little-used side trail. He watched over Nieve closely as they traveled, worried that the heat and rougher terrain might prove too much for her, but she seemed far less restless and easier in her mind for the exercise. Walking had been a good decision.
For both of them.
A half hour later, and deeper into the hills, Creed saw that they were not natural hills at all, as he’d hoped they would not be, but ruins that had been burned out by demon fire in the days when the world had been razed, then abandoned to become buried by blowing sands and time. They would harbor dangerous sinkholes in their depths if the old buildings had rotted away, making it unwise for the newer settlement to build over them, but their location marked the presence of precious water aquifers and ancient reservoirs that the settlement could tap into.
Excitement prickled at the small of his back. These ruins were well worth exploring. Because the current town had not been built on top of them, but some distance apart, also indicated that there were things still buried here that the locals knew better than to disturb, either from experience or through folklore.
Deep craters, with colorful spring desert blooms tucked into their fissures and crannies, also suggested his hunch was correct. Old world towns such as this, located in strategic centers throughout demon territory, had once acted as a first line of defense against the initial waves of demon invasion. At their centers the ancients had built bunkers, where munitions were stored, while around the outer boundaries incendiary devices that activated when stepped on had been buried.
That was where these craters had come from. To Creed’s eye, while they looked old and overgrown, they were not as old as the end of the world. Some of those buried explosives could well still be active. Hross, fortunately, had a natural instinct when it came to avoiding such dangers.
“You should ride from here on,” Creed said to Nieve. “The ground is rough.”
She took the hand he offered her, setting one dainty foot atop of his much larger boot where it rested in the stirrup, and allowed him to help her remount. She settled in the saddle and slid her arm around his waist, not leaning in as close as usual, but she had nothing to fear now that his demon had been distracted by the thought of adventure. It wasn’t long before she relaxed against him.
“What are we doing here?” she asked.
“I want to see what’s buried in these ruins, if anything.”
He knew where to look, and what to look for. The first few ruins were unsafe. The hross refused to approach them, which meant the dangers from sinkholes and explosives was too great. The fifth ruin, based on its shape and location amidst the others, showed more promise as being what he was looking for.
He dismounted. Nieve watched from the safety of the back of the hross as he thrust his arm into a large crevice and scooped out handfuls of dirt and sand. When he put his hand back in for a third time, the tips of his fingers greeted empty space. After a few more minutes of digging, and chipping away at the debris using the spade he carried in one of his packs, he had carved a gaping hole large enough for him to pass through. He thrust his shoulder against the remaining blockage. It collapsed in a choking cloud of dust and he coughed as he yanked his neckerchief over his face.
Once the dust settled, he leaned through the hole to try and get a sense of how large the interior might be. His demon form had better eyesight in the dark and was almost indestructible, and exploring the ruin would give it a good workout, but he wanted to be inside before shifting so Nieve did not see him do it.
“Wait!” she called out.
He paused to see what she wanted.
She sat so poker-straight in the saddle that she looked like a doll strapped to the back of the enormous hross. Alarm filled her face.
“Do you even know what’s inside? What if the structure isn’t safe?”
He grinned. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done this before. If I can find a few artifacts, it’s a good way to make extra cash.”
“I have money,” Nieve blurted out. Her fingers went to the waist of her skirt as if she planned to hand it over to him at once.
He’d known she had money. Men like Bear, who did not trust banks—or anythin
g, for that matter—would have had a small fortune stashed away, and Nieve was not foolish. She would never have set out without some sort of means for funding her journey. It touched him to think that she would part with it, simply because she feared he might be harmed, when she needed it more than he did.
“Keep it,” he said. He could not resist teasing her a little, and trying to put a smile into her somber, worried eyes. “If the sun sets before I return, you can keep the hross and the packs, too.”
“At least until the first bandit I meet succeeds in taking them from me,” she said.
Although undoubtedly true, he had to laugh at her droll observation. It gave him a glimpse into the girl she’d once been, and he liked what he was discovering. “Shoot them. But use the rifle in the boot behind you this time, not that tiny pistol.” Then he added, with more seriousness, “But if you do have to leave here without me, for any reason, stay on the hross until you’re back on the main road. The ground here isn’t stable and the hross knows where to place its feet.”
Creed eased the rest of the way through the doorway, more cautious of anything that might be hiding in crevices than of the ruin’s stability.
Despite Nieve’s concerns, the floor felt solid enough beneath the soles of his boots. He quickly shed his clothes so that he would not ruin them when he shifted.
He loved the feel of the transformation—of the stretching muscles and loosening joints, the increase in power, and the way all his senses sharpened. Even though Nieve was outside, when he thought of her he could smell the warmth of the sun on her hair and the flowery scent she rubbed on her skin. He could feel the movements of air and the tiny vibrations of the earth as she fidgeted, restless, in the saddle, and when she breathed. It was little wonder that his demon had picked up on her physical desire for him when it was so attuned to her in this way.
It also picked up on her fear, and while anyone else’s would have enflamed it, from Nieve, the effect was the opposite. She had no idea how completely she owned both him and his demon. He wondered what would happen when she figured it out.
And she would.
The interior of the ruin was completely black and it was difficult for his eyes to penetrate it at first, even in demon form.
Once his sight adjusted, he saw that the room where he stood was a jumble of broken joists and crumbling plaster from fallen walls. His demon form had much greater bulk and weight than a man. Although the floor creaked beneath him, it had been reinforced when originally constructed and remained stable enough.
He found a spiral stairwell behind a heavy steel door, also reinforced, at the far end of the room, where he’d expected one to be. These bunkers all followed a similar construction pattern, and appeared to be built at the same time and in great haste. The stairwell was wide, meant for moving large quantities of dangerous goods up and down, and he had no trouble fitting into it.
As he opened the door, emergency lighting over three centuries old flickered on. At the bottom of several long series of stairs, well below ground level, he passed through two more heavy doors. Their locks had been intended to keep mortals out, not demons, and he had no trouble snapping them off to gain entry. More pale yellow lighting came on, flooding the way forward as the stairwell behind him went black once again.
The storage room behind the final door was lined with row upon row of shelves, all filled with large wooden crates. Creed would have loved to take one of those crates with him but it wasn’t practical, and exceedingly dangerous.
He pried the lid off one of the crates. Inside, he found layers of well-packed fragmentation grenades, deep green in color and with a smooth steel outer surface. Two of these would bring in enough money to pay for an entire year of any living expenses that traveling with Nieve could incur. As tempting as it was, taking too many would only invite unwanted attention that Creed might find difficult to deflect. Word would travel far of anyone attempting to sell such artifacts.
He took three, then replaced the lid on the crate. He knew where to find them again if he were ever back this way, and there was little chance that anyone else would discover the grenades. The ruins were too dangerous, and the fear of anything associated with demons—and the past—too high.
Upstairs, in the main room through which he’d entered, he shifted to mortal form and retrieved his clothing. A quick look around offered little else of value, except for a row of porcelain mugs on a shelf with a camouflage background and the words DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA emblazoned on them. On a desk he found a manual, yellowed with age but well preserved otherwise. Its cover stated:
PROPERTY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONFIDENTIAL
HOW TO FIGHT DEMONS.
The world had lost that fight. Whoever had written this particular tome was not as well informed as he’d credited himself.
Creed left the manual where it was. He gathered up the hand grenades and several of the coffee mugs instead, then emerged into the fiery glow of a desert sunset.
He found Nieve right where he’d left her, he was only half surprised to discover. His demon would have known if she’d abandoned him, and while she’d been deeply unsettled by her claiming of him, she remained too naturally cautious to do anything reckless.
“We’ll make camp here tonight,” he said to her. “As long as we don’t wander too far in the darkness, we couldn’t ask for a safer refuge.”
The element of danger in their surroundings would help serve to keep his demon instincts more focused on protecting her than in testing her desire for him. Tomorrow, he would take his demon in hand and remember his duties.
The diversion into the ruin had helped clear his head. Willow’s trail around the Godseeker Mountains had grown cold. Creed thought that Freetown would be the likeliest place for him to hear rumors of her, and of any others like her. Once ruled by a priestess, it sat in the very center of demon territory. All trade routes across the desert intersected at its walls.
He placed the grenades into the coffee mugs to protect them from jostling, then inserted the mugs into his saddle bags. He cinched the binding straps tight.
Freetown would also be the best place for him to find answers for Nieve. If nothing about her son could be discovered there, then she would have to face an ugly truth.
She could continue looking, and not give up hope, but her search might take years, or be unending.
…
Nieve and Creed set up camp beneath the first glittering stars to dust the deepening blue and red of the evening sky.
She could not fully explain, even to herself, why she had suddenly told him of the money she carried, other than that she had not wanted him endangered because of her. If she were not with him, he could travel faster and cheaper. He would not feel so obliged to stop in towns he would normally pass by just so he could ask questions—that he had to believe to be pointless by now—on her behalf.
But that quiet, insistent voice in the back of her head continued to whisper, He’s mine.
And she did not want to lose him, too.
He had built a small fire from the brush she had gathered, then made her a comfortable seat to curl up in so that she could be warm while she pondered the stars. With a soft word of thanks, she draped the blanket he handed her around her shoulders.
The lifeless ruins huddled around them, fencing them in. Even wildlife had abandoned this ancient site. Nothing stirred here other than a few feathered predators whose shadows skimmed silently in the dusky sky over their heads, and the occasional sigh of the wind through the grass.
This was the safest Nieve could remember feeling in a very long time. While her myriad and conflicting emotions had not gone away, right now they slumbered and left her in peace. Her eyelids drooped, too, but she was not yet ready to sleep.
Creed sat across the fire from her, his head bent, cleaning and polishing his weapons in what she’d come to understand was a nighttime ritual he found re
laxing. As he worked, the flames caught the gold of his skin, and made his tattoo dance. She watched it in fascination.
“When I studied at the Temple of Immortal Right,” he said, “I spent a lot of time in the library.” He did not look up as he spoke. “It’s filled with amazing books, most saved from the time before the demons destroyed the world. A few are memoirs written by the war’s survivors, and others are handwritten reproductions of books that no longer exist in entirety. One of my favorite accounts is of old world airplanes that soared across the sky faster than a hross can run. Some accounts even state there were machines that could travel to the stars and the moon. Now that demons are gone and the skies are safe, maybe man can build such wonders again.”
He had not acknowledged, in anything he had said or done, that he knew she desired him, and yet it simmered between them. By attempting to distract them both, he avoided the topic even now.
His thoughtfulness made her ashamed that she could not seem to get past what he was, even though she was the one in the wrong.
“Why do you do this?” she asked.
His head lifted so that he could look at her. His eyebrows went up in a question, as if his thoughts were miles away and he had not been speaking to her. Settling the gun he’d cleaned on the polishing cloth beside him he reached for another, as if absorbed in what he was doing.
She did not believe his attention was truly held by a mundane task that he’d carried out many times before, and could do in his sleep.
“Do what?” he asked.
“Treat me like I’m…” Special. Beautiful. Valuable. “Not able to take care of myself,” she finished, her face flushing.
One of the good-natured smiles that so fascinated her about him tugged at his cheeks, creating creases at the corners of his mouth.
“I think you’ve proved to me, and to you, too, that you’re more than capable of looking after yourself, at least within the limitations that the world has placed on you,” Creed said. “Did you ever consider that I simply might like to do things for you? I liked doing them for my sister, too.” His smile faded a little, then settled back in place. “I suppose, since she isn’t here, I’m transferring the attention I’d normally give her onto you.”
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