The Demon Creed (A Demon Outlaws Novel) (Entangled Edge)

by Paula Altenburg

  Creed had seen such cliff dwellings before, and the remains of many more of these Old World wonders, and yet he never failed to be impressed by the ingenuity displayed by man in his quest for survival.

  It was the effect time had on mortality, however, that the demon inside him found fascinating. Although born on this world, inside of time, and therefore as mortal as Creed, it could not seem to grasp that life here was finite. It had a beginning and an end. Civilizations, too, came and went, often leaving behind little to no knowledge of their existence.

  His demon, although bound to this world through him, retained its immortal connections to the universe that gave it access to knowledge he could not always comprehend either. It had a tendency to react to certain things and situations in a way that Creed, if left alone, would not.

  Right now it reacted to Nieve, and her awareness of Creed and their surroundings, in a way that he could not possibly ignore. She was very beautiful. That was undeniable.

  But a beautiful face alone was far too common in this world, and subject to the ravages of time. Nieve had another, far more enticing, loveliness about her—one that went all the way to her soul and was eternal. She did not simply see beauty around her. She felt it. She drew it inside her. Then she released it so that others could experience it, through her eyes, and see things the way she saw them. That was what had once drawn a demon to her.

  It was what beckoned Creed’s to her now.

  She crooked stray strands of hair from her face as she looked up at him, her face filled with wonder. “I had no idea places such as this existed. It’s truly amazing.”

  The fragile trust for him that he read in her glorious green eyes sliced at his heart. He did not want to think of the future, and a time when she would choose a man other than him. His demon would never understand the need to let her go. Right here, right now, they belonged together. That was all that mattered.

  He bent his head and covered her mouth with his. She made no objection, not even a half-hearted one that he would have had to take as denial.

  Rather than simply accept his kiss, her lips parted.

  She tasted of an equal desire for him that left him heady with hunger for her. The tip of her tongue brushed against his, a gentle exploration that had him hard, even though his intention had been to do no more than express his interest and willingness to her.

  Both were evident enough between them. Too much so. He did not want to rush her, or make her feel as if she could not stop if she wished. He’d never used compulsion with women before, and he would not start now. Not with Nieve. Not even to give her an excuse, and for her to be able to say later that this was not what she’d truly wanted.

  Creed also knew his own worth. She either wanted him as he was or she did not want him at all. The decision was hers.

  He broke off the kiss, resting his forehead against hers.

  “Anything that happens between us will always be your choice,” he said to her. He still held her hand. He pressed her palm to his bare chest, placing it over his heart so she could feel how it pounded with longing.

  Bemusement and trepidation flooded her lovely eyes. She bit the inside of her lip. Even if she could not have put it into words on her own, he knew what she was thinking. Whatever came next, she could not blame him for it. The consequences would be hers to own.

  Creed did not dare draw so much as a breath.

  Her free hand went to his hip. He drew her tight against him so she could slide it around to the small of his back. As the tips of her fingers came in contact with his tattoo, a searing heat shot through his torso.

  She jerked her hand back and stumbled away from him. It took him a moment to realize that he was not the one in trouble, despite the sizzling pain of her touch.

  Fire leaped from Nieve’s outstretched, trembling palm.

  Creed grabbed her wrist and smothered the flames between his own, much larger, hands. Then he examined her palm to see how badly she’d been burned.

  The flesh of her palm was unmarked.

  Her eyes had gone very wide. “How did you do that?”

  Creed ran his thumb across her roughened, callused skin, giving his demon—and his heart—a few beats to recover. He frowned. A woman like Nieve should not have hands such as these. It pained him to think how she’d endured hardship and neglect simply because ignorant men like Bear and her father considered her damaged. She should have been treated as a person of infinite worth.

  A goddess.

  “I have no idea,” he said when he could speak again.

  But he did know. A demon offered its chosen mate a means of protecting herself from other demons. That offering was also a symbol of its claim on her.

  Creed’s demon had not crafted an amulet, as most did. It had created the tattoo Creed wore as an offering for its mate. And through it, it had given her fire for protection.

  It became more and more obvious to Creed that the de-mon characteristics manifesting in half demons were unique to each individual—and were, for want of a better explanation, mutations. The possibilities inherent in such metamorphosing talents were endless.

  And frightening.

  Nieve eased her wrist from his grip, and the rightness of the moment between them passed.

  He did not reach for her again. If possible, the abrupt eruption of demon fire through her hand had disconcerted him even more than her. He could not help but be thankful that she had not been harmed by accident through his ignorance. He no longer understood his own abilities, leaving him helpless and adrift, and unsure of his place in this changing world. He was not used to self-doubt. He had never seen himself as half demon.

  He was an assassin. He wanted to help make a difference, to defend the rights of mortal and half demon alike. But how could he presume to judge others when he was becoming the very thing he’d been trained to fight?

  He turned, his interest in the ruins gone, when a slight movement and burst of unusual color between a tumble of rocks near his left foot caught his attention. Creed froze.

  It was a juvenile sand swift, aggressive and mean-tempered, and far more dangerous than its more complacent adult counterpart. A fully grown sand swift could kill a man with a blow from its razor-sharp tongue. A juvenile used it to paralyze its prey so it could then feed on fresh meat at leisure. A single stroke against a victim’s bare flesh was all it would take. The paralysis it caused was immediate and permanent.

  “Don’t move,” he said to Nieve.

  Years spent with a hard master guaranteed her instant obedience, especially when the harsh tone of Creed’s voice conveyed the presence of danger.

  Fortunately, she was on the far side of him and out of immediate harm’s way. But he knew it would mean a slow death for her if anything should happen to him. The desert was filled with all sorts of unexpected dangers and this tiny, juvenile sand swift, no longer than the sole of his boot, was an excellent example that no one was exempt.

  He had no weapons on him—another foolish, arrogant move on his part that they both might end up paying for. Once the sand swift tasted his scent and decided he was food, it would strike.

  If he wished to save Nieve, Creed had no choice but to shift to his demon form.

  Nothing happened when he attempted to summon it.

  For the first time in his adult life that he could recall, Creed knew real panic and fear—not for himself, but for Nieve. She would be defenseless out here without him.

  He had to do something.

  He seized one of her hands and brought it to the tattoo on his back, searing his skin as her palm caught on fire. The sand swift was moving now, too. Creed curled his body around Nieve’s to protect her from attack, and grasping her wrist, aimed the fire she held in her palm at the creature to deflect the strike of its unfurling tongue. He then used the heel of his boot to crush the sand swift’s body.

  It squealed beneath his full weight as he bore down on it, its fat little body jerking a few times before finally falling motionless. Gree
n, poisonous slime seeped from its mouth and through cracked, broken flesh.

  Creed scraped the thick, sticky mess off the bottom of his contaminated boot as best he could. It would have to be burned now, and he did not have a spare pair. He could not walk barefoot into the desert. That meant they would need to return to one of the towns they had passed before continuing on.

  He still clasped Nieve’s wrist. Her whole body shook as he drew her against him. She pressed her flushed cheek to his chest and squeezed her eyes closed tight. He dropped his chin to the crown of her fair hair, his relief vast at the narrowness of their escape.

  He had no idea why his demon had not responded to his summons. That had never happened before, and his head spun with possibilities before fastening on the most plausible. Nieve had not been the one in immediate danger, and his demon had instinctively reacted to the greater likelihood of her fear of it by withdrawing.

  One other thing troubled Creed, possibly even more, and it had nothing to do with his fickle demon. He had used Nieve—who relied on him and needed him to defend her—as a weapon.

  Chapter Ten

  Above where Nieve crouched on the bank of the small, trickling stream, the sky deepened and the stars began to emerge as tiny speckles of light on a backdrop of endlessness.

  She rinsed the tin plates from their supper in the clear, tepid water, keeping her head down and her eyes fixed on her task. No matter which way she turned, always, her internal compass brought her back to wherever Creed was. Right now she knew without looking that he stood near the fire and watched her.

  Her desire for him had not abated. If anything, since she had touched him and her hands burst into flame, her longing had grown. And yet, while she knew he felt the same desire for her that she did for him, and even though he was demon, he had not acted upon it.

  She could not remember the last time something she wanted so desperately was hers for the taking. All she had to do was give Creed some indication that she was willing.

  She closed her eyes. She was afraid to discover he had not been truthful with her, and it was not as he’d said, and that she was not the one who would claim him. She was not the same woman who had once managed to extricate herself from the lure of a demon. She could never do so again.

  For an entire year, she had forgotten the most important person in the world to her. What did that say about her, and her strength of will? What if she allowed herself to be distracted by this irresistible attraction to Creed, and in so doing, she forgot her son again?

  “Is something the matter?”

  The concern in Creed’s voice washed over her. With a start, she realized she had been kneeling at the water’s edge and staring into its ripples for quite some time. It was almost completely dark now.

  She glanced over her shoulder, to tell him nothing was wrong, but the words died in her throat. Wearing nothing but a well-worn pair of denim trousers that strained across the heavy muscles of his thighs, light gleaming off his gold skin, he had not moved from his position beside the fire. He’d burned his boots. Even his feet were well-formed and magnificent. She had never seen a man, or demon for that matter, quite so perfect as this, and it struck her that the beauty she saw was shining from within him, and not merely a glittering surface illusion.

  Asher’s father had not been beautiful in this way. Not as Creed was. He’d been like a wormy apple, sleek-skinned and smooth on the outside, nice to look at, but so riddled and rotten underneath that it had made her feel tainted to have him touch her. Because of that, she had believed both her father and Bear when they said she was ruined.

  Creed did not make her feel ruined, but as if she were precious—not only to him, but to the world.

  It stunned her when she thought of how she might have lost him today. He always seemed so larger than life to her, so invincible, that it was too easy to forget he could be as fragile and mortal as she.

  The fire that had burned in her hands rekindled in the cradle of her stomach. Its source sprang from Creed, and extended to her through this connection between them, spreading to her thighs and her chest so that she could hardly stand or breathe.

  Somehow, she managed both. Before she had put more than a single thought into her actions, she was on her feet and walking toward him.

  He did not move, but watched her approach, heat in his eyes, letting her come to him.

  Then she was standing before him. With trembling, tentative fingers, she reached out and pressed their tips to his naked chest. A pulse leaped in his throat, but he did not reach for her. She stepped closer. When she slid her arms around him, fire did not flare from her palms as it had at the ruins. It ignited like an explosion of fireworks inside her.

  The same heated reaction emanated from him. He took hold of her elbows, staring down at her face with such intensity and naked longing on his that she had to lower her eyes.

  “If we begin this,” he said, giving her fair warning, “I won’t stop. Not unless you ask it of me.”

  “You told me that any connection between me and a demon is through my choice, not his,” she said. “Does that include this connection I’m feeling to you?”

  His jaw worked, but his gaze did not waver from hers. “It does.”

  “And I can end it whenever I wish?”

  “You can.”

  “Will you promise me something, then?”

  “Anything. As long as it’s in my power to give it to you.”

  “Do you promise never to allow me to forget my son? Or to let me give up on finding him?”

  “No,” Creed said, and her heart stopped beating. She wilted in his arms so he had to tighten his hold. “Look at me,” he commanded her. When she did, his gaze had softened. “Those choices are also yours. I promise never to be the cause of you forgetting or giving up.”

  She could ask nothing else of him. Not without giving more than she was willing—or able to—in return.

  “Then I choose you,” she said, so low that she wondered at first if he’d even heard, because he still did not move.

  Then he pulled her into his arms and lowered his mouth to cover hers. The kiss was deep, and as he parted her lips with his, he thrust the tip of his tongue between them so that she gasped with pleasure at the taste of him. Her hands wandered, uninhibited, over sleek, naked skin, sliding lower until she’d pushed the length of her fingers beneath the waistband of his trousers to stroke the hard, lean curves of his hips.

  His hands cupped her face as he continued to kiss her, then he eased them down the length of her throat to slip the loosened bodice of her dress from her shoulders. The roughness of his palms as they scratched over her flesh, and his thumbs caressing her collarbone, made her shiver with need for him.

  He kissed the corner of her mouth, then the point of her jaw beside her ear, and trailed hot kisses along the path his hands had traced.

  The bodice of her dress slipped to her waist as she fumbled with the buttons of his trousers. She had never undressed a man. It took her longer than she’d expected because he watched her. He scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bedding he’d unrolled beside the fire. As he lowered her onto the blankets, he kicked off the trousers that had settled around his thighs so that he was completely naked. Nieve caught her lip with her teeth. He unfastened the rest of her dress and lifted her hips so that he could ease off the remainder of her clothing.

  He lay beside her, his fingers trailing along her cheek as he scrutinized her face. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a woman as lovely as you are,” he said, his voice husky with wonder and thick with desire.

  She’d once been beautiful, but did not believe that was true anymore. Time and a hard life had not been kind to her. She made no effort with her appearance. She had silvery stretch marks from her pregnancy on an otherwise flat belly because Asher had been a large baby.

  Still, Creed made her feel as if she were somehow amazing, and when she looked into the brilliant depths of his eyes, she knew he meant every word and th
at his compliments for her were sincere. To him, she was beautiful.

  His fingers moved to the swell of her breast, testing its weight, and he looked to her with a question in his eyes before he bent his head to take the nipple between his teeth. He flicked his tongue across its tip and Nieve arched her back, pleasure searing through her, her reservations forgotten. He was stiff and hard, and she cupped him with her hand. He groaned encouragement as she twirled the tip of her finger in the liquid at his head.

  She was not used to the freedom of doing as she pleased.

  “What would you like me to do?” she whispered into the curve of his shoulder.

  He raised himself on one elbow and smiled down at her. “This is not about what one of us would like the other to do,” he said. “We’re both to do what brings pleasure, as long as neither of us protests. And for what it’s worth,” he added, “I’m unlikely to protest.” His widening smile teased one from her in return. Then his tone turned more serious and the smile faded. “Are you?”

  “No,” Nieve said.

  “Then tell me you want this, and me,” Creed said. “I would never use compulsion on you. Not for my own gain. I don’t think I could.”

  It was as if he’d splashed cold water on her. Her re-servations returned. He had been good to her, and kind. She could not treat him otherwise. “I don’t want to use compulsion on you either.”

  He seemed confused for a moment. Then his expression cleared. His eyes softened and he pressed a kiss to the top of her breast, where the swell began.

  “Any connection you feel between us has nothing to do with compulsion. I’m yours because it was meant to be that way. Whether or not you want me is your decision to make.”

  That did not feel right to Nieve either. “I’d rather you wanted me by your own choice,” she said.

  Creed took her hand, which she’d removed, and returned it to him, pressing her fingers around his hard length as he answered her. “Even if I were compelled, which I’m not, I don’t think I could want you any more than I do right now. My choice is made.”