Black Widow Demon (Demon Outlaws)

by Altenburg, Paula

  “Not yet.” His weight on her chest increased, pressing the air from her lungs as he held her down.

  White-hot rage made her reckless and far more dangerous than he could possibly know. She channeled the heat of her anger inward. It shifted as it touched that other, separate part of her inner self, the one that could manipulate fire.

  …

  Blade had been entirely too distracted by the golden gleam of her skin and the full line of her mouth. That was why he barely evaded her attempt to break his nose.

  Careless.

  He flicked his gaze back to her pale, diamond-blue eyes, where it should have been, and was again caught by an unsettling surprise. They smoldered, filled with flames of desire where only seconds before he’d read outrage. One moment she exuded innocence. The next, she became this sultry seductress. Rather than trying to toss him off her, she now lifted her hips invitingly, then tilted her chin, beckoning him closer.

  He immediately went hard, reminding him of how long it had been since he’d last enjoyed the heat of a woman. But the suddenness of her transformation put him on guard. He had heard the talk of her ability to lure men, and all his self-preservation instincts commanded he keep his eyes locked on hers.

  He cursed under his breath. He’d let his own bad experiences with a Godseeker uncle cloud his interpretation of what was happening last night, and immediately assumed her stepfather was lying. He had not truly thought through what it might mean if the accusations against her were true.

  He still had no idea.

  He panted slightly, trying to shift his weight from his throbbing erection and calm it without giving her any room to escape. He caught a rock with one booted foot and tried to use it as leverage to help him free his arms, accidentally kicking it off the side of the ledge instead.

  The blue flames in her eyes slowly died.

  “Let me up,” she repeated. This time, much of the fight appeared to have left her. She looked young, weary, and more afraid than she probably wanted him to see. This appearance of vulnerability made her all the more dangerous, Blade reminded himself. She had a right to defend herself using whatever means possible, but if he were to fall into her lure, he would pay for it dearly.

  Lust stabbed through him again as he studied her face. Then again, if she intended to deploy such means as this against men, she needed to know what it was that she risked. Last night had not, apparently, taught her enough of a lesson.

  He dipped his head and captured her mouth with his. Her lips parted, shock filling her eyes, and he took swift advantage of her gasp. He swept his tongue lightly across hers, lingering, enjoying the taste of her.

  Then, just as suddenly, everything changed again. Hot waves of desire encompassed him, stripping him of any ability to form a coherent plan of defense. But it was not his craving for her that left him reeling this time, even though that was heady enough. It was hers for him.

  Her legs were tight around his waist, and in their struggle he had not noticed how her skirt had slipped almost to her hips. Little separated her warmth from the erection continuing to strain against his trousers, and she pressed more snugly against him, bringing them closer still. One small, bare foot caressed his hip, then rubbed along the length of his thigh, giving him an opening to break the physical hold she had on him. He reached beneath her and he danced his fingertips along the sensual line of her spine before deepening their kiss. He could think of nothing but a swelling, rampant need to be inside her, to join with her.

  To belong to her.

  Icy awareness blasted him like a fist to the face. He could finish this to their mutual satisfaction if he wished, but he was not the kind of man women approached in this manner, without any caution. Not unless sparked by desperation or money. This desire for him, although powerful, could be no more natural than the allure she used on other men as a defense, and it was obvious she had little to no control over it right now.

  He broke off the kiss, his heart pounding. He did not understand how they had come to this point, nor did he trust his reaction to her. He would not take undue advantage of any woman, especially one under duress and fearing for her life, demon spawn or not.

  She turned her head, exposing her neck, and at the same time released his arms. He slowly grazed his roughened chin along the sensitive flesh beneath her ear to rest his cheek in her soft curls, and he relaxed his heavier body so she could extract herself from beneath him. He was curious to see how she would retaliate.

  He did not expect her to throw her head back and scream as if in sudden and excruciating pain. As she twisted to her side, he rocked back on his heels and released her completely.

  She drew her knees to her chest with a shudder, and one slim hand went to her bare calf. The other covered her face as if to hide. Shock and concern immobilized him, desire forgotten.

  Then he saw it. A goldthief slithered away, its quivering tail emitting a loud rattle of displeasure. A quick visual check of the ledge told Blade what had happened. The snake must have been resting beneath the rock he’d dislodged with his foot.

  As he coaxed her fingers from her leg she whimpered in pain. Two angry red puncture wounds, already swelling, marred the creamy smooth skin of her calf. He sucked in a breath at the sight.

  “It was only a goldthief,” he told her. “You’ll be all right.”

  He captured her fingers and squeezed them, wanting to reassure her that she was not going to die, although for a few days she might wish to do so. Goldthief bites were painful, and extremely hallucinogenic because the toxin tapped into the victim’s subconscious, but rarely fatal to someone young and healthy.

  She clawed at his sleeve with both hands.

  “Please don’t leave me!” she begged him, her voice whisper thin as her words slurred together. Stark terror spilled from her eyes to run down her cheeks. She moaned as the venom worked its way deeper into her system.

  He lifted her into his arms, feeling helpless as he held her. The heat from the sun’s rays beat against his back, and perspiration pooled beneath the heavy leather coat. This day had not gone well for him. Not one bit. He scrubbed a hand down his face. If he had not stopped to help her, none of this would have happened. How had he gone from bystander, to seducer, to protector in such a short span of time?

  “I won’t leave you,” he promised finally, not knowing what else he could say.

  “Thank you.” Relief filled her soft, fading voice. “My name is Raven.” Her eyelids drifted closed, those long, sooty lashes dusting her ashen cheeks. Her next words were merely a murmur, and he bent his head as she spoke. Even then, he was uncertain he heard them correctly.

  Because he thought she said, “I’m afraid of the dark.”

  Chapter Three

  Raven clutched at the sleeve of Blade’s coat with both hands, clinging to the one connection she had left to the mortal world, but she knew he could not help her now.

  No one could.

  Numbness spread from her hands and feet, inching gradually up her arms and legs. As the goldthief venom stole the feeling from her extremities, and her vision of the mortal world, she slipped from consciousness into the haven she had constructed from her childhood dreams. But its peacefulness was long gone. Now, steaming clouds of reeking sulfur thickened the air. Streaks of lightning, accompanied by deafening rumbles of thunder, cracked the heavy black sky above her, waves of residual static electricity lifting the curls away from her face. Demons had found it somehow, and changed it, and now when she came here they sensed her presence and searched it for her.

  One found her now. She watched him from the edge of a boiling lake as he approached her in mortal form.

  He stepped lightly across a footpath of stones embedded in red-hot lava. He wore very little, only a simple pair of breeches made of supple leather, and with curling black hair and eyes the same glittering shade of blue as hers, she had no doubt who he was. She could see why her mother had once answered his call. On the surface, he was beautiful. What her mother ha
d not seen was the monster inside him, while Raven could see it quite clearly. It made her shiver, setting her own demon on edge.

  He leaped from the last rock of the footpath to the shore of the lake, then stood before her. When he reached for the amulet around her neck, curiosity in his icy eyes, her flesh recoiled at the thought of his touch, but she did not back away. Her demon warned that to run from him would mean certain death.

  He did not touch her, however. Only the amulet.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked as he examined it.

  She dared not lie to him. “From my mother.”

  But it seemed he did dare lie to her. He released it, letting it drop to the cleft between her breasts, dismissing it as of no further interest to him, which she knew was not the truth. He searched her face, then shrugged one bare shoulder.

  “There were so many. I don’t remember her.”

  His feigned indifference enraged Raven. Her mother had been a weak woman with unrealistic and romantic notions, and for years she had suffered because of him. She had married Justice when no one else would have her, despite her skill as an artisan and her unusual beauty. Her refusal to name her child’s father was one of the few things she had remained steadfast against.

  Until Justice had beaten it from her.

  Raven cared little for the pain her birthright had caused herself, but knowing this demon had stolen any joy her mother might possibly have hoped for in life, and his dismissal of her now was too much to tolerate.

  She wanted to hurt him in return. “I doubt if she remembered you, either. She kept a number of these simple trinkets but tossed this one away because it’s so ugly. I only saved it because I like its color.”

  Her words seemed to amuse him. “She would have remembered me. And she would not have thrown that away.” The confidence of the assertions took her breath from her. “What a surprise to discover she survived your birth, though. I thought she was dead. I’m equally surprised you’re a female.” His cold eyes scanned her, making her flesh crawl as he examined the demon inside her. An unspoken acknowledgment passed between them. “You should not be here.”

  “This place is mine,” she said. He was the trespasser here, not she. “I built it from my dreams, not yours.”

  That amused him even more. “It’s not yours, and it’s no dream. This is a tiny piece of the boundary between mortality and immortality that you’ve tried to claim. Your demon half has brought you here. You’re the one who doesn’t belong. Full demons will hunt you.” Despite the intense heat from the lake, Raven felt her stomach turn to ice at his words. He continued to assess her and did not seem impressed with what he saw. “You are too small. I should kill you. What can you do to protect yourself?”

  Sweat soaked through her thin, dirty dress as she fought back her anger. If this was a boundary between mortality and immortality, as he claimed, then he had no more right to be here than she did.

  She had no intention of dying. She had demon blood and some of its talents and no reason not to use them against him. While she might not be able to kill him, she could wound him.

  “I can read the desires of others.” The words tripped off her tongue without thought. “I know what you want. You want to return to the mortal world. You want to experience its pleasures. You want to hunt men again.” She leaned forward, reckless despite the danger she courted. “I know that you haven’t forgotten my mother and won’t ever forget her. Her memory will haunt you throughout eternity because she was the one you pursued, who you believe was meant to belong to you.” Raven’s fingers went to the amulet around her neck. “That’s why you gave her this. To keep her safe from other demons when she wasn’t with you.” Triumph edged into her voice as she homed in on his weakness. “But it couldn’t protect her from mortals, and what you want more than anything now is to kill the mortal you believe took her from you.”

  She had gone too far. Said too much. As she uttered the final words her father shifted before her eyes, his body enlarging, his flesh peeling away as his true form emerged. In seconds, he loomed above her as an angry, thick-skinned monster with gleaming red eyes and enormous, black-veined red wings that exploded from the bunched muscles between his shoulders. The ground shuddered beneath flat, widespread, clawed feet as he stalked around her on thighs as big as her waist. He glowered at her from his greater height, his generous lips drawn back to expose doubled rows of jagged teeth.

  Although the top of her head barely reached his shining, bone-plated torso, Raven buried her fear deep and did not flinch. Her fingers tightened around the amulet, its edges pressing into her palm.

  He reached out to drag a claw down the side of her cheek. It did not touch her, but passed through her flesh. He seemed as startled by that as she was at first, and then he smiled at her, those awful teeth gleaming.

  “Goldthief,” he said. “The hallucinations have tapped into your mortal fears, but they haven’t touched your demon. Not yet.”

  She clutched the amulet more tightly, grateful that the hallucinations from the snakebite had transferred only her subconscious. The rest of her remained on the ledge of a sun-drenched mesa, in the arms of a stranger named Blade who had promised not to leave her alone.

  The amulet, however, had somehow crossed into the boundary. Her father had touched it.

  “I hear the hallucinations at night are especially spectacular,” he continued. “Not even your demon will be able to fight off those. What do you suppose will happen to you once darkness falls? Where will you find yourself then? What protection will you have? You think you know so much.” His thick, ugly lips twisted. “You don’t even know how to use that amulet you wear. It’s not meant for you. It won’t protect you from demons. But if you can survive the night, then I think you might be of use to me.” He drew himself straight and brought his hands sharply together. “Until then, go back where you came from.”

  The boom of his voice mixed with the thunder from the clap of his hands. Lightning tore open the blackened and bloodied sky of the boundary, and Raven squeezed her eyes tight against the bright flash of light.

  When she opened them again, it was the sun that blinded her.

  Blade’s face swam in and out of focus above hers, making her nauseated, his concern evident in what little she could read of his emotions past her own turbulent thoughts.

  She rolled to her side and retched in the dirt, his rough palm smoothing her hair away from her hot face, until her stomach was empty and sore.

  Blade asked her a question, but his lips did not move at the same speed as his words, and she could not make sense of it. The distortion unsettled her, and her stomach lurched again. Willing the world to remain still, she tried to sit up.

  Behind him, from out of nowhere, a giant brown snake with yellow venom dripping off its pointed fangs reared its flat head.

  Raven opened her mouth to cry out a warning, but Blade clapped his hand over her lips.

  …

  He moved with barely enough time to stifle the sounds of her screams from the riders passing below them. Blade had been sitting with her for the better part of an hour now, waiting for her to drift back into awareness, uncertain how long or how frequent her periods of lucidity were going to be.

  Dampness soaked the glossy black curls around her face, and although her breathing had been panicked and shallow for quite some time, it now seemed even. This was the first time since she’d lost consciousness that she had opened her eyes, too.

  It worried him. The hallucinations during the day were reputed to be bad enough. The ones experienced by the victim at night had the potential to drive them insane. He had hoped a woman who could hold her own in a wrestling match with a man his size would be less susceptible to the hallucinations, but he’d been wrong. He had no idea what she thought she had seen behind him, but whatever it was must have been bad.

  Blade’s hand still covered her mouth, but it no longer mattered. The riders were gone, and she was quiet again. This time, however, her rest se
emed more peaceful, although he had no idea how long it might last. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and tried to think what to do.

  He had promised he wouldn’t leave her, and he did not intend to do so for any great length of time, but he needed to gather his belongings and purchase enough supplies to get them to safety.

  He gently brushed a thumb across her beautiful lips, lost in thought. Even though his attraction to her had not abated, it was somewhat easier to ignore now that he was responsible for her safety. The fact that he understood her allure was a defense mechanism, and that she did not have complete control over it, helped, too.

  It was her attraction to him, however, that had taken him so completely by surprise. But he would not again forget that she was half demon, or that demons hated men. Even her mortal half had no reason to like men that he could see. He would help her until she recovered, but to trust in a false fascination for each other would be suicide.

  That didn’t mean he was immune to her other charms. Her courage, dangerous as it was, was admirable. He still could not quite believe her bold attempt on the Godseeker’s life.

  He sighed, looking above and around them. In order to help her he had to get them off this mesa—it was too close to Goldrush and very exposed. She needed a place to rest, to regain her strength. The snakebite remained angry and red, her calf swollen to nearly twice its size so that she could not bend her knee if she tried. He couldn’t carry her across the desert in this condition, and even if she were lucid, she would not be able to walk very far on her own.

  As much as he disliked the idea, he had to move her to a temporary shelter where he could tie her and gag her. He could see no other alternative. If he left her alone and unrestrained, she might wander off or make enough noise to alert her pursuers. He would only make a quick run into town and be back before nightfall—when the real terrors would begin.

  He got to his feet, working a cramp from his leg with a wince. Then he lifted Raven into his arms. Despite her small size she was not light, and he grunted from both the physical effort and his faint surprise. He again wished he had left town while he’d had the chance. If he had not tried to interfere in her life, she would not have fought him and the snakebite would never have happened.