Black Widow Demon (Demon Outlaws)

by Altenburg, Paula

  Alarm rose in him, more difficult to suppress. He refused to stand back, helpless, and watch what they did to her. He would not lose this battle.

  The first demon, the closest, glanced his way. Blade’s hand moved an inch before freezing again.

  “Run!” Blade shouted at Raven.

  “No.” She sounded calm, unalarmed. She had the knife he’d given her curled in one fist. With the other hand, she touched her fingertips to the amulet at her throat as if in prayer. “I can protect us. They want me, not you. And as long as they’re close, but not interested in you, you’ll stay paralyzed. If they intend to harm you, you’ll be free to defend yourself.”

  More than any other sensation Blade disliked that of helplessness, and he did not want to place his life in her hands.

  Perhaps she feels the same way about her life and you.

  The flash of insight cleared his head. She knew this world. She was part of it. He should trust her.

  He had no other choice.

  Forcing himself to watch as the man-demon reached for her was not easy. It touched the smooth, golden curve of breast subtly peeking from the bodice of her ragged, dirty dress. Short black-and-red ringlets framed the perfection of her face. In the peculiar half dusk, her sparkling eyes glowed with blue fire. Sensuality emanated from her in palpable waves.

  Then, Blade knew for certain what it was that she did, and why she was safe. She lured demons the same way she did men. And once she touched them, she owned them—exactly as her stepfather had said.

  With lightning swiftness, she seized the demon’s hand where it rested against her exposed flesh. As she did, she drove the knife Blade had given her into its heart with her other hand.

  The expression on the man-demon’s face changed from desire, to confusion, then shock. Its eyes rolled back in its head, and as it sank to its knees, its hold on Blade broke and he was free. He fired off three knives in rapid succession and three more demons fell before they could get close enough to restrict his movements.

  Four demons down. Six to go.

  Number five advanced on Raven, the desire and determination in its eyes accompanied by caution now. It had no interest in Blade, not even glancing his way, and again, he found himself frozen in place and unable to help her.

  When she stabbed demon number five, the paralysis on Blade broke again. He threw two more knives with unerring accuracy, and two more demons fell.

  He had only one knife left, and there were three demons remaining.

  This time, as the demons advanced, he did not lose the use of his arms and legs. If Raven was right about how the immobilization worked, it meant they were coming for him. He held his position, reconciling himself to hand-to-hand combat and probable death. He hoped it would be swift.

  “Stay close to me,” Raven said to him.

  Blade rolled the knife in his palms, calculating its weight and balance. They could not seem to hold their demon forms in her presence. If he stayed close to her, he would be fighting men. The odds were still not great, but they were far better than before. Demons were unused to fighting in mortal form—Blade would have the advantage now.

  Except that Raven sent lust shivering through him in waves, and he had to fight that, too. He was no more immune than the demons, only better prepared for it.

  “Keep your back against mine,” he instructed Raven. “You don’t need to touch me”— it was best if she didn’t—“but you do need to stay close enough that they can’t get between us.”

  She nodded, not speaking, her knife held at the ready.

  He did not take his eyes off the man-demons now circling them. “Don’t attack them with the knife. Wait for one to get close to you and then touch him, like you did with the first two. Leave the others to me.”

  They came at Blade and Raven as a single unit.

  If they’d hoped to overwhelm them, they were mistaken. Blade drove his knife into the neck of one man-demon. Raven did not attack either of the remaining two as he had been afraid she might. Instead, she dropped her knife at the last moment and touched both of them with her palms. The demons stopped dead in their tracks, their expressions twisted by a conflicting excitement at her touch and frustrated awareness of what was to come. Raven turned her face away, closing her eyes and biting the inside of her cheek while Blade finished them off.

  The danger was gone, at least for the moment.

  “I’ve never killed anyone before,” Raven said. Her breath came in harsh, strangled gasps.

  He was surprised that it affected her so deeply. Only that morning, he had prevented her from murdering her stepfather in a cold-blooded ambush. Did she not understand what that meant?

  If she hadn’t known before, she did now.

  He did not dare touch her. The sensuality she exuded remained at such a high level he doubted she had it under control, leaving him heavily aroused as it was. Adrenaline from the fight would not help tame it.

  “Sit down and put your head between your knees,” he suggested.

  She stumbled to an outcropping of rock nearby and did as he’d said. He stooped to pick up the knife she had dropped, then reclaimed the rest, giving her a few minutes of privacy. One by one, with loud sucking sounds, the bodies of the dead demons sank into the soil, swallowed by the sinkholes she had warned him of.

  He wiped the knives clean, first on the ground, then on the leg of his trousers, before carefully testing each edge with his thumb. Then, they disappeared into his clothing.

  Once they were safely hidden, he examined the landscape around them. She claimed this was a demon boundary. If so he wondered where it led, and if it had any connection at all to the boundary set in place by the goddesses.

  The goddess boundary, however, had been established in the mortal world. This one was not, and he had no wish to travel it farther. He would restrict his explorations of the unknown to the world where he belonged.

  As he mused, his arousal gradually diminished, although it did not disappear. But he had given her too long to recover already.

  “The smell of blood will draw more demons to us,” he finally said, scanning the cliff tops stacked against the jagged sky.

  She lifted her head, faint pink staining her cheeks.

  “No,” she replied, raking her hands through her curls. “They’ll leave us alone, at least for tonight. The immortals aren’t so great in number anymore that they can afford to surrender this many.”

  Some good had come from this, then. Blade could not be sorry she had drawn him into this world if depleting their numbers was the result. “All the more reason to kill as many of them as we can while we’re here.”

  She looked at him in disbelief. Distress filled her eyes. “You don’t understand. I’ve done a terrible thing.” Tension quivered in her voice and she turned her face away. “I’ve proved I belong here.”

  Chapter Six

  She had not wanted for any of this to happen. She had not wanted to fight demons. The one she carried inside her was battle enough. All she’d wanted was to find Creed and safety and to rid the world of Justice and be free.

  Her independence was far more dubious here than in the mortal world. The amulet her father had given her mother throbbed where it rested against the bare skin above her heart. Whether she liked it or not, she had a connection to him that was gaining in strength. She could not lure him as she had the others. He was one demon she could not fight. She rubbed her arms. He had said if she survived the night he might have a use for her.

  But the night was not over yet.

  While nothing in Blade’s expression gave away what he was thinking, whatever it was, it could not be flattering. She watched him as he stared at the tops of the cliffs, monitoring for danger while giving her time to recover, pretending he was unaware of the desire for him that she could not seem to get under control. She was almost as puzzled by that as he.

  But not quite.

  He was too hard to be beautiful. His face, all sharp angles and dark, shadowed planes,
could best be described as ruthless. He wore his black hair with no-nonsense severity, pulled back and restrained with a leather tie so that the stark lines of his cheekbones were more pronounced. Yet her artist’s fingers itched to explore the evenness of those harsh features. She saw such richness and depth in those intelligent, black-coffee eyes. She caught his thoughts and emotions in rare, brief, unguarded moments when something surprised him, and knew there was so much more to him. Her demon clawed with impatience to be near him. To touch him. To possess him.

  And he hated demons.

  “I’m not a demon,” she said out loud.

  Blade’s flat expression did not change. “I never said you were.”

  He could not help but think it though—she was sure of it. She sighed. Exhaustion settled in, and her leg throbbed, still angry and swollen when she looked down at her puncture wound. A place to hide—from everything—would be more than welcome right now.

  “We should get moving,” she said. “Find a place to rest for a bit.”

  He nodded and followed her through the murky light and broken terrain to a small cave she knew well. She eased into a small fracture in the rock, its edges expanding when she pushed against them and contracting once she passed through. Blade shouldered his way in behind her.

  The interior of the cave was open and roomy and glowed with the same blue-green light as the rest of the demon world. Raven collapsed on the soft, dry, sandy floor as Blade explored the deeper recesses of the cave. She had to turn in order to keep him in her line of sight. He hunched his shoulders where the ceiling narrowed, his broad frame filling the shrinking space. Caged energy coiled around him.

  He was putting distance between them, as aware of her as she was of him. Never had she reacted to a man in this way, as if she could not get enough of him, could not breathe if he was not near.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, hoping to distract herself.

  Blade looked up from his studious examination of the pliant walls. “How much longer do you think we’ll be stranded here?”

  “Until the night is over, or I wake up,” she said. This was her demon’s domain. When she slept, or hallucinated as she did now, she had less control over its natural instincts to bring her here.

  Blade frowned. “Can we be sure that when you do, I’ll still be with you?”

  Raven had not considered any alternate possibility. Guilt assailed her. Despite how he had fought them, and no matter how deep he buried it, she had felt his fear of demons. He would not survive here without her for long. She had begged him not to abandon her, and he had not, and she could not abandon him either. She tried to think of some solution.

  “We were touching when the demon world called me,” she said.

  A subtle shift in the dark depths of his eyes told her he recognized the danger she could cause and he did not want to touch her again. After what she had done to the demons she could hardly blame him. But she could not leave him here. She would never forgive herself.

  She braced a hand on the wall and levered awkwardly to her feet, hampered by her aching leg. He made no move to help her, although his body tensed as if prepared to do so if necessary.

  She smoothed her tattered dress over her hips and limped to stand in front of him. Compared to her, he seemed a giant. She had to tilt her chin in order to read his face, and therefore his emotions, with greater accuracy, but she did not try to touch him.

  That move would have to be his.

  “The mortal world and this boundary are two distinct places,” she said. “Both are real, but I can’t guarantee that what happens in one remains true in the other. I won’t apologize to anyone for what I am,” she added. “I didn’t plan my birth. I didn’t choose my parents. I will, however, own any decisions I make and the consequences of them. I asked you not to leave me alone, and for that, I accept full responsibility for you being here. I’m trying to ensure I don’t leave you behind. You can either face your fears and take my hand and increase our odds for success, or you can take your chances without me. That decision is yours.”

  Curiosity entered his gaze as well as desire—hot, but carefully contained. Anticipation she could not suppress licked up the insides of her thighs. The man was complex, exciting. Attractive, in spite of that thick layer of harshness—or perhaps because of it.

  “Do you think I’m afraid to touch you because you’re half demon?” Blade asked her, his voice dangerously soft. “Or to have you touch me?” She stood too close to him, becoming caught in the tangle of his conflicting emotions, and could not back away. Need spiked through her. He dipped his head so that his breath feathered her neck and ear, sending eager shivers curling through her core. He reached out to stroke a light palm down her hip, then drew her against him so that her face rested against his chest. “After you warned me not to show fear in this place?”

  No, he was not afraid. A different, more intense emotion caused the hesitation she sensed—desire. Need. The male, mortal scent of him left her light-headed. Her demon could not help but react with pleasure at the blinding certainty that she could have him if she wanted him.

  And she did. But she did not want him to think she had somehow claimed him against his will. That accusation had been leveled against her too many times in the past.

  She closed her eyes and concentrated on the beat of his heart beneath her cheek, a steady, reassuring vibration of sound that spoke of strength and confidence, until her own heart rate returned to normal and her demon had calmed.

  “You don’t frighten me,” Blade said, his words rumbling through her.

  She did not dare speak. Her own emotions remained too chaotic. Instead, she withdrew an arm from around his waist to slide her palm down his forearm until she touched his hand. She laced her fingers through his, his fist swallowing hers. His other hand pressed at the small of her back, continuing to hold her to him.

  His head, slightly bent over hers, encouraged her to stretch to the tips of her toes and drop a kiss at the corner of his mouth. He shifted his face so that her kiss encountered his lips.

  Shivers of desire snaked through her abdomen at the heat of the connection between them. The tight knot in her stomach slowly unclenched as the chaos of uncertainty inside her settled to breathless anticipation.

  Blade deepened the kiss, one hand holding hers, the other trailing upward to the nape of her neck so that his fingers tangled in her short-cropped curls. She sighed softly, closing her eyes and losing herself in the sensations he aroused. His hand fell from her hair to ease into the front of her dress. Cupping her breast, he rolled its nipple between his thumb and one finger, the delicate motion eliciting small sounds of pleasure she could not believe were her own.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered when he drew his hand away. When he did not respond, Raven opened her eyes. She caught caution and regret swelling in his.

  “This isn’t the time or place,” he said, although he made no move to release her.

  She knew he would let her go if she asked him to. She had but to say the word.

  She could not blame her reluctance to do so entirely on her demon. “When would be a better time?” she asked. “When I’m in the middle of another hallucination? When I’m running from Godseeker assassins?” She paused, unsettled. “Or perhaps you really are afraid of what I am.”

  “What you are is a brave, beautiful, and desirable woman.” His words came out soft but emphatic, and the palm he placed on her cheek was softer still. “I’m not afraid of you. Not here or anywhere else. I think you’re the one who has something to fear right now.”

  …

  Between the goldthief bite and the lingering effects of adrenaline, she wasn’t entirely in control of her own actions.

  He had no such excuse. He opened his mouth to say more. To put a stop to this.

  She tugged the tail of his shirt from his trousers and slipped her fingers along the hard, bare plane of his stomach, then lowered her head to press her lips to the flesh she had exposed. He st
ruggled to breathe, to find a way to extricate them both from a situation that was already too far out of hand. Instead he smelled the freshness of her hair and felt the smooth softness of her skin beneath his hands as her warm lips skimmed across the sensitive flesh above his navel.

  His body thrummed with pleasure, and he pulled her toward him so he could take her mouth with his. When she parted her lips for him, ever so slightly, he edged his tongue between them to sweep against hers. She tasted sweetly innocent, despite her bold words.

  The thought of her possible innocence gave him pause. He was uncertain of her true level of experience and suspected it was not high, although he had nothing on which to base the assumption other than instinct. But he found her exciting, and that was something that had been missing from his life for a very long time. He felt more alive than he had in a decade.

  He wouldn’t rush her, or take more than she wanted to give, but he longed to feel her.

  He took her face in his palms and kissed her again, but with more passion this time. As he felt her relax, he let his hands drift slowly down the delicate curves of her throat to the neck of her dress. The tattered remains slid from her shoulders to pool at her narrow waist. Slowly, allowing her time to protest if she wished, he eased it over her rounded hips and let it drop to the cave floor.

  She closed her eyes, not out of modesty, but with a slight sigh of pleasure on her lips. He had to admire how lovely she looked, bathed in the unusual lighting. He tucked a wild curl behind her ear, allowing his fingers to track the line of her jaw. She drew in a sharp breath.

  And still, she did not call a halt.

  Hands trembling from exercising restraint, he drew his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. She slid her hands down to unbutton his trousers. Soon they were touching, his heated flesh to hers. She opened her eyes and murmured his name. As he lifted her into his arms she wrapped her legs around him, and he rested her slender back against the cave’s soft wall. Bracing her against him with one hand he guided his erection to her cleft with the other, then had a fleeting moment of concern.