Black Widow Demon (Demon Outlaws)

by Altenburg, Paula

  “All right,” she said. Her fingers had begun to tremble, and she linked them together in her lap. “I was maybe five years old. My mother was working on a particular piece of jewelry that required soldering enamel to silver, so she had a fire burning in her shop.” Raven remembered the sweltering heat of the day in vivid detail, but she’d always enjoyed watching her mother create beautiful things and would rather stay with her than join the other children outside. “I was playing on the floor in front of it. I stood up to grab my ball after it rolled away, and I caught my foot in the hem of my dress. I fell into the fire.” She could still remember her mother’s screams of terror and then the conflict of relief and dawning horror in her eyes when she discovered that Raven was unharmed, even though her clothing was ruined.

  You’re a demon, her mother had whispered.

  For years, Raven had burned with the guilt and shame of that moment. It was not until Justice entered their lives that she understood that her mother must have known all along who had fathered her but was unwilling to acknowledge it.

  “Ordinary fire doesn’t harm you,” Blade said thoughtfully, “but demon fire can.”

  That was an understatement. She had almost consumed herself with it.

  “The demon fire is new to me. It seems to be brought on by strong emotions, and that makes it hard to control.” And when her emotions ran high, her demon emerged, compounding the problem.

  Reaching for her across the short distance between them, Blade took her hand and drew her against him, the top of her head settling beneath his chin, her cheek in the crook of his neck. He wrapped his arms around her so that the blanket at his shoulders covered them both, his heart rate strong and reassuring beneath one of her palms. He slid a hand under the thick, waxed-cotton jacket she wore over her lighter, feminine underclothing and stroked her spine with warm fingers.

  “I didn’t want you to be a part of what happened outside because I didn’t want you to see how easy it is to be cold-blooded about killing,” he said. “It has nothing to do with whether or not you’re half demon. You control that part of your nature far better than you believe. It makes you stronger, not weaker.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, his breath ruffling the soft curls of her hair. “You aren’t a killer, Raven. I’d prefer you to stay this way. You aren’t a demon, either. You’re so much more than either of those things. So much better. Working with assassins isn’t the right future for you, and if I thought it a real possibility, I’d fight anyone, including your friend Creed, to keep it from happening.”

  While his faith in her warmed her, the struggle to keep her demon under control would never end for her. She could not dismiss or deny it the way he thought she could. At any time, the balance could tip. Sooner or later he’d come to hate her. She already felt the distance he had placed between them since they left the village.

  He caught her chin and forced her to look at him. His lean face, shadowed with a day’s growth of beard, was as unsmiling as ever, but its edges had softened.

  “I’m going to find your friend Creed and reassure myself that you’ll be safe if I leave you with him. Then I’m walking away.” His low voice made her shiver. “It has nothing to do with demons and everything as to what I can and can’t offer you. If working with assassins isn’t the right future for you, being with me would be far worse. You deserve better.”

  Need coiled through her. Her demon disagreed. This was the man it wanted. And this was one battle with her demon she saw no reason to fight.

  She slipped one knee to the ground and swung the other to straddle his thighs, taking his roughened cheeks between her palms to kiss his mouth. He tasted of fresh air and smoke from the fire.

  “You have no idea what I deserve,” Raven said. “You have even less of an idea about what your own value is. Walk away once we find Creed if you want—I won’t stop you. But until that time comes, don’t push me away.”

  She shed her coat.

  He did nothing at first, and then, slowly, his hands went to her hips. The scratch of his unshaven jaw scraped like sandpaper along the tender flesh of her throat as he trailed hot kisses to her ear.

  Fumbling with the buttons of her blouse, Blade untucked it from the waist of her trousers. She drew a quivering breath as his rough fingertips grazed the smooth flesh of her abdomen. The demon inside her surged again, this time seeking pleasure, and she saw no reason to deny that, either.

  She could not stop him from walking away from her, and in fact, agreed it was best. But for him, not her. They both had their demons to fight, and while she knew hers, she did not believe he knew his.

  Chapter Eleven

  Justice and his companions rode through the open gates and into the courtyard of the Temple of Immortal Right ahead of the storm. Although they had not been challenged at the valley’s entrance, Justice knew their movements were being monitored.

  The temple was not one single structure but a complex of rooms burrowed warren-like into the steep basin walls of one of the mountain’s many craggy valleys. Its courtyard ran the length of the valley floor, with a cordoned-off training yard occupying center stage. Inside it, assassin trainers, bared to the waist without regard for the bitter cold, bludgeoned the novices.

  Justice slid from his hross, slapped dried, crusted mud from his chaps, and stretched the cramps from his injured leg. Having seen the training before, he had little interest in watching it now. They were rarely well matched. Cage and Might, however, nudged their hross closer to the sweating and bloodied fighters.

  Justice passed his reins to one of the assassin attendants.

  “Where’s Siege?” he asked.

  The pimple-faced young man gestured over his shoulder toward the row of entrances leading to the temple’s inner maze of chambers, his attention occupied by the shying hross displaying its dislike of unfamiliar hands on its reins. “The library.”

  Justice passed the lecture hall and refectory before reaching the entry to a long, low room. Shelves lined the stone walls, filled to capacity with well-worn books, and the room held the unmistakable smell of dry, ancient paper. A trim, elderly man sat, straight-backed and frowning in concentration, his white-haired head bent over a desk strewn with reams of bound volumes. A soft, eternal light radiated from the low ceiling, a gift to the temple’s servants from the goddesses.

  Siege was a Godseeker as well as an assassin, but it was the name he had earned when still a young man that won him undying respect. He had once fended off three demons that had been hunting him in one of the retired mines, unworkable since before the time of the immortals. He had escaped through an old, caved-in shaft and made his way back from the desert to the protection of the goddesses’ mountains.

  He had also been carrying his weight in pure gold.

  Now that demons were gone, Justice intended to bring some of those lucrative old mining claims back into production.

  The old man looked up when Justice’s shadow filled the doorway.

  “Justice,” Siege said. His voice held no surprise, and no welcome either.

  Justice bowed a greeting out of deference to the man’s age and status. While he might be old—and rumor had it his heart was no longer strong—his years had not softened him. Siege remained one of the best instructors and a passionate defender of the goddesses.

  Justice hated him. He suspected the feeling was mutual.

  “This is a poor time of year for travel in the mountains,” Siege added. “What brings you here?”

  “Goddess business.”

  Siege set down the pen he’d been holding. “Have a seat.”

  Justice removed a stack of books from a spindle-back chair and nudged it closer to Siege’s desk with his knee before he sat down.

  Siege began to spin the pen beneath his fingertips, around and around on the desk’s polished surface until Justice itched to take it from him.

  “What might that business be?” Siege asked.

  “Have you heard the reports of spawn in mortal form? Have
you seen what’s been happening in the mountains?” Justice asked.

  The old man’s expressionless face hid his thoughts. “I’ve heard. So far, I’ve seen no firsthand proof.”

  “I have.” Justice told Siege of the destroyed village he and his companions had passed on the trail.

  Siege’s creased face did not betray him. “How can you know spawn were responsible?”

  The question was valid. The mountains had been under the protection of the goddesses since their first coming, longer than any living mortal could remember. To acknowledge that half demons could enter here meant the goddesses held no power over them anymore. To any Godseeker, it was an ugly possibility. Spawn, unlike their immortal fathers, were born to this world. What if that meant they had no restrictions within it?

  If they did not, that made them more dangerous to mortals than full-blooded demons.

  Female spawn would be an even greater problem. No one knew how the immortals came into being, and Siege might view them as half goddess, not half demon, based on their gender.

  Justice himself believed there was no true difference between the immortals—he despised them all equally.

  He answered Siege’s question with care. “I’ve witnessed house fires, barn fires, and fires in the mines where people and animals burned to death. A goddess temple was burned to the ground with everyone in it, leaving nothing but smoke and ash behind. It would take demon fire to cause that type of destruction.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve also seen the devastation a spawn can cause when it gets too close to mortal men. I’m afraid my stepdaughter may be one of them. She uses seduction to entice and enslave them, just as a demon would. She tried it on me, a Godseeker.” He tapped his amulet and looked at the one Siege wore. “This is all that saved me. If I were a weaker man, not even an amulet invoked by an immortal could have done so.”

  “That’s your stepdaughter’s sole demon ability?” Siege asked. “Seduction?” He smiled as if greatly amused. “Take it from an old man. That ability proves nothing other than that she’s a woman.”

  Good. Justice did not want Siege too suspicious of her just yet, only willing to have an assassin bring her to him.

  “I was once favored by a goddess,” Justice said. “I would hope that an ordinary woman could hold no such power over me. This one’s mother slept with a demon. I heard that from her mother’s own lips. And after my stepdaughter escaped lawful custody, I followed her into the mountains. While I don’t wish to believe it, it’s possible she brought the demon fire against those villagers. She could have enslaved the men, then used her control over them to round the villagers up and lock them in the temple before burning it. She’s even touched one of your recruits,” he added. “Creed. It’s possible she can make him do her bidding, too.” He could not resist a bitter jibe aimed at the goddesses’ faithful, one of which he would forever remain whether he wished to or not. “Once a slave, always a slave.”

  The smile on the old man’s face vanished. “Creed is hardly weak-minded.”

  Justice fought to keep his own opinions on that concealed. It seemed Raven’s friend was already earning a reputation for himself, even amongst the seasoned assassins. It had always been this way with Creed. He inspired the trust of others in him.

  “Then let him prove he’s not owned by her, or that she doesn’t have the ability to own him,” Justice said. “Have him track her down and return her to me. Of everyone here, he would stand the best chance of capturing her—she trusts him.”

  Suspicion glittered in the old man’s eyes. “If she’s spawn, why do you want her?”

  “As her stepfather, I own her and am responsible for her. I also believe that the stories about spawn are true. It’s the duty of the Godseekers and their assassins to ensure the safety of the mortal world from demons in the goddesses’ absence,” he said. “I want to discover the extent of the capabilities she’s kept so carefully hidden.”

  Siege stared at his blue-veined hands, which had begun an intricate manipulation of his pen back and forth between his nimble fingers while he deliberated over Justice’s arguments.

  “What do you believe the assassins should do?” he finally asked. “Once I have more proof,” he added. “I would need to see for myself that she’s truly half demon.”

  “Of course.” Justice felt his excitement mount. “I think the Godseekers and assassins need to provide a service to the rest of the world in the name of the goddesses. We can use my stepdaughter to examine what a spawn’s weaknesses might be. Then, we begin to hunt them. But we start with her.”

  Siege reached for a bell. At once, a servant appeared. “Send for Creed,” he said to him.

  The servant bowed and left.

  It had been many months since the last time Justice saw the young man. When Creed entered the room a short while later, Justice might not have recognized him if he had not been expecting him.

  Wearing soft-soled, brushed-leather boots that extended to the knee over tight denim trousers and a thick shirt of coarse wool, Creed had hardened in both appearance and manner. The black hair he’d always kept short was gone, his head clean-shaven and smooth. He’d also filled out. Once lean in appearance, he now had the bulky shoulder and thigh muscles associated with long days of weapons training and hand-to-hand combat. He made Justice aware of his own thickening waistline and advancing years, and Justice clenched his jaw at the unflattering comparison.

  Creed had grown more dangerous, too. A threat prowled beneath the surface of those implacable eyes, and it was apparent that his fondness for Justice had not improved with time and distance.

  But Justice did not care what the younger man thought. As an assassin, Creed was now forced to do the bidding of a Godseeker, and Justice intended to pit him against Raven.

  “You’re looking well,” Justice said to him.

  Creed gave the small bow of respect required by assassin tradition and the enforcing presence of Siege, but he did not respond directly. He turned to the elderly assassin instead. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Justice claims we have a spawn loose in the mountains. He’s requesting you hunt for her.”

  Justice saw the man’s faint start, then a flicker of wariness enter Creed’s eyes. “I don’t understand.”

  “Raven has exposed herself as a spawn,” Justice said. He enjoyed having unsettled her longtime defender. “But she managed to escape. I tracked her into the mountains.”

  “How did she expose herself?” Creed asked. “How did it become apparent she’s spawn, after so many years?”

  “She tried to entice me.”

  Creed started toward him, one tight fist held low at his side. “You lying bastard.”

  “Creed!” Siege’s voice lashed out with enough force to drag him to a halt.

  Justice did not show his relief at the old man’s intervention, but he knew—Creed’s eyes told him—that the younger assassin would have killed him if he had not been checked. It was also noteworthy to him that the old man did not make Creed apologize for the insult and threat.

  “You’ll find her,” the old man said to Creed. “When you do, you’ll bring her here for judgment. Other Godseekers will be summoned so that any decision regarding her is final.” His gaze shot to Justice. “And fair.”

  This was not at all what Justice wanted. It took the control from his hands. His chin went up. “She’s my daughter. Her fate should be determined by me.”

  Siege dismissed his protest. “You claim she was spawned by a demon. Therefore, she’s the responsibility of all the Godseekers, not one.” Siege addressed Creed again, whose anger had not diminished but at least seemed to be better regulated. “Find her. I want her alive. But if that’s not possible, given what it’s claimed she is, then her body will do.”

  If Justice had not known Creed for so many years, he might never have noticed the sudden rigidity in the young man’s demeanor. His mouth compressed, and he did not meet Siege’s eyes, instead staring at a point just past the assas
sin leader’s shoulder.

  Obviously this was not the decision he wanted, either.

  “Weather permitting,” Creed said, “I’ll set out in search of her tomorrow.”

  Siege dismissed him.

  Justice watched him go, doubting very much if Creed would obey Siege’s command. At least, not to the letter.

  It made him worth watching.

  …

  Inside the sweltering smithy, Creed dipped the cherry-red blade of the knife he was forging into brine. He had a talent for the finer blacksmithing work thanks to Columbine’s teachings.

  Sweat trailed down his back to collect at the laces of the sturdy leather apron he wore. This was a delicate task that required intense concentration, and it helped keep his mind off matters he could do nothing about. The storm meant he could not set out at once to find Raven, as he wished—he had to wait it out. He maintained his normal calm, friendly demeanor as he went about his training and daily chores. Inside, however, he chafed at the delay. Worse, he worried for Raven’s physical safety. Was she out there, unprotected, in this weather? Had Justice touched her? Was that why she ran?

  Creed’s mistake was that he had never dreamed that Justice, a man who had once been the favorite of a goddess, would see her as anything other than his daughter. Now he knew that he should never have left her. The recruiters had come for him, yes, but he could have persuaded them to leave without him.

  But no one denied the recruiters. Not even he could have kept such a story from spreading if he’d succeeded, and it would have revealed more about him than he cared for anyone to discover.

  And now Raven was alone in the mountains, searching for him in a storm that showed no signs of relenting. Already, the drifts were waist deep in places. When it was safe to leave the temple, if he found her, he had to somehow get her to safety. That would create further problems for him. If he did not return with her—and soon—Justice would have Siege send someone else to comb the mountains for her.

  And there would be other half demons to worry over before too long. Creed had told Roam of the mining village not far from the temple that had houses fit to live in for the winter, but it was no longer such a good idea to have them so close.