Black Widow Demon (Demon Outlaws)

by Altenburg, Paula

  It was obvious to Blade that Creed’s affection for both Raven and her mother was genuine. “Your demon talents are a variation of Raven’s,” he said. “She reads people’s intentions. You control them.”

  Creed grinned. “People do tend to trust me. As long as I don’t do anything to raise their suspicions, that is. It seems I went too far with you.”

  He gave off such an impression of good nature and great sincerity that it was difficult to reconcile him with the formidable assassin who had pinned Blade to the wall. Blade gave him full credit. He was, indeed, charismatic.

  “Does Justice trust you?” Blade asked.

  The easy grin faded. “Only to a point. It would be more accurate to say that he underestimates me. He knows my relationship with Raven is close. He chooses to think it’s because she can lure men, and therefore me, and I don’t want him to examine it any deeper. That’s why I can’t refuse to search for her.” Anger frosted his eyes again. “Justice attributes his own motives to others—because he wants her, he assumes all men do.”

  “What were you planning to do with her once you found her?” Blade asked.

  “I suppose I would have abandoned my own plans in order to care for her. Now I don’t have to worry. She has you.”

  Creed was wrong. She was not safe with Blade. Not the way she should be. Creed knew what she was and would not let any harm come to her. Of that, Blade was convinced. “She wants you, not me.”

  “Do you know anything of the spawn who have invaded the mountains? What they’ve done here? That there are more than Raven and me in the world, and not all of them are harmless?” Creed rubbed his eyes with a thumb and a forefinger. “The Godseekers will want to establish laws for all spawn. They’ll want to hunt them. Someone needs to protect the ones who are innocent. Who’s in a better position to do so than me—a man who’s trusted by almost everyone?”

  It spoke well of him that he saw the need for justice to be applied equally and for all. For Blade, however, Raven’s safety remained paramount, and her future was not settled. He cared little for the well-being of others while she was in danger. “So you won’t help her?”

  “Not while you can,” Creed said. “Get her out of the mountains. She can’t stay here with Justice searching for her. She’ll endanger others. I’ll hunt for her, just as I’ve been ordered. But I’ll start in Goldrush, and I’ll follow several false leads. The spawn terrorizing villages are my priority now that I know Raven will be safe.”

  Footsteps sounded outside the closed dining hall door. Both men went silent. The steps slowed, then faded away.

  “You’d better go. I’ll see you past the gates,” Creed said.

  He escorted Blade out through the lesser-used side posterns. Few people were about at this time of night, and it helped that the ones they did meet expressed no interest in their movements. If questioned later, Blade doubted they would even remember having seen him. Creed did, indeed, have a worthwhile talent.

  Blade could only wish Raven’s was the same as his. She attracted, rather than deflected, far too much attention.

  The night was bitterly cold, but the full moon shone very bright across the sparkling snow. Stars glittered in a deep, cobalt sky that stretched for miles. Blade swung his arms in an attempt to generate heat, anxious to be moving.

  “What message should I give her from you?” he asked.

  “None,” Creed said. His expression closed. “Just wish her well for me.”

  Blade’s movements stilled, the cold forgotten. “Don’t let her believe you’ve abandoned her.”

  “If I give her any encouragement at all, she’ll never leave these mountains.” Creed turned away, then paused and looked back at Blade. The moon cast a long shadow behind him. “If anything happens to her, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”

  For a few long, thoughtful moments, Blade watched Raven’s brother walk the narrow path back to the temple. Creed meant every word he had said, but Blade did not fear him or his threats. He only worried how this rejection would affect Raven, and in what direction it would drive her.

  He chose to consider her physical safety first. If Creed were to begin his search in Goldrush, as he claimed he would, Justice might follow. Taking Raven down the mountain, then, would become a race against time.

  The amulet Raven had looped around Blade’s neck spread warmth throughout his chest even as the cold bit into his heavy coat. The wind had died, leaving the night silent and bright. Leaving the mountains did not necessarily mean going back toward the desert, although he could make it seem that way.

  But the goddess boundary lay in the opposite direction, on the far side of the mountain range. Blade had come here to search for it. Perhaps they both could cross through it. Raven had killed demons. That might buy her passage. It was not as if she had many options left, and it was a move that no one would consider.

  Blade did not know what more he might do if it turned out that the goddess boundary could not be crossed. It was also possible that nothing of the Old World existed on the other side of it anymore. But they would never know if they did not try.

  And he liked the thought of seeing the sea for the first time with Raven at his side.

  …

  From the shadowed enclave of the entrance to the temple’s guest quarters, Justice watched and waited for Creed’s return. He stamped his feet for warmth and blew on his numbed fingers, careful not to make too much noise. If he had not been so certain of the connection between Raven and Creed he might not have bothered to wait so long, but it had proved worth his while.

  Seeing Blade inside the walls had come as a surprise. Justice had suspected he was helping Raven, but that he would dare enter the temple was unexpected.

  The man had steady nerves—and a complete lack of fear.

  That, or he was completely bewitched.

  Whichever it was, Raven must be hiding somewhere nearby. Justice wondered if Creed would lead him to her, but thought it was more likely that he would lead him in the opposite direction. He knew Creed better than the arrogant young assassin suspected.

  It was not long before Creed returned, unaccompanied. Justice watched him cross the courtyard. Not a single guard paid him any mind. Justice waited for Creed to enter his living quarters before stepping from the enclave of the guest quarters and into the moonlit courtyard.

  Justice crossed to the guards’ post. Immediately, they straightened at his approach.

  “Good evening,” he said. They nodded with deference, recognizing him as the Godseeker who had arrived earlier in the day. “Who was that man who just entered through the side posterns?”

  The guards looked at him, then each other, their growing uneasiness apparent. One spoke. “No one has entered or left the temple on our watch.”

  “My mistake.”

  Justice returned to his quarters, feeling the guards’ eyes track him until he was inside and the door was closed. They thought he had been testing them and worried that they had failed.

  They had, although they weren’t to blame.

  As he rolled into the bedding of his sagging cot, he deliberated as to what he intended to do about it.

  …

  The sun had not yet colored the horizon when the sound Raven had been waiting for had her hurtling from the shelter—and without the weapon she had promised Blade she’d keep at hand. She had no need for it because she heard singing.

  “O, give me a home by the sea,” sang a deep and lusty voice. He was not yet within sight, but it was Blade’s voice, beyond a doubt. And he could, indeed, sing.

  She smiled, impressed by the unexpected beauty of it. What kind of man might he have been if his life had begun differently?

  Anticipation fluttered in her abdomen, both at the thought of seeing Creed for the first time in months and because she had been so worried about Blade that she had not slept. As Blade rounded the bluff through the swirl of fine snow her chest swelled and sank. He was alone.

  The singing stopped when Bla
de saw her. He dusted the layer of snow from his hooded head with thick-gloved fingers. Raven stood on her toes, peering past him, hoping for Creed to appear at any moment. Sickening disappointment filled her when he did not.

  Where was he? What if something had happened to him?

  No. She did not believe that. Creed was invincible. But neither could she imagine that Blade had not found him.

  “Where’s your weapon?” Blade growled.

  She ignored his disapproval. “What happened?” she asked, anxiously scanning his face. She could feel that something was wrong, and that he did not want to tell her about it. “Wasn’t Creed there? Couldn’t you get inside the temple to speak with him?”

  “I got inside, and I spoke with him.”

  Raven relaxed. The sick feeling eased. Something had delayed him was all. “When is he coming?”

  “He’s not.”

  She waited for Blade to explain, but he said nothing more, only watched her with unusual compassion. Reality slowly settled in, and the world reeled around her.

  Creed was not coming for her.

  It took her a few seconds to comprehend that the roar in her ears was not caused by the wind.

  “We’re leaving the mountains,” she heard Blade say past the pulsing beat in her head. “Justice was at the temple. He’s engaged an assassin to hunt you. You were right. Not even winter will stop him, and he’ll have men with him who know these mountains better than I do. This isn’t a safe place for us.”

  Her heart clenched in a tight, frozen knot. She had not realized just how much she had counted on Creed. Now, she had nothing. Blade had made it very clear that while he did not mind her company, she could not stay with him forever. He wanted his freedom returned to him. And he worried that, at some point, he would fail her.

  He could not fail her more than Creed had.

  Blade continued to speak but Raven barely listened. She caught something about “wishes you well,” “others like you,” and “needing protection.”

  She did not want to hear how others needed Creed more or how unimportant she had become to him. She could not imagine anyone needing him more than she did right now.

  “I have everything packed but the bedding and shelter,” she interrupted him. “You must have been awake since you left yesterday. Did you want to sleep for a few hours before we depart?”

  She could see the concern in his eyes, but he did not press her to talk.

  He turned to the shelter. “An hour,” he said. “No longer. I’d rather we were far away from here before night.”

  …

  While Blade slept, Raven stood numb and alone at the edge of the cliff and watched the sun begin its slow climb over the mountains. Reds mottled to purple, then to vibrant blue. The world, wild and free, dropped off for miles at her feet. True demons could fly. That was the one talent she wished she had inherited, because then, she would soar far from these mountains where no one would ever know of her.

  But she could not, and if she were to survive, she would need to stand and fight. She would need to become the very thing she did not want to be. The thing Blade hated.

  He was with her now only because he felt responsible for her situation, but how long would it be before he felt he had done his duty and she lost importance to him, as she had with Creed, who she had relied on since childhood?

  The thought of Blade turning from her, too, left her breathless and faint. She did not want to die. Nor did she wish to be a burden.

  The abyss beyond the cliff’s edge, inches from her booted toes, danced and swirled, and she closed her eyes against a sudden wave of unexpected dizziness.

  Before she could retreat to safety, the rocky ledge began to tilt forward and give way. Her arms pinwheeled as she tried to maintain her balance. A sharp cry of fear escaped her.

  And then the ground leveled off beneath her again.

  When she opened her eyes, a familiar, blue-green light had chased away the last purple shadows of the retreating mortal night. She had time to do no more than register the solid ground under her feet before her father was calling to her.

  “Little demon.”

  He appeared on one of the nearby broken cliffs, a black shadow against the churning, lightning-streaked demon sky, before leaping lightly from precipice to precipice to stalk toward her in his mortal form. With his black hair, ageless face, and those striking pale eyes, he could pass for her brother rather than her father.

  She waited, knowing better than to try and run from him. He stopped an arm’s length away, as close to the cliff’s edge as she.

  “This is the second time I’ve helped you,” he said.

  He had saved her from falling. It had only taken that one moment of stark fear for her life for him to be able to summon her. Raven went cold despite the heat of the boundary and the heavy clothing she wore. The snow that had been caked to her legs melted through her wool trousers as fire crackled beneath her skin.

  “I never asked for your help,” she said.

  “But you didn’t want to die. I know your wishes.” His smile held satisfaction. “You’re more demon than you admit. Between us, we could rule the mortal world. I can show you how,” he said. “Summon me.”

  “No.” The price he’d set for her life was too high. Immortals had been banished from the mortal world, once and for all. Bringing them back was something she would never owe him.

  His icy eyes flashed dangerously. “Do you believe you’re the only spawn who can summon a demon? Do you want another to be the first to unleash us?” He seized her arm, his fingers bruising her skin through the heavy padding of her coat, and shook her as if she were a child’s rag doll. “You might have protection from other demons, but not from me. Your life is mine and you’ll do as I say. I can kill you if I choose.”

  Rather than frighten her more, deep down inside, the threat calmed her. She had something he wanted. It gave her power over him.

  And power was strength.

  “You saved me from death for your benefit, not mine. If you kill me now,” she said, “you’ll never get what you want. No, I think I’m safe enough from you.”

  He backhanded her across the face with his free hand. The blow nearly blinded her with pain. Coppery-tasting blood seeped from the fresh cut on the inside of her cheek.

  He did not have to kill her to make her wish she were dead.

  Heat flared in her eyes as her demon rose to defend her. This time she did not try to suppress it. Her father’s grip on her arm tightened, and he raised his fist to strike her again.

  A hand seized his wrist before he could do so. He flung it off, releasing her so that he could turn on his attacker, and Raven stumbled free.

  Blade.

  How had he gotten here?

  His shirt was untucked, as if he had crawled from his blankets, but he wore boots and trousers. His black, sleep-tousled hair fell free. The amulet around his neck blazed a hot, brilliant blue. She sensed no emotion in him at all, buried or otherwise. His harsh face, all angles and planes, remained impassive, but while he looked every inch the assassin—something too easy for her to forget sometimes—not even he was a match for a demon.

  Raven tried to push past her father to reach him, to lend him her demon’s protection, but her father swept her aside, knocking her to the ground. Sharp, crumbled rock bit into the heels of her palms.

  Blade’s eyes never left the demon. “Touch her again,” he said, “and you die.”

  Surprise at the bold threat etched her father’s face, followed by ugly amusement. He retained his mortal form, although Raven doubted if that was by choice. His gaze flickered to the amulet around Blade’s neck.

  “I see you’ve discovered the amulet’s purpose,” the demon said. His eyes narrowed on Blade, his hatred plain to see. “We’ve reached an impasse, mortal. I can’t kill you while you wear it, and since you’ve not yet tried, I don’t believe you can kill me either.” Raven rose slowly, brushing the grit from her hands. Her father’s sharp eyes
shifted to regard her with cold contempt. “He makes you weak.”

  “Come here,” Blade said to her. He continued to watch the demon as he spoke.

  Lightning shredded the dark strip of sky above, followed by a low, rolling boom of thunder. Near Raven’s feet, a long fissure cracked open and blue-tinted steam hissed into the air, stinking of sulfur. Instinctively she flinched away from it, putting her a few steps closer to her father and the edge of the cliff.

  Blade’s attention diverted from the demon to her, just for a second, but it was long enough. Her father vanished.

  The blue flame in Blade’s amulet died away, as did the fire beneath Raven’s skin, although her demon was not yet mollified. It responded to Blade’s presence and the danger to him with a desire and possessiveness Raven could not seem to quell. She dug her fingers into her wild mass of curls, shoving them off her face, as glad as her demon to have him with her.

  Blade looked at her for a long time as the fissure continued to spew foul-smelling steam. His expression did not change, but his distaste for his surroundings was evident enough. He reached for her hand and drew her to him, then stroked her bruised face with his fingertips. Although he was gentle, the contact made her cheek throb painfully. His dark eyes kindled with unsuppressed anger.

  “If I can figure out how to kill your father for this, I will,” he said.

  Some of the chill in her heart seeped away, warmed by his defense of her, the reminder that she was not yet alone.

  “How did you know that the amulet could bring you here or that it would protect you from him?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know anything. I was asleep, then you were in danger.” A muscle jerked in his jaw. “What were you thinking, coming here like this, when your emotions were high?”

  She did not want him to know that she had not come here by choice but because her father had saved her life.

  She did not have to explain. He put his arms around her and held her, his relief that she was alive even more obvious than his anger, telling her that she was not yet unimportant to him.

  Her own relief was equally enormous. She had not known that her mother’s amulet could bring Blade here. If she had, she wouldn’t have given it to him. The thought of the danger he had just faced terrified her far more than the fall from the cliff had. Without knowing he was protected, he had threatened a demon on her behalf.