Black Widow Demon (17 page)

“Perhaps.” He did not believe it, however. He tried to conceal his concern from her, but Raven was beginning to know him better. She read his emotions. As a consequence he hid things from her less. Or at least, he hid them less well.

“An entire village wouldn’t have emigrated, would it?” she asked. “When we settled in Goldrush, only a small portion of our old town followed Justice. Most of its first settlers came from neighboring villages through word of mouth, because of the new mines and opportunities.”

“I don’t think this village emigrated anywhere.”

Again, his uneasiness seemed to transmit to her, and a faint hint of worry entered her beautiful eyes.

“Do you want to see for yourself if something is wrong?” she asked him.

He did not like the thought of leaving her alone while he did, but he did not want her to see what he suspected he was going to find in the valley.

“Yes,” he said. “I want to see what we should be preparing ourselves for, if anything. You should wait for me here.”

Her worry deepened, the color of her crystalline eyes shifting to a deeper shade of blue. “I’m staying with you.”

He was hardly surprised by her response since he knew how much she did not like to be alone. He also knew she was neither helpless nor fearful. She had fought him when they first met. She’d battled demons. She had survived horrendous hallucinations that would have driven a hardened assassin insane. She was not shy about letting him know what she liked when he touched her and had not permitted him to dominate their lovemaking.

A stray puff of wind ruffled her red-streaked black curls, and he’d never seen anyone more lovely.

Abruptly, he wanted her again.

She turned and smiled at him as if reading his thoughts, sunshine and heat in her eyes, and his heart beat a little faster. Even when crippled, he had been a man women tended to avoid. The depth and intensity of his appetite for Raven, however, was unlikely to frighten a woman who faced demons, and this morning he felt like the luckiest man alive—a sensation he was not certain he trusted. Happiness was a foreign emotion to him, and he viewed it with suspicion.

That did not stop him from reaching for her. He cupped his hand at the nape of her neck and lowered his mouth to hers, the kiss both fierce and possessive—and one she returned with equal fervor.

Regretfully, he dared not linger. The coming night, when he could give her his full attention, was something to anticipate, but right now, whatever was waiting in that valley tugged at him with a gnawing and unrelenting urgency that he hoped Raven did not sense. Roam’s warnings of spawn attacking villages had not been forgotten.

He tried to stay calm until he knew more, and made a pretense of helping Raven navigate through the many rocks hidden by long, yellow-tipped grass. She was more than capable but he simply wanted to touch her as he guided her down the mountain slope beside him.

Shortly before noon, on the edge of a bluff above the valley, he bent to examine the ground. “Hross dung. Not fresh.”

He searched the area and found traces of more than one animal. Hross were uncommon in the mountains, adapted more for desert travel. These ones easily could have belonged to Justice and his party. It was possible Justice waited in the village in the belief Raven might be forced to stop there if she needed supplies, but Blade thought it unlikely.

As he and Raven crested the ridge, his suspicions were confirmed. Nothing moved in the village except for odd bits of debris that rattled through the cobbled streets, carried like tumbleweeds on the cold wind.

She reached for his hand with ice-cold fingers, then gave up her grip on him with only a slight hesitation. They would need their hands free for their weapons.

“Ready?” he asked her, and she nodded.

They cached their packs among some juniper and alders, then approached the outermost boundary of the village. Small homesteads with attached gardens already tidied for the coming winter were all that met them. As Blade and Raven passed, they saw that the houses and outbuildings were empty. Not even livestock remained. Somewhere, a door creaked on its hinges and a shutter banged.

A sour, rancid smell assaulted them as they entered the town and the wind shifted in their direction. Blade recognized it at once.

“This way,” he said, pointing toward the town center.

Despite the strong, telltale odor, Raven did not falter—not even when they rounded a corner and discovered its source.

Sick anger settled in Blade’s gut, along with that old, familiar sense of helplessness he disliked so much. He had lived in demon territory for a very long time and had seen the results of demon fire before.

Raven, however, had not. She had grown up in the Godseeker Mountains, raised as a mortal and protected from such demon atrocities. Her experience with them came only through the boundary, and that was limited. Comprehension had not yet dawned as she turned in a circle, trying to absorb the extent of the catastrophe.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Where is everyone? What happened here?”

Looking around, Blade’s best guess was that the villagers had been rounded up, herded into a former temple, and the temple set on fire. Only blackened rubble now remained, but the sheer amount of rubble and ash was telling. No smoke rose from the cold cinders, which by rights should have smoldered for many days. The morning, once sunny and holding great promise, was overshadowed now by ominous, snow-tipped mountain peaks and the restless spirits of the dead, bound forever by demon fire to the ruins of an abandoned temple to some forgotten goddess.

“Dead,” he replied in response to her question. “Demon fire happened to them.”

“That’s not possible. Demons can’t cross beyond the boundary into this world anymore. They’ve been banished.”

Raven was adamant, but Blade knew she didn’t believe her own words. She herself had brought a demon at least part way to this world. That was not all. He remembered the blue flames beneath her skin. He did not know the full extent of her demon abilities.

“You can command fire,” he said slowly, thinking out loud. “Could you have done something like this with it?”

Confusion and hurt clouded her eyes. “You think I’m capable of doing something like this?”

He did not want to, but he could not afford to assume otherwise. She had two sides to her heritage. Blade had seen her demon side, and while it was one she controlled very well, what might happen if, for some reason, she lost that control?

The questions were ugly, but necessity demanded he learn the answers to them. “I believe anyone, pushed beyond their limits, will use whatever means they possess to strike back. Even mortals. I’m living proof of it.” He stared into the ashes rather than her eyes. “Everyone has limits. We have no way of knowing what happened here. Perhaps whoever did this felt threatened.”

Or simply hatred.

Despite the passage of years, Blade could not deny that he’d retained no love for Godseekers, or for any of the people who had turned a blind eye to the abuse he’d suffered at the hands of his uncle. How might spawn, with recently discovered demon abilities, react if they had led a life similar to his?

It was better for Raven if she acknowledged this potential instead of pretending it did not exist. At least they both would know what they were up against—unlike these poor people, who would have been caught unaware.

“What I’m asking you,” Blade continued, “is if you think spawn could have commanded demon fire to the level this would have required.”

Her tone cooled. “I only know what I can do, what I’m capable of. I can’t speak for others.”

“What can you do?” he persisted. “What do you believe you’re capable of?”

“Nothing like this.” She started to walk away from him, and the charred and blackened rubble.

He grabbed her arm. He would not let her ignore this. “These people died in a temple once dedicated to the goddesses, burned by what was undoubtedly demon fire. Do you not believe there’s any significance to it?”

She shook free of his hold on her. “How could I know that?” Her eyes began to glow with a faint but discernible bluish light. “Why are you doing this to me?”

He could not let any feelings he had for her interfere with finding out what had happened to these people, and keeping it from happening again. He pushed guilt aside. “You’ve sifted through my thoughts and emotions. My memories. It’s your turn to share. Show me what you can do with fire.”

She didn’t want to. She did not wish to acknowledge it. He could see it in her face. “You’ve already seen it.”

“I’ve seen you defend yourself,” he said. “I’ve seen you react to danger. I have no idea of your limitations or the extent of your control over your demon abilities. What happens if you lose it?” He gestured at the burned out temple. “Who else is in danger then?”

“Do you think I haven’t asked myself those questions?” The glow in her eyes intensified. “I can control myself.”

He did not know which of them she was trying to convince. “Prove it to me,” Blade said. “Show me what you can do.”

The diamond fire in her eyes sparked to flame. Her gleaming curls bobbed on a whisper of air as her entire demeanor changed. Hardened.

“I can tell people’s fears. I know you fear demons,” she said softly. “Are you afraid of me, too?”

Raven the mortal, he did not doubt. But the demon side of her was an unknown and seemingly separate entity, and she was not in as much control of it as she seemed to think. She was the one feeling fear now, and when Raven was afraid, her demon half surfaced.

How long could she fight it?

“No,” he said, allowing the truth behind his statement to surface for her to read more easily. “I don’t fear you.”

Her expression darkened. “Perhaps you should.”

From head to toe, she burst into blue flame. The sudden, intense heat drove him back a few steps, but she did not direct the fire outward.

Instead, he watched her struggle to contain it.

A mistake on her part, he saw almost immediately. She was burning from the inside out. If she did not release it, the fire would consume her.

She could die.

“Let it go!” he shouted at her. “Release it!”

He reached for her through the flames, his blood roaring in his ears and pounding hard in his temples. The sleeve of his leather coat heated and cracked as his scorched fingers snagged her arm.

The flames died away the instant he touched her. Then he had her in his arms. She shuddered, the spasms affecting him, too, as he cradled her against his aching chest and rocked her. The fire in her eyes was the last of it to fade, its bright embers lingering as he examined her for signs of injury.

“I hurt you,” she said, her breathing ragged and voice hoarse.

“No,” he assured her, ignoring the searing pain of the blisters rising on his burned hand. Not deliberately and not as much as he had hurt her. He kissed her cheek, still flushed from the fire, although her skin felt cool beneath his lips. A needle of ice pricked his spine as he understood what she had done. She had directed the fire inward in an effort to subdue her demon instincts, and without his intervention she would have died in the attempt.

And he had pushed her to it. He closed his eyes tight, imagining what could happen to Raven if she ever truly lost control.

“I’m not afraid of the demon in you,” he repeated, over and over. He held her tighter, the breath whooshing out of him as he realized that he would never be the same if he lost her. In the past, he had always stayed detached from other people’s lives—it was how he had survived all these years. But now that he had this woman, he could not extricate himself from her, no matter what her lineage. He could never harm her, or see harm come to her, because of him.

Her shaking gradually subsided. Blade released her, although he kept the blackened ruins from her line of vision. The rest of the town was devoid of life, its remote valley deserted. Whoever had done this terrible thing was long gone.

He thought of all the empty houses whose owners would never return. While Blade had gained greater insight into Raven—and at a cost—he had not learned much of real value with regard to spawn other than that they could, indeed, have caused this fire.

“We may as well fill our packs with the supplies we need before we leave,” he said. “These people won’t miss them.”

“Hold it like this.”

Raven listened carefully to Blade’s instructions, grasping the sword the way he showed her. The day was overcast, and her breath puffed in small clouds. With the taste and feel of snow in the air, she knew a storm was fast approaching.

It had been several days now since they had left the burned-out and decimated village behind them and eight since the night she had fled the fire in Goldrush. It felt like a lifetime had passed. Blade set a more difficult travel pace now that she was fully recovered from the goldthief bite, but this morning, when they rose from their blankets, he had looked at the heavy sky and called a break.

He was not letting the day go to waste, however.

She positioned her feet, adjusting her posture to account for the uneven ground and her small stature. Using both hands, she grasped the sword he had found for her in the village.

She had more bruises from his instruction than she wished to think about, but she enjoyed the fact he did not hold back as they sparred. It had been the same way with Creed. While neither man tried to injure her, they saw no benefit in teaching her to defend herself by sowing false confidence either.

Blade eyed her form critically. “You’re too small to try to stroke downward against me. How do you think you should compensate for that?”

She took aim at his knee, but he blocked her sword easily with a deft anticipation of the move.

“Very good. But don’t let me see what you intend to do. And go for the hamstrings, like this.” He demonstrated with fluid movements far more graceful than hers. “You want to incapacitate your opponent as quickly as possible. Once he’s down, you have to kill him. Don’t overthink it. Don’t hesitate. A wounded adversary is a desperate one.”