Taming the Demon Read online

  Except she pushed him away, a firm shove. “Don’t crowd me. I’ve had days to think about this. Dammit, I gave you—”

  “Truth,” he said suddenly. He took those steps again, and more—backing her right up to the nearest elm trunk, where rough furrowed bark caught the wool of her coat. Her eyes widened, then narrowed—but there was no pushing him away. Not this time.

  And she didn’t really try.

  “Your truth,” he said, running the spread of his fingers over her hair—not quite touching, as if the sudden glint of it in slicing sunshine would burn as much as the blade’s sharp reminders, and yet...wanting. It didn’t help, the way she looked at him. Anger in the lift of her chin and awareness in eyes gone wide and dark, and just a little fear at the corners of her mouth, the faint flare of nostril.

  No, that didn’t help at all. “Your truth,” he said again, and his breath stirred her hair where it had loosened from the twist at the back of her head. “That’s why I’m here. Didn’t you know?”

  “I—” She might be pressed against a tree, but she’d stopped pushing at him. Her fingers rested lightly against his chest; she gave them a puzzled glance, and shook her head.

  He leaned in, breathing of her—making it obvious. “That’s my truth,” he told her, barely a murmur. “Now see how long it takes you to get back to me.”

  Her eyes widened; after an instant of hesitation, she snorted gently. “You are so full of it!”

  He laughed outright, pushing away from the tree. “Guess we’ll see, huh?”

  That’s why I’m here. To see.

  And because the blade would hardly let him do otherwise, even if he wanted to keep it out of her life.

  * * *

  Natalie hadn’t been surprised to learn that he’d brought a duffel, or that his truck lurked half a mile away from the back approach to the estate. Not close enough to give him away—or to draw attention to them. He broke away from her little tour near the back access, left the way he’d come in, and brought the truck in through the front gates in less time than she’d thought possible. That extra bounce in his stride...it added up.

  Normal Devin James, as far as she could tell. It wasn’t as though she had anything to gauge him by. Just deadly shadows and blurring speed, and then wholesale strangeness.

  And yet when she closed her eyes, she didn’t always see him, fighting for her in a dark parking lot. She saw the alley, those years ago. A cry of surprise, a flash of white-hot metal, suddenly extinguished; life extinguished.

  Her own life changed forever...

  And now she showed him to the second floor—not that he hadn’t already spent some unknown amount of time there, but he politely offered the pretense that he hadn’t—and to the small but complete guest suite—a sitting area, a small nook with modest appliances, a niche for the bed and an attached bath. “It’s not necessary,” he’d told her. “I only brought gear in case I get caught here sometime. My place isn’t that far.”

  “Mr. Compton would prefer that you stay,” Natalie said, and for the first time in the two years she’d been here, she felt a faint wash of embarrassment at the words—the ostentatious nature of them.

  “We’ll see how it goes,” he said, and dropped his duffel on the immaculate bed.

  “Thank you,” she said, and meant it. “There are several other rooms on this floor in which you’ll be welcome—the library, for instance. Most of the rooms on the first floor will be open to you. There’s a workout room, and the kitchen is always available.” She stopped in the doorway as she headed out into the short hallway on this north wing of the house, turning back to catch his attention. “I’m going to show you which refrigerator is open to house use. Do not—oh, I mean this!—do not get into the True.” Of course he had no idea what she meant; the face he made said as much. Eyes gone a little squinty, mouth a little amused. She let slip a rueful grin. “The big double-door steel fridge. Hands off. Unless you want to lose them.”

  “That would be the cook’s fridge, then? Because I’m betting Mr. Compton has a cook.”

  “Jimena, and she’s wonderful.” She glanced down to the first floor, where she had the sense the man in question listened to every word. Cameras in the corners, not to mention the natural acoustics of the place.

  And he did. Listen, that was. He knew everything that happened in this house, and she’d long ago learned to take that into account in phone and email conversations.

  Not that she’d rebuilt her life to include many connections outside this house. Not when she’d come here so soon after hauling herself back on her feet.

  She suddenly realized that Devin was grinning at her—and when she gave him the slightest of double takes, heading down the wide slate tiles, she was startled to realize he’d winked at her.

  He knew it, too. That they weren’t truly alone here.

  Distracted, she waved at the other guest rooms—currently empty—and at the solarium sprawled across the end of the hallway, double doors leading to a second-story porch. She pointed to the sitting room, where Compton kept a display of art and fine things, and as they crossed the exposed area of the mezzanine, the viewing room—soundproofed, full of speakers and a huge-screen television, comfortable seating, and more remotes than Natalie had ever cared to figure out. She read his expression as a quiet willingness to absorb what she had to show him.

  And then she realized she’d lost him. Heading down to indicate the library on the corner of the south wing with the door looking out over the mezzanine balcony and the entry below—and turning to indicate the area of private collections and the special guest suite that he should not approach—she lost him.

  The bounce of his step faltered; he slowed. She found him with that faintly puzzled, faintly out-of-focus expression, the one she’d so quickly learned to read.

  Or no...not quite the same. A little more self-aware this time. His head ever so slightly cocked, a faint frown of puzzlement on his brow...as if he listened to something that no one else could hear.

  “Devin?” she asked.

  “I—” he said. “There’s—”

  “Toes,” she told him.

  He closed his eyes; one hand went out to touch the heavily textured wall. Straight shoulders lifted, and if he kept his head tipped in that odd listening attitude, when he opened his eyes, they were nonetheless clear. “Never mind,” he said distinctly. “I’m fine. Just the dregs of what happened.”

  She opened her mouth—she meant to push him on it—all of it. To find out what those vague looks were all about, to ask once and for all what she’d seen in the darkness.

  But he caught and held her gaze, as steadily as he’d ever done. No sudden lighthearted grin, no breath-taking piercing connection. Just steady.

  And then she realized. She all but clapped her hand over her mouth.

  They weren’t truly alone here.

  And what she did now would tell him—would tell herself—exactly how much of a leash Sawyer Compton held on her. How tight, how strong. It would, she sensed, define not only what she was, but what she was to become.

  Maybe what they would become.

  “Well,” she said briskly, as if continuing the conversation just barely left off. Not pushing him, not exposing him. Dregs of what happened. “That’s to be expected, then, isn’t it?”

  Sudden relief flooded her—a sense of self she hadn’t quite realized to be missing. All this time, thinking she’d been making her own choices, and it turned out she had been focusing on the small things, the obvious things. That deep down, she was as much of a follower as she’d ever been.

  Not any damned longer.

  “Toes,” he told her, as if this was somehow a safe subject. But they did have to start the conversation again, and start it fast, she knew—and knew it suddenly and strong. Compton was no fool, and saying nothing was just as bad as saying the wrong thing.

  Devin ducked his head slightly, tipping it—looking at her, a faint furrow in his brow, catching her struggle, if n
ot understanding it, as he spoke again. “How’d you come to think of toes?”

  She looked down at her own, ensconced as they were in the black Gucci loafers she’d been wearing the night she’d been attacked. It didn’t matter what Compton heard; he’d hired her coming out of a difficult time, and he’d known it.

  Though it did suddenly matter what she told Devin James.

  She said, “They’re real.” And then at his lack of comprehension, she offered a little shrug. “A while ago, I...well, I was where I shouldn’t have been, and I saw what I shouldn’t have seen.” Hidden in the murk down a tight alley, a flickering light; a deep sudden flash.

  Strobing movement had revealed a man in silhouette, his broad stance full of strength—held back in hesitation, moving in sudden determination, and lost in the following darkness. A grunt of pain, a cry of surprise, and the alley lit like a fancy stage production.

  A man, staggering out of the night, a dark stain spreading across his shirt, his face revealed only in the ephemeral, bewitching-hot light, stark contrast and harsh, twisted features.

  Even now, closing her eyes, she could see him fall. Death coming over him, dulling him...turning him into nothing more than muscle and bone.

  She could still feel Ajay’s hand on her arm. And she felt the cold rush of understanding—that he had known what would happen here, that he had somehow been part of it, even if he hadn’t gotten what he’d come for, somehow—flooded her mind with revulsion, and from that, panic.

  Because what, then, was she?

  This was a life she’d chosen. A man she’d chosen. And then, she’d let him do every bit of the choosing for her. As though she’d turned her brain off completely, pretending their wild moments amounted to nothing more than hocking a few stolen goodies, smoking campus bammies and letting the haze of the pot convince her that life was good.

  She took responsibility for it—she took responsibility for it all. Learning to live with that had formed who she was now.

  She found Devin still watching her—concerned, about to reach for her, his stance and his intensity sending a shiver of déjà vu down her spine. She cut his inquiry short with a shake of her head. “I saw something. I had a hard time after that, and I was...” Alone and struggling, school dropout and life dropout and living one step shy of homeless. “...trying to pull myself back together. I came to realize that thinking of here-and-now things did that...and the better the detail, the better it worked. I did some reading...you know. Very Oprah.”

  Now the concern had disappeared. Now he looked faintly startled.

  She laughed, if without much humor. “Maybe you don’t know.”

  “Me. Oprah. Like this,” he said, holding up two fingers and twining one around the other.

  “I suspected,” she said, and felt humor take hold at the corners of her mouth, if only briefly. “Anyway, it works. And since it’s good for focus, when I saw...” You, so lost, trying to find yourself... “Well, I just thought it might be useful.”

  He glanced at her hand—the one she held alongside her leg, and the one she now used, so automatically, to settle herself. Her past tense, he seemed to be saying, wasn’t quite as past as all that.

  But he didn’t push the point. He had other things on his mind. He looked at her hand; he looked at his own. And he looked at her. “Show me,” he said.

  If he tried to make the words casual, he failed.

  But nothing about this man said casual. And nothing about what had passed between them so far could be called remotely that.

  Nothing, she suspected, ever would.

  Chapter 8

  He hadn’t expected to be jogging with her; here, over the local hard-packing sandy clay. Holding casual conversation in breathless little puffs of speech.

  “Event planning,” Natalie said, answering his last question—the one about just what did a personal assistant do for a man like Compton, anyway? “Targeted shopping. Travel preparations. Message management. You want more, or—?”

  “I get the idea.” He moderated his pace, but only slightly. “So, what? There’s a school for that? A degree?”

  “No, I went to school for—” She stopped, and she might have just been catching her breath, but Devin knew better. She was catching her thoughts. When she spoke again, the words were simple and final. “I took some courses.”

  He left it at that for a while. Didn’t have much choice, as they passed a property where three massive rottie-pit mixes paced them, barking thunderously. A marginal fence...the blade warmed to the potential of it.

  Natalie glanced at him—her face flushed with cold and exercise, her hands gloved, clad in simple sweatpants and a windbreaker shell over something thin and sporty. Her hair bounced on her back, a thick braid. “I don’t do financial work or anything deeply involved with the business side of things. I just make things happen.”

  “Doesn’t seem like there’s any reason for someone to be after you, then.” He fell back a few steps, checking over his shoulder at the racket as they left the property behind and the dogs made an extra effort to break through the fence. The blade gave a hopeful tingle. Not today, he told it.

  She glanced back, and the look on her face showed suspicion that he hadn’t yet caught up because he was too busy watching her ass.

  She was right, of course.

  She said, “Maybe they don’t know what I do. You didn’t.”

  True enough.

  “Or maybe they just think they can reach him through me. In which case they don’t know him very well.”

  He did catch up, then. “Maybe they knew better than you thought. Or did you think I was easy?”

  She tossed him a dry look. “I’m sure you’re worth every penny,” she said, and ran in puffing silence another few moments. “Mr. Compton is a practical man. Whoever’s upset about that Alley of Life project, he doesn’t intend to back down. This is one way to keep his business moving along pretty much as usual.”

  He said what she didn’t. “Must be a pretty big deal, then.”

  But Natalie only laughed. “All of his deals are big ones.” She led them over a rickety and informal metal-and-wood plank crossing, ten feet across a deep, seasonally dry canal.

  He hadn’t realized she’d be this fit. In his arms— almost in his arms—she’d struck him as slender, just the right amount of padding in just the right places.

  Maybe they’d run some victory stairs next, maybe to some stirring theme music.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  Ah. Nothing to do but shrug. Few things were as inexplicable as his head, even in the best of times...and these were far from that. For years, had been far from that.

  They passed another yard of dogs, all tiny little rat terrier types who poured out of a hole in the fence to swarm along at their heels. The knife gave a hopeful throb of warmth, and Devin directed inward scorn at it. You must be kidding.

  Getting bored, that’s what. Night after night, he walked the streets, following the knife to trouble...doing good in the name of bad, and trying so hard not to cross the line his brother had all but obliterated when he’d taken the wild road.

  Not that Devin truly blamed him. That was the worst part. His brother hadn’t been forewarned—hadn’t seen it happen to anyone else. Had first come across the blade by chance—although Devin knew better than to believe any of it was by chance any longer—without seeing the de-evolution of the man who’d once held it.

  Devin had seen.

  Devin had watched.

  His brother, changing. Gone dark and silent and obsessed. Gone heady with his power—the awareness that the blade would eventually put him back together after all but the most grievous wound, that his fighting skills came as inborn, that his strength and quickness required honing but not building.

  The blade had whispered him onto the wild road, slowly but surely. Turning on him, wearing him away from the inside out. Until Devin hadn’t even known him any longer, and saw only—

  “Devin?�
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  He looked up at her. He looked down at his feet. “We’re not running,” he said, because that was the most intelligent thing he could come up with, the world not quite real around him. Just his feet quiet on the ground, and not pounding against it as they should be.

  Not actually all that intelligent, really.

  She moved closer, all bright flush and bright eyes, individual strands of hair glinting bright. “Look,” she said. “Look at your hands.”

  He lifted them, turned them over—found hands that were used to work—the odd jobs between classes at Enrique’s and the security gigs and of course the cash commandeered from the pockets of those he stopped on the streets. No guilt there. Had there once been guilt? Had he once thought twice? Or maybe these weren’t his hands at all, square with long fingers and neatly clipped nails, healing knuckle scabs from who knows what. Maybe they weren’t even attached to his—

  She stepped into him. One hand slipped into his; the other touched the side of his face.

  Quite suddenly, that was all he felt. Not his feet on the ground or the exhilaration of a heart pounding from good exercise while still wanting more.

  Just the crystal clarity of her hand in his and the profound sensation of her fingers touching his face. Soft skin, a gentle touch. A polite touch, and yet...

  The touch of a woman who claimed familiarity. One who had dragged his bleeding body into her car, into his house...who had walked the halls with him all night.

  He sucked in a breath. He closed his fingers around her hand; leaned his face into her touch—and realized, suddenly, that he had done these things. His eyes snapped open—he hadn’t known they were closed—and he stared at her in a mixture of confusion and regret.

  “Feel it,” she said. “Every nuance of it. Where are my fingers touching your hand? Where are your fingers closing across mine? Where on my face—oh!”

  For he’d taken her face between his palms, threading his fingers into the base of her braid—soft, wavy texture anchoring him to this new clarity. He pulled her closer, watched her eyes widen—her mouth fall open.