Dampness pooled between her thighs as she curled closer to him. He had said they could each do what brought them pleasure. She wished to prolong these moments before reality returned and the world intruded once more.
She wished to explore him.
She got to her knees, pushing him to his back beneath her, and straddled his hips. She watched his eyes darken with amusement and interest in the flickering light of the campfire, and he rested his hands on her thighs. Somewhere, far off in the night, she heard wolven howling as they gathered to hunt, but the noise did not alarm her when Creed was near. They avoided him as if they sensed the demon in him, and no wolven would take on a demon. Not even when hunting in numbers greater than usual.
She had nothing to fear when she was with Creed. With him, she did not need to be invisible. She bent to kiss him. As she did her braid of hair fell from over her shoulder to drape across his chest, pale against the gold of his skin. He picked up the long length of braid and wound it around his wrist so that she could not lift her head, her lips caught against his. With his free hand, he stroked his palm over the curve of her buttocks. His erection pressed heavily into her stomach. She moved her hips forward and back, creating friction against it, and the soft moan he emitted left her panting with a need of her own.
“I want you inside me,” she said, surprising them both. She was not normally this explicit. So direct.
Creed froze, but only for a second. He let go of her braid and went to lift her so they would trade places, with her on the bottom, and she grabbed hold of his wrists to stop him.
“No. I want to be here.” She raised his hands so that they were above his head.
She lifted her hips in order to slide a hand between their sweat-slickened bodies and guided his erection to the opening between her thighs, then stopped with the tip barely pressed into her heat. She eased him inside her, but barely an inch, before forcing him to withdraw. She did it again, and again, until his jaw clenched with the effort it took him to remain so uninvolved. Although he’d curled his hands into tight balls, he did not move them from where she’d positioned them above his head.
“Have I done something so awful,” he said through gritted teeth, his voice filled with good-natured frustration, “that you’re trying to kill me for it?”
She stopped. Sat back on his thighs. Her eyebrows went up as she looked at him. She could not quite believe that she dared to play such a game with a giant of a man like this, who was restrained only by the force of his own good will.
And yet she dared also to tease him.
“Are you protesting?”
“No,” he said hastily. “No, not at all. But it’s only fair to warn you that I do plan to get even.”
Nieve leaned forward to place a kiss on his chest. As she did, she ran her tongue across his nipple, then blew a soft breath on it. A shudder ran the entire length of his body.
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” she said.
“I have to live through this, first.”
She could wait no longer. This time, she took him inside her completely. And then she began to move in slow, easy motions, up and down, reaching to take his hands with hers and drawing them down so that he was once again free to touch her.
He was gentler with her than she’d expected him to be, particularly after she’d toyed with him for so long. He had his palms on either side of her breasts, stroking them with his thumbs, and held her steady as he thrust upward to match the rhythm she had set.
Pleasure seared through her, building in hot waves until she could no longer contain it. With soft, tiny cries she could not quite stifle, her inner muscles clenched tightly around him as she came.
Creed was not so restrained. As she collapsed on top of him, her cheek pressed against his throat, he climaxed with an arched stiffening of his body and a loud groan of relief that made Nieve smile.
They stayed as they were for a long time after, feeling the combined pounding of their hearts as they each enjoyed the warm presence of the other.
And Nieve knew it was as he’d said. He was hers.
Yet there remained a cold, empty place in her heart that Creed could not fill.
…
With one arm draped across her waist, Creed watched over Nieve as she slept next to him. The fire had burned low, but the brilliant, cloudless heavens shone bright.
They had not bothered to dress. She lay on her stomach, smooth skin pale against his darker, golden-toned flesh, with her face turned toward him and her hands tucked beneath her cheek. She looked innocent and content, and happier than Creed had yet seen her, although he wasn’t certain of her feelings.
Normally he was quite good at reading people. Not so with Nieve. She guarded her emotions as tightly as she was able and he tried to be respectful of her reticence. Consequently, he had not expected her to be so demanding in bed. So sensual. She was not at all what he had first thought her to be.
She was not what she thought herself to be either.
Pleasure and pain ate at his insides. Never before in his life could he remember wanting something so much that he knew would never be his. He would enjoy her company while he could. He would be good to her. And when the time came, he would let her go.
She made a small noise. A tiny frown furrowed her beau-tiful brow. He ran the tip of his finger across it, to smooth it away, and she averted her face from the slight touch as if she found it unwelcome.
She was dreaming. Whatever it was, it robbed her of the peace she’d been projecting only a few short moments ago.
Creed debated waking her, but before he could make up his mind, her eyes opened. She stared at him without recognition, her expression alarmed, and then it cleared so fast at first he thought he’d been mistaken.
She did not go back to sleep. She said nothing, only shifted closer to nestle against him, tucking her head beneath his chin. His heart flipped crazily at the intimate gesture of trust.
Her earlier happiness had leached away. He wanted to know what had disturbed her, and if it was something he could somehow resolve. If possible, he would take all of her worries away.
But while Nieve might trust him with her body, she trusted no one with her thoughts and fears. One evening of intimacy would not be enough to earn him those privileges.
“You were dreaming,” he said.
The warmth of her breath drifted across his skin with her response. “Was I? I don’t remember.”
She’d been dreaming of the demon who had once possessed her. That was the only reason he could think of for her to lie to him right now. He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and tightened the arm he held around her. He would not ask her to speak of one lover with another. He harbored no jealousy in that regard, particularly since she did not recall the other one with fondness.
He wanted to distract her.
“Tell me of your happiest memory,” he said.
“This is it. Right now.” She trailed her hand over his hip, from his waist to his thigh, the touch light and possessive. Distracting. “Tell me of yours.”
“That’s hardly fair,” he said, amused. “How could I choose anything other than this moment, now?”
“Tell me something from your childhood.”
His breath quickened, his thoughts scattering beneath the seductive movements of her fingers. He wanted her again. He could sense that she wanted him, too, but whether or not to distract him from his questions, he was less certain.
More than the physical connection, he discovered he yearned for a deeper, longer lasting intimacy with her.
“I was a model child,” he said. “Obedient and quiet.”
“And a liar, too, I’m sure,” Nieve said, “because I don’t picture you as obedient. Or quiet, for that matter. You talk far too much.”
That made him laugh outright. He had always been friendly and affable. People tended to respond to him in kind. Not Nieve.
“I had no one to obey, so that point’s debatable. And I suppose I do talk
a lot, at least compared to you.”
“Tell me of your sister. Would I like her? Would she like me?”
At one time he would have said no without hesitation. Nieve, however, was more complicated than he’d first thought. She did not lack courage, but confidence in her own abilities.
“I really couldn’t say for certain if you’d like each other,” Creed said. The two women were such opposites. “Raven was always in trouble. When she was younger, she had no idea of the way in which boys—and often, grown men—were drawn to her. She had no control over her allure, and no understanding of why it was necessary for her to gain it. I spent a lot of time fighting before she learned how to take care of herself.”
“And now?”
Creed smiled, his memories of Raven warm and dear. “She still doesn’t have to. I can’t imagine there are too many men brave enough to get within a hundred feet of her these days. Not once they’ve met Blade. Not if they wish to live.”
“He’s half demon, too, then,” Nieve said.
“No.” Creed tried to find the right words to describe Blade. “He’s a man who does what needs doing. Even demons fear him, as well they should. Raven is no doubt the only person in the world who has no reason to. Except, maybe, for the Demon Slayer, who considers him a friend.”
“Do you miss her?”
“More than you can imagine.” But less so lately, he discovered, faintly surprised that he did not think of her as much. “She’s happy and safe with someone who loves her, and that’s all that matters to me.”
He watched her roll his words around in her head.
“I wondered why you were so insistent about offering me help when we first met. You were alone, and needed someone to care for, and then you found me.”
She spoke with quiet and enlightened understanding, as if she had found the missing piece of a puzzle that had stymied her. He started to argue, and tell her it was nothing like that at all, but found he could not deny it. Not entirely. Nieve did need him.
Uneasily, he realized he liked it too much that she did. “You didn’t want my help,” he reminded her. “You tried to shoot me.”
“And you abandoned me because I did. But still, you came back.”
He said nothing. He’d not gone back because of her.
Her hand paused at his waist, arrested by what she must have heard in his silence. “I wasn’t the reason you were in Desert’s End that night, was I?” she said.
“No,” he admitted.
“You weren’t coming back for me.”
He wished he could tell her otherwise, but he was not going to lie to her. “I would have, eventually. In the meantime, I made certain that you weren’t completely defenseless. I spoke to the sheriff about you. But there are changes coming to the world that take priority over anything else I might want. I told you I have a job to do, and that it would have to come first.”
Nieve let her hand drop limply between them. “You’d already found something to care for before you ever met me, then. That means I’m a burden for you.”
“No.” Creed tangled his fingers in her hair and settled a kiss on her forehead. “You’re not a burden. Never. Having you with me makes no real difference to the things I need to do, other than that you’re a good travel companion.”
He was not lying to her, simply not being completely truthful. She was not a burden to him. He had made promises to her, and raised expectations he should not have done, but were little enough, really, that he would do so again.
But he could not keep her with him forever. He could not spend his days overseeing her happiness as he would like, or allow his feelings for her to interfere with his commitments to the changes that would be coming.
The best way to protect her, and others like her who could not defend themselves, was to make the world safe for them all.
…
“Willow!”
She heard her name being bellowed from some far off, distant place, rousing her from a deep, exhausted sleep, her heart hammering in her chest.
It took her a moment to understand what emotion it was she was feeling. The anger she heard in that summons would have made the Demon Lord himself tremble.
She listened for the sound to repeat, but all around her, the night remained silent and undisturbed except for the usual stirring of nocturnal creatures.
She and the children had made camp earlier than usual this evening. The newcomers, although strong enough to carry on at the same pace as the little ones, had been too close to starvation and Willow wanted them to be at their best long before they reached the Borderlands.
Thistle slept peacefully beside Willow, her chest rising and falling in deep, even breaths, which meant there were no half demons nearby. The girl would have been the first to sound the alarm.
And then Willow heard her name roared again, this time followed by an imperious command. “Come to me!”
Despite her efforts to suppress it, the unfamiliar sensation of fear mounted. The command did not come from the mortal world, but the demon boundary. He tried to summon her. Her. And, while the tug on her to obey him was so irresistible as to be painful, she could not answer it.
She could not cross into the boundary.
Neither could she let him discover that he held the least bit of power over her. She did not know how he had gotten it, but he had.
She did not know what had so enraged him either. Her mind raced, seeking some sort of solution that would afford her, and the children, the greatest protection.
It came to her in a flash of awareness. Rather than let him discover she could not cross to the boundary, she would make him believe that she was simply too strong for him to command. She would summon him here instead, even though it was night, and he would be near full strength.
He needed her. She counted on that for protection.
She eased from her bedding, careful not to awaken the others, and slipped off into the night. When she reached a small valley where the topsoil and vegetation had been well worn away by the wind, nearly a mile from the camp, she stopped.
The night was cold. Willow did not mind it so much, but the heat from the circle of fire she was about to raise would be welcome.
Within moments, she had a fiery circle in place. A second after that, the demon surged into its center. Willow kept the circle deliberately small so that she would have greater control over it, and of him.
He wore man form, but not even its physical beauty could hide the demon ugliness that percolated beneath the surface. He came to the very edge of the flames so that they licked at his skin. He neither burned nor backed away from them, but he did not pass through them either.
She was not certain that she could stop him if he tried. With sickening clarity, Willow understood she’d gotten herself ensnared in something a great deal more complicated and dangerous than expected.
She scrambled through her memories, and her past encounters with him, trying to figure out her mistake.
He stared at her for a long time without speaking.
“When I call you by name, you are to obey me,” he finally said.
And she knew. She had given her name to him.
How foolish of her to respond willingly to a demon’s demand, even one so seemingly insignificant.
Now that she knew how he had called her, the sickening sensation of fear abated. She dared not show such an emotion to a demon—or to openly defy one when it had a hold on her. Better to brazen this out, and let him think that he did not command her at all. “What do you want?”
The demon pushed his face close to the fluttering flames that distorted his features, and cast shadows across the ground more reflective of his demon form than the one he now wore.
Willow fought an instinctive urge to give ground.
“I want the payment you owe me. I want what’s mine.” His hands curled into fists. “And I want the spawn with her dead.”
Understanding dawned. The demon was jealous. The assassin had tried to claim the
woman he sought.
Willow had little doubt he’d succeeded. She wondered if she could return the balance of power to her favor. She had to give the demon something more, and of significant value.
Something the woman would relinquish the assassin for.
“The woman is searching for a small child she says is her son,” Willow said, thinking as fast as she could. The wind picked up, making the tips of the flames bow toward her. “He seems important to her. What would you give me in return for the boy’s name?”
The demon’s bearing grew cunning. “Why would I want his name?”
“You tried to summon me with mine. Could this child, if he’s yours, be able to refuse you as I just did?” Willow asked. “If you had him, you’d have all the control over his mother you want.”
And he’d still need Willow to bring her to him. Even with the son in his possession, he could not get to the mother.
She watched the demon struggle to think past his anger. She did not want him thinking too hard.
“Very well, you don’t want his name. However, the assassin wasn’t part of our agreement either. And since it seems the woman you want so badly has taken a new lover, finding her for you is a waste of my time.” Willow began to release her hold on the circle of fire.
“Wait.” He came close to the fire. It sparked in his eyes, which had gone blood red. “Get me the name.”
Chapter Eleven
Creed tied his hross in front of a shop in one of the many tiny desert outposts that scattered the edges of demon territory.
They had been traveling for several days already, and he needed those new boots to replace the ones he’d been forced to burn. His feet were wrapped in strips of tarpaulin that he’d cut from his tent’s rain barrier.
He’d need a new one of those, too.
He also had two grenades in his pockets that he planned to try and sell. A man had to be careful. If the person he offered them to didn’t want to meet his price, or couldn’t buy them for some reason, word would be out that he had them. They had already been set on by thieves once. He did not want to subject Nieve to that again if it could be avoided. He wished for her to see him as mortal, not demon.
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