Taming the Demon (22 page)

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “My choice,” she said, and laughed, low and bitter. “No one to blame but myself.”

He pressed his lips against her neck. “We know more than we did. Look around—we know how to
learn
more. We can do this.” He eased his hand down her arm, to her wrist—led it, unresisting, to place the blade by Compton. “Let it recharge. It’ll be easier if you do.”

She did, then, finally drop the blade, leaning back against him. “My choice,” she whispered.

Chapter 23

N
atalie pushed the legal papers across Devin’s kitchen bar counter, riddled as they were with terms and phrases that only a lawyer could parse.

Didn’t matter. She’d gotten the gist of it. She’d understood it as it was explained by Compton’s lawyer; she’d understood it as the bone-deep awareness of Compton’s history trickled in through Baitlia.

Demon blade.

She understood, these weeks after Compton’s death, that the estate belonged to Devin now.

Typical of Compton’s dark humor, she was beginning to understand. Build humanitarian efforts in those places where he’d acquired blades. Give his wealth not to some distant relative, but to the very man who’d killed him. Mocking humor.

And they’d learned something else, too: the lawyer knew. About the blades, about the gist of what had happened in that private little study. Although the disposition of the estate had been a long-standing arrangement, Compton had left his lawyer a letter with Devin’s name.
In case.

Too bad he hadn’t left a body.

And that was something else they’d learned about his lawyer. He was a man who could arrange things. Bribes, a predeceased John Doe playing the role of Sawyer Compton, now declared dead of natural causes—a body ready for cremation; ashes to be buried beneath a stone with Compton’s name. All done before they’d even known the terms of the will. While they still huddled together at Devin’s small home, healing and holding, and letting the rest of the world wonder what had happened.

Not a man they particularly trusted.

Natalie spread her hand out over the papers, shaking her head. In the little living room, Devin’s television muttered away over an old Western; he lay sprawled on the couch, his eyes half closed. Or probably closed now. It was, she’d learned, the one way he shut out the murmur of his own blade. Not enough, in the long run—not even enough any longer—but a habit in which he still retreated when he had something to absorb.

And ohh, there was plenty of that.

The estate...now Devin’s. Not that it wouldn’t take a while to straighten things out—a time during which the brutish security teams had been dismissed, Jimena had been assured of her position, and Devin had gone through Natalie’s little home, clearing it of invasive hidden cameras.

She still didn’t feel welcome there. Small Devin’s home might be, but...

It held two of them. For now.

Besides, she had a lot to learn about wielding a blade.

It sat small and warm in her pocket, a sheathed Spanish blade: antler-handled, a short palm knife with a straight spine and an upswept curve—meant for rabbit-skinning, and all around utilitarian.

Maybe one of these days she’d get used to knowing so much about any given knife at a glance, and more than that when she took it in hand. Or maybe she’d get used to the idea that she quite suddenly had a tattoo over her heart, curving over the swell of her breast...both beautiful and horrifying.

Baitlia.

She glanced at Devin, found him still sleeping—or not—his sock-clad foot twitching slightly where it hung over the end of the couch. Self-consciously—forever self-conscious about
this
—she lifted the hem of her soft cotton sweater, pushing down slightly on the waistband of casual slacks.

It was still there. The healing scar of the wound that should have killed her, only a week or so earlier.

She tested it, stretching her arms overhead, twisting from side to side. Only a twinge. She couldn’t help a guilty glance at Devin—he’d been so deeply battered, so embattled with his blade...the healing hadn’t been clean. He’d finally returned to Enrique’s for careful weights and treadmill work, but Enrique would have to find another sparring crash test dummy for a while.

She smiled. Enrique, irascible and still without any clear notion of how to use a cell phone, but back at the gym.

For the moment, Natalie didn’t see the kitchen or the papers. She didn’t see Devin dozing out in the other room, trusting her...his foot twitching and his breathing just slightly uneven, as if in response to those things going through his subconscious mind.

She saw him as he’d been, two days after Compton’s death, bringing Enrique home—but stopping at the gym first, of course. Just to check on it.

Enrique had looked terrible, barely able to stand straight enough to walk, his face swollen and misshapen—but his eye sharp between bouts of fatigue.

Devin had looked little better. Limping, still coughing...weight and muscle lost in the process of healing. But fiercely protective of Enrique—enough so the young men at the gym quickly faded back as Devin settled Enrique behind his desk. Just a visit...just long enough to see that all was well, and then straight home to bed, where his teenage grandniece would be spending half days with him until he healed.

Natalie herself was still tender, still tentative...still dazed by her new association with Baitlia.

None of them had been expecting Ajay Dudek. Leo’s old friend, and Natalie’s former fiancé. The man Compton had used in his quest for the blade—and the man who’d been happy to comply for what he’d hoped to gain.

“Nat,” he’d said.

And Enrique had narrowed his eyes and reached for a certain desk drawer, and Devin had straightened his shoulders no matter the cost, taking a step that put him between Ajay and the other two.

Ajay had shaken his head. He looked older than Natalie expected—his features, instead of maturing into definition, had thickened at his neck, his nose; added flesh to his cheeks. His broken hand had been swaddled in casting. “No, no,” he’d said. “I’m not Compton’s any longer.”

“What makes you the hell think I care?” Devin growled.

Ajay lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I came here knowing you might kill me. That you could. And that no one would ever be the wiser.” He gave Devin’s hand a meaningful glance, where it had slipped into his vest pocket.
Anheriel.

“Then why come at all?” The growl hadn’t left Devin’s voice—the glower hadn’t left his eyes. Natalie put a hand on the small of his back—quietly, from behind. Being with him. Letting him know she was all right.

Ajay shifted back a step. “Because I need to know whether or not you’re coming after me. Now, later...whenever. And if I run, is it going to make a difference.”

Enrique suggested kindly, “I think you just kill him now,
hijo.
Put him out of that misery.”

Devin grinned, and Ajay—not a man of much color to begin with—paled, but for harsh red spots on his cheeks from the outdoor cold. “Nat,” he said, and stopped to swallow visibly. “Nat, you might say something.”

She moved up closer to Devin; she found her hand slipping into the pocket that held Baitlia. “What do you want me to say, Ajay? You want me to stop them from playing with you? I think you deserve that. You want me to stop them from killing you?” Her voice grew harder; her eyes narrowed. “You almost killed Enrique. You almost killed the man I love. And why—because you thought there was some faint chance that you could still come out of all this, all these many years later, with one of those blades? What exactly do you want me to say?”

His lips thinned. “You loved
me
once. We had a good thing, once. That oughta be worth something.”

Natalie stiffened; Devin glanced back at her. To her surprise, his glower had changed to something of grim satisfaction. She gripped the back of his vest. “No, Ajay. We
didn’t.
” Was it her imagination, or had Devin leaned back ever so slightly into her touch? Subtle support. “
You
had a good thing once. I grew out of it, and now I know I’m better than anything you ever offered me.”

The conviction in her voice startled Ajay—widened eyes, and that unpleasant expression he got when things weren’t going his way.

It was Devin who added, so casually, “You wouldn’t be looking for this, would you?” as he guided Natalie’s hand out of her pocket—there, where Baitlia sat—first the little palm-sized Spanish skinning blade it liked so much—and then, under Ajay’s scrutiny, shedding its snug, minimal sheath to flare bright blue-white, singeing hot metal flowing to the Brazilian knife it also favored.

Ajay cursed...but his gaze stayed riveted. Not horrified, not frightened...

Lusting.

“Kinda gets you, doesn’t it?” Devin said. “All the years you’ve waited, all the trouble you’ve gone to...even the way you used Natalie back then. Or thought you were using her, you dumbass. She never had anything going with my brother—never even knew him. Hanging out with people who hang out with each other...not even
close.
” He tipped Natalie’s blade; light stroked along the glimmering Damascus steel. “Now she has one.”

“Son of a bitch,” Ajay muttered.

“No, seriously,” Natalie said. “I think
dumbass
is closer to the truth. Maybe even double dumbass.”

And there was Anheriel in Devin’s hand, the agate handle polished bright, the metal reflecting sharply. “By the way, Ajay,” he said, so gently, “the third blade—” The one left bereft of bonding at Compton’s death, never part of the action at all— “Don’t come looking for it.”

And Ajay, his lust fading visibly into defeat, had said, “But...we’re good. You’re not going to let me walk away now and mess me up later?”

“
We’re
good,” Devin had observed—in total command of the blade, now. In total command of himself. “You pretty much suck. But go suck on your own time.”

Natalie hadn’t been able to help it—the twitch of a smile.

Ajay had taken a step back; Devin had taken a step forward. “Maybe you might want to move on out of this area anyway. Just for your own sake. Because, dude—check it out. What’s this city got to offer you now? Except maybe the constant reminder that Natalie has what you always wanted...and I’ve got
her.
”

Natalie smiled, there at Devin’s kitchen bar, her eyes closed and her mind’s eye leaving memory to replace it with now,
here.

So many things left to sort out. Details about the estate...details about the knives, about how she and Devin would move forward from here. Some of it was obvious—the research, the need to understand what the knives were—where they came from, whether they could be controlled without completely succumbing to the dark path Compton had taken, whether Natalie’s methods would keep their souls intact after all.

Not to mention that Compton had chronicled visits to three countries. Started humanitarian projects in three countries, establishing his philanthropy even as he sought the power that made him a danger to all.
His cover.
And in that private study, they’d found hand-crafted mounts for three blades.

But Compton had had only two.

So many things left to sort out.

For now, it was enough to know that they had lived through the previous days; they were healing—together. They would learn—together. They would get through this—together.

Their choice.

Natalie gathered the papers and padded quietly past the back of the couch, returning them to the little table by the door. She thought she’d do some yoga stretching...maybe some of the Tai Chi he’d begun to teach her.

Quiet activities, done quietly. Healing, focusing.

Except as she padded back past the couch, his arm snaked up, snagged her—and just that fast, dragged her over the back of it to slide down on him—a shriek of surprise, a laugh of delight, limbs already tangling. “I thought you were asleep!”

“Big mistake,” he said, inhaling deeply of the hair behind her ear and tickling her mightily in the process.

“Or incredibly clever ploy,” she shot back at him, her hand slipping unerringly down the flat of his belly and under his belt.

“Wuh...”
he said, quite obviously forgetting how to breathe, his hands closing around her arm, her waist—and then gone demanding, one hand down her pants to knead her bottom. He pulled her close, pushing up against her as the other found its way up under her sweater.

Natalie laughed, stroking him; his head tipped back, his eyes closed. She soaked in his groan through the sudden skin-on-skin contact, belly to belly, chest to chest. Here, then, was another sort of focusing activity.

And she didn’t think it would be quiet at all.

* * * * *

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