Taming the Demon (6 page)

It was some moments later that he felt Enrique’s hand on his arm—fingers closing at his elbow, a firm but understanding grip. “Whoever you want to see,” he said, “it should be later. Now he should rest.”

Devin shook himself free. “I’m fine,” he said, suddenly annoyed at the entire situation. Mothered by an aging boxer, pushed to meet Natalie’s demanding boss—tethered to it all by weakness.

He should have been able to drive home the night before; he should have been able to get himself to Enrique on the bus.
Dammit.

“I’m
fine,
” he said again, though no one had argued. He shook off Enrique’s hand, stalked away from Natalie’s expectant eyes and aimed himself at the grimy glass gym door. Enrique’s Spanish curse at his back meant nothing; Natalie’s noise of dismay meant nothing.

The guys in workout mode between Devin and the door faded back and out of the way.

He stalked out into the bright sunshine and started walking, cat-footed in the black high-topped martial arts shoes he’d pulled this morning instead of wet sneakers. The cold hit him like a cruel slap, and he tipped his head back to soak it in, absurdly glad to feel it at all. Enough to laugh at himself, there on the sidewalk, his arms open to receive the cold and sunshine—to garner a strange look or two along the way.

Well, that was okay, too. All part of the game.

For however long it lasted.

He wasn’t surprised to hear hasty steps on the sidewalk coming up behind him. “You’re following pretty closely for a woman who drove away so easily last night,” he observed, not turning around.

Even if he’d just realized he’d turned in the wrong direction, and would need to cut over at the next cross walk in order to reach the right ABQ Ride bus stop. As if to drive the point home, one of the striking, red-and-white, double-length buses roared past.

“Hey,” she said, a little breathless. “I came
back.
”

“Right. You make your own choices.” If he shivered a little, he took a deep breath and enjoyed that, too. “Or so you say.”

“Hey!”

Now he stopped, so abruptly she ran into him and bounced back a step or two—and then another, as he took a step toward her, ignoring the faint alarm and definite surprise on her face. “Tell your boss no thanks. I’ve got things to do.”

Such as not wasting time with a man who thought his money meant people did as he bid them, whether they worked for him or not. Devin knew it well enough—just as he knew enough about Natalie’s influential and affluent boss. He was the last man who could gain even a mere whiff of the blade’s existence—because he was the first man who would scheme to take advantage of it.

Obvious enough, in the way he’d sent Natalie out into the dark of a difficult neighborhood, and in the way he’d pushed her to get Devin’s cooperation in spite of the absurdly inconvenient circumstances.

Maybe the man was grateful.
Probably
the man was grateful. An assistant like Natalie would be hard to find. But only a man used to controlling others would insist on this morning, this day...this
now.

“Hey,”
Natalie said, lifting her head and setting her stance—holding her ground. Sidewalk traffic flowed around her—mostly Pueblo and Latino in this neighborhood, making Natalie’s the out-of-place face. “I make my own
personal
choices, damn right. But when it comes to work, yes—I do as Mr. Compton asks. That’s the
point.
”

“Uh-huh.” He cocked his head, considering her. The flash of blue eye in sunlight, the indignation in her mouth and the way the curve of her full upper lip flattened out. “You good with that?”

It flustered her. “It’s a
job.
Sawyer Compton is a good man who does good things for this city. Maybe you
should
stop by—you might learn something.”

He watched her for a long moment, catching the tiny signs of rising temper. Thinking again of the night before, how she’d held together—fought back as she could, and fought smart. Stayed cool.

Not a skirmish virgin.

He gave her a sudden grin, one that took her back just as much as his sudden turnaround. It suited him. He didn’t underestimate this one, no. He didn’t take her lightly. And he needed her just as off-balance as he was. So he grinned—the I-don’t-really-have-anything-to-lose-anymore grin—catching the surprise in her eyes. “Maybe,” he said, shrugging the shoulder that was willing to do it just before he turned away again. “Or maybe not.”

She didn’t follow him this time—but her low voice reached his ears. “I saw all that, you know. Probably you wish I hadn’t. But I did.”

He stopped. He didn’t turn around.

She came up behind him—right behind him, her voice in his ear. “The knife that turned into a sword. Dead men, gone. And you—you should be dead. You know it. I know it.”

That ache...that was his jaw. His teeth clenching. His fists, so tight his nails cut into the flesh of his palms. “That,” he said flatly, “is crazy talk.”

“Maybe,” she said, but her expression said she was more sure of it than that. “But it’s still what I saw. And it’s what I’ll tell my boss—unless you want to come and choose your own story.”

He took a deep breath through those clenched teeth. Now the cold just felt...cold. Sleeveless old gray T-shirt under a gray hoodie with the stained fleece gone stiff where it had dried. “Black,” he said, as much to himself as to her.

“Excuse me?” She sounded wary, which was wise enough.

“The shirt. This day needed black.” Like the black that curled around his soul, taking advantage of precarious balance lost.

He hadn’t expected blackmail. Not from her. He’d somehow stupidly thought, after the raw intensity of this past night, after the excruciating vulnerability had come and gone, that she’d understand. That she’d respect it.

That she’d realize no one else could know about the blade.

As if the very mention made the blade come to life, flame hissed along his skin, raised the hair on the back of his neck...sent his thoughts bouncing along scattered paths. Natalie’s voice rested briefly against his ears, meaning nothing. The blade tugged at reality, replacing it with a hint of dark laughter—

And suddenly her eyes were there. Right in front of him. Her hands on his face, pulling his head down just enough to meet her gaze—sharp blue concern, mouth parted just enough for her teeth to catch her lower lip.

Right away, she realized he’d come back to the here and now. She dropped her hands and said dryly, “Toes.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Only works if you think of it
before.
” He scrubbed a hand over his face. Of course he wouldn’t be able to simply walk away from the previous night, just like that—from the first true taste of the wild road. And while what he needed most was rest, what he could afford to do least was let his mind wander.

She might well have read his mind. “Come with me,” she said. “And he won’t be able to say no when I have to take you back home. Leave him hanging, and he’ll just keep asking.” She hesitated. “If the toe thing really helped, I have some other things I can show you.”

“Do you?” he said.
Weak
. He knew it, and she knew it—he wasn’t going to walk away. He’d barely stopped himself from following her touch; he still felt the lack of it. Clarity, and awareness—and a gentler warmth that supplanted both the chill and the unnatural heat. “I can’t help but wonder why.”

“Good,” she said, and turned back for the gym—for the tiny little parking alley alongside the gym where he’d had her tuck the Prius away. She tossed her next words over her shoulder, as if she was suddenly quite confident enough that he’d be following behind. “It’ll give you something to think about.”

And yeah, look at that. There he was, following behind.

* * *

Compton ignored the man waiting for his attention as he set the phone on the desk and pushed it slightly—precisely—to the side of an otherwise clear desk. The small room adjacent to his estate office held several desks and a massive custom-made work station—and there, Natalie organized his time and his day, while at the same time never touching those files he hadn’t given her clearance to touch.

He’d given her plenty of chance to break those rules; if she’d been tempted, it hadn’t shown.

And so he trusted her now. And while he’d heard her reluctance on the phone, he’d also heard her acquiescence. She’d find a way to make it happen.

Unlike her ex-fiancé, who was both infinitely temptable and not nearly as reliable. Not that he didn’t try. He simply didn’t have it in him. Not the edge; not the determination. Ahh, if Compton had only gotten his hands on Natalie a few years earlier...

Definitely before her ex-fiancé had engineered the circumstances of Leo James’s death, hoping for the blade...failing. It wasn’t possible to predict what a blade would do during transition—sometimes it accepted the first new hand that snatched it up; sometimes it didn’t.

Maybe Natalie had even glimpsed some aspect of the blade that night—research told him that this blade, shared by two brothers, had a taste for flash. A major, with all the extra power that came with it. A blade that thought much of itself, with reason.

Damned thing liked to show off, is what it came down to.

Maybe when it came down to it, that was one reason he wanted this particular blade so very badly.

Then again, he wanted them all.

“Ajay,” he said, barely glancing at the man who still waited by the door—older than Natalie, coarser in every way, and her ex-fiancé...well aware that Compton had taken him on for his own means. Quite probably hoping to engineer himself back into her life, even if Compton had made clear that she was not to know Ajay Dudek was even in the area, never mind connected to her employer.

So Ajay’s name was all Compton had to say by way of admonishment. The man hesitated—an awkward flash of resentment he lacked the skills to cover—and inclined his head, acknowledging unspoken orders. He’d leave, now—and he’d take certain of his team members with him.

After all, Compton knew how to compartmentalize his activities. And this particular man yet had a role to play in Natalie’s life, whether she realized it or not.

Chapter 6

N
atalie had learned long ago that the drive to Compton’s estate wasn’t nearly as far as people expected it to be. And it wasn’t to the posh housing on the exposed western slopes of the Sandia Mountains, which they also generally expected.

No, the whittled-down old de Salas property now nestled between the old
acequias
of the Spanish land grants clustered in the Rio Grande bosk, all long since broken into tiny agricultural pieces. That the pieces followed the
acequias
—the canals—gave Compton his utter privacy.

Even Devin drew back from distraction to give Natalie a surprised glance when she pulled off the old El Camino Real highway—a grand name for a tight little two-lane road, even if it
had
been the first true highway of a country not yet born—and onto the narrow side street splitting an alfalfa field and sheep watched over by their glaring ram.

The speed bumps slowed them—broad humps of badly raised pavement, impossible to navigate gracefully even below the speed limit. They curved past an adobe hut of questionable soundness, a grandly decorated gate with all the bright colors and flowered dignity of old Spain, and a cluster of bright blue plastic barrels with fighting cock occupants.

He sat straighter when she quite suddenly made the turn down the wide sand-clay maintenance path of a main feeder canal, heading deep into the trees of the bosk—and straighter yet when she whipped the car through a tight turn into an unpaved driveway, winter-dead honeysuckle and creeper vines brushing the windows and snagging the antenna.

They slowed to navigate the gravel, and the estate home grounds opened up around them: thick browned grass, winter birds scattering through the bushes, high pampas grasses and trees lining the property, and the grounds themselves vast and groomed, a cluster of buildings toward the back third of the property.

“Well, huh,” Devin said.

And it was pretty much all he said, even as she parked—beside her own casita, a guest building as large as his own house—and led him toward the house.

She found she didn’t have much to say. Not with the trickle of second thoughts, the sudden trepidation that the moment these two men met...

Might just not be a good thing after all.

“What, no manservant?” Devin asked, as she opened one of the massive double doors beneath the long covered portal of the house front. Beautiful Pueblo style married with some of the old Mediterranean ways, painstakingly restored and maintained.

Natalie said, “Mr. Compton is a very private man. No one comes here unexpected or uninvited.”

“I’m supposed to feel flattered,” he observed, not sounding it.

What he felt, clearly, was unwell, and Natalie flinched from it—and from the truth of the words he’d so recently said to her.

Stop it.
Of course Compton made a huge number of the decisions in her day—he was making those decisions for himself; she merely saw them through.

This one, she thought, was one she might well have made differently. Given a choice.

Too late for that.

She’d keep this short; she’d see him home. And she’d take the opportunity to get answers from him about what had happened the night before—to those men, to Devin himself. To her, if it came to that. And then it would be over.

The second story ran in a mezzanine around three walls, leaving room for a soaring cathedral ceiling with a
latilla
rondel. Compton knew how to make a grand entrance—and knew when. “Natalie. Thank you.”

He had a rich voice—a cultured voice. Mellifluous enough to deserve a stage, intimate enough to command it. A man of his early fifties, he had a trainer-sculpted body, hair gone early to a bright silvery sheen and piercing blue eyes.

For all he demanded, he also rewarded. Until today—until this moment—Natalie had thought herself in the perfect situation.

Devin, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be overly impressed. “Nice place,” he said, without glancing at it beyond a cursory check of doorways and corners and shadows.

“Mr. James. I’m pleased to thank you in person.” Compton had his smooth persona on, no doubt about that.

Devin didn’t seem much impressed by that, either. “I’m glad I could help. But I actually had plans for today, so...”

Compton ignored the blunt nature of those words. “I should think you would want to rest after last night. I understand you were hurt.”

Devin stiffened slightly—not, she thought, at the suggestion of weakness, but because he simply didn’t want anyone to know how quickly he’d gone from bleeding out to healing up. And indeed, he said, “Barely,” and shrugged as if that would make it so.

“Then I won’t waste your time.” Compton strode smoothly for the staircase, trotting down the slightly curving length of it to emerge at the back of the room. Natalie took a step to meet him, realized that Devin intended to wait, and hesitated.

She did not feel so full of choices any longer.

She felt, in fact, caught up in an oddly disjointed war of responsibility. Of loyalty.

But that was absurd.

Maybe that’s why she did take that final step forward as Compton arrived before them. Trying to create a buffer between them—for just which of them, she wasn’t sure. Compton, who had not seen this man fight the night before and who now pushed at him, trying to define him by his reactions as he always did. Or Devin, who could not possibly be prepared for Compton’s ruthless nature and who still, in fact, wavered in the wake of the night they’d spent.

“Mr. James,” Compton said. “There are those who would bring me down, and they’re especially...let’s call it
annoyed...
at the moment. This makes them rash.” He stopped, watching for Devin’s reaction—analyzing his every twitch of mouth, his faintest shift of weight, and doing it without any attempt to pretend that he wasn’t.

Devin didn’t give him much. He watched Natalie, not Sawyer Compton. She felt the flush of it on her cheeks.

“The point,” said Compton, just a little bit more loudly, “is that I don’t think the attack on Natalie was a coincidence.”

“No,” Devin said, surprising her. “Neither do I.”

“What?” She turned a startled look on him—couldn’t quite figure out why she felt betrayed.

Maybe because this was just
a little bit important.
And he hadn’t said a thing about it.

Now
he looked at Compton. “However she ended up at a dead-end address, those men were targeting her. They weren’t drunk or on drugs, and they weren’t run-of-the-mill dumbasses.”

“So, then,” Compton said, brows raised. “I’ve chosen well.”

He—
what?

Devin looked at Natalie. “Call me a cab, will you? I’ll go wait on the street.”

She stiffened in protest. Out in the cold, with only the sweatshirt, still pale from blood loss, his hand jammed into his pocket to hide the way the arm pained him? “Devin—”

“All right,” Compton said. “No games. I can respect that. I want you to work for me, Mr. James. I want you to stay by Natalie’s side these next weeks, while I conclude the particular business in which I’m involved.”

Devin glanced at her. “You
should
get someone. But someone who isn’t me. I’m not pro, I’m streets.”

“You’re effective,” Compton pointed out.

More than you’ve guessed,
Natalie thought at him, and realized for the first time that she had no intention of telling Compton that two men had died the night before.

“It’s not a good idea,” Devin said, with evident amusement at Compton’s persistence.

Not a good idea? Why
not
a good idea? Because of what she’d seen? What she knew? Because she’d been in his inner sanctum and seen him hurt and seen him just a little bit crazy?

Because what if she
wanted
the kind of protection he could offer?

She wasn’t a fool. If someone wanted to reach Sawyer Compton through her, she wanted that someone to have to go through a man like Devin James.

She’d been on the street, too. She knew what it took to survive.

She wasn’t expecting him to look straight at her, his gaze serious, to say, “I’m not what you need. You know that.”

No.
She damned well didn’t.

“Maybe you should think about it,” Compton said, unreadable.

A flash of annoyance crossed Devin’s features, a brief lowering of his brow. “I’m glad I was able to help,” he said. “But you should—”

And he faltered. Not physically, despite the obvious strain, but his face showing brief struggle—a twitch of his lip, a narrowing of his eye, one shoulder jerking back in the faintest of movements.

Natalie felt it in him. She
knew.
One night of watching him fight it at its worse, and she knew.

She moved without thinking, closing the space between them to put a hand on Devin’s arm. He sucked in a breath, closing his eyes—she thought he leaned into her touch.

In a moment his gaze found Compton’s again. “You should find yourself another man.”

She couldn’t begin to understand the faint smile on Compton’s face. He said, “Natalie, it’s been a difficult time for you. Why don’t you take Mr. James home, and then take the rest of the day off. I suggest you spend the time here, of course, where we know it’s safe, but it’s entirely up to you.”

“I—” Natalie struggled to process all the surprises in those words. She gave Devin a dazed look of her own; he lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

A ride home. A day off. Fine.

Good.

Because suddenly she’d seen too much, and she knew too much without knowing nearly enough—and now she wanted answers.

She mustered her professional smile, the one that came with all the slightly formal manners she’d layered over her past. “Of course, Mr. Compton,” she said. “I’d be glad to. And thank you.” She waited for Devin to offer a hard little nod of acknowledgment to Compton, and let him precede her out the door.

She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

The moment the door snicked closed behind him, he turned on her—a fast move that startled her up against the other side of the double door; he pushed up close, shattering any illusion of personal space. She gasped as he jammed a hand behind her neck—tangling in her hair, curving to encompass the side and back of her head, his thumb brushing her ear.

Not gentle.

Personal.

“What,” he said, not so very far away at all, brooding eyes full of demand and close enough to show the smudgy layered strokes of blue and gray iris, “was that?” And his hand tightened ever so slightly at the back of her head.

She could have slammed a fist into his injured arm. She could have jerked a knee up into his crotch. For all of that, she could have rammed her head into his nose.

But she did none of those things, and she didn’t look over to the entry security camera; she had no doubt Devin knew they were being watched. She narrowed her eyes and bit her lip, pulling in air—scents of stress and soap and something cinnamon. With tight control, she said, “You’re welcome.”

He held her gaze a moment longer, his own eyes narrowing. And then, abruptly, he laughed. That guileless expression, backed up with its borderline boyish grin. He laughed and he said, “Yeah, okay,” and then to her astonishment, he leaned in those last inches and kissed her forehead. “Guess we’ll see.”

And then he left her there, the cold air rushing in around her like a slap of reality, and helped himself to the passenger seat of her car.

* * *

Getting in the warm car was a mistake; sitting down was a mistake. The flush of heat rippled up Devin’s arm like a living thing, sinking talons into every stitch of puckered, healing skin.

Kissing her—that hadn’t been a mistake. Soft skin under his lips, the surprise on her face, blue eyes opened wide.

Impulse. Not always a bad thing.

Because that nothing-to-lose feeling...sometimes it gave you little moments of
win.

He grinned then, as she started the car and pointedly waited for him to buckle up, and he grinned as he did it.

“Oh,
what?
” she asked, putting the car into gear and whipping it around the circular drive in front of the house, all eerie silent engine in the stark slanting winter sunshine.

He let the grin linger.

She rolled her eyes and pulled out onto the canal, and then onto the street—but she turned in the opposite direction from which they’d come. “I need gas,” she said shortly, in response to his glance. And then, as he gave the hybrid’s space-age dashboard an incredulous look, she added, “It happens!”

The blade warmed in Devin’s pocket, tugging at him with the burn of a limb waking up from frostbite. He inhaled sharply, his eyes widening briefly—a man trying to stay awake.

Or in this case, a man trying to stay himself.

A pale SUV spat out of the road behind her, shooting out abruptly into light traffic.

“Natalie,” he said, his voice no more than low.

“Assholes happen,” she said. But she frowned into the rearview again.

A glance at the passenger-side view showed him that the SUV crowded them from behind. Crowded them
close.
A big vehicle, full-size gas-hogging glory, suitable for farm work.

Or, given its gleam and styling, for hauling any basic urban team that thought much of itself.

“What are they—” Natalie’s hands tightened on the wheel, and Devin took the cue to brace himself.

Tap.
From behind, a polite sort of kiss to the back of the car.

Natalie cursed—a short, harsh word that didn’t suit her careful exterior. “Oh,” she said. “I don’t
think
so.” The Prius leaped forward, shooting up past the speed limit.

“Pull over!” Devin turned in the seat, looking over his shoulder. “You can’t outrun these guys!”

As if to prove it, the SUV came back up on their bumper for a less polite smack of metal on metal, high bumper against the back hatch and an audible crunch this time. Natalie cursed again. “I’ll pull over
my
way, thank you very much!”