She sprawled across him after, with her limbs threaded through his, and buried her face in the crook of his neck. She had not expected this connection, this possessiveness on her part, or the sudden, languid melting of her bones.
He ran his fingers in a lazy pattern up and down her spine as if his thoughts were far away. She did not trespass on them.
She had begun to drift off to sleep when he broke the silence that had settled between them.
“Your eyes glow,” he said quietly. “When your emotions are…intense. They shine like blue diamonds.”
The observation was unexpected, and she did not know what else she could say.
“I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s a unique quality. And very…appealing.” He sounded as if he found it amazing.
It was odd, she thought, that his hatred of demons did not seem to extend to her, even though he never quite forgot what she was.
She did not forget it, either. “You got the scars on your leg from fighting a demon,” she said. “Am I right?”
His fingers ceased their languorous movements. “There was very little fighting involved,” Blade replied. “I challenged it, and as a reward for arrogance, it tried to eat me alive. If a friend hadn’t come to my rescue, I would have died.”
Some of her pleasure died as the reality of his past sank in. Blade might find Raven’s glowing eyes appealing right now, but in the long run they would serve as a reminder to him of people and events he would rather forget. There would be no peace for him while they were together. Turning to Creed for protection would be a kindness to him.
The mood had broken. She nestled beside him, not bothering to dress because he did not, and went to sleep with a silent hope that she would not dream.
She said no prayers, however. Now that she knew who received them, she would never do so again.
…
They had crossed through yet another narrow mountain pass when Blade suddenly stopped. He could see nothing out of the ordinary. The sun shone brightly in a brilliant blue, cloudless sky. Birds sang from the trees. The air was crisp and clear. Yet something didn’t feel right.
That was the problem. He had grown up in these mountains and once knew them well. There should be smoke drifting from chimneys, and the sounds of people at work rising from the valleys.
Behind him, Raven’s hand instinctively went to her quiver and the shaft of an arrow.
“What is it?” she asked.
“There used to be a village in the valley beyond that ridge,” Blade replied, pointing.
Her fingers dropped from the arrow she’d partially drawn from its quiver. “It’s difficult to say from this distance. Perhaps there still is.”
“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?”