But he did not really believe she would become like him if she received an assassin’s training. Without a conscience or empathy for others to temper the demon in her, it was entirely possible she could become something more terrible.
And if she could not relinquish her conscience, as she had been unable to do in the burned-out village when he had pushed the limits of her demon, an assassin’s training might very well destroy her. Either way, she could not win.
That, in turn, raised a disquieting question for him. If an assassin’s training destroyed her, what might being with him do to her?
Troubled, he returned to the shelter.
…
The shelter was quite roomy inside, with the small but adequate fire Raven had built giving off both heat and light. A crack in the rock ceiling above it created a natural chimney.
She sat by the fire and waited for Blade.
He pushed aside the flaps on the tarpaulin and entered the shelter on a flurry of wet snow. He tied the flaps behind him, shutting out the storm. There wasn’t enough clearance for him to stand upright, forcing him to stoop awkwardly as he removed his damp outer clothing, which he hung to dry. He was left wearing trousers of heavy denim tucked inside tall leather boots, and a high-collared shirt of tightly woven raw linen, now unbuttoned to mid-chest. The clothing would not be enough of a barrier against the numbing cold, and Raven scrabbled through one of their packs for a wool blanket.
As she looked back at him, she noticed the sleeve of his shirt was soaked in blood. The scent of it hit her nostrils, leaving her light-headed.
When he saw what she was staring at, he mistook her fascination for concern. “It’s nothing,” he said as he unbuttoned the shirt the rest of the way and slipped it off his shoulders. He wadded it into a ball and tossed it aside. After he cleaned and packed the wound with scraps of cotton lint, she helped him wrap it.
He hunched his large frame around to face her in the confined space. He took the fresh shirt and blanket she handed him.
“I hadn’t intended for you to be part of that,” he said.
She blamed the sudden chill pebbling her flesh on the rising wind that seeped beneath the tarpaulin’s skirts. He thought she found killing difficult, when the opposite was true.
She had no trouble with it when it was necessary. It was her demon’s reaction to it that she found so repugnant. It enjoyed blood. It craved it. But she couldn’t speak the words.
Kindling in the fire splintered to pieces, the glowing embers settling into the pit with a sigh. Blade took a seat with his back to the fire so that he faced her, both of them now cross-legged on the cold ground. He slid his arms into the sleeves of his shirt but did not fasten it, drawing the blanket over his shoulders instead.
“How long have you known you were half demon?” he asked.
Surprisingly, his quiet question held no judgment or recrimination. She’d been wrong. He was well aware she had no trouble with killing.
She considered her answer carefully. She could not remember a time when she had not known that a demon lived inside her, a part of her but also separate, possessing an existence and a will of its own. It waited for her weak moments and preyed on them. Outside, when she had hesitated, her demon had seen a threat to Blade and surged to the surface to protect him when she could not do so.
“I’ve always known,” she said.
“You must remember some specific moment, or event, when it manifested,” Blade persisted. “Otherwise, it would forever remain a suspicion to you, not a fact.”
“No. Nothing.”
He sat very still, his eyes locked on her face. She passed a hand over her forehead, sweeping away her sticky curls. He could easily outwait her. He had a great deal more patience, and there was nowhere for her to go. The storm could last for several days.
“All right,” she said. Her fingers had begun to tremble, and she linked them together in her lap. “I was maybe five years old. My mother was working on a particular piece of jewelry that required soldering enamel to silver, so she had a fire burning in her shop.” Raven remembered the sweltering heat of the day in vivid detail, but she’d always enjoyed watching her mother create beautiful things and would rather stay with her than join the other children outside. “I was playing on the floor in front of it. I stood up to grab my ball after it rolled away, and I caught my foot in the hem of my dress. I fell into the fire.” She could still remember her mother’s screams of terror and then the conflict of relief and dawning horror in her eyes when she discovered that Raven was unharmed, even though her clothing was ruined.
You’re a demon, her mother had whispered.
For years, Raven had burned with the guilt and shame of that moment. It was not until Justice entered their lives that she understood that her mother must have known all along who had fathered her but was unwilling to acknowledge it.
“Ordinary fire doesn’t harm you,” Blade said thoughtfully, “but demon fire can.”
That was an understatement. She had almost consumed herself with it.
“The demon fire is new to me. It seems to be brought on by strong emotions, and that makes it hard to control.” And when her emotions ran high, her demon emerged, compounding the problem.
Reaching for her across the short distance between them, Blade took her hand and drew her against him, the top of her head settling beneath his chin, her cheek in the crook of his neck. He wrapped his arms around her so that the blanket at his shoulders covered them both, his heart rate strong and reassuring beneath one of her palms. He slid a hand under the thick, waxed-cotton jacket she wore over her lighter, feminine underclothing and stroked her spine with warm fingers.
“I didn’t want you to be a part of what happened outside because I didn’t want you to see how easy it is to be cold-blooded about killing,” he said. “It has nothing to do with whether or not you’re half demon. You control that part of your nature far better than you believe. It makes you stronger, not weaker.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, his breath ruffling the soft curls of her hair. “You aren’t a killer, Raven. I’d prefer you to stay this way. You aren’t a demon, either. You’re so much more than either of those things. So much better. Working with assassins isn’t the right future for you, and if I thought it a real possibility, I’d fight anyone, including your friend Creed, to keep it from happening.”
While his faith in her warmed her, the struggle to keep her demon under control would never end for her. She could not dismiss or deny it the way he thought she could. At any time, the balance could tip. Sooner or later he’d come to hate her. She already felt the distance he had placed between them since they left the village.
He caught her chin and forced her to look at him. His lean face, shadowed with a day’s growth of beard, was as unsmiling as ever, but its edges had softened.
“I’m going to find your friend Creed and reassure myself that you’ll be safe if I leave you with him. Then I’m walking away.” His low voice made her shiver. “It has nothing to do with demons and everything as to what I can and can’t offer you. If working with assassins isn’t the right future for you, being with me would be far worse. You deserve better.”
Need coiled through her. Her demon disagreed. This was the man it wanted. And this was one battle with her demon she saw no reason to fight.