The other woman’s fear remained palpable, however. Her thoughts twisted and turned as she, too, tried to come up with some sort of resolution that assured her survival and that of her companions.
The assailant should be afraid. She had attacked Raven without provocation, and Blade would not hesitate to shoot her simply because she was a woman. But something was not right about this situation. Her attacker’s fear had deep roots and was not the result of Blade firing several warning shots. As Raven absorbed the woman’s emotions, pity stirred. Terrible things had happened to her.
Raven dug deeper, picking through unguarded thoughts and images to recreate the story. The woman had been in the burned-out village. Her demon ability to shift to shadow was how she had escaped the massacre unnoticed, but she had not been able to protect her children. She had met up with her shadow companions after the bloodshed.
All they sought now was safety. Raven could easily empathize with that.
She relinquished her hold on the woman, then spread her arms and legs wide on the ground so that she was stretched out on her stomach in a prone, submissive position.
“I had no part in what happened,” Raven said. “We came across your village several days after the fire. Please. Let me up so we can talk.”
The woman hesitated. She wanted to believe. To trust. She began to rise when Raven remembered that Blade did not know what was happening. She grabbed the woman and rolled with her, dragging her to the side and out of danger as a bullet whined past where the woman’s head would have been.
With Raven now intent on securing the woman’s safety, she could no longer hold the shadows. Two of them broke away to move at a run toward Blade.
“Blade, don’t shoot!” Raven shouted out to him. She turned to the woman. “Don’t let them hurt him. He believes I’m in danger. Stop them!”
Conflict contorted the woman’s face, her fear warring with what Raven knew to be decency. Raven tried to breathe, terrified for Blade, but she forced herself to remain where she was to save the woman’s life. If Blade killed her, she did not know what the woman’s companions might do to him.
The woman stared hard at Raven, who examined her in return. She had wavy, golden-brown hair and shining eyes the color of bluegrass. Raven dug through the woman’s thoughts.
Her name was Laurel, and as she called the others back to her she shifted to shadow, melting away with the last light of the day.
…
Someone had been following Creed for the better part of the day.
The wind had warmed, and the snow melted beneath the added onslaught of the sun. The man dogging him kept well back, but it was not difficult to know he was there. Whenever Creed paused for a break a casual glance around would reveal a dark spot behind him where only the white of snow should be or birds taking flight and circling en masse in the sky as if they had been inconvenienced.
Once his route was established and his destination obvious, Creed had planned to double back and follow Blade to Raven. He was not yet convinced that she was safe with the other man. Creed did not trust anyone he could not read, and all he had sensed from the implacable assassin was cold determination. But now Creed was being followed with such diligence he could not continue with his plan. That left him irritable and impatient.
After sundown, when it became too dark to keep watch behind him, he stopped at a large hollow in one of the cliff faces, dropped his packs, and prepared to set up camp for the night. He cleared a space of snow, hauled out a few items, then slipped into a small copse of trees as if he were searching for firewood. From there, he trudged back through the brush and pockets of snow, untouched by the wind or the sun throughout the day, to where he had last seen signs of his uninvited travel companion.
By the time he found him, it was fully dark.
Might was the one who followed him, which puzzled Creed at first, because Cage was the better tracker. Then Creed realized that Justice had another, more important, trail he needed Cage to pursue, and it led to Raven.
Creed had not foreseen this, and called himself stupid. The best course of action would be for him to kill Might as quickly and silently as possible. He reached for one of his knives. Like most assassins, he did not use a gun or rifle unless he had to—sound traveled too easily.
He hesitated, then slid the knife back in its sheath. It might be better to lead Might as far off course as possible, lose him in one of the many mountain passes, and trust that Raven was in good hands.
…
Justice noticed two things about the woman in quick succession, aside from the demon fire she manipulated in her hands. First, she had startling, blue-black hair that flowed like spilled oil to her waist. Second, she was not dressed for the cold. Her low-cut white blouse and calico skirt were better meant for inside a saloon than on a snowy mountain.
As she advanced toward the ring of blue fire, cruelty sharpened a face that might otherwise have been beautiful. The flames surrounding the two men stretched and thinned at her approach, reaching for the cliff tops, then fattened and squatted, as if compelled by an unseen force to kneel before her.
A boiling mass of red-hot anger surged inside Justice at being imprisoned by a woman. The anger was tempered by a small degree of caution as he recalled in vivid detail the remnants of the small mountain village, destroyed by fire.
Cage remained watchful beside him. Justice knew by the wary speculation in his companion’s eyes that he, too, understood the meaning of the blue flames and remembered the settlement. The fact they were still alive told Justice there was hope for them yet.
His brain spun furiously. Whether she was goddess, spawn, or mere mortal, he would not be bested by any woman. Everyone had a price. He wondered what he had that might buy their lives and their freedom, but whatever he gave her, it would be on his terms. Information, perhaps. But about what?
“You dare attack the goddesses’ faithful in the Godseeker Mountains?” he asked the woman, careful to sound curious rather than confrontational. He made an oblique reference to the ill-fated village and its burned-down temple and wondered if she would address it.
Her mouth twisted in an unpleasant smile. “You’d be surprised who has been living peacefully amongst the faithful for years, only to be attacked by them first, and without provocation, when they revealed themselves.”
Justice pondered her words. He knew demons hated spawn even more than mortal men, and spawn who valued their lives would have hidden their existence from mortal and immortal alike. But with the departure of the immortals they grew bolder.
And this one was seeking revenge. Justice could almost smell it on her.
Sweat dripped down his back as the ring of fire tightened around them. If it was revenge against the faithful she sought, then his being a Godseeker would not save their lives.
Being Raven’s stepfather might. It depended how he played that card.
“I wouldn’t be as surprised as you might think. My stepdaughter is spawn,” he said, watching carefully for her reaction.
Interest spiked in her eyes, although not her tone, which remained hard. “What do I care what your stepdaughter is?”
“She survived among the faithful for years too, and without discovery, until the demons departed. I’m trying to find her now and bring her home.”
“What will happen to her if you do?”
He tried to sift out the response that would best win her over. She was suspicious of his motives, which was to be expected. “She’s all I have left of her mother. I’ll continue to care for her, as I always have.”
The woman spun the flames, making them twirl like burning blue dust devils. The flames were captured in her eyes, giving them a peculiar cast that made the sweat turn to ice as it trickled along his spine.