Claimed by the Demon

the vehicular mob—a monochrome jumble of metal and violence through blade-given night vision. Gridlock and brainlock. These people weren’t going anywhere.

He pulled the truck keys, reacquired his phone, slammed the door with the extra oomph necessary to make it latch and left it locked in the middle of the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Two hundred yards of walking between abandoned vehicles and those harboring terrified, huddled occupants, and he reached the tightly jammed underpass. He barely hesitated in his stride, bounding to a trunk, a roof, a hood...boring through to the problem intersection itself.

And went beyond it to the first interlocked row, while the violence roiled behind him and Anheriel whined to join in. He backtracked two rows, chose a vehicle, and helped himself to the keys still in the ignition, cranking the wheels hard. The car jerked, hanging up on the bumper of the car ahead of it, and then broke free with a brief crunch of metal and glass, heading over the road shoulder to the raw desert.

No one noticed when he floored the accelerator, shooting up the entrance ramp. “On my way,” he muttered, as if Mac and Gwen could hear him.

* * *

Gwen turned on the unimposing man who called himself Rafe. “Stop it!” she cried as Mac slowly sank to his knees. “You’re a monster!”

Rafe tipped his head in acknowledgment. “But a successful one.” He eyed her up and down, his eyes lingering on the wet cling of material at her breasts and backside. “If he turns, will you go with him? If he dies, will you go with me? Because there is something about you...and, quite frankly, I can’t have you running around as a loose end.”

“Get real,” she snapped at him. “What am I going to do, call the police? And tell them what exactly?”

Rafe gave an eloquent shrug. “There’s someone else here—another blade. I haven’t had time to track it down, but I suspect it is the very blade that called us each here. It is a power come into its own—and it might well use you against me. I didn’t live this long—which, as I’ve mentioned, is very, very long indeed—by being careless with loose ends.”

“Maybe you’ve lived long enough.” Gwen’s fury left her mouth completely unfettered.

Rafe smiled, and the coldness of it in those bland features slapped her anger down hard. “Would that you were entitled to an opinion.”

Mac grabbed the Jeep’s bumper, then the fender—hauling himself back up to his feet, completely focused on Rafe. “You,” he said, grinding the words out in a voice Gwen didn’t recognize. “Son. Of. A. Bitch.”

Rafe regarded him with something akin to fondness. Sick, sick fondness. “I really wish you’d accept the situation,” he said. “You would be a great asset to me.”

Mac’s grin was as dark as they came. “There’s an ass in that word, in case you thought I wouldn’t notice. Not my thing.”

Rafe flipped a dismissive hand at them. “Die, then,” he said, making it a casual command. “In agony, while you’re at it.”

Gwen’s breath stuttered as Mac made a gargling noise, his eyes rolling back; he slid down the side of the Jeep. She wanted to dive after him, holding him, turning the pendant on him.

But that would only leave them both vulnerable.

She took an involuntary step toward Rafe, hands fisted, so full of anger—overflowing with it, unfamiliar and debilitating, clouding her thoughts, changing her intent—

And realized that it came to her through Mac.

That her connection with him flared strong again.

Recklessly, she reached for it, thinking of calm and cool as he pushed against the wet ground, on his knees. Thinking of her hand in his, thinking of her mouth on his. Forging past the chaotic agonies still beating against her thoughts...giving him something other than hate and fear and pain. She gave him a quiet current, imbuing it with what they were together and what they’d had together.

“Gwen—” he said—as if there should be more to it, but he couldn’t quite manage it.

It sounded like a warning.

“Is that it, then?” Rafe stepped closer, his features coming alive with interest. “Is that the key to you? Your one last chance, Mac. Your Gwen goes free—and you become mine. You give over to the wild road and join me, and no one ever touches her. Permanent asylum. She can stay with you, or she can go back to whatever life she had before she met you. Lady’s choice.”

The thick, scraping flow of imposed emotions faded—Gwen felt it through Mac, and felt the dim echo of it through herself. Mac lifted his head—his expression terrible and strained, his gaze latching on to Rafe’s.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Rafe said so softly. He took a step closer, crouching with one hand resting over his knee, his own blade so casually held there. “You’ll do it. For her, you’ll do it.”

“Wait,” Gwen said. “Wait, wait, wait. What? He will not! Mac, no! You will not!”

But Mac wasn’t looking at her. Mac, his jaw set and his face still tense with the battle, looked only at Rafe. His voice held a grim desperation. “You’ll leave her alone.”

“I’ll leave her alone.” Rafe’s smile spoke of victory, tipping over to smug.

Maybe it was that smug look that did it, triggering Gwen’s temper. Maybe it was the look on Mac’s face—the despair, in this moment he so obviously intended to be a goodbye. She looked at him aghast and more than a little annoyed. “Are you kidding?”

It was hardly the grateful response of a rescued damsel in distress, and maybe it was all wrong, but so was this. “Mac, once you cross that line, you’ll be like him! You won’t care what happens to me!”

He shook his head. “If I die here, I can’t stop him at all. This way, there’s a chance. And then...maybe someone will stop me.” They both knew who he meant. Devin James, the man who was supposed to have been here. Supposed to have helped them both.

I am twenty-seven years old, and I’m about to lose the man I love.

“Screw this,” she said. “I know you. I know you. Do you hear me? I’ve seen you. I know you can do this. I know we—” She stopped talking. She reached deep inside where the pendant gave her access to him. And she reached through him— finding that taste of the blade.

Making it up as she went along, yes—but also following what she’d already learned, and her growing ability to touch the blade—prodding it, listening to it, even shutting it out.

But shutting it out wasn’t what she wanted.

She wanted its name. This blade had a name, too, whether Mac knew it or not.

Names mattered.

Names meant control.

I see you, she told it, finding the blazing alien heart of it within him. I want to know you.

It startled; it shied away. It struck out at Mac, daring her to hurt the one she loved. And while Mac jerked with surprise, a strangled noise replacing the words in his throat, Rafe drew back in pure astonishment. “What?” he said, not the least bit suave—and then the surprise turned to pure avarice. “What is this?”

And Mac said, “Don’t—he can hear—”

But Gwen had seen their only chance, and she dared to hurt the one she loved.

* * *

Keska.

The word blazed through Mac’s thoughts, branding them from the inside out—blinding him to all else, as the blade spasmed in reaction to its forced confession, spitting fury and fear and resentment. It struck, then—pushing and shoving, stealing time and breath—and yet somehow leaving enough of both to howl, a ragged voice expressing both the blade’s fury and the man’s agony.

Keska. Merely a whispered reminder at the edges of awareness, nudging him. You are not me. Your feelings are not mine. I am in control of me and mine.

I am in control of you.

But it wasn’t as easy as that, with days of a siege riding him, leaving him worn and battered.