Claimed by the Demon

neatly into place before Gwen. No mean feat, considering that whereas she had ignored the young men from the get-go, now her gaze never left the man who had just entered.

She, too, had her own sense of things.

Dangerous things.

The man nodded at her plate as he sat beside her at the counter. “That looks good. And juice, if you have it.”

The waitress nodded, scribbled on her order pad and stuck the sheet on the counter behind her, a wall- cutout through which Gwen had gotten occasional glimpses of a cook. At the far table, voices rose in crude discord, then abruptly cut off. The young men trooped out, clomping for effect—leaving the couple at their table. No more touch-and-flirt...now it was an argument, swift and low.

“Don’t do it,” Gwen murmured.

But she could feel it. Before the young woman’s face closed in frustration and fear, before the young man pushed away from the table with a scrape of chair. She could feel it, and she winced and turned her back more completely.

Only to find Mac watching. Not only watching, but aware.

She’d reacted before the young man had moved.

Get over it, she thought at him. That was something else she’d outgrown—the need to explain herself. Herself or her travel-wrinkled clothes or her footloose, late-night arrival here.

Or even what it was about this man that made it hard to breathe.

She dug into the burrito. Deliberately.

Besides, if anyone should be answering questions...

He was more than scruffy, here in the cafe lighting. He was downright messed up—beyond the worse-for- wear jacket and the obvious stiffness of utterly sore ribs. A confusing road map of injuries marked his face, his hands—abrasions across his knuckles, one hand swollen throughout. Fresh blood but older cuts. Bruising fading to yellow in some spots but starkly purpled in others. The careful way he took a first bite of his newly delivered food.

Of course he caught her looking.

Without thinking, she gestured, reaching toward the freshest of the blood, a trickle from just inside his hairline, an unspoken you’ve got a little—

His polite disengagement vanished. His hand flashed out to snatch hers, a block and parry and grab, trapping her just tightly enough to verge on pain—stopping short of the follow- through that would have twisted tendon and bone.

She gasped, fought the impulse to yank away. Realized in surprise that she hadn’t seen it coming. And voiced, nonsensically, the final piece of the gesture, a single strangled word. “...Blood.”

His mouth twitched; the muscles of his jaw worked. Gently, deliberately, he released her hand. “It’s been an interesting evening,” he said, and it seemed to be meant to cover all of the moment’s circumstances. The bruises, the blood and the grab.

Slowly, she withdrew her hand.

The young woman from the corner stifled a frustrated noise, oblivious to them all, and stomped out into the night.

The waitress left them alone.

He ate faster than she did...but she found she couldn’t finish the meal, and she set aside her fork even as he dropped his napkin on his plate and fished for his wallet. To her surprise, he also dropped a few worn bills at her plate. “An apology,” he said simply.

“That’s not—” she started, but she looked at his face, at the tired expression waiting behind his eyes, and she only shook her head—that’s not necessary combined with acquiescence.

The smile that took the corner of his mouth had nothing to do with wry. “Thanks.”

“Listen,” she said, not sure what was going to come next.

He didn’t wait for it. “Let me walk you back to the hotel.”

Not what she’d expected.

“I’d have to go widdershins around the block to avoid you,” she told him, which was apparently not what he’d expected because the smile grew into a quick grin, there and gone again, and a duck of his head she wouldn’t have guessed of him.

The waitress, scooping up the money, kept her own smile mostly hidden.

* * *

As if Mac would have let her walk the single block alone, with the unsettled air this city had tonight.

Whoever she was, and whatever tension had sprung instantly to life between them.

The first slap of her presence had faded to a trickle of warning and awareness, the blade warm in his pocket...silent but smug, and more interested in tasting her reactions than heeding the obvious trouble brewing at the back of the cafe.

As long as it didn’t spill over on him. Not again tonight.

She pulled her thin cotton jacket closed and fastened it with crossed arms, ducking out into a night gone past brisk and right into chill. She paused in the parking lot just long enough for him to catch up, just as aware of him as he was of her.

“Business?” he asked. “Or walkabout?”

She faltered, brows arching, a flash of startlement on that heart-shaped face. “Funny,” she said, “that you should put it that way. Walkabout.”

“It’s a familiar state of being,” he said, dry in a way he knew she couldn’t understand.

“Are you?” she asked and tucked back hair breaking free of restraint—a careless knot at the back of her head, the ends tumbling loose. “On walkabout?”

He rolled his shoulders, breaking free from the stiffness and pain; he could just about take a deep breath again. The blade burned its healing through him—making him pay, rewarding him with an impossibly swift recovery.

Then again, everything about the blade was impossible. From the way it chose its own shape to the way it invaded his mind to the way it healed him of everything from the worst of injuries to the common cold.

The way it whispered to him, pulling him into other peoples’ insanities.

Walkabout. He said, “Not this time. I’ve got work waiting.” In a week or two. Best he could do, working for a contractor friend of a friend from Colorado who had an assistant going on family leave.

“Temporarily at loose ends,” she deduced, moving out for the sidewalk—arms still crossed, shoulder bag tucked under her arm, a frisson of her tension coming through the blade to reach him. Not truly comfortable.

Nor should she be.

“It’s a decent hotel,” he told her, striking out beside her—out of the parking lot illumination and into a brief pool of shadow before the next streetlight. “But it’s on the edge when it comes to the neighborhood.”

She slanted him a look. “Do you do that often?”

Um.

“Do—” he asked—but didn’t finish the question, wincing slightly instead. Normally—when not distracted by the burn of broken ribs on the mend, the twist of muscles in recovery—he’d know better than to respond to unspoken concerns.

“I was just thinking that I’d gone one hotel too far north from the airport.”

“Body language,” he told her. “Has a lot to say.”

This time her look wasn’t slanting at all. It came straight on—a quick sweep of his form that held more than obvious appreciation. “You mean like, ‘Wow, did I get beat up today or what?’”

He stifled a snort. “That, too.”

“Aren’t you even going to say I shoulda seen the other guy?”

“Guys,” he told her, hesitating at the curb to make sure the approaching car wasn’t going to turn in front of them. “Check the news. We’ll see if they both made it.”

She modeled mock awe for him. “That’s much better than my line.” And then her brief levity faded. “Except...you aren’t kidding, are you?” And she moved a quiet step away.