Claimed by the Demon

“For new credit cards,” he guessed.

“Being overnighted to the hotel.” She slanted a look at him, reaching for her sport sandals. “I’ve been trying to decide how to ask if I can borrow your credit card to get a room here tonight.”

No. His response came instantly, deeply—and he kept it entirely to himself.

Or tried to, but she sent a little frown in his direction that made him think he hadn’t been successful. “Okay, then,” she said. “I guess that wasn’t the way to do it.”

He shook his head. “Whatever you want to do.”

“Look,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate... No, you must be kidding. I’m not going to be sorry because I’m not gung ho to share a room with a man I don’t even know. No matter how much I appreciate the help so far.”

“There’s more than that going on and you know it,” he said, more sharply than he’d meant to, and then pushed the heel of his hand against his brow. He already knew her well enough to know that hadn’t been the right thing to say, oh, no.

“Do I?” she snapped, proving that instinct. “As if I can’t manage from here on out perfectly well on my own?”

“No.” Focus, dammit. Find the right words. “As if you shouldn’t. As if there’s not—” He stopped, gave into frustration. “Come with me. Walk.”

She snatched up the hotel key and led the way, full of dignity in her generic gym clothes.

He could only follow. And hope he was doing the right thing.

* * *

Stupid man, Gwen thought. He couldn’t just tell her whatever it was he was keeping from her. No doubt because he still all-too-obviously wanted to grill her about her father.

As if her past mattered to what was happening here. As if it was any of his business anyway. Simply because she’d made a single allusion...

Except in her heart, she knew if it didn’t matter, talking about it wouldn’t feel so big.

In that heart, she felt a twinge of guilt at his kindness—pushing the hotel door open, waiting for her to plunk the sunglasses from her head to her nose, waiting for her to adjust to the heat beating against exposed skin.

But if she made him wait for her to adjust to what had just happened on that hotel room bed, they’d be here forever. She nodded, more curtly than she’d meant to. “All right.” And marched off.

“Hey, hey!” He laid the words on a laugh, ran a step to catch up, and took her hand, instantly and comfortably twining his fingers between hers. “Not like that.”

“I—” She stopped, confused. “Then like...?”

“Like this.” He stopped, closed his eyes, lifted his head, tilting it just a little. His chest rose with a deep breath; his nostrils briefly flared, as if he was hunting scent. She stared, fascinated, as some faint reaction chased across his face; she moved a little closer without thinking about it, watching.

Just like that, his eyes opened—catching her there, closer than she’d meant to be, more engaged than she’d meant to be. He smiled, holding his ground...giving her tacit permission to stay right there in his space.

“Pfeh,” she said, stepping back—not far, considering he still had her hand, but a distinct distancing. “We’re not walking, you may have noticed.”

He gestured with their clasped hands. “This way.” And that grin of his, just an edge of wry...an invitation.

Dammit. She bit her lip on the smile that wanted to respond to him and said, “Okay. That way.”

She let him keep her hand.

She even let herself relax, walking in the bright sunshine, absorbing all over again the unique touches of the city—the propensity for sculptures, the little hints of sporadic beauty along the roadsides and in the signage, the street names that spoke of the area’s Spanish heritage.

What she didn’t notice—not until his hand twitched subtly tighter around hers—was the growing tension in him. As they headed first toward the airport, and then west on a wide but lightly traveled feeder road and past a school and an imposingly severe Homeland Security building, he withdrew from the amiable version of himself he’d shown her at the hotel and back into the man she’d very first seen.

The hunter.

On the prowl.

“Where—” she started, somewhat warily, then cut herself short when he hesitated at a corner, closing his eyes, lifting his face...

Hunting.

Her free hand crept up to her father’s pendant, hidden as it was beneath the T-shirt. A comforting and familiar weight...somehow grown new and strange again as she realized what she’d done and how often she’d done it since meeting this man less than a day earlier.

He said, “This is getting bigger than I thought it would,” and took his eyes off his inner hunt long enough to glance at her. “I need to know you’ll listen to me, if necessary.”

“Could you be any more cryptic? And what will you do if I say no? Turn around and go back to the hotel?”

Something flared in his eyes, across his face. For an instant, she felt fear. Not just fear, but that same overwhelming surrealistic sense that this wasn’t real. It was too strange, too inexplicable altogether. But when he answered, it was merely to give her the truth she’d already sensed, the strain of it evident in his voice. “No,” he said. “It’s too late for that.”

And she thought, Don’t be an ass, Gwen. Just because she was disgruntled and out of sorts and wanted her world to make sense again didn’t mean it was fair or even smart to make things harder than they had to be.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “I’m really, really confused and I really wish I knew what was going on, but I’ll try to do what makes sense.”

A glimmer of humor crossed his face, if ever so briefly. “That’s the best I’m going to get, I think.”

“Take it and run,” she advised dryly—and found herself surprised when he squeezed her hand and moved on. Just as if they’d known each other for years.

Her bemusement didn’t last long. A park came into sight to the west of them, green and thriving. And in the background, the peculiar and specific kind of noise that Gwen associated with chanting...with protests.

“How?” she asked him, struck by the understanding of it. That he’d indeed been hunting. That, somehow, from the hotel where they could see or hear none of this, he’d led them to this place of disturbance.

Just as the night before, he’d run straight for trouble. And not for the first time that night, not to judge by his appearance.

“How?” she said again, and this time it was a demand as she set her heels to the cement and stopped him short.

Not that he couldn’t have dragged her on. But she had a sense of him now. She didn’t think he’d do that.

And he didn’t.

But she could clearly see the conflict in him—the way something had crept inside to haunt him, tugging at him—creating a strain in his eyes, a tension in his jaw and neck and shoulders.

“It’s what I do,” he said, and the look he turned on her frightened her more than anything about the past twenty-four hours. Full of the hunter’s intensity, full of words he didn’t quite seem to be able to say. “It’s why I don’t have a home. It’s what happened last night. It’s what you wanted to see.”

She didn’t notice the sunny day, or the warmth on her exposed skin, or the pleasant sensation of muscles loosening up with the walk. She found herself whispering, “Be careful.”

It struck him in a way she hadn’t expected—but he shook it off, and he went on.

She expected him to slow as they got closer, to take in the situation...to figure it out. Maybe he already had it figured out. It made little sense to her—a motley gathering of drab figures, each of which held signs on sticks: propped against their legs, attached to their torsos. They spread out along the edge of the park entry corner to which Mac had brought them, shouting incoherent slogans in an uncoordinated fashion.

Inside the park sat a pleasant cluster of trees and a fountain, a statue of a child and a burro not far away