Claimed by the Demon

feel himself with what it wanted him to seek out and enhance.

Just him. Michael MacKenzie, free and clear.

And realizing, just as suddenly, how much he still wanted this woman. All on his own, without trickles of stolen feelings or ramped-up reactions. How he was still entranced by the spark of her, the life of her. Still beguiled by the heart-shaped face, the barely there cleft in her chin, the way her eyebrows lifted as she looked at him now.

Relief flooded in to replace the startled emptiness. The blade had screwed with his head, but it hadn’t replaced what he was.

Not yet.

And for whatever reason, he had this moment. Freed, he found himself with no restraint at all. He pulled her between his knees with hands both gentled and intractable, watching her eyes widen as he guided her right up to meet his mouth, his hands sliding up her arms to cup her head, losing himself in the inexplicable luxury of just being himself.

Of being them.

Oh, hell yes, he kissed her.

Her hand crept to the back of his neck, fingers against damp skin, and oh, hell yes, she kissed him back.

Until her breathing quickened and she made the smallest of sounds deep in her throat, and he realized where he was and who he was and that he no longer trusted himself to know what was truly real and what wasn’t—or that he’d know when he crossed the line.

And so he ran his thumbs along her jaw, there where the skin was so soft, and he managed to pull away from her. And then he would have said I’m sorry, but those words never made it to the surface, either.

Instead, he looked at eyes gone big and cheeks gone flushed and lips gone from striking to stunning, and he realized out loud, voice tinged with surprise, “You knew I was going to do that.”

She laughed, as small and shaky as it was. “The look on your face?” She smiled, just a little one, self-aware and amused at them both. “I for sure knew you were going to do that.” Then she tossed her head, a token motion. “Do you think,” she said, “we could get back to the hotel without more of—” and she removed her hand from the back of his neck to wave it expansively around them “—this?”

He couldn’t help the faint self-deprecating smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know,” he told her. “I’m used to looking for it, not running from it.”

“It hardly seems necessary to look.” She eased back from him, her hand lingering at the open neck of his shirt, and glanced around—checking to see if they’d made a spectacle of themselves, he thought, though he’d sought this place for its relative privacy when the darkness had struck him. “Is it always like this for you?”

He shook his head and took the liberty of tucking a stray curl back behind her ear, the red of it glinting through. One knee lowered to the ground, stabilizing them both. “No. Not like this.” He shook his head, closing his eyes to breathe deeply. Even the air felt clearer. “What did you do?”

She looked at the spot where her hand rested against his skin; her other hand crept back to the pendant. He’d seen that, he remembered...vaguely. But then she looked away. “You’re just going to laugh.”

“It doesn’t seem the time.” His hand slid under her elbow; he stood, lifting her along with him—and realized then how deliberately she did it. Kept her hand on his chest. “You—”

She nodded. “I don’t understand. I don’t think I want to. But I think...” She lifted the pendant, the faintest of gestures, and shrugged.

He looked at the pendant, there in her hand—a small hand, with freckles dusting the knuckles and pale pink, chipping polish on her nails—and his eyes narrowed. “We need to talk.”

“So you said.” Some of her normal asperity returned. “But we haven’t, have we? And I don’t think I’m going to make it very far walking like this.” She glanced at their connection again.

“Sooner or later,” he said, and before either of them could think about it, he stepped aside from her, cleanly breaking the contact.

—fury indignation retribution strikestrikestrike!—

The blade lashed out at him, striking hard—burning an incandescent punishment through the soul of him. He choked on it and stiffened, and his eyes rolled back and his jaw spasmed shut, teeth catching skin; his head jerked back. He clung to the strength of clarity and freedom, so long denied, and he forced his head back down and he forced his eyes open and he gritted out, “Fuck you,” through those clenched teeth.

And Gwen, watching him with worried eyes, expressive brows drawn, seemed to understand perfectly that he wasn’t talking to her.

The blade sent a final spear of flame roiling along his bones and faded into a sulk.

Okay then.

Mac took a deep breath, settled himself into balance, and leaned away from Gwen to spit blood. “Dammit,” he said, probing the cut with his tongue. “That really hurts.”

Gwen laughed—just a little too freely, driven by evident relief. “Baby,” she told him. “Men just can’t deal with pain.” And while he got stuck on that, bemused and trying to reconcile it with his life and especially with his life in the past twenty-four hours, she cast him a devilish look and caught him completely by surprise, whirling to sprint a few playful steps away—and disappointed when he just grinned instead of taking her up on it. “Poke,” she said, in case he hadn’t gotten it. “Now you try to poke me back. Maybe tickle me. At least try to put your hands on me.”

He bent to scoop up her cup of crushed ice from where she’d placed it against the side of the building and waggled it at her. “Maybe I thought I could lure you back into range.”

Her expression fell. “Oh, damn. Strategic error.” She hesitated, hovering between options. “I really, really want that. I deserve it. I stopped that...that...whatever was happening.”

He grinned and held the cup outstretched, a peace offering. “Yeah,” he said. “You really, really deserve it. Let’s see if we can make it back to the hotel before it’s gone. I hear there’s a good diner just up the block, and on a day like today...well, let’s just say I need to get my hands on some food.”

“I’ve heard about that diner, too,” she said, deadpan, and came back to get the cup. She was taken by surprise when he made a lightning-swift grab once it was in her hand, pulling her in close, holding her—just for a moment, just to do it and to feel her against him. To see the delighted surprise in her eyes.

To pretend, somehow, that the blade’s little spill of emotions no longer trickled through his mind and body, but that he was still free.

* * *

Gwen took a long pull on the straw, letting cold cherry flavor slide down her throat and striding along the sidewalk with a guy she suddenly seemed to know. Someone with whom in the past twenty-four hours she’d shared a rumble, a mugging, a protest-turned-to-hate crime, and a hate crime turned to failure. Not to mention whatever strange and painful event had preceded quite a wonderful kiss.

“You’re blushing,” he said, not breaking stride.

“I am not!”

But of course she was. And smiling to herself, too.

Complete absurdity. Twenty-four hours, a little action, a little weirdly mystical woo-woo...that’s what it took to make a girl happy? With wallet gone, car broken into, life askew?

Maybe so.

They took the long way around on the way back, looping around the park in a route that avoided the pagans, protestors, and police. They cut away from the stark white concrete of the artificial arroyo, and through the luxury of the grassy park, and past the midday heat of the basketball courts. And then, in a cluster of trees, he stopped her, catching her with the straw in her mouth.

She let it slip away from between her lips as he turned her to face him, stepping up close and running his fingers gently over the sides of her head. Petting her. Watching her.

Damned sweet.

Couldn’t have that.

“What makes you think you can just touch me as you please?” she demanded, one hand on her hip and her