Paula Altenburg - Black Widow Demon

“There were so many. I don’t remember her.”

His feigned indifference enraged Raven. Her mother had been a weak woman with unrealistic and romantic notions, and for years she had suffered because of him. She had married Justice when no one else would have her, despite her skill as an artisan and her unusual beauty. Her refusal to name her child’s father was one of the few things she had remained steadfast against.

Until Justice had beaten it from her.

Raven cared little for the pain her birthright had caused herself, but knowing this demon had stolen any joy her mother might possibly have hoped for in life, and his dismissal of her now was too much to tolerate.

She wanted to hurt him in return. “I doubt if she remembered you, either. She kept a number of these simple trinkets but tossed this one away because it’s so ugly. I only saved it because I like its color.”

Her words seemed to amuse him. “She would have remembered me. And she would not have thrown that away.” The confidence of the assertions took her breath from her. “What a surprise to discover she survived your birth, though. I thought she was dead. I’m equally surprised you’re a female.” His cold eyes scanned her, making her flesh crawl as he examined the demon inside her. An unspoken acknowledgment passed between them. “You should not be here.”

“This place is mine,” she said. He was the trespasser here, not she. “I built it from my dreams, not yours.”

That amused him even more. “It’s not yours, and it’s no dream. This is a tiny piece of the boundary between mortality and immortality that you’ve tried to claim. Your demon half has brought you here. You’re the one who doesn’t belong. Full demons will hunt you.” Despite the intense heat from the lake, Raven felt her stomach turn to ice at his words. He continued to assess her and did not seem impressed with what he saw. “You are too small. I should kill you. What can you do to protect yourself?”

Sweat soaked through her thin, dirty dress as she fought back her anger. If this was a boundary between mortality and immortality, as he claimed, then he had no more right to be here than she did.

She had no intention of dying. She had demon blood and some of its talents and no reason not to use them against him. While she might not be able to kill him, she could wound him.

“I can read the desires of others.” The words tripped off her tongue without thought. “I know what you want. You want to return to the mortal world. You want to experience its pleasures. You want to hunt men again.” She leaned forward, reckless despite the danger she courted. “I know that you haven’t forgotten my mother and won’t ever forget her. Her memory will haunt you throughout eternity because she was the one you pursued, who you believe was meant to belong to you.” Raven’s fingers went to the amulet around her neck. “That’s why you gave her this. To keep her safe from other demons when she wasn’t with you.” Triumph edged into her voice as she homed in on his weakness. “But it couldn’t protect her from mortals, and what you want more than anything now is to kill the mortal you believe took her from you.”

She had gone too far. Said too much. As she uttered the final words her father shifted before her eyes, his body enlarging, his flesh peeling away as his true form emerged. In seconds, he loomed above her as an angry, thick-skinned monster with gleaming red eyes and enormous, black-veined red wings that exploded from the bunched muscles between his shoulders. The ground shuddered beneath flat, widespread, clawed feet as he stalked around her on thighs as big as her waist. He glowered at her from his greater height, his generous lips drawn back to expose doubled rows of jagged teeth.

Although the top of her head barely reached his shining, bone-plated torso, Raven buried her fear deep and did not flinch. Her fingers tightened around the amulet, its edges pressing into her palm.

He reached out to drag a claw down the side of her cheek. It did not touch her, but passed through her flesh. He seemed as startled by that as she was at first, and then he smiled at her, those awful teeth gleaming.

“Goldthief,” he said. “The hallucinations have tapped into your mortal fears, but they haven’t touched your demon. Not yet.”

She clutched the amulet more tightly, grateful that the hallucinations from the snakebite had transferred only her subconscious. The rest of her remained on the ledge of a sun-drenched mesa, in the arms of a stranger named Blade who had promised not to leave her alone.

The amulet, however, had somehow crossed into the boundary. Her father had touched it.

“I hear the hallucinations at night are especially spectacular,” he continued. “Not even your demon will be able to fight off those. What do you suppose will happen to you once darkness falls? Where will you find yourself then? What protection will you have? You think you know so much.” His thick, ugly lips twisted. “You don’t even know how to use that amulet you wear. It’s not meant for you. It won’t protect you from demons. But if you can survive the night, then I think you might be of use to me.” He drew himself straight and brought his hands sharply together. “Until then, go back where you came from.”

The boom of his voice mixed with the thunder from the clap of his hands. Lightning tore open the blackened and bloodied sky of the boundary, and Raven squeezed her eyes tight against the bright flash of light.

When she opened them again, it was the sun that blinded her.

Blade’s face swam in and out of focus above hers, making her nauseated, his concern evident in what little she could read of his emotions past her own turbulent thoughts.

She rolled to her side and retched in the dirt, his rough palm smoothing her hair away from her hot face, until her stomach was empty and sore.

Blade asked her a question, but his lips did not move at the same speed as his words, and she could not make sense of it. The distortion unsettled her, and her stomach lurched again. Willing the world to remain still, she tried to sit up.

Behind him, from out of nowhere, a giant brown snake with yellow venom dripping off its pointed fangs reared its flat head.

Raven opened her mouth to cry out a warning, but Blade clapped his hand over her lips.

…

He moved with barely enough time to stifle the sounds of her screams from the riders passing below them. Blade had been sitting with her for the better part of an hour now, waiting for her to drift back into awareness, uncertain how long or how frequent her periods of lucidity were going to be.

Dampness soaked the glossy black curls around her face, and although her breathing had been panicked and shallow for quite some time, it now seemed even. This was the first time since she’d lost consciousness that she had opened her eyes, too.

It worried him. The hallucinations during the day were reputed to be bad enough. The ones experienced by the victim at night had the potential to drive them insane. He had hoped a woman who could hold her own in a wrestling match with a man his size would be less susceptible to the hallucinations, but he’d been wrong. He had no idea what she thought she had seen behind him, but whatever it was must have been bad.

Blade’s hand still covered her mouth, but it no longer mattered. The riders were gone, and she was quiet again. This time, however, her rest seemed more peaceful, although he had no idea how long it might last. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and tried to think what to do.

He had promised he wouldn’t leave her, and he did not intend to do so for any great length of time, but he needed to gather his belongings and purchase enough supplies to get them to safety.