And for the second time that night, he put himself into the middle of it. Dispensing with the small talk, forgetting the rational...just blowing through them so the kid in trouble could grab his girl and run.
Until the blade suddenly spasmed and wailed and sung of hate—the same putrid swamp of it that had nearly claimed them at the edge of the desert. The gang descended upon him. Mac swung out wildly, blindly—connecting with flesh, driving them back, sending gun and blade and chain clattering away.
Until the black pit of hatred rose up for the second time that night and took down man and blade both.
On his knees, but not for long. Mac could run, too.
But he ran just as blindly, slamming into one wall, then two, then the corner of a building, grabbing for purchase as he swung around to find himself—
Wherever the hell he was.
Whatever the hell had just happened.
The hatred lifted, leaving him with leaden limbs and heaving lungs that couldn’t catch enough air. His ribs shot through with pain, molten bones both liquid and brittle.
The knife returned in a smear of movement, tucking itself away in the palm of his hand, a shaken retreat. Still hungry—still without the victory it craved.
They weren’t coming after him. He’d dealt too many of his own blows; he’d left them too confused—at least for the moment.
They’d carry a grudge, all right.
He straightened, one steadying hand against the building—but swore and instantly bent over again. This time, he moved more slowly—pushing away from the whitewashed cinder block, moving carefully...keeping the knife to hand.
Twice. Twice in one night. The swamping hatred, the confrontations so quickly escalating out of control.
He knew, now, why he’d been drawn to Albuquerque. He just didn’t have the faintest idea what to do about it.
Run. I should be running.
Right back to the hotel. Everything in her screamed it.
But Gwen found herself still there when he emerged from the darkness on the other side of the street, six lanes of empty pavement between them.
She saw right away the difference in him. Not so much in what he did as what he didn’t project—the confidence, the strength...a certain grim intensity. All missing. And although she was so certain, now, that he was armed—and that he’d had a willingness to act that felt natural in his world and terrifying in hers—she nonetheless caught no sense of it. Not now, not before.
Just the same instantly compelling response that had riveted her outside the hotel.
Yeah, I should’ve run.
I should have gone to Vegas.
And then he faltered in midcrossing, and she forgot all that and sprinted from the curb to meet him, slipping beneath one shoulder to take the burden of unfamiliar bone and muscle.
The heat of him shocked her. “You’re burning up!”
In response, his eyes rolled back; his knees buckled.
“Oh, no no no,” she said, knowing she couldn’t keep them both upright. “Middle of the street, mister! Move on!”
He muttered a breathless curse, put one foot in front of the other and, as far as she could tell, made it to the curb on determination alone.
She tried to make his landing a soft one.
He rubbed his hands over his face—fresh blood on those hands, dark under the streetlight. “It shouldn’t have...” he said. “It wasn’t...” He blinked, a deliberate thing, and looked at his hands. “This isn’t...”
“Yeah, yeah, I get the idea.” Gwen huffed out an impatient breath. Stupid, stupid, to have gotten in the middle of this.
Then again, what else was she here for? To get in the middle of something, it seemed. And she wouldn’t know what until she’d done it.
“You’re screwed,” she told him. “You have a temperature up in the something-fierce range, plus whatever else happened out there. You want to go to a clinic?”
“God, no,” he said, as emphatic as anything he’d said yet—maybe even said with a little bit of outright panic.
She laughed. “How to tame the beast,” she said and sat down on the curb beside him, his warmth radiating against her. Maybe if he had a moment, he could walk to the hotel. Or intelligibly tell her what he did need. And then she could go check in, and—
“What is it about you?” he asked, surprising her. She jerked her gaze around, finding the dark grey of his eyes. Not guarded, as they’d been in the diner. Not wary, as they’d been outside the hotel. Looking right at her as if he could look through her. He took her hand, twined his fingers through hers, and examined the arrangement as if it could tell him something. “Doesn’t make any sense. You.”
She shivered. Inexplicable impulses and gut feelings, every decision she’d made since she’d seen him outside that hotel...since she’d walked away from her Vegas vacation at that. No, it didn’t make any sense at all.
And she’d learned better. She had a lifetime of understanding that true intention rarely showed on the surface. She knew how to protect herself.
Or she should.
She gathered her wits and gently disentangled her hand. “I make perfect sense,” she said. “And I’m not the one who almost fainted in the middle of the road. But I am the one who doesn’t have a room yet. So let’s go back to the hotel. If you need help, we’ll get it there. If you don’t, you don’t.”
He sucked in a sharp breath; a certain startled awareness crossed his features, an expression made sharper in the shadows. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. Let’s get you back to the hotel.”
Amusement rippled through her as she stood. Suddenly he was all Mister I’m back in charge, was he? Well, that was fine, too. “What was that all about, anyway?” she asked, holding out a hand to help pull him up from the curb.
Whether from pride or wariness, she wasn’t sure, but he hesitated before taking it. “Hazing gone wrong.” Back on his feet, he loomed more than she’d expected. Gwen Badura was no tiny figure of a woman, and he hadn’t struck her as a particularly large man...but there it was. Looming.
She resisted the impulse to brush the street dirt from his particularly fine posterior.
He frowned, striking out beside her; the hotel loomed darkly a block away. “It wasn’t that serious—didn’t have to be. I don’t know what—” He stopped short, dropping entirely back into the man he’d been before he’d run off into the darkness—the same man who had faced her at the hotel entrance. The wary one. The utterly prepared one.
She didn’t at first see why—not until a dark figure emerged from the shadows of the hotel lot landscaping. Then she stopped short on a gasp—one that turned into a squeak as her erstwhile escort snagged her arm and jerked her back, putting himself in front of her.
You must be kidding.
The newcomer stood in clear challenge mode, legs braced, chin tipped at an arrogant angle.
He held a sword.
You. Must. Be. Kidding. Gwen’s fingers clamped down on the back of her guy’s jacket, knowing it was hardly helpful. Hide. Yes, I will gladly hide. Right here behind you.
The sword glimmered in the light—no, not in the light. More as if it had light of its own, rolling liquid along the lines of steel. “My name is Devin James,” he said. “This is my turf. My city. Whatever you’re doing, it had better stop.”
And Gwen’s guy muttered eloquently, “What...the...fuck?”
“That’s telling him,” she said, not a little desperately.
“It’s my city,” James repeated. “I can feel what you’ve done here tonight. No one died, which means you get another chance. But I’m watching.”