The Demon Creed (A Demon Outlaws Novel) (Entangled Edge) by Paula Altenburg Read Free Book Online

free,” he said. “I’d prefer it to stay out there.”
    She made an excellent attempt to return his smile. “It’s been trained to leave me alone, but I still run when I see it coming if Bear’s not around.”
    Creed doubted if running would save her. Sand swifts were faster than they looked, especially when hunting, but at least she did not simply stand and do nothing to try and save herself.
    “Grab a rock or whatever is handy and hit it on the snout,” he advised her. “But avoid its tongue if you can.” A sand swift’s tongue, meant to capture prey, was covered in coarse buds that could tear a woman’s delicate flesh to shreds with one flick. He looked at the basket. An enticing aroma of cooked kyson meat and vegetables wafted from it, and the hardtack he’d been planning to eat no longer held much appeal. He hefted the basket. “Is this for me?”
    “Bear told me to bring you some dinner. It’s stew,” she added.
    She exuded waves of discomfort at being alone with him. She shifted her eyes to the closed door, and Creed wondered why she did not leave now that the meal had been delivered.
    He wondered, too, why Bear had really sent her. He was not the type of man to be concerned over the welfare of an unwelcome guest. The odds were good that she had been sent to question Creed, and there could be only one way he thought she could get information from him. Although whoring women to guests was a common enough practice, Creed’s distaste for Bear increased. A man should protect a woman under his roof, not place her in a position such as this.
    Since she seemed in no hurry to leave, and he thought it likely she might have answers to some of his own questions, he tried to make himself appear as non-threatening to her as possible.
    Normally that was not difficult for him to do. This wo-man, however, seemed immune to him. He found that both intriguing and a challenge. If most women loved him, and his intentions toward this one were harmless, why did she continue to shy away from him?
    This one’s life was difficult enough without him adding to that. While he would like to question her about her son, he wanted to win her confidence more.
    “Thank you,” he said. “Since you know my name, do you mind if I ask for yours?” He sent out a tiny bit of compulsion with the question, although not enough to do more than give her a choice as to her response. She could answer him or not, whichever she preferred.
    She bit her lip. “Nieve.”
    The name meant innocent . He could not imagine a more appropriate one. Except, perhaps, for Mouse .
    “Well, Nieve. Would you like to sit with me while I eat, so you can take the basket back to the kitchen with you?”
    She nodded, her relief at being handed a reasonable excuse to stay palpable, but she had so many other emotions swirling in her that he found them difficult to sift through. Fear was most prevalent. Almost equal was determination.
    He dragged two new bales of hay from the loft above for them to sit on, and positioned them so that he faced her. Nieve said nothing as he proceeded to eat the contents of the basket.
    He chewed slowly, watching her without appearing to do so. In the light from her lamp, which he’d hung from a hook on a gray-cobwebbed, dusty beam, he saw a darkening bruise spreading, finger-like, across her face. The bruise had not been there earlier.
    His grip on the fork he held tightened, and he forced himself to remember that she belonged to another man. He had a duty to uphold the laws of the land, and right now, like it or not, the laws did not favor her. It was incomprehensible to him, though, how Bear could treat a sand swift with more patience and kindness than a fragile, beautiful woman such as this.
    “Is it true that the Godseekers are hunting down spawn and putting them to death?” she blurted out, breaking the silence.
    Creed, his mouth full of food, took his time to think about that before answering. “Yes and no. It has to be