Free Taming the Demon by Doranna Durgin

nothing-to-lose feeling...sometimes it gave you little moments of win.
    He grinned then, as she started the car and pointedly waited for him to buckle up, and he grinned as he did it.
    “Oh, what? ” she asked, putting the car into gear and whipping it around the circular drive in front of the house, all eerie silent engine in the stark slanting winter sunshine.
    He let the grin linger.
    She rolled her eyes and pulled out onto the canal, and then onto the street—but she turned in the opposite direction from which they’d come. “I need gas,” she said shortly, in response to his glance. And then, as he gave the hybrid’s space-age dashboard an incredulous look, she added, “It happens!”
    The blade warmed in Devin’s pocket, tugging at him with the burn of a limb waking up from frostbite. He inhaled sharply, his eyes widening briefly—a man trying to stay awake.
    Or in this case, a man trying to stay himself.
    A pale SUV spat out of the road behind her, shooting out abruptly into light traffic.
    “Natalie,” he said, his voice no more than low.
    “Assholes happen,” she said. But she frowned into the rearview again.
    A glance at the passenger-side view showed him that the SUV crowded them from behind. Crowded them close. A big vehicle, full-size gas-hogging glory, suitable for farm work.
    Or, given its gleam and styling, for hauling any basic urban team that thought much of itself.
    “What are they—” Natalie’s hands tightened on the wheel, and Devin took the cue to brace himself.
    Tap. From behind, a polite sort of kiss to the back of the car.
    Natalie cursed—a short, harsh word that didn’t suit her careful exterior. “Oh,” she said. “I don’t think so.” The Prius leaped forward, shooting up past the speed limit.
    “Pull over!” Devin turned in the seat, looking over his shoulder. “You can’t outrun these guys!”
    As if to prove it, the SUV came back up on their bumper for a less polite smack of metal on metal, high bumper against the back hatch and an audible crunch this time. Natalie cursed again. “I’ll pull over my way, thank you very much!”
    He cast her an incredulous look. “Don’t tell me this is about doing it your way—”
    “No,” she said, grim but steady as she shifted her grip on the wheel, and he should have seen it coming. “This is about doing it right. ” And she yanked them in a sudden turn across traffic.
    Devin swore. Loudly. He grabbed the handle over the door, holding his injured arm close to his body where it punished him anyway. “Natalie, what the fu—”
    “Wait for it,” she said, voice raised over the rattle of the new road—narrow and rough and erratically curving. She glanced in her rearview, slowing as the SUV navigated its clumsier turn with a screech of rubber and asphalt—and then hitting the gas when it again loomed large behind.
    “Natalie—”
    “ Wait for it!” Down the road, way faster than the speed limit, past the Pigs For Sale sign and goats exploring a fence loophole and—
    “Chickens!” Devin shouted at her, too late—they blew by a flurry of cackle and feathers. And then suddenly he had other things to worry about. “Speed bump, Natalie, speed bump—”
    The car surged forward, the SUV right behind it. Not subtle, not hanging back, and now they were trapped—
    The yellow painted lines of the speed bump filled the road from edge to edge; the sloppy, unevenly humped nature of the thing clarified as they closed on it. “Speed-fucking-bump!” Devin shouted at her, all too futile and all too late, bracing himself against the floor and the door, solidifying his hold on the overhead handle as Natalie’s knuckles tightened on the wheel.
    She whipped right, so abruptly he lurched into the curved center console; his vision went gray and brightly sparked as his arm hit the thing.
    From behind came a tremendous bang and scrape, locked brakes and tires ripping across pavement. Natalie braked almost as suddenly, craning