Free Demon's Daughter (Demon Outlaws) by Paula Altenburg Page B

failings and graces of any other. She’s kind and loving, and knows right from wrong, although she’s not perfect and makes mistakes. I could not have asked for a better daughter.”
    “But a demon lurks inside her.” He did not know why he persisted in trying to reason with her. The woman was dying, and he was not easing her journey. He should be ashamed. He was.
    “ Airie lurks inside her. She controls who she is. She sometimes loses that control, as she did today, but she’s had little experience with the world beyond the mountain. As her experience grows, so will her control.”
    It was too late to make the priestess understand why Airie could never be allowed to leave the mountain alive, or that what he had to do, he did for both the world’s benefit and also for Airie’s own. If she were truly good, as the priestess believed, then he would be doing her a mercy because she could not stay isolated here on the mountain forever. He knew all about loneliness, and loneliness would eventually make her seek out other living beings. When she did, the Demon Lord would find her. Who knew what harm she might do to mortals before then?
    “Take her with you.”
    “What?” At first, Hunter thought he had heard the priestess incorrectly.
    “I’ve been praying for a sign from the goddesses.” The old woman paused, caught her breath, and continued. “You can teach her control. You wear protection. I never needed it, but until Airie gains full control of herself in the outside world, there may be times like today when you will.”
    She did not know what she asked of him. If he took Airie with him, she would be passed on to the demons. It would be better for everyone involved if he killed her now. He would tell Mamna he’d had no choice in the matter, which was true.
    “I’m sorry, I—” Hunter started to say that he would not make promises to a dying woman that he could not keep, but then Airie walked into the room and he could say no more.
    She had changed her clothes and tied her hair into a long, heavy braid that touched her waist. She cradled a rainbow-colored stone on a golden chain in the palm of one hand. The strange overhead lighting of the temple caught the amulet’s colors and shot them to the darkest corners of the room. She carried the amulet to the priestess and tried to press it into her thin fingers.
    The priestess refused it. “It’s yours now,” she said to Airie. “Wear it always, and think of your mother often. Remember me in your prayers.”
    Hunter stood on the periphery of the room, uncertain what to do and feeling more of an unwanted intruder with each passing breath. Airie kissed her mother’s cheek as the priestess’s eyes slid shut. A short time later a dry rattle deep in the old woman’s chest told him the end was near. Airie clung to her hand, holding it tight against her breast, tears streaming down her cheeks.
    Hunter had seen death more times than he cared to remember. He’d experienced it first with his own sister. He had felt the gut-wrenching pain of its touch.
    Never before, however, had he witnessed a raw grief such as this. Airie’s was something he knew he would never forget, not so much for its intensity as its quiet dignity. It was as if she drew every emotion she felt deep within her body and held it there so it could not escape.
    But it was the gentleness in the touch of a spawn for its mother that unsettled Hunter the most. He could not kill this woman and call it a mercy. Not while there was the slightest chance the priestess had been right about her.
    She’s kind and loving, and knows right from wrong…
    He felt the jaws of a giant, invisible trap slamming shut around his neck.
    He let her sit in silence for a long time, saying whatever good-byes she felt needed to be said, then placed a firm hand on her shoulder. Time was passing, and he could not forget about the earth tremors they had already experienced. This mountain was the last place he wanted to be if they