“Can you blame him for being a coward who deserted you? Yeah, pretty easily.”
“I guess so.” She sighed. “But it’s best to let it go. I got so frustrated being afraid all the time, and I still do. I get almost defiant about it. Thing is, I’ll feel that way one day, and the next I’ll be a mess.”
Defiant. Oh, she could be. He’d known her long enough to know how strong she was, even if she didn’t agree. She’d always been beyond his reach, and he’d tried so many times to get to her. It had never worked, until now—and even then he’d had to exploit the weakness of someone else.
He’d come close once long ago—or at least, closer than any of his other attempts in centuries past. She’d been burned at the stake as a witch in some long-forgotten village in England, when all she’d been guilty of was helping ease women through the rigors of childbirth. One wretchedly cold winter’s day, she’d been reluctantly called to the bedside of a nobleman’s wife who was nearing the end of her strength during a particularly grueling labor, only to lose both the mother and the child despite all her efforts.
Naturally, the idiots blamed her—they’d called her a witch, the devil’s handmaid. Surely she consorted with demons to receive her healing powers. Funny how the people had been happy to make use of them until she failed the wrong person.
If only the fools had known a real demon had revealed himself and propositioned her the night before her execution, and she’d reviled him.
He would never forget that night. Even in the cold, dank stench of the cell they’d pitched her into, even knowing what she faced on the morrow, she’d remained steadfast. She’d been down on her knees when he’d come to her, her hands folded and her head tilted back toward the ceiling. Full lips murmuring prayers. Despite the dire circumstances of the moment, he’d thought of having her on her knees for an entirely different reason, putting those lips to a far more productive use.
He should have known it was futile, but desperation had driven him. He was about to lose her again, and who knew how long he would have to wait this time to find her when she came back—if she came back? He’d been prepared to offer her anything, pay any price just to have her now, but he had to tread carefully.
“Good evening, madam,” he’d said, trying to sound innocuous.
Apparently he wasn’t good at it. She’d taken one glance at him and scurried to her feet, backing against the wall. Yes, it had been far harder for his kind to walk among the masses in those days. Far more of a challenge, far more fun to try. Even in the darkness, he could see the searing blue of her wide eyes, the milky smoothness of her skin. The moonlight glowing off the snow-covered landscape outside her window managed to show him every detail of her delicate face.
She’d stood there, gently panting with her untamed curls loose around her dirty cheeks, looking like a woodland nymph he’d startled. She didn’t speak, but waited for him to continue. He’d ached so hard to tear his way into that room and possess her, he nearly ground his teeth to dust. He’d looped his fingers around the bars and clenched them hard to keep from doing so. “If there were any way possible to escape your fate,” he’d begun, staring hard through those bars into her panicked eyes, “would you take it?”
It was all he was allowed to ask until she answered in a manner consistent with his plans for her, but he’d known it was a lost cause before he finished the question.
Despite her obvious discomfort with him there, her voice had rung out strong and true. “I would not. I would not lie to save myself. Nor would I blaspheme, or sell my soul. I’ll face the flames on the morrow and find my peace in eternity before I face the everlasting fires of Hell.”
It was done, then, hopeless. He’d known she saw the fury rise in his eyes, no doubt turning them crimson at having lost her yet again. He hadn’t been able to resist one final barb. “Shall I ask again, then, when the first of the flames licks the flesh from your body? I should think you’d be much more amenable then.”
“Get thee behind me, Satan!” she’d cried.
The words themselves had hurt, all but throwing him backward. He’d snarled at her and whirled away, scarcely able to rein in his savagery as he stalked down the corridor away from her.
And he watched her die in agony the next morning, wanting to scream, wanting to stop it somehow. Not because he wanted to end her pain—there would be plenty of that where he planned to take her. But because she should be his. The fire had devoured her mercifully fast and the angels had winged down from Heaven to carry her soul home. One of the bastards had seen him there among the onlookers and smirked at him before they shot off and disappeared into the ice-blue sky.
Who was smirking now?
Actually, not him, not at the moment. It took effort to pull his thoughts away from that crisp, terrible winter morning so long ago, but it was over. And he was here, in Madeleine’s bed, where it was warm and dark and he was…wanted. She snuggled against his chest, her breath cool and minty sweet. The memory of her down on her knees in feverish prayer still wreaked havoc on him, though, and while he’d be content to let her drift to sleep—she needed it—he was so hard it hurt.
As if to make the decision for him, she tilted her head up and her lips brushed his. Her fingers slid down to lightly stroke his cock, and every muscle in his abdomen clenched. “Is this for me?” she asked teasingly.
He could only groan her name in reply and sink into her kiss. Plunder the mouth he’d dreamed would someday murmur desperate pleas for deliverance to him rather than to Heaven. Here it was at last; it was his.
“Oh, Ash,” she sighed against his lips.
“I love the sound of that,” he said. “Love to hear you say my name.”
He felt her smile. “Ash.”
“Again.”
She repeated it on a giggle, over and over. He laughed, nibbling her lush bottom lip—which made it difficult for her to speak, but still she tried. He nipped his way down the line of her jaw to her throat, which she bared for his exploration. “Thank you for listening to all my insanity,” she said as he kissed and gently sucked the place where her pulse beat so strongly against her skin. “For understanding me. You don’t know how much it means…”
Her voice trailed away, broken, and he lifted his head to look down at her. Tears glimmered in her eyes. She blinked rapidly as if trying to send them back where they belonged.
It was no use. They belonged to a shattered soul that could never be repaired. Bravely, she forced the words out. “You don’t know how much it means to be with someone I feel like I can tell anything to. It’s so weird, having known you only a week—or maybe that’s why. There isn’t any pressure. What do you think?”
Shit. Did she really expect him to talk right now, when her hand was doing that? He studied her face, the subtle nuances of this incarnation. She always looked the same, for the most part. Always blue-eyed, always dark-haired. Her nose was a little sharper this time, her cheeks more rounded. Despite any slight differences, he knew her face better than he knew his own. “Madeleine, I think you’re incredible. I think…that’s why…oh, fuck…that’s why this dark entity has attached itself to you.”
Her movements ceased, and it was the closest he’d ever come to whimpering like a little girl. Where the hell had that come from?
“Really?”
“Well…I mean, I would.”
She looked at him for a moment, then laughed. He wanted to crawl under the bed. Yeah. Ha, ha. She thanked him now for being here, but oh, how she would hate him and curse him when she learned the truth. Get thee behind me, indeed.
It shouldn’t matter, but it did. As she slid her mouth down his chest, kissing a trail toward the epicenter of erotic agony she’d evoked in him, he fisted his hand in her hair and dreaded that day with everything within him.
No sense in denying it any longer. After all this time, all these centuries, she was here, she was his…and if he wasn’t contractually obligated to take her, he wouldn’t.
Chapter Eleven
Another week passed. Another week ensconced in more bliss than a demon should ever know. He didn’t get to spend every waking moment with her, because she was so often at work. There were days he didn’t see her at all. But that only made the days when he did all the sweeter.
But it was all over with now. He materialized in front of the grand old house Nicolae called home and, for the first time in centuries, he was nervous. He didn’t know what the hell was going to happen here tonight and what implications it could have. The only thing he knew was that he had to get his poker face on, as the humans said. If the angel saw one hint of weakness, Ash would never live it down. He did have a reputation to uphold. He did have a job to do, whether he wanted to or not.
Entering the house, he was greeted with the usual scent of fragrant wax and ages-old tomes, a smell that could portend disaster as easily as success. He f**king hated it here.
Nicolae and the angel were already holed up together in the study, a dim, vast room and the source of the musty ancient-book smell.
Time to put on the mask. Ash smoothed his expression into what he knew was nonchalance of the most arrogant variety and strolled in as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The two looked over at the sound of his footsteps.
“Nicolae, my old friend. Aren’t you nearing retirement age?”
The angel shook his head, but Nicolae ignored the quip as always, giving Ash a minute nod of greeting. “Your attendance and participation are appreciated.”
Ash scoffed and threw himself into one of the gilt chairs sitting in front of Nicolae’s massive desk. The thing was so old it was damn near petrified. “It’s my understanding they were required.”
“You could always forfeit,” the angel remarked. “Really, I wouldn’t mind.”
“I’m sure. So, now that the usual pleasantries are out of the way, let’s get down to business.” He pulled the contract from his jacket and tossed it on the desk before Nicolae could ask to see it, which he inevitably would. The old man picked it up and unfurled it.
“I love that this is nothing but business for you,” the angel said.
“Well, what is it for you?”
“Far more than that.”
“Oh, come on. You can tell me. Are your numbers dwindling? Not letting as many through the pearly gates? Fighting a losing battle? You should’ve seen the specimen I reaped a couple of weeks ago. Wore sin like a cloak. I’m really doing you a favor, you know. Saving you from having to deal with the dregs of society fighting for entrance into your pristine utopia, so they don’t sully it.”
“And Madeleine? Is she one of the ‘dregs of society’?”
He felt his demeanor crack. The angel’s dark eyebrows rose. Shit. “Of course she is. What else would she be?” His voice was too tight for his own liking. He rubbed a hand across his chest, addressing the ache that formed there at speaking about her in such a manner.