“Most of the things that happened to you were side effects of the claim on your soul. It wasn’t anything I was doing to you directly, but it was still my fault. It amounted to a curse being placed on you. It was before I knew you, Madeleine.”
“And that makes it okay? You ruined my life!” Another minute passed before she reached the end of her strength and her struggles gave out. She collapsed against him, sobbing noisily into his shirt while he stroked her hair.
“I thought it wouldn’t matter if I knew you or not. I thought I would always be cold. But you did something to me, you made me feel. I know…you hate me,” he went on softly, “and you have every right to. I want you to know that I’m done. I also want you to remember that no matter how hard your life gets, there are wonderful things in store for you. Things you can’t even imagine. Just always do what you know in your heart is right.”
Releasing her from his embrace was the last thing he wanted. What if he would never touch her again? That alone would be hell. Sighing, he let her go to pull the contract from the inside of his jacket. “This is all that’s binding you to me. For me to destroy it…well, would mean some extremely harsh consequences for me. I don’t care anymore, but now we have a way out. You’ve been given the opportunity to name someone else to take your place.”
Alarm snapped her eyes wide open. “That’s what I have to do to break it? But I can’t do that.”
He gripped her arm again. “Tell me that’s your final decision.” Please. It was the only way he could think of that she could be free and he just might escape his superiors’ wrath with his life intact.
“I…” She trailed off, her eyes on the scroll still in his hand. He knew how it must sound for him to be urging her not to name a replacement. Like he still wanted her soul, when a moment ago he’d been telling her otherwise. Dammit.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice small.
Always do what you know in your heart is right, Maddie. He stared deep into her eyes, willing the words to sink in. But all he saw reflecting from their limpid brightness was a rising malice that stunned him. It was coming from her thoughts too. He could feel it increasing in direct proportion to the quickening of her pulse rate.
“You said my father did this to me? And he’s still alive?”
Grimly, he nodded. “From what I understand, after our encounter he turned his life around. He was on an express lane to Hell, trust me. But it’s possible we’ve lost our hold on him.”
Her lips twisted into a crooked, bitter line. “Do you want him back?”
“Madeleine. Think before you speak.”
She covered her face with both hands, and he steered her to the couch. He wanted to pull her back into his arms, but she resisted his attempt, and he let her.
“I want to see him.”
“For what?”
“I want to know why.”
“I can tell you why. He was a drug addict like your mother. He was about to go down in a rain of gunfire. He’d never given a damn about anything except his next fix. It didn’t take much to get him to cave in.” He stroked her quivering back, expecting her to shrug him off, but needing more than anything to touch her. Despite the little shudders still racking her, she held still. “But the blame is solely on my shoulders. I should have left it alone. If you want to ask someone why, you need to ask me.”
“All right.” She turned to face him fully, her chin lifted in determination and her eyes still streaming but resolute. “Why? Why me?”
“First let me ask you something. Do you really believe me?”
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve thought there must be some reason, some explanation for the weird things that have happened to me. I would think you were crazy right now, or lying to me, except it all makes perfect sense. And thinking back on some of the things you’ve said and done…” She lifted a hand and wiped at her eyes. “I wouldn’t believe you, I don’t want to believe you…except that it’s the answer I’ve been searching for all my life. Maybe it makes me a fool, but…”
“You’re no fool. Quite the opposite. You were targeted because of your worthiness, Madeleine. That’s how it works. I’d have done anything to claim you. I… No, that wasn’t it. I was in love with you.”
“So you would damn me?” The crack in her voice caused a fresh shard of pain to rip through him.
“To have you with me, yes. It didn’t matter to me. I just knew that I wanted you.”
“Because you’d known me in past lives.”
He nodded. “Only the very best souls get to come back again and again. Most only get one go at it. You’ve been a queen, a martyr, a philosopher—often you’re a healer or philanthropist of some sort. It would explain the desire you were describing to me about being part of something bigger than yourself. You always have been.”
“I’m sure not now,” she said bitterly.
But you will be. Just wait. “I’m not asking for your forgiveness, I’m not even trying to make excuses or ask for your understanding. My own selfishness is the sole reason for what I did.”
“And you’re just going to let me go now?”
“It’s not quite that simple. As I said, you have to name a replacement.”
“Anyone?”
He hated himself, detested himself—along with Riam, Nicolae, all the world and the realms above and below—for having to lie to her yet again. But she would do the right thing. He knew she would. “As far as I know.”
“What would happen to them?”
He sat back, tearing his gaze from her and fastening it on the thin hardback books resting on her coffee table. He’d wanted to rip her away from this world of normalcy. Take her to a place where she’d never hold a book again, never see flowers like the ones in the ornate vase on the end table next to her. Never again hear the music that was so dear to her.
And now he had to tell her exactly what he was, what he’d had planned for her.
“I would tear out their soul. I would kill them. And I would take them to Hell, which is every bit as bad as you’ve been led to believe all your life.”
“Oh God.” She stood up from the couch, her movements slow as she wandered a few paces away and stopped. She must be in shock. He supposed it wasn’t every day a girl found out she’d been sleeping with a murderous, rampaging demon who’d set his sights on her soul next. “That’s what you did to the guy who shot at us, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to go,” she said without looking at him. “Please.”
He got to his feet and stood behind her. “I need your answer, Madeleine.”
“I can’t,” she sobbed, and the sound tore something loose inside him. “I can’t do that to someone else. I can’t do it to myself, either. I hate you for this. Please just go, I can’t do this.”
What if she didn’t answer him? Would she be freed by default for refusing to name another? He was losing his touch, to neglect to get clarification on these matters.
“Whether you feel you can do it or not, it’s upon you. You must decide.”
She whirled to face him, her face as white as Riam’s robes. “Don’t make me say the words that will damn my soul, or anyone else’s. I won’t do it. I don’t belong to you, dammit. I don’t belong to anyone. No one had the right to do this to me, not even my piece-of-shit father. I didn’t ask for this!” She stumbled backward as she screamed at him, and he feared she might trip over something and hurt herself. Everything she’d been holding inside all these years was flying out, and if he were mortal he’d fear for his own safety.
“Maddie, be careful.”
“What do you care? You ruined what life I had and now you want to take eternity away from me too. I was falling in love with you!” She grabbed a picture frame off the table near her and hurled it at him. There was a cross hanging on the wall; she snatched it off and clutched it to her chest, triumph suffusing her expression.
“That won’t do any good, not to a contracted soul.”
She threw it at him. He dodged it easily and turned slowly back to look at her. She had plastered her back to the wall behind her, and now she finally slid down it to crumple on the floor like a discarded rag doll. The carpet muffled her wild, racking sobs, but every one of them was like a dagger driving into his chest.
He couldn’t do this anymore. The need to pick her up and comfort her and tell her he would never hurt her was too much to resist, but she would reject him. She would fight him and scream at him and possibly injure herself, and he didn’t know what the hell to do.
As quietly as he could so as not to startle her, he knelt on the floor. The instinctive urge to touch her assailed him, but he beat it into submission. “Madeleine, I’ll leave. All right? I’m not going to lay a hand on you. You don’t have to answer right now.”
Her sobs quieted, but she didn’t lift her head.
“I don’t want to hurt you. I didn’t even want to scare you. All of that’s in the past. Let me try to fix this. I’ll do anything, everything I can to fix this. Please…” His voice gave out. He was about to ask her to trust him. How f**king laughable was that? Trust the monster who’d come to steal, kill and destroy her, who’d waited and stalked and bided his time until the moment she was most vulnerable. Because he’d been such a coward. “I’ll find answers. Don’t be afraid of me when I come back to tell you what I’ve learned. It’s a necessity.”
She picked her head up then, looking at him with half-blind, red-rimmed eyes. “What if you can’t fix it? Are you going to take me? Can’t you just let me go?”
When she looked at him with such pleading, spoke to him in that broken voice, he wanted to rip the contract to pieces. Damn the consequences.
“I don’t know.” One moment longer they looked at each other, and then he stood. With barely leashed savagery, he strode to her door and scarcely resisted ripping it from its hinges as he slammed his way out. The air itself here was stifling him. He needed to go home, recharge, realign. Figure out what the hell he was going to do.
It wouldn’t matter. He was fooling himself. He could spend a century prowling the caverns below with nothing but his tortured thoughts and he still wouldn’t be any closer to a revelation about Maddie. He’d f**ked up. That was what it all came down to. He’d f**ked up and loved her.
Ash ceased his relentless pace and stood still in the middle of the parking lot of Madeleine’s apartment building. His shields were still in place, so he threw his head back to the deepening twilight of the heavens and roared a single name.
“Riam!”
Maddie stared at her closed front door, still numb and trembling. She wanted to go to bed and never have to get up or face anyone else ever again. She’d gone from dating guys who left her to dating guys who wanted to kill her. She hated to think what was going to come around next.