He didn’t even want to consider the other part.
Dammit, if only he’d moved on her when things were simpler. How many times would he regret it? Now there was her memory to contend with. The softness of her skin. The silk of her hair. The sweet music of her laughter. Hell, the sound of his own. He’d lost this game when he’d given in to his desire to touch her. She’d beaten him.
All his thoughts came to a halt, and he ceased his relentless pacing. For that alone, for besting him without even trying, she deserved a chance to escape the fate he’d planned for her.
“Fine,” he said to the two somber beings near the desk, and out of the corner of his eye he saw their heads lift and swivel toward him. But he couldn’t bear to look directly at them as he spoke his agreement. “I’ll give her the option. We’ll see…how it goes.”
Nicolae sat and began scribbling in his ledgers in his typical dismissive manner. Riam came to his feet and approached Ash, moving swiftly and noiselessly. Ash stiffened and cut him a warning glance that stopped him in his tracks.
“Don’t say one gloating word to me, or I’ll send you flying.”
“I was actually going to thank you for being reasonable.”
“That’s almost as bad, coming from the one whose dirty work I’m doing.”
The damned angel laughed. “Are you actually mad at me for making you out to be the bad guy?” He shook his haloed head. “You demons are good for the occasional chuckle, I’ll give you that.”
Oh, he was so certain of his victory. It was all over his fucking face: the serenity, the smug triumph. Ash wanted to crack that expression, watch it fall piece by piece, if only for the fun of it.
He allowed a blithe smile of his own and strolled over to Riam until they were nearly nose to nose by the time he finished speaking. “One word of warning to you, before you get too busy patting yourself on the back, or stroking your own wings, or whatever it is you do to congratulate yourself. I can be…extremely convincing. I know terrors you can scarce conceive of, and I’ll lay them out in such cruel detail for her that by the time I’m done, she’ll damn every soul she knows to Hell if it’ll save her own.”
Grimness had slowly crept over Riam’s face, lifting Ash’s spirits considerably. Riam turned his head away, averting his gaze but refusing to step back.
“Then I suppose it’s as you said, isn’t it?” The angel sounded nowhere near as sprightly as he had a moment ago. “We’ll see how it goes.”
Tonight was the night. She knew Ash was going home tomorrow, and she’d been waiting for him to say something about what the future held. She could feel it when he held her, kissed her, when he made love to her—he wanted her. He did. She’d never felt such passion from any man she’d ever been with, and it only kept growing.
They had to talk about it tonight. If he didn’t bring it up, then she would. She would be brave. She would tell him she wanted to see him again; she didn’t care what that entailed. He could come here or she would gladly go to him. Delia had been dead-on in her assessment of the situation, and Maddie hated that she’d allowed it to come to this, to putting herself out there again when it always ended so badly. But Ash was a weakness, and he seemed so…different. Wasn’t that the goal? To find the one who made you feel like no one else ever had, the one who seemed above all the petty game-playing?
And if he said that seeing her beyond tonight still wasn’t what he wanted…oh God. It didn’t bear thinking about. The thought of facing an empty bed every night after having him here was enough to spur her to action, even at the risk of a shattered heart. She slept so much more soundly with him here, with his arms around her. It was surely ridiculous, but she would swear that he really did keep the nightmares away.
She didn’t need a life-long commitment—yet—but she needed the promise of more of him.
Maddie’s heart jumped when the knock sounded at the door. She straightened the centerpiece on the dining table and gave the entire scene one final, critical survey. It wasn’t much, but it looked nice. Soft candlelight glowed and the silverware gleamed. She hoped Ash liked lasagna. It was the only thing she knew how to make well.
Deep breath. Let it out. That done, she did a little pirouette toward the living room, gave her appearance a quick inspection at the mirror on the way and pulled open the door.
Somehow, impossibly, he was more gorgeous every time she saw him. He smiled at the sight of her and, unable to contain herself, she slipped through the door and into his arms.
But something was wrong, and she sensed it immediately. He didn’t crush her to him with his usual urgency, as if he were trying to fuse them into one being. He held back. Against her, he was stiff and distant.
Oh no. Don’t let this go bad.
Quickly, she released him and stepped back, forcing a smile to her lips. “I’m glad you’re here. Come on in, food’s ready.”
He followed her inside without comment, shutting the door behind him.
“It’s just lasagna,” she went on with determined optimism, heading to the kitchen. “I hope that’s all right.” Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending upon how one wanted to look at it—little of their time together had been spent going over likes and dislikes. And he was usually so vague about everything…
Maddie froze mid-step. It wasn’t intentional—it was all of her thought processes shutting down in one moment of complete, blinding horror.
All this time, and she’d never asked him. Stupidly, she’d just assumed. How could she be so blind? The reluctance to share any information about himself, or to talk about seeing her again. The comment about bad timing. Hell, everything, every sign had pointed to a truth she’d refused to acknowledge. It was probably due to his uncanny ability to stop her midsentence and give her orgasms when she began to question too much—he’d kept her mind scrambled.
It was clear now. Her fingers gripped the edge of her kitchen island for a moment and then she whirled to face him, still holding on for support in case his answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear. But her voice wasn’t as demanding as she wanted it to be.
“Are you married?”
Puzzlement flickered across his face, and she wasn’t sure whether to be comforted by that or not. A lock of dark hair arced enticingly over his forehead. He was taking far too freaking long to answer, only looking at her in that disturbingly assessing way of his that raised the hair at her nape. As usual, her mouth ran away with her.
“I can’t believe I never asked. I’m such an idiot. But if you’re here and you’ve got a sweet wife at home taking care of a passel of kids or something, then I’m just…I’m just going to…oh God, I’m going to hell.”
He laughed then, the first utterance he’d given since arriving at her apartment. It was a tight, unhappy sound. “Well, Madeleine, I have good news and I have bad news. It’s up to you which you want to hear first.”
“I guess I’ll delay the inevitable and take the good news.”
“I’m not married.”
She sagged in relief, one hand going to her wildly thumping heart. “Oh, thank God. You scared the crap out of me. Don’t do that.” Whatever bad news he had, at least she hadn’t slept with some poor woman’s husband. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself. Once she’d caught her breath, she lifted her gaze to his, feeling the distance between them more than ever. “I suppose the bad news is that this isn’t going to work for you, right?” Before he’d walked in her door, she’d been able to fool herself. But not now, with him standing in front of her. It was as if he’d brought in the truth and clubbed her over the head with it. “I know you know what I want. You have to realize I’d like to see you again, somehow. But I guess that isn’t going to happen, huh?”
“It’s not…anything like that. This—” he gave a gesture that seemed to encompass her and the entirety of her apartment, “—would work very well for me, actually. More than I’d like to admit.”
“Oh. Well, then…what’s the bad news?”
“I’m
afraid the bad news is…there is a possibility that you could very well be going to hell.”
Chapter Twelve
His voice cracked at the end, something that had never happened to him in all the eons he’d been contracting and reaping. It wasn’t supposed to be hard. It was supposed to come naturally, but nothing since he’d touched Madeleine’s soft white skin had felt natural. He felt as if his own skin were on inside out.
She wasn’t taking him literally, of course. Confusion was written clearly across her furrowed brow. “What are you talking about? Did I do something?”
“You didn’t do a thing. It’s me. It’s no one’s fault but mine.” It was true. Her bastard of a father should’ve been left to perish as he was meant to. Gatlin really couldn’t be blamed for acting according to his own nature and saving himself. Ash turned away, unable to behold Madeleine’s innocent puzzlement any longer.
An angel. They were right. She was an angel on earth right this moment.
“I don’t understand. What’s your fault?” Her voice didn’t sound steady, either. At least he was in good company. “Look, I’ve heard ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ a dozen times. If you don’t want to be with me, please do better than that.”
“I want to be with you. The problem is that I wanted to be with you forever. And I can’t, not without great cost to you.”
“Okay, it’s like you’re speaking Swahili or something right now. I don’t understand what you’re telling me. Be straight, please.”
By the Dark Lord, he didn’t know how. He didn’t want to scare her. He didn’t want to show her those things he’d boasted about to Riam. It had all been talk. He was going to have to let her go. Everything on the inside of him felt twisted and contorted, out of place. Above all else, he didn’t want to tell her what he’d tried to do to her. Riam and Nicolae had forced his hand, and he hated them for it.
“Madeleine, I’m not who you think I am. I’m not even what you think I am. The night you saw me for the first time was not the first time we’ve met.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Remember, I said I thought I knew you.”
“Not the way you think. I’ve been following you all of your life, but you never saw me. I’ve been following you through…all your lives, and there have been many.”
Her reaction wasn’t what he expected. Her face smoothed over. Very calmly, she said, “What, like my guardian angel?”
“No. Just the opposite.”
“The opposite. A…demon, then?”
She was patronizing him. She thought he was insane, or using this as some elaborate ploy to get rid of her. It was clear from the downturn of her mouth and that terrible, resigned coolness that had settled over her.
“Demon! Demon!” that stupid bird croaked excitedly from the bedroom. “All signs point to yes!”
“That’s right. My name is Ashemnon. Twenty-seven years ago I entered an agreement with your father in which I could take his daughter—you—if only I would remove him from a situation that would result in his death. He traded you for his life, Madeleine, and now you belong to me.”
“My father.”
“Right.”
“I don’t even know my father.”
“Irrelevant. He didn’t know you, either. That didn’t stop him. In fact, it probably made it easier.”
“Tell me his name.”
“Maxwell Gatlin.”
He watched as all color drained from her face. Apparently she did know her father’s name, but hadn’t expected him to. For the first time, real fear began to creep across her features.
“You need to leave.”
“I’m not going to.”
Maddie left her sanctuary in the kitchen and all but sprinted toward the living room door. When he jumped in front of her to catch her, she was shaking. “I said you need to go!”
“I need you to believe me.”
She fought his hold and full-blown panic gripped her when she found she couldn’t break it, she couldn’t even loosen it. “You’re crazy. Get out before I start screaming.”
Quick fix for that. One flick of his magic and time ground to a halt. “Think about it, Madeleine. All the bizarre things that have happened to you all your life, the nightmares, the frightening things you’ve seen. The constant dread you feel. You’ve told me about all of it, but I already knew. There is a dark entity around you. It’s me.”
Her eyes were huge and luminous, welling with tears that quivered and then spilled over her cheeks. “How could you use that against me right now?”
He stared down at her, doing little to conceal the power emanating from him, or the heat gathering behind his eyes. This was the moment he’d been dreading, but there was nothing to be done for it. He had to show her. And he watched in agony as understanding dawned in her gaze.
“It was you doing that to me? All this time I thought I was going crazy and it was you!” The last word was screamed, and she fought him with renewed strength, surging with all her might against him. Fuck, she believed him. He saw it. He wrapped her in his arms, knowing he should let her go, let her get as far away from him as she could. But he couldn’t.
“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.”