“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 fucking 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 fucked up. That was what it all came down to. He’d fucked 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.
It was thoughts like these that kept her sane, because she really couldn’t deal. She couldn’t. Ash was…evil. There had always been something a little odd about him, but…
Wiping her eyes, she made herself get up and lock the door. Get up and deal, the way she always did, even when she knew she couldn’t. Carefully, she walked into her bathroom, fearing her legs might give out at any minute. The cold water she splashed on her face snapped her awake to the world again, but it was a world she didn’t want to be in anymore. The reflection in the mirror was one she didn’t even recognize. Pale skin, hollow eyes. Even her lips looked thin and compressed. Her hair was a mess from wallowing on the floor and on Ash’s shirt.
A fresh wave of tears threatened as she ambled out of the bathroom into her bedroom. The sight of her bed, all neat and turned down and just waiting to be rumpled up, was almost her undoing. She’d hoped she and Ash would end up there tonight. She was getting damn tired of all her dreams being dashed on the rocks. Memories of them together assaulted her. How passionate he’d been. Had he been thinking of killing her even then? Taking her to Hell? Had he only been waiting for his moment?
He’d almost done it that first night.
She barely refrained from collapsing again at the thought. The mugger… Ash had put his hand on the man’s chest, and the man had screamed and dropped. She remembered the weird feeling that had washed over her when Ash put his palm over her beating heart the first night they were together. She’d pulled his hand away and kissed it, and the sensation stopped.
God, she’d thought her love life was a disaster before. In a moment of melodrama, Delia had once announced that men were only good for murdering the soul. Ha.
Well, Dee, I’ve got one for you.
A blip of hysterical laughter escaped her lips. She couldn’t call Dee. There was no one to turn to. No one she could go to with this. She was so alone. She’d never felt so alone.
“Riam!” Ash never thought he would ever in his entire
existence call upon an angel’s name. If the bastard didn’t answer him…
“You called?”
He whipped around at the voice behind him to find Riam standing with his arms crossed, a quizzical expression on his normally serene face. “I want out of this.”
The angel’s eyebrows shot upward. “What?”
“I said I want out. I want this to just…go away.”
“Then you have to break the contract.”
“There isn’t some buried-deep rule I don’t know about that nullifies this thing without my interference? She’s a potential angel, for fuck’s sake. Surely you can pull some strings for one of your own.”
Riam laughed, the asshole. “Trying to keep yourself out of hot water, as it were?”
“I don’t want to overlook an easy solution.”
“Right. Sorry, but no. She’s not one of my own yet. If you want out, you have to break it. Only you.”
That was as he’d feared, but it had been worth a shot. “I also wanted to ask what will happen to her. What have I done? Have I…ruined her chances?”
Riam pursed his lips and tilted his head back and forth, considering. “Probably not. It depends. I mean, I would have to get confirmation on that, of course. I’m not the final say on the matter. But she can’t be held responsible for what you did to her.”
Ash pulled out the contract. He ripped the black string and unfurled it, staring blindly at the words he once thought would give him everything he wanted.
“You love her,” Riam said.
“How astute you are.”
“Oh, I’ve known from the beginning. Ever since I was assigned this case and I wondered why you didn’t take her from the moment she came of age. Then, every time we thought you were getting close, you pulled back. You gave her more time. Others who’ve been watching her throughout all her lives know how enamored you were of her. It doesn’t take a scholar to see.”
Ash glared at him. “You and Nicolae did this on purpose, didn’t you? The whole two-week stay, pushing her into this decision…you knew all along I wouldn’t follow through.”
“Maybe.” But Riam’s smile gave up nothing.
“Fine, we’ve established I’ve been wonderful entertainment for all of you. I don’t give a fuck. I just want to know she’s going to be all right.”
“She’ll be perfectly fine. How could she not be? You’ll be away from her.”
It was the truth. He was the source of all her problems. But he didn’t want to be, not anymore. He wanted to protect her. What if something happened to her and he was locked away rotting in some dungeon, unable to do anything about it? Or worse.
Ash closed his eyes and pushed out his next words by sheer force of will. “I need you…to promise me something.”
“And that is?” the angel asked warily.
“I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me when I destroy it.”
“They can’t strike at her again. They’ve already tried that in the past, on another case. New rules were instituted to stop it from ever happening again. If you destroy that contract, she’s free.”
Ash nodded, more questions crowding on his lips. He couldn’t seem to get them out, to ask for the angel’s help.
“Well, if you want to ask me to watch over her…I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t interfere personally. She’ll make the choices to gain her wings or she won’t. It’s up to her.”
“That’s what I wanted to ask.” He stroked the rough, thick parchment with his thumb, circling his own burnt-on initial. How he wished he could take it back. Or at least go back. He’d been so sure of things back then. He’d known who the hell he was.
“What I can do, though, is petition to place her under divine protection for a time. If it’ll make you feel better.”
“It would. Thank you.”
“Well?” Riam asked after silent moments stretched out between them. “Are you going to do it?”
His masters were going to kill him if he did. He’d been trying to convince himself it wouldn’t go to that extreme, but suddenly it was something he knew deep in the blackness of his own heart. The rule Riam had referenced assured it. To voluntarily release or even unintentionally lose a soul Hell needed would carry harsher penalties than ever before, because it was strictly forbidden to try to reclaim them.
There’d never been an easy way out of this. He probably would have faced death even if Madeleine had refused to name another, thus rendering the contract null and void. It still would have meant failure on his part.
Trembling, he grasped the contract at the top with both hands. Riam’s brows dipped lower, a troubled furrow appearing in his forehead. “You would truly do this for her? Sacrifice yourself?”
Madeleine’s face appeared in his mind, smiling at him. Beautiful. Then that face became lit with an ethereal glow, and snowy white wings spread beyond it. One of them, just as she was meant to be from the moment she was born. She would be the best of them.
“With all my heart,” he said, and ripped the Gatlin contract in two.
Chapter Thirteen
Maddie came off the bed where she’d collapsed in tears, choking and gasping for breath. Oh God, what was this? She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t…
As soon as the attack—whatever it was—had come upon her, it was gone. She filled her lungs with blessed air, expanding them to their max. If she could overflow them, she would, because the deeper she inhaled, the more a sense of peace she’d never known before seemed to seek out all the dark places in her soul and fill them up. Finally she couldn’t take any more, and she exhaled slowly. That felt even better. Like all the bad things, the fear, the dread, were pouring out of her with every measure of breath she released.
Was she crazy? She couldn’t be. Or if she was, it felt pretty damn good.
The gentle knock at the front door startled her. She scurried into the living room and peeked out to see Ash standing outside, his head down. As her heart knocked against her ribs, she saw him rub a hand hard over his face.
She didn’t want to let him in. He hadn’t been gone long at all, and that couldn’t be good news, could it? But judging by the way she felt, something had happened. Leaving the chain in place, she cracked the door open. His head lifted, and she almost gasped at the frightening devastation on his face.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice trembling.
He gave her a smile. But it wasn’t a heartening one, not in the least. “I just wanted you to know you’re free. All is as it should be.”
“They let me go?”
“I let you go.” He went to turn away. “I hope you get everything out of life you wish, Madeleine.”
“Wait!” She didn’t know what made her do it, but she shut the door and disengaged the chain lock. Ash waited while she threw the door open wide again. “Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Oh. You mean…”
“Yes.”
“Will I…ever see you again?”
He shook his head, as if he couldn’t give voice to the answer. Her fingers went to her lips. Everything within her was crying out that it was a good thing, a very good thing. Except for the one little part that could tell by his face and the faint tremor he tried to hide by shoving his hands in his pockets that he’d given up more than she knew, more than he could tell her. Much more.
“I can’t say I never meant to hurt you, Madeleine. There was a time when I did mean to. I had fun at your expense. But I realize now I never would have taken you. I couldn’t.” He reached out a hand toward her, paused and searched her face for reaction. She didn’t move. Crazy though she might be, she craved his touch. A moment later, she had it. His hand cradled the side of her face; his thumb stroked her cheek. Wiping away the tear she hadn’t realized had spilled. “I love you.”
“Oh God. Ash…”
“If you ever felt the same, even for a moment, tell me now. Tell me before I have to go.”
She nodded
. “I did. I loved you.”
He accepted the past tense with good grace. It was all she could give him after everything she’d learned. But she slid her hand over his and held it there, unwilling for him to pull away. Not yet. “I feel so different. For the first time in my life, I feel like everything’s going to be okay.”
He nodded. “It is. Because for the first time in your life, or at least as long as you can remember, I won’t be involved anymore. The curse is lifted. You’re free.”
“But you gave this to me, and you didn’t have to.”
His eyes went darker. “Don’t make me out to be a hero. I’ve been nothing but a villain to you.”
“Maybe you’ve spent so long telling yourself that, you can’t think of yourself any other way. I’ve seen the good in you, Ash.”
“You haven’t seen half the evil.”
Despite her grasping fingers, he pulled his hand away and stepped back. Her skin immediately missed his heat and tingled in the aftermath. She stepped outside her door to try to make up for the distance he’d placed between them. “Thank you, Madeleine.”
“Don’t go yet—”
She was talking to his back now. It was all she could do to keep her feet planted to the floor, to not run after him as he rounded the corner and took the stairs down to the parking lot. He obviously didn’t want her to follow. Please look back at me one more time, at least.
He didn’t.
They probably expected him to run, but he was done being a coward. When he was around the corner of the building and safely out of sight of Madeleine’s door, he stopped and stared down at the ground, willing the earth to claim him.
One look back at her and he might have run from his fate. Run straight into her arms and remained there until they were forced to come drag him home. But whatever they had in store for him, it would be a mercy. It would either take his mind off her, or it would kill him.
He felt the power rise around him, sucking at his feet, then his legs, rising into his torso and out to his fingertips. When it reached the top of his head, engulfing him fully, he’d be gone from this world, most likely for good.