The Mephisto Mark: The Redemption of Phoenix

  “Yes.” Her head turned so that her chin rested on my shoulder. “Except that sometimes he has his knife. Sometimes, he doesn’t.”

  It took all I had to stay calm and keep my body relaxed. Someday I’d be in Hell, and when that day came, I’d find Emilian and cut him. Until then, I hoped he suffered endlessly at Lucifer’s hands. “Do you have scars, Mariah?”

  She didn’t answer for a while and I feared I’d gone too far, but then she said, “They’re where no one can see. No one will ever see.”

  I convulsively held her tighter and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Show me.” If I couldn’t heal her mind, I could at least heal her body.

  “You’re not serious.”

  “We’re friends. We can talk about anything, do anything, and it’s only between us.”

  “Friends don’t look at one another naked, Phoenix. Just leave it. I’m only telling you this so you’ll understand why I don’t want to go to sleep, especially tonight. I know I’ll dream, and it’ll wake me up, and I’ll be more afraid than usual because of seeing that awful man who looked just like him.”

  “I’ll stay with you.”

  “All night? You mean you’ll sleep with me and be here when I wake up afraid?” She lifted her head to look at my face. “That can’t possibly end well.”

  “I’ve lived without sex for almost a hundred and twenty five years.”

  “This doesn’t make me feel less anxious about sleeping with you.”

  “I will never mark you, Mariah. Never, I swear, even if you wanted me to. You are completely safe with me.”

  “What if we climb in this bed and I decide I don’t like you in it with me?”

  “Then I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “I’ll do anything if it helps you get past what he did to you.”

  She shifted and things aligned provocatively. Her eyes widened. “I can never forget that you’re a guy.”

  “I hope not. I’m rather fond of being a guy, with all the accompanying equipment. It makes yours so much more interesting.”

  “Again, this isn’t making me feel better about sleeping with you.”

  I shrugged. “Everything still works, and it occasionally does what it was designed to do, even when I don’t want it to, especially when I’m asleep, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s a bodily function like any other. It’ll go away.” I moved my lips across her soft cheek and made myself think about deadly viruses under a microscope. “Let’s give it a go and see if it helps you.”

  Her lips curved into a small smile. “Trying to fix me, Phoenix?”

  “I want to more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

  “I told you, fixing me won’t change what happened with the other . . . with Jane.”

  “No, but it will make you whole again. I’m responsible for you.”

  “So, I’m a duty.”

  “You’re my friend.” I’d been slowly coasting my lips across her soft cheek and realized I was now kissing her soft cheek. And the lobe of her ear. And her throat. I should have stopped, but didn’t. “I want you to be at peace, and not afraid of what’s in your own head.” Her scent grew stronger, and I considered it a small victory.

  It occurred to me that she was letting me kiss her. In fact, she tilted her head back to expose more of her throat and I ran little kisses all the way to her chin. I was this close to her lips, and wanted to keep going. So badly, I wanted to kiss her full on the mouth.

  She blinked at me. “Maybe the lap thing wasn’t such a good idea.”

  I thought she was talking about this overwhelming need to kiss her, but realized when she shifted again that she was talking about what was happening just below her perfect ass. I cleared my throat. “The lap thing was an excellent idea. I just shouldn’t kiss you. Anywhere.”

  “It’s not fair, Phoenix. I’ve never wanted to kiss a guy, ever, and when I finally find one I do want to kiss, I can’t.”

  I pulled her back to me and stroked her beautiful hair. “There’ll be someone else. Someday.”

  “And you’ll be okay with that?” she mumbled against my shoulder.

  “Yes,” I lied.

  She sighed and we fell quiet again. I have no idea how many minutes passed before she whispered, “Don’t hurt me.”

  “I would never—”

  “I know you wouldn’t, but you’ll break my heart. I should get up and make you leave and not talk to you ever again.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  Her arms tightened around me. “Because I’ve never had this, never felt this way, and I can’t help myself.”

  “Things will change after you’ve been here for a while. You’ll get to know everyone and feel at ease and comfortable and your fear will diminish. I’m just the first person to get this close to you, so you naturally feel more connected to—”

  Startling me, she sat up suddenly and held my head in her hands. “Stop talking.”

  “Why? I was just saying that—”

  “You’re spouting a lot of nonsense because you want to convince yourself it won’t matter if I’m with someone besides you. Stop lying, Phoenix. I may not be all you’d hoped I’d be, but I’m what you’ve got, and it’ll drive you insane to see me with someone else. You can pretend it’s about me, and talk big about me finding my perfect soul mate among the Luminas, but in the end, you’re entirely too selfish to let me go.”

  “That’s low, Mariah. Yes, I’m selfish, but I’m trying so damned hard to do the right thing for you.”

  “This isn’t a field trial where you get a cookie for good performance. This is my life, and you’re jacking it up because of your need to absolve yourself of guilt over a woman who’s been dead for more than a century.”

  “How am I jacking up your life? I’m here, aren’t I? I want to kiss you so much, it hurts, but I won’t because you don’t want to be Mephisto.”

  “Oh, right.” She focused on my mouth. “Remind me again why I don’t want to be Mephisto.”

  “You have to kill people.”

  She was coming closer, her hands still holding my head, and when she was half an inch from my lips, she whispered, “We’re doomed to this. You realize it, don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t say doomed, exactly. For one thing, that’s highly negative, but also, we can overcome the . . .” Her lashes were long and dark above those deep blue eyes. I could feel her soft breath on my mouth. “Overwhelming, uncontrollable, all-consuming . . .”

  “If it’s like this for the next hundred years, we’re toast. If it’s like this until the end of next week, we’re goners for sure. If it’s like this ten minutes from now, it just is going to happen.”

  Her lips brushed across mine and I came closer to the breaking point. “Letting hormones drive a decision like this is immature and foolish. You’re upset right now, understandably so, and because we’re friends and I know your past, and you want to feel something besides pain and fear, you think kissing me will—”

  “This isn’t a new development, Phoenix. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first night I was here, when you came to my room and apologized. As for hormones, we’ll both still have them tomorrow, and the day after, and next year. Do you think they’ll go away? Will there be a time when we don’t want to kiss each other? Say yes and I’ll get up right now and we won’t talk about it anymore.”

  A mental picture of Jax and Sasha popped into my head. I was forever catching them kissing when they thought they were alone – in the TV room, behind the stairs, in the gym, on one of the hiking trails. They’d been together daily for over a year, slept together, did everything together, and they still couldn’t keep their hands off of each other.

  Looking into Mariah’s beautiful eyes, I pulled on my well of self-control and found the bucket dry as a bone. I would not kiss her. I reminded myself of all the reasons I couldn’t. “We’re only doomed if we choose to be.”

  “I see. So I’m supposed to join you in your
martyrdom.”

  That made me mad, which paradoxically made me glad because it allowed me to set her off of my lap. “Why do you keep picking at it?” I got up and moved away, but it didn’t help. I wanted her so much, I could almost taste her. The fire had died to embers, so I laid a couple more logs in the grate and poked at it until the coals caught fire. “You will find someone else. You’re Anabo, capable of loving anyone.”

  She went into the bathroom, and I could see her standing in front of the mirror. “I look horrible.” Reaching into a drawer, she pulled out a hairbrush and began running it through her hair. “Wonder what’s keeping Mathilda?”

  I stalked to the door of the bathroom and glared at her. “Why are you ignoring what I said?”

  Turning, she continued brushing her hair while she frowned at me. “Because I’m tired of you assuming so much about me because I’m Anabo. How would you like it if I said I don’t believe you can be a nice guy because you’re a son of Hell? What if I assumed everything you do is for an ulterior motive, that you’re evil at heart?”

  “I really hate rhetorical questions. Of course I would hate that. But the fact remains that you are Anabo, and you have a choice. Once you become immortal, kissing means you’re permanently Mephisto. I’m a strong guy, but I do have my breaking point. I’d eventually be compelled to seduce you, and once we do that, you’re marked as my Mephisto and stuck with me forever. And I mean literally forever.” I hoped what I said would jolt her back to reality. I didn’t want to frighten her, but she had to understand that there was no going back.

  The hairbrush stopped. “Wait. You just said that if I’m immortal, Mephisto is permanent. What if I’m not immortal?”

  “You can ask Lucifer to return you to who you are now.”

  “And after that, I could become immortal and a Lumina?”

  “Well, yeah, but it’s complicated, and you might like being Mephisto, so you wouldn’t want to go back, and I think you should—”

  “Does it really matter what you think I should do? It’s not that I don’t value your opinion, Phoenix, but you’re way too involved to be objective at all.” She was staring at my mouth. “I think we should go for it, and next week, before I become immortal, I can do whatever it is I need to do to go back to original me.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s like Pandora’s box. I can’t kiss you for a week, then say peace out and there’s an end to it.”

  “At least I could finally kiss somebody.” She paused, then said, “And by somebody, I mean you. I don’t want to kiss just anybody. Only you. And you could break your fast, at least for a little while. I’m not seeing a downside.”

  “You have no idea what you’re asking me to do.” I kind of hated myself for saying it, for the drama of it, but she really didn’t understand yet exactly what was inside of me. Along with muscle and bone was something dark and twisted that I couldn’t control. My best hope of keeping it contained was not doing anything to wake it up. Like kissing Mariah.

  She reached for the knob and halfway closed the door. “I have to go.”

  “Where?”

  She huffed out an impatient breath. “I have to go. And when I open this door, we are not talking about kissing. We’ll eat dinner, Viorica will come for a visit, then I’ll take a shower and go to bed. If you’re in it with me, fine, but don’t tell me again how much you want to kiss me unless you plan to follow through.”

  She didn’t exactly slam the door, but she wasn’t quiet about it.

  I turned and went to the fireplace to wait for Mathilda, and think very seriously about whether Mariah’s idea had merit, or whether I should go ahead and kill myself and be done with it.

  Chapter 11

  ~~ Mariah ~~

  All the comfort Phoenix had given me about Viorica flew right out the window as soon as she walked into my room. Tonight, not only was she wearing her fake smile, her sweater was inside out, and her ponytail was crooked. I suspected she’d just come from Key’s room, and while I didn’t want to think about why her clothes were on wrong, I noticed she had puffy eyes. She’d been crying. I hoped Key was kind and helpful to her. If I ever learned he wasn’t, I’d hurt him. I wished I could be helpful, but she was determined to treat me as an honored guest who was set to leave soon. She had no clue what had happened in my life since Sunday night, but she’d know soon enough, and for now, if it made her feel better to think of me as a guest on holiday, what was the harm? At least I was one less worry for her.

  And she was extremely worried. She took a seat on the chair opposite mine and instantly began picking at the tear in her jeans.

  Mathilda had walked in right behind her, bearing hot cocoa and oatmeal cookies, clucking as she set the tray on the desk. She stood straight and folded her hands in front of her apron while she said to Viorica, “I won’t be easy until you are here with us for good.”

  “Just over a week to go,” she said as the hole became an inch bigger. “Thank you for the hot chocolate.” She beamed at me. “Mathilda’s cookies are to die for.”

  “I know.” I’d eaten my weight in them yesterday after snowshoeing.

  “Enjoy yer visit, girls.” Mathilda disappeared.

  “I can’t stay long,” Viorica said, waving away the plate of cookies when I offered it to her. “I have a ton of homework.”

  “Why does doing homework matter if you’re about to leave the real world?”

  She shrugged and sat there stiffly, picking at that tear. “I can’t help myself. It’s a compulsion to do what people expect of me, and my dad thinks I’m going to Yale in the fall. He wouldn’t understand if I blew off school. Besides, slacking isn’t who I am. What about you, Mariah? Do you intend to go to college?”

  I lied like I was born to it. “I’m saving to enroll at university next year. I’d like to be a doctor. A pediatrician.”

  She lied equally well. “How wonderful! You’ll make an exceptional doctor.”

  I decided I hated this. I wanted to have a real relationship with her, and all the subterfuge was driving me crazy. For a hot minute, I considered fessing up.

  But I didn’t. I went along with her rambling, surface, pointless conversation for another painful twenty minutes – and ate the rest of the cookies – and when she stood and said she had to go, I hugged her more tightly than usual.

  “Is everything okay?”

  I clung to her. “I love you, Jordan.”

  Surprising me, she squeezed me so hard, my breath came out in a whoosh. “I love you, too, Mariah, so much, you have no idea.”

  Then she was gone and I had a premonition of something about to go horribly wrong. I passed it off as nerves over Lucifer’s omen and seeing Viktor Petrov’s lookalike face.

  After I showered, I sat by the fire and read more of the romance novel I’d picked up earlier while I was waiting for Viorica. This one didn’t hold my attention as well as the first two, maybe because the heroine was too perfect. I wanted her to have some flaw, some characteristic that made her human. I didn’t get what the hero saw in her.

  Then, around page forty, it became clear that she’d been programmed to be perfect because part of her brain was robotic. She’d had a head trauma in a car wreck and it was assumed she’d die, but the hero, who was her husband, had taken her to a crazy doctor who fixed her by replacing part of her brain with machinery. She was gracious and charming, entertained beautifully, had crazy hot sex with the hero, and never argued with him, no matter how belligerent he was. He picked fights on purpose, and she went along with whatever he said. The poor guy was crazy with grief, because he had his wife, but he really didn’t. I was well and truly hooked by the time Phoenix came to my room, dressed in long cotton boxers and a motorcycle T-shirt. His feet were bare.

  “Another one?” He came close and peered at the cover. “Why would a woman like that drive a race car? She’s wearing a suit. It’s a nice suit. But it’s a suit.”

  “The hero is a race car
driver. He thought he was invincible, but he had a wreck and she almost died.” I told him the premise, and he was intrigued, so I read it to him until just past chapter ten, when he said, “It’s late. Save the rest for tomorrow night.” He watched me bookmark the page and set it aside. “Do you think he knew she’d be like that when he took her to the mad doctor?”

  “At first, I thought it was because he wanted to keep her alive at any cost, but after what happened at the dinner party she hosted for his sponsors, I wonder if he wanted her to have no opinion of her own. She was against his racing before her accident. Now, she’s on board, but it’s obviously killing him she’s such a robot.”

  “Be careful what you wish for?”

  “Something like that.” I eyed the book. “Isn’t it a male fantasy to have a woman with no opinion, who goes along and does what she’s told?”

  “For some men, probably. Some would like a very strong woman who takes care of everything and tells him what to do. Still others want an equal partnership. And the rest would be happy with a sheep.”

  “You mean a woman who follows without question?”

  “No, I mean an actual sheep.” His black eyes were laughing. “I’m kidding. It’s just that some guys are so awkward, they don’t know what they want.”

  “Like Zee.”

  He nodded. “It’s going to be insanely interesting when an Anabo lands in his life.”

  “He’ll tell her he doesn’t believe in love.” I saw his questioning look and said, “He told me his views while we were waiting outside that club in Moscow.” I smiled. “I predict she’ll tell him she doesn’t believe in it before he can. Then he’ll try to prove her wrong.”

  “Like I said, it’s going to be interesting.”

  “If you could choose, what sort of girl would you go for?”

  His eyes were no longer laughing. “You do realize that’s a loaded question coming from you?”

  “You’ve already told me I’m out, and I have no expectations anyway, so just be honest.”

  He stared at the fire and said quietly, “She’d go with me to out-of-the-way places to see unusual, beautiful things, and try different foods, and meet interesting people, and sail and surf and ski and hike Everest and ride bikes across Mexico, and kiss me a lot, and never cut her hair, and tell me stories, and let me make love to her once a day and twice on Sundays.”