She waited like a robot for the command to strike the match. “You don’t have to kill me to do this.”
He laughed. “I told you, you’re immortal. Scared of a little death? You’ve probably done it hundreds of times already. Now be a good girl and light the match, then toss it over there on the bed.”
Her hand trembled as she fought not to follow his command, but how could one fight someone who’d spent thousands of years perfecting hypnotic suggestion? “Please, don’t . . . ” she said, even as the fire came alive in her hand. She flung the match onto the bed and the flames began to engulf the room.
“This has been fun,” Cain said. “As soon as I’m gone, you can move and scream and run, and whatever else you silly humans do in a crisis situation. I’ll stay out of the way until it’s time for me to pop back in and say something insightful.”
As soon as he dematerialized, Anna found her ability to move, and scream. “LUC . . . LUC!”
Smoke streamed out of the bedroom into the upper hallway as she raced down the stairs.
Luc was called out of his room by the pounding on the door. The parish had finally arrived. “Anna, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Cain made me set the house on fire.”
Scarlett and Rhett ran through the foyer, while the harem darted after them. “Get the cats!” Anna shouted to no one in particular.
The door opened to reveal the entire parish standing on the lawn with flashlights. Somehow it was upsetting, even without torches.
The harem rushed out the door, taking what little of their belongings they could carry. Anna could hear the din of voices outside as they shouted for her to come out. Luc turned her in his arms, lifting her hand to inspect the unmarred flesh where the scar had been.
“I’m sorry.” Tears streamed down her face. “I got scared. I didn’t want to share you, and I was too scared to give you forever. It was the only way I knew to be free.”
Luc sighed. “We’ll talk about it after this is over. You have no idea how pissed off I am that you would do this. You knew your safety was at stake. The mark was to protect you. What if Cain had done more than just make you set the house on fire? Do you know what that would have done to me?”
“I’m so sorry, but we can’t do this right now.” She tugged on his hand. “Come on, we have to leave.”
“I can’t yet. The spell was very specific. The house has to be burned to the ground.”
“But . . . it’ll hurt you. You’ll burn.”
“I’m strong enough to change my form. I don’t have to be physical. I won’t feel anything. It’ll be fine. Go on, I’ll be out there as soon as it’s done.” He shoved her toward the door.
“What about them?” Anna pointed out the window at the angry mob. “They’ll try to take me away. There’s too many of them. I’ll be in another dimension somewhere. You won’t be able to find me without the mark.”
“I’ll find you.” He pulled her to him for a kiss. Hungry. Desperate. As if he wasn’t actually sure he could find her again without the bond.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, pulling away from his mouth enough to speak.
“I’ll yell at you later.” His lips moved over hers again as if he were memorizing the taste of her. He finally managed to tear himself away. “Go!”
Anna took one last look at him before turning to leave. Sirens blared as the firemen dragged hoses around the back. Someone must have called as soon as the flames started.
“What if they put out the fire?” she asked, pausing in the doorway.
“Anna . . . ”
She put her hands on her hips. “It’s a legitimate question. How can someone burn a house to the ground in a nice neighborhood where the firemen will get to it to put it out? It’s a lost cause. You’ll never get out of here.”
Cain materialized beside the staircase. “The reversal spell has started. They can pour water on it until Armageddon. It’s not stopping the flames.”
“You!” Luc growled.
“Me.” Cain smiled. “Anna, darling, you should probably go on outside. You wouldn’t want to burn alive, now would you?”
She looked uncertainly between the two.
“Go, Anna, I’ll be fine. As much as I’d love to, with our abilities, we can’t really hurt each other. It’s hard to get into a fist fight with someone who keeps dematerializing,” Luc said, disgusted.
Anna moved to step across the threshold and bounced off the barrier. Her eyes widened. Oh, Fuck.
Cain laughed. “I love this part. Do you know how long I’ve waited for this part? I’ve been like a kid waiting for Christmas with one of those stupid advent calendars with the candy. You can eat the candy early, but it doesn’t make the holiday come faster.”
“What did you do?” Luc ground out.
“It isn’t what I did. It’s what your little Beatrice did. You see, the seer discovered the owner of the house had to burn it down to break the curse. But once they set the house on fire, they’d be trapped, too.” He turned to Luc. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. I knew you’d never sacrifice an innocent to save yourself. Not now with your pathetic guilt complex.” He paused to admire the carnage. “I think I’ve wrung all the fun out of this event. I’m sure once the house is down you’ll be back to your old self. We should hook up and have drinks.”
Cain dematerialized.
“Dammit!” Luc said, smashing a lamp over the mantel.
Anna stood numbly by the door, her arms wrapped around herself, so close to freedom but unable to get to it. The smoke was drifting down the stairs.
“Luc?” she said quietly, tears threading her voice.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to die like this.”
Luc had something like pity in his eyes. She hated that. After all she’d done, dragging his emotions all over the place, and he still cared. He took her hand and led her down the hallway to the library and shut the double doors behind them.
Anna sat huddled against one of the bookcases, shivering. That stupid gypsy. Long lifeline, my ass. And then there were the tarot cards. Tam’s voice sing-songed in her mind. The death card doesn’t always mean death.
“I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want to burn to death.”
Luc gave her a strange look. “You wouldn’t burn to death. You would die from smoke inhalation.” He must have seen her face pale because he continued. “But you aren’t going to die like that either.”
Her knees were pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around them. “There’s no way to stop it. It’s going to burn, and I’m going to go with it.”
Luc pried her arms away from her body, and settled her on his lap. He brushed her hair away from her face. “I know. But you don’t have to die, like that .”
Anna’s eyes widened as his meaning sank in. She was trapped in a burning house with an incubus. Of course she didn’t have to die like that, but it was hard to think straight in all the panic. Being trapped in a burning house was one of her greatest fears. Living that fear didn’t make for great emergency planning.
“You’d do that for me, after . . . the others?” She knew it had to be hard for him, to willingly and voluntarily kill someone when he’d vowed to never do it again. It was only a reminder of what he was and who he’d been.
“Of course.” He wiped a tear from her face. “If you have to die, you’ll die in my arms and not in pain.”
“Bit full of ourselves, aren’t we?” she snarked.
He smiled a sad smile. “You know I’ll get the job done.” He was getting choked up himself.
“I don’t want to,” she said.
“For God’s sake, Anna! Now is not the time for you to be getting common sense where I’m concerned.”
“I don’t want to leave you.” If anything, the events of the last few hours had crystallized the decision she’d been hedging on. She didn’t want to leave him, ever.
“You don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, I do.”
Luc cupped her face, turning her toward him. “So help me, Anna. If you are playing with me . . . ”
“I want to do the ritual. I want to give you my soul and stay with you. I can still do it, right?”
He jumped up, sending her toppling, and went for the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked, her voice rising in panic. This wasn’t the time for him to get cold feet about eternity.
“We need a knife. I’ll be right back.”
She cringed when he returned a few minutes later with a sharp-looking kitchen knife. There was always blood.
“The sharper it is, the less it’ll hurt.”
“Okay.”
Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have to kill her right away. But with the fire coming closer, there wasn’t time for a long engagement.
Luc laid her gently on the floor. She was still wearing her bathrobe, the belt tied around her.
“I hate this. I hate the ritual is so specific. There’s no sense in scaring you more,” he said.
“It’s okay, I read about it. I’m not scared of you.” She laid her arms out over her head, the backs of her hands resting on the floor.
He straddled her and cut a thin line down the center of each of his hands as well as hers, then clasped their hands together. “Anna, close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
“Not before you tell me why.”
“I have to change forms completely. The transfer can’t happen in human form, and I don’t want you to see.”
“Oh my God, Luc! I’m fucking giving you my soul. I should be able to see what I’m giving it to. And don’t go invisible for it, or it’s no deal.”
“Anna . . . ”
She stubbornly shook her head. He sighed, a look of resignation on his face; then he shifted. Anna couldn’t help struggling to get away. But he held her still, and she instinctively understood it was to keep from breaking the magic that had started flowing between them.
Nothing could have prepared her for his demon form. It wasn’t so much the way he looked; since the dreams, she wasn’t shocked by the reddish brown skin and scales. His hugeness, and the horns popping out of his shoulders weren’t that horrifying either, as scary things went. He had sharp teeth, and in the demon form, his eyes glowed red like two burning embers.
But it wasn’t any of that. It was the palpable, suffocating feeling of evil, fear, hatred, anger, and betrayal swirling all around her, pushing in on her senses. She felt undiluted, pure bad. She’d never felt emotions in such a strong and solid way. But she could feel them now so intensely she could almost smell them. Each negative emotion and feeling swept over her and through her. The last being her own terror.
“Anna, it’s just the form.” His voice came out a harsh growl, so different from the seductive purr of the voice she was used to.
She knew now without any doubt why the soul ritual was so rare. If anyone actually got to the point of agreement . . . if they saw or felt what she saw and felt, they’d believe they’d been tricked and turn back, knowing they couldn’t save their life, but at least they could save their soul.
“If you want to back out now, I won’t hold it against you.”
His thumb stroked gently over one of her hands, a contrast to everything else she saw and felt. She looked into his eyes, and she could see him. Somehow underneath the terrifying form looming above her, there was Luc, the man she loved. The one who’d protected her and been patient through everything.
Cain had told her there was no redemption for anyone. He was very wrong about that. The form and the ritual were meant to scare people away so Luc would always be punished. Anna believed he’d been punished enough. She was no longer concerned about her own soul, only Luc’s. Though it was no longer human, it was still there, and it had been tormented enough for one eternity.
“No, I’m doing it.”
He spoke the words of the ritual over her in a language she didn’t know that felt older than time. When he was finished he waited, expectantly, for her acceptance or rejection.
“Yes, I’ll give you my soul.”
The simple language seemed so lacking, but the magic required nothing more elaborate. It swirled around her as the connection that had once been between them wrapped even more tightly into a bond that could never be broken by anyone’s magic: human, demon, or god.
He shifted back to his human form. “I love you,” he said. He collapsed on top of her, nuzzling her neck. She felt the warm wetness of tears against her skin and realized he hadn’t believed she’d do it after seeing him.
“I love you, too.” She squirmed under him. “Luc, as touching as this moment is, don’t you think we should finish? The fire is getting closer.”
He lifted off her and smirked. “You’re getting it for eternity, and you can’t wait two minutes to let me bask in the fact that I have you forever?”
“Nope,” she said grinning up at him.
“Fine,” he snarled. But there was no anger. He stripped his jeans off and fiddled with the belt on her robe. He finally got frustrated with the knot and ripped it off her.
There was no foreplay or teasing; there wasn’t time. And Anna didn’t need any preparation. She’d waited three maddening days for him to be inside her again. He was gentle and sweet, cradling her body against his own as he thrust slowly into her. He whispered endearments into her skin as if to apologize for what she’d just been through, to reassure her she was with the real Luc, and the other had been only a passing illusion. What he was, but not who he was.