by Jenna Black
“What was it like? Being shut out?”
He leaned forward to put his cup on the coffee table, but I think it was more to avoid meeting my gaze than anything. “It wasn’t fun.” He rubbed his hands together. “It was kind of like sitting at the bottom of a very dark, very deep oubliette. If he hadn’t popped in every once in a while to reassure me he hadn’t forgotten I was there…” He shivered. “I can see how your brother might have had trouble returning to himself if Raphael did that to him for long stretches of time.”
I shook my head. “And yet you still want him back?”
He banished the troubled look on his face. “He shut me out for maybe twelve hours, tops. And even when I was shut out, he made sure I knew it was temporary. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t really a big deal.”
Not to him, maybe. To me, it sounded like hell on earth. I sighed. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever understand.” To be so completely under someone else’s control…I had a hard time dealing with Lugh’s control over my dreams. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be so helpless twenty-four hours a day, knowing it was for the rest of my life. I couldn’t imagine being willing to submit to that.
Adam shrugged. “Maybe not. But then, I knew for almost my entire life that I was going to host a demon one day, and Adam and I are extremely compatible. It all feels very…comfortable to me.”
I suppressed a shudder. “So you don’t mind when he uses your body to torture people? Or to kill them? Or, hell, to hurt Dominic?”
“He doesn’t do anything to Dom that Dom doesn’t want him to do. Dom was into that stuff even before he became a host.”
He was evading the important part of my question, but I thought that was answer enough in itself. He might put up a protest about his demon’s methods occasionally, but the protest was only skin deep. “What about you?” I asked him.
Damn, did I just ask what amounted to a complete stranger whether he was into S&M? Time for more blushing and avoidance of eye contact.
Adam chuckled. “I’ll plead the Fifth on that. Anything else you’d like to ask me?”
I meant to say no. Really I did. What came out instead was, “Does he hate me?”
Note to self: never have deep conversations after drinking unknown quantities of Frangelico in the wake of a traumatic event and not enough sleep.
Adam didn’t answer right away, which gave me a brief moment of hope that he’d ignore the question. No such luck.
“Do you hate him?” he countered.
I met his curious gaze and couldn’t find the voice to answer. I didn’t like Adam the demon. I thought he was a world-class asshole, and I found his morals questionable at best. But in moments of weakness, I sometimes caught myself lusting after him. I was pretty sure that meant I didn’t hate him.
“I think it’s time for me to go home and crash,” I said instead of answering the question.
CHAPTER 20
I went home, slightly buzzed on caffeine, adrenaline, and alcohol, and wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and sleep peacefully for a week or two. But I wasn’t in the least surprised that I didn’t get my wish.
Despite the caffeine and adrenaline, I think I must have fallen asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow, but I “awoke” almost instantly in Lugh’s living room. He’d added a massive stone fireplace to one wall, complete with merrily crackling fire, and the furniture was rearranged to make that fire the focal point. A deliciously soft afghan was draped over my shoulders, and my bare feet were propped on an ottoman, the better to drink in the warmth of the fire. I breathed deeply, taking in the scents of wood smoke, leather, and Lugh.
He was sitting beside me on the couch, his body a second source of warmth that soaked into my pores and relaxed clenched muscles. My lips curled up in a goofy smile, and I reveled in the gentle sensory overload of my dream. Some feeble, paranoid corner of my brain whispered that I was too relaxed, that I shouldn’t feel this at ease with Lugh by my side. I never had before. But I told that part of my brain to shut the hell up. This felt good, and, damn it, I deserved to feel good, if only for a little while.
I let my eyes slide shut, still smiling faintly. Lugh’s fingers traced over my face, caressing from forehead to chin and back again. The leather of his jacket creaked with his movement, and even that sound was soothing. I sighed and turned my face into the caress, my body relaxing even more.
“That’s it,” Lugh murmured in my ear, his breath warming my skin. “Let everything go. Don’t think. Just feel.”
That annoying voice in my brain said, “He’s up to something.” Once again, I ignored it. If he was up to something, I didn’t want to know.
Strong, warm fingers slid around to the back of my neck, digging into the tense muscles there and untying knots I didn’t know I had. I hummed in appreciation, so comfortable I didn’t even think to protest when he planted a soft kiss on my temple.
“How does that feel?” he asked.
I didn’t think I had enough brain cells firing to form words, so I settled for another incoherent hum of pleasure.
“Here with me, you are always safe,” he crooned. “Always protected. Always cherished.”
My body felt heavy, my limbs so limp it seemed like moving even a fraction of an inch would be just too much damn trouble. If it was possible to fall asleep while I was already asleep, I thought I might be on the verge of doing so.
“No one and nothing can harm you here,” he continued. “Not even your past. Do you believe me?”
I couldn’t summon the energy to say anything, but he must have sensed my agreement.
“Earlier today,” he said, and his voice was now so low it was positively hypnotic, “you started to remember something. Something about your stay at The Healing Circle.”
A chill shivered through me, and my muscles tensed. Lugh moved closer to me on the couch, his arm around my shoulders, his body pressed up against mine from shoulder to hip as he cupped my cheek in his palm.
“You’re safe with me,” he reminded me. “The memories can’t hurt you. I won’t let them.”
I shivered again, that annoying little corner of my mind trying to fight free of the glow of warmth that surrounded me. But I was too far gone, too deeply under his spell, to muster the energy to fight. Once again, I breathed in his scent, and the chill left me.
“Let yourself remember,” Lugh urged. “Let yourself see.”
My new doctor sat down beside me as I lay in the hospital bed, shivering and nauseated. Scared out of my wits, because I felt so awful, and I didn’t know what was wrong. I’d never been in the hospital before, and I wanted out. Now. But I was so sick, I knew I wasn’t leaving.
My parents stood in the far corner of the room, holding each other’s hands. My father looked grim. My mother looked…guilty. I hadn’t known what to make of the expression on her face back then, but as I watched my own memory from a curiously removed distance, I knew exactly what I was seeing.
Dr. Neely told me I was very sick and that if I didn’t get the proper treatment, I would die. He injected something into the IV tube that dripped into my vein, and my vision went fuzzy around the edges. I heard my mom telling me not to be scared, that everything was going to be all right.
The next thing I knew, I wasn’t in my room anymore. The new room was cold and sterile, with hospital-white walls and lots of stainless steel. I think it was an operating room. I was strapped to the table, restraints holding me so tightly I could barely move. I tried to struggle against them, but I was still too drugged up to make a credible effort.
Two men stood by the table. One of them was Dr. Neely. One of them was Bradley Cooper. They were both wearing surgical masks, and I might not have recognized Cooper from just his eyes if he hadn’t spoken.
“Morgan,” he said, hovering over me. “I’d like you to repeat these words after me.” He said something that sounded like nonsense syllables to me at the time. I think it was Latin, though I couldn’t remember th
e sounds well enough to be sure.
I didn’t know what he was asking me to say, or why. But I was a rebel even then, and I wasn’t about to just do what I was told.
“Why?” I gasped, my mouth dry and bitter-tasting.
“Just repeat them,” Cooper ordered, then said the words again.
“No,” I said, when he was finished. I clamped my jaw shut and looked beseechingly at Dr. Neely. “What’s going on? Why am I tied up?”
“They’re just words,” he said soothingly. “It can’t hurt you to repeat them.”
I was only thirteen years old, but I was no dummy. Even with unknown drugs fogging my brain, I knew this wasn’t anything like a normal treatment for a sick patient. I wasn’t about to do what they demanded, even as those demands grew more strident. By now, I was beginning to suspect I knew what the words were. I’d never witnessed a possession ceremony—only the inner circle of the Spirit Society ever did—but I knew it had something to do with repeating a ritual incantation.
I started to spiral down into the memory, feeling the terror that had filled me when I realized what they were trying to do, but something—Lugh, probably—pulled me back and kept me on the surface, watching without feeling. I remembered that when I’d stubbornly refused to repeat the incantation, they’d tried electric shock therapy. I’d borne it as long as I could, but I was a thirteen-year-old girl. Tough as I was, even back then, I wasn’t tough enough to withstand torture. Sobbing in pain and defeat, I’d repeated the words they’d given me three times in a row, as required for the ritual. And nothing had happened.
They made me try again. And again. And again. Still, it didn’t work.
They’d sent me back to my room, and more time passed in a drugged haze. My mind cleared again when I was once more in that sterile operating room. Cooper and Neely were there, along with an unidentified third man.
Once more, I was thoroughly restrained. When the third man reached out and grabbed my wrist with his bare hand, there was nothing I could do to avoid the grip. He just stood there beside me, holding my wrist and glaring at me.
And then I felt it. A tingling sensation where his hand gripped me. Tingling that turned to burning. Burning that turned to agony. I screamed, but he didn’t let go, and the pain kept getting worse. Even worse than the pain was the awful, creeping, slimy sensation that accompanied it. It wasn’t a physical sensation, but it was just as visceral. It was as if something dirty—no, filthy—was sinking into my skin, penetrating my flesh and oozing into my bloodstream.
I screamed until I had no voice left, as that creeping crud crawled through my system, thick and unclean and smothering. It surrounded me, clinging to my skin like liquid cobwebs, then trying to force its way inside me. It slithered into my mouth, choking me. It oozed into my ears, deafening me to my own screams. It penetrated other places, too, but my mind jerked away when that memory tried to surface.
The demon tried every trick he could imagine to break through my defenses, to find a crack in my armor. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get a firm hold, and he finally had to give up.
I was gasping for breath, my heart banging against my breastbone as if it were trying to escape my chest. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t turn my head far enough and I was afraid these bastards would let me choke on it. I swallowed convulsively to keep my gorge down.
The demon who’d tried to possess me shook his head and turned to Cooper. “I can’t do it,” he admitted. “But maybe a royal could. We should have Raphael try.”
“I don’t think Raphael wants to be a thirteen-year-old girl,” Cooper responded.
The demon shrugged. “He doesn’t have to stay in her. Just find out if he can get in.”
But Cooper shook his head. “She doesn’t have enough of her father’s advantages to make it worthwhile if only a royal can take her. I’m afraid this strain is a dead end.”
I lay on the table, shivering and sweating, fighting the nausea, barely conscious. Feeling like I would never be clean again in a million years.
The demon turned to me with an unpleasant smile. “What a shame,” he said. Then he reached out and pinched my nose with one hand while covering my mouth with the other.
“Don’t,” Cooper said calmly as panic seized me and I struggled with what little strength I had left.
“Why not?” the demon asked, showing no sign that the idea of suffocating a child to death was in any way bothersome. “We can’t afford to have her spreading stories.”
I was already seeing spots in front of my eyes.
“She won’t,” Dr. Neely said. “With all these drugs, she’s unlikely to remember anything. And even if she remembers, we can say they were nightmares. It’s not like anyone can prove anything.”
“I’d rather not take chances,” the demon said.
Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision.
“Killing her is taking a huge risk,” Cooper argued. “I promised her parents she wouldn’t be hurt. If she dies, they could raise a stink. And they know enough to make a hell of a lot of trouble.”
The demon looked indecisive.
“Why don’t we ask Raphael what he wants us to do with her?” Cooper suggested. “If he wants her dead, we can still take care of it later.”
With a sigh of what sounded like disappointment, the demon released my nose and mouth. I sucked in several glorious gasps of air before I passed out.
CHAPTER 21
I came back to myself still in Lugh’s living room, the afghan tucked comfortably under my chin as the fire did its best to dispel the lingering chill. I shivered and clutched the blanket around me, wondering if I would ever get warm again.
Anger usually warms me up great, so I tried to summon a healthy dose of indignation to throw at Lugh. I didn’t know exactly what he’d done to me to break the walls around those memories, but it had been a dirty trick. I turned to look at him, ready to let loose with some choice words, but none would come to me. My skin still crawled with the remembered sensation of the demon trying to get inside me, and I shuddered. No wonder demonic possession had been my worst nightmare after that little episode! And how ironic to discover I apparently owed my life to Raphael’s mercy. If you’d have asked me before, I’d have sworn he wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone so potentially dangerous, even if I was only a child. And if my parents made trouble, he could have killed them, too.
Lugh drew me into his arms, and I was too miserable and shaken to object. His body was a solid, protective wall of warmth, and he smelled delicious. I closed my eyes and buried my head against his shoulder. His hair tickled my cheek as he rubbed his chin on the top of my head.
“You bastard,” I mumbled into his shoulder, and his arms tightened around me.
“I’m sorry. But your defenses were weakened. I had to find out what happened before you shored them up again.”
“You shouldn’t have made me remember that.” My words probably would have had more conviction if I weren’t cuddled in his arms at the moment, but I needed the comfort too much to pull away.
His fingers caressed my hair, my neck, my back. “I did what I had to do. And whatever you might think, keeping that memory locked away and not dealing with it is not the best way to heal.”
I shook my head. “So you did it to heal me? Is that what you’re saying?”
His regretful sigh made me feel childish. “You know why I did it.” His hand cupped my cheek, and he pushed me away a bit so he could look into my eyes. “You’ll be all right,” he assured me, giving me a gentle smile that warmed me in ways the fire couldn’t. “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
I closed my eyes. It was so easy to fall under his spell, to let myself relax and open up in his presence. Something deep inside me longed to let go completely, to entrust myself entirely to his care—to stop always being so vigilant and guarded. But while the idea tempted me, it also scared the shit out of me. My experiences in life had taught me that you trusted people at your ow
n peril, and I was determined not to endanger myself.
I started to pull away from him, trying to disentangle my body from his while searching out the familiar anger that had always served as my most effective shield. But he just held me tighter, until I could barely move. My eyes popped open.
“What are you doing?” I asked, and my voice was little more than a squeak.
His sensuous lips curved into a smile, but he didn’t say anything. Holding the back of my head, he bent his own head toward me. With a shock, I realized he was planning to kiss me.
Once again, I tried to pull away, a little harder this time. But his grip was like iron. If he didn’t want me to move, I wasn’t moving. The thought sent a chill of fear down my spine. If there was anything I hated, it was feeling helpless.
He hovered in front of me, lips maybe an inch from mine, his unique, spicy scent flooding my senses as he draped one leg over me to hold me even more securely, intensifying my feeling of being trapped. My heart thudded awkwardly in my chest, and my breaths came quick and short. Goose bumps prickled my skin, and I think I was even trembling.
But as he closed that final distance between us, as his lips touched mine, I felt a fire burning low in my belly. I made an incoherent sound, half protest, half pleasure, as he feathered kisses over my lips. I wanted to tell him to get the hell off me, but when I opened my mouth to say the words, nothing came out. I tried once more to squirm out of his grip, but I couldn’t. And though it seemed completely out of place in this context, a bolt of arousal shot through me. He took advantage of what he must have considered an invitation and slid his tongue into my mouth.
