The Last Unforgiven - Freed (Demons, #5)

by Simcoe, Marina

  Raim had returned my things a while back. From my suitcase, I chose a pair of comfy leggings and a long, sleeveless blouse with wide pockets where I put my passport, a credit card, and what cash I had in my purse.

  Ripping one of the bed sheets in strips, I tied them into a rope, hopefully long and strong enough to help me get to the ground.

  I waited until later in the afternoon to escape because I figured that would be about the time when the housekeeping couple would be leaving the island. Shortly after the noise of cleaning and vacuuming finally stopped, I decided it was time.

  Tying one end of the rope to the grate I had removed earlier, I tossed the other end out of the window then turned the grate sideways to anchor it in the frame.

  Just before climbing out of the window, I paused. Something akin to sadness at leaving this place yanked at my heart. I thought about how upset Raim might be when he found me gone then quickly shoved the thought away, afraid I’d start feeling sorry for him.

  The realization was shocking and even disturbing. If anything, that alone was a huge reason for me to get the hell out of here. I obviously needed therapy myself, for inexplicably growing attached to this place and its master.

  I grabbed on to the rope with renewed determination and climbed out of the window.

  The strong sea breeze caught the ends of my blouse and whipped the strands of my hair that had fallen out of my messy bun. Careful not to swing too wide in the wind, I propped the toes of my canvas shoes into the rough rock of the wall, and slowly moved down my makeshift rope.

  When using my strength, supporting the weight of my own body was easy enough. The most difficult part turned out to be keeping balance and preventing the wind from either shaking me off the rope or slamming me into the wall too hard.

  Reaching the top of the ground floor window, I sidestepped around it, careful to stay out of sight from whoever might be in the room below mine. Finally, I reached low enough for the tall grass at the castle wall to tickle my ankles.

  I jumped to the ground but held on to the rope, afraid it would swing in the wind across the window for anyone inside to possibly notice it. Instead, I inched to the corner then wrapped and tied the end of the rope around one of the protruding keystones.

  Having only a couple of feet of uneven ground between the castle wall and the drop-off into the sea below, I hugged the stone, carefully moving along and around the corner.

  Here, I needed to abandon the cover of the castle and traverse the last several hundred feet of rocky ground in the open. Letting go of the wall, I took a bracing breath before scrambling through the grass, shrubs, gravel, and rocks towards the bay and then down along a steep path leading to the dock.

  In my haste, I chose a loose rock to step on. It moved from under my foot and I fell, overextending my leg to the side. Cursing under my breath, I scrambled up quickly, ignoring the dull pain in my knee as I hurried down to the dock.

  “Wait!” I screamed to the older gentleman I spotted on the boat. “Wait for me, please!”

  He paused in his preparations to leave and stared at me with confused curiosity.

  “Would you take me to the mainland, please?” I limped along the dock to the boat, grabbing the cash out of my pocket.

  With utter shock on his face now, he asked me something in Italian, making me regret never taking the time to learn the language of my ancestors from my father’s side. It was too late to lament that now. Using gestures and facial expressions, I tried hard to convey my request to him.

  “I need to get across the strait.” I gestured at the thin ribbon of the coast of Italy in the distance. “Please?”

  His gaze travelled past my face and over my shoulder, making my heart skip with trepidation.

  Then I heard a female voice yelling something in Italian behind me.

  Pivoting on my heel, I winced from a tug of pain in my knee. An elderly woman was making her way down the path to the dock.

  The man on the boat shouted something back at her over my head, and she replied loudly, energetically swinging the canvas bag held in her hand at me.

  “Take me with you,” I begged the man, gesturing at the boat, but he only shook his head silently.

  “No, no, no!” the woman shouted, waving me away as if I were a flock of seagulls messing up her boat.

  I had no time to get offended at their lack of compassion for my situation, as the tall figure of the master of the castle showed up closely behind her.

  Easily overtaking the woman, Raim descended the path in long, effortless strides.

  My heart dropped as it became apparent my escape was not going to happen today. Still, I backed away from him, limping all the way to the end of the dock as if I could swim away, across the sea.

  He came flush with me, his stare burrowing through me. Without saying a word, he scooped me up in his arms and headed back to the castle.

  My gaze crossed with the confused stares of the boatman and his wife as we passed by.

  “I cannot believe you guys,” I said bitterly, even as I realized they probably wouldn’t understand me.

  “The livelihood of their extended family depends on the salary I’m paying them,” Raim replied for the couple. “Don’t blame them for their loyalty.”

  I tensed at hearing his voice, expecting him to start yelling at me any minute now. I also felt fully prepared to scream and argue back.

  “You hurt yourself,” he stated unexpectedly softly, taking me up the path.

  The concern in his voice disarmed me. Instead of an argument, I barely managed a shuddered exhale, pressing my mouth to his shoulder.

  “Is it your knee?” he asked, and I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, as I had no idea what to do with the genuine worry I sensed in his tone. “How did it happen?”

  I cleared my throat. “I slipped . . .”

  With a short nod, he didn’t ask me any more questions. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I simply focused on my breathing while he carried me up the flagstone path that led to the main entrance of the castle.

  The last time I was this close to Raim, his head was between my legs and my mind was floating high in the clouds somewhere. This time, all my senses tuned in on him. The scent of precious wood and spice wrapped around me like a safety blanket, his hard body surrounding me like a shield from any harm and pain.

  Was any of it real? Or was it all simply an illusion? A part of the Incubi charm. A wish from my broken heart.

  I didn’t really care. All I knew was that it felt good to be held by him like this. And maybe that was another failure on my part—giving in to that feeling.

  An intense sense of vulnerability flooded me, making my eyes burn with unshed tears and my bottom lip tremble. I bit it down quickly as Raim carried me up the stairs and to the room that I had begun to think of as my room—my sanctuary.

  I noted the small table and the tray with my dinner in their usual place.

  “Do you want to walk in alone?” he asked, stopping at the door.

  Nodding, I wiggled out of his arms, and he set me down. Still without saying a word, I entered the room. Alone.

  I didn’t touch the dinner but didn’t close the door either, afraid of the complete isolation that would bring.

  Limping to the bed, I sat on the edge of the mattress.

  “Why did you run?” I heard Raim’s voice from the hallway and realized he hadn’t left.

  “Do you really need to ask?”

  “Yes. You felt calm and content in this room.”

  “Is that why you kept me here?” I nearly snarled, but there was no burn of anger inside me, just an inexplicable sadness. “Did you use this place as a straight jacket of sorts, to regulate my moods?”

  “I did not keep you here,” he retorted. “You chose to stay.”

  “Huh?” I leaped off the bed to my feet. The fading pain in my knee was easier to ignore. “How dare you! You locked me in here—”

  “No. The door has never been locked.” He leaned wi
th his hand against the doorframe, tipping his chin at my chest. “The amulet prevents me from entering. You have always been free to leave.”

  I blinked then roamed my gaze around the room, trying to catch up with what he was saying.

  “No . . . That was not what you made me believe.” Things swirled inside my head, trying to find a place to settle down so I could wrap my mind around it all. “You made me miss my flight back home—”

  “Home? Did you really want to go back there?”

  “That was not up to you to decide!” I snapped. “By making that decision for me, you deprived me of choice . . . I wanted to take that helicopter.”

  “Never once have you explicitly stated that you wished to leave,” he responded calmly.

  His words made me pause as I combed through the weeks’ worth of memories of my staying here. The calmness and contentment he spoke about were definitely there, but so was the firm assurance that I was a prisoner.

  A prisoner of this room or of my own mind?

  “I’m not crazy, Raim. Maybe you’re right, in part. But you have never once explicitly stated that I was free to leave if I wished, either.”

  “True,” he agreed, to my surprise. “You intrigued me. And I found myself enjoying your company.”

  “So, you misled me . . .”

  “I allowed you to mislead yourself. If you believe it was not right of me to do so, I apologize.”

  He allowed me to believe I was being held against my will, not correcting me once, effectively keeping me here, where I felt . . . calm and content.

  All because he enjoyed my company.

  I dropped my head between my shoulders, rubbing my face with both hands.

  “This is borderline insane, Raim.”

  I must be insane.

  He couldn’t be entirely normal, either.

  “Sanity is a rather abstract concept, Dee,” he said.

  “That’s not what they taught me in school,” I groaned.

  “Trust me, I know better. I’m older than them.” His voice lifted a notch, but when I glanced up, his expression didn’t change.

  “What is this all about, Raim? You finding me, stalking me, bringing me here? You wanted to feed? You needed company? Or to find out something about this necklace?” I touched the familiar shape of my pendant.

  “All of the above, I guess.”

  “What is it about this thing that interests you?” I glanced at the glowing pendant again. “It’s not unique. There are more.”

  “There is only one like that, though.”

  “What is so special about it?” I stared at the glowing piece in my hand. With Raim in the vicinity, the pendant looked prettier than ever. As if having come to life, it shimmered and sparkled with liquid fire of orange and gold.

  “It used to be mine,” he said sombrely.

  My heart made a loud thud in my chest.

  “What?”

  He leaned against the corner of the doorframe with his shoulder, as if suddenly burdened by his confession.

  “Did you lose it?” I asked carefully, since he kept staring at me in silence. “Did you want it back? Is that why you searched for it?”

  “I gave it to a woman, a very long time ago.” He blinked then ran his gaze along my body. “She had your hair.”

  I raised my hand to my bun. In the haste of this morning’s preparations instead of the usual hairpins, I had used a rubber band to twist my hair into a messy knot, which had further been dishevelled by the wind outside.

  “Where is she now?” I asked. “The woman?”

  “Dead.” His mouth pressed into a thin line, and his eyes turned to frosty shards of ice.

  Yet he did not leave, and I wondered if whatever he had been storing inside for however long needed to come out.

  “I’m sorry,” I said carefully, wishing he would open up.

  He had helped me deal with my pain, though his methods were undoubtedly questionable. Now I hoped I could be of assistance to him, too.

  “When did it happen?”

  “Her death?” He rubbed his face. “Almost two hundred years ago.”

  “Did you . . .” I twisted the hem of my blouse between my fingers. “Did you love her?”

  “No.” It came, quick and final. Yet everything about his posture, his facial expression, and even his voice told me that the woman who had been dead for nearly two centuries had affected him in some profound way.

  “What was her name?”

  He winced, his chest rising with a deep inhale. Shoving away from the doorframe, he turned with his back to me. I worried he wouldn’t answer at all, then I heard his subdued voice, “Olyena.”

  I walked to the chair by the door where I normally ate dinner. While food was the furthest thing on my mind, I needed to be closer to him.

  “Tell me,” I asked softly, hoping with all my heart that he would. “Please.”

  Chapter 12

  RAIM

  He never thought he could ever share that name with anyone, be it a human or a demon. Olyena’s name, along with everything that had happened between them, belonged to him and him alone. Just like every single, painful memory he had been stubbornly preserving all these years was also his.

  ‘Tell me.’

  For weeks now, Dee had been melting the glacial walls he had built to keep the world out, making him doubt his isolation. He had learned to live with the eternally heavy weight in his chest. Would opening up to her now make his existence any lighter?

  With just over a month remaining of his time in this world, did any of it really matter anymore?

  “Who was Olyena?” Dee asked.

  The question seemed easy enough to answer.

  “A peasant girl . . . but she thought she was a witch.” Pain twisted inside, but he felt a hint of warmth, too, as he remembered the tiny woman trying to convince him of her ‘powers.’

  “She wasn’t a real witch, though? Was she?”

  “No. Of course not.” He ventured a small glance at Dee. Sitting in her chair, her hands folded neatly in her lap, she was fully focused on him, expectant. Her attention prompted him to continue. “Olyena was no more a witch than any human woman in this world, fully capable of bewitching a demon.”

  “How?” Her focus wavered with confusion.

  ‘The way you did,’ the sudden thought sliced through his mind, with a shuddering certainty.

  “Just by being herself,” he replied, choked by that simple truth.

  It was exactly how it happened. He let his self-control slide, lowered his walls, and Dee slipped through, first taking over his thoughts, then his emotions. And now, here he was, ready to share his most treasured memories with a woman who was a complete stranger until a few short weeks ago.

  “How did you meet?” she prompted, and he couldn’t deny her.

  “She found me, wounded and starved.”

  “Did she nurse you back to health?”

  “Eventually. Her first intention, however, was to steal my sword . . .”

  His mind rushed back to that creek, far away, many centuries ago, in the country now known as Belarus. He could almost feel the sunshine warming his chest again, Olyena’s tug on his sword, the cold water sloshing in his boots as he trudged after her, desperate to feed.

  The memories turned into words as he spoke for the first time ever about that day and everything that followed.

  The small cabin in the woods. The young woman, who found relative safety in complete solitude. The people who ostracized her. He even mentioned the darn chickens she kept, and was open—although he took care not to be overly graphic—about the carnage he created in the village the night he left, to avenge her pain and to ease his own.

  “You never said goodbye to her?” Dee’s question stirred the guilt he had carried ever since he left Olyena.

  “No,” he replied sharply.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. What does it matter?”

  She fell silent, maybe judging or maybe wai
ting for him to continue. Either way, he could no longer stop, even if he tried. Once the words formed, they needed to be spoken.

  So, he kept talking.

  He told her about the Council election and about the title of Grand Master he won that year and managed to keep for many centuries after. He admitted his ages-long search for Olyena after that, the woman he could never let go even after he left her. And about Gremory, the only demon who had ever come close to being his friend, until Raim saw the two of them together in the Alps in the fifteenth century.

  Pacing the floor in front of Dee, as though she were a judge taking his confessions in a court of law, he told her about the fight in the mountains and about his fall.

  “She pushed me off the cliff. Then they left me there, to be eaten alive by wild animals, as if I were nothing more than an animal myself.” Hurt and bitterness burned like acid through his insides, yet he couldn’t truly hate.

  He could never hate those two, treacherous as they were. Maybe if he could, he would have found peace and closure with their deaths. As it was, all he found on the pyre that took them both was only more sorrow.

  “They were captured and executed for witchcraft about two hundred years ago. I watched them burn, too late to save them.” He told her about that too, wrecked by the devastation of loss all over again.

  Letting it all out must have been a mistake. Released from the iron grip of his control, the agony grew, threatening to suffocate him. His emotions swirled into an endless tsunami of darkness, sweeping him in.

  “Now they are gone, Dee. Have been for nearly two centuries. But I still cannot fully accept it . . .”

  Chapter 13

  RAIM’S VOICE REMAINED strong and powerful throughout his story that almost sounded like a legend about times long gone. Then he broke off at the end, as if crushed by the weight of his own words.

  He stopped pacing, turning away so I couldn’t see his expression. His hands fisted tightly, but when he opened them, spreading his fingers wide, I noticed that they trembled.