Together.
Chapter 14
MY ARMS WRAPPED TIGHT around Raim, I didn’t want to let go. He didn’t move either, still on top of me, the side of his face pressed to mine, our bodies connected. My mind floated in a haze somewhere—warm, pink, and fuzzy.
If Raim was a drug, he was one I did not want to quit.
Being with him was amazing. Tender and powerful. Nothing like I had ever experienced before. And I didn’t think I would ever be content with anything else from now on.
‘All I have is this moment.’
He promised me nothing more than that. So, I didn’t want this moment to end, holding on to him like to a lifeline.
Sooner or later everything always came to an end.
With a long inhale, he shifted off me.
“Are you . . . okay?” I asked, concerned by his silence.
“Okay?” he grinned at me, rising on his elbow at my side. “This was so much more than okay, Dee.”
“Really?” I moved a long, wavy strand of his hair away from his face, needing to see his gorgeous eyes better.
“The best night of my life,” he said confidently.
“That says a lot, considering how long your life has been.”
“Exactly.” He placed a quick kiss on my lips then lay across the mattress, resting his head on my belly.
I raked my fingers through the thick waves of his hair.
Being with Raim felt so incredibly natural. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. He was a demon from another world, an Incubus, a long-time Grand Master of his race—all the things I had been taught to hate. Yet here we were, cuddling in bed, and it all was simple and comfortable. Normal and real.
“May I ask you a question?” I kept threading my fingers through his hair, spreading it across my stomach, strand by strand. “Why have you waited with this for so long?”
“Sex, you mean?”
“Yes.”
One thing I had never expected was that Raim would turn out to be a virgin. He was a sex demon, after all, and a male—virile and gorgeous. Discovering that he had never been with a woman in that sense shocked me, although not without some selfish pleasure at me being his ‘first.’
“‘Waiting’ would imply I was allowing for the possibility of sex happening eventually when in truth, I did not think it ever would.”
“You didn’t? You’re a sex demon, and you never thought you would have actual intercourse with a woman? Or a man, for that matter?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We feed off sexual energy by creating it in others. To experience these feelings on our own is not necessary for our existence. At times I wonder if we were meant to have any emotions at all. The fact that we do might just have been a mistake in our creation, a glitch.”
“The ability to feel what humans do brings you closer to them,” I noted. “Isn’t that important to get one of them to love you, in order for you to earn your Forgiveness?”
He turned his head, glancing up at me. “You think that is our only purpose for being here? The Forgiveness?”
“It is a good purpose to have, isn’t it? Reaching peace with the human race by making one of them happy.”
I had gotten to know one of the Incubi much more closely now—the one I had thought was the worst of them all—and I could absolutely see a future with both our races united. There was hope for it, I truly believed so.
“Do you think that was what we were sent here for? To make peace with humans?”
“I have no way to tell for sure, of course, but the Incubi who have found their one are happy now, aren’t they?”
“For now,” he said, as his forehead wrinkled, and I smoothed the crease with the tips of my fingers.
“What happened to you will not necessarily happen to others,” I offered carefully.
“To me? How about what happened to you?” he asked with a cold glint in his eyes. “Male or female, humans are not capable of loyalty. They are unable to commit even for a few decades of their current lives. How can all these women promise confidently to stay true to my Incubi for centuries of their extended lifespans?”
“Well, no one can see into the future, and things happen—”
“Things happen?” He sat up as if some spring inside him had been released. “What you don’t realize, Dee, is that it may be an everyday occurrence for humans to fall in and out of love, but for an Incubus who feeds exclusively off one woman, all her emotions become his. He learns to love through her. Without her, he is destroyed. If she leaves him . . .”
“You’re not giving enough credit to humans. The ones I know who have paired up with the Incubi are extremely committed. You have witnessed a woman’s loyalty yourself. Olyena—”
“Olyena found my replacement within days of my leaving.”
“But it was you who left her, Raim.” I sat up in bed, too. “Can’t you see? There was no betrayal on her part because she was never committed to you in the first place. You never asked her for a commitment and never gave her yours in return. It was not you she loved. She proved her loyalty to Gremory by living with him for centuries and dying at his side—”
“No!” he made a move to leap out of bed, but I caught his arm.
Jealousy was a human emotion, one which I’d understood very well even before I saw the pictures of my ex-husband with his new love. It was bitter and toxic, and Raim had let it burn through him for centuries, along with pain and resentment. I could only show him the way things were, not work through them for him, but I didn’t want him pacing the room in anger again, I wished to hold on to him, instead.
I wanted him to know I was there for him if he needed me.
Instead of fighting me, he collapsed back into my lap. Pressing his face to my belly, he wrapped his arms around me.
“Maybe, things would have turned out differently had you stayed with her.” I stroked his hair. “Or maybe not. That’s no longer the point because none of us can change the past. What’s important now is that there is no deadline on earning your Forgiveness. If it didn’t work out for you then, it can still happen, any day of any century. All it takes is one woman, Raim.”
Could I be that woman?
My chest tightened suddenly. When I accepted having just this moment with him, I did not wish for anything more. Could there be more between us? Or was it simply compassion on my part? Or the response of my damaged heart to his kindness?
“Not for me,” he said against my skin.
“Why not?”
He turned to gaze up at me again. “Because I am a murderer.” His voice was clear and firm.
I cradled his head in my arms.
“I believe all of you are if one digs deep enough into the past.”
“Not like me. Others killed in defence. Some may have done it by accident, unable to control themselves. None have planned to take a life on purpose, I made sure they had no part in that.”
“The women at the Base . . .” I exhaled.
“Yes. I am the only one who murdered the innocent.”
“Why did you?”
“It had to be done.” He moved his gaze off me. “Those who could not cope . . . suffered.”
“Mercy killings?”
His head on my thighs, he nodded slowly, staring up at the bed canopy above us.
“Their mind was no longer there. Some became violent, like wild animals. Some got lost in mindless delusion . . . I took their pain, fear, and suffering first, letting them enjoy the bliss of whatever positive emotions they still had left.” His chest rose with a deep inhale. “Then I took their life force.”
We both felt silent. There was nothing to say, no way to deny or excuse what he had done.
“Their energy has long gone,” he continued after a while, in a subdued voice. “But I feel like the echo of their lives remains inside of me, forever to haunt me.”
“So, no other Incubus did that but you?”
“Yes. This sin of killing innocents is on
me only. The souls of others are free from it, free to be Forgiven.”
“That’s what you meant when you said you weren’t like the rest of them.” My hand moved to his hair again, as if on its own—I was unable to keep myself from touching him. “So, centuries from now, they all will leave, and you will go on. Forever.”
The infinity of this lonely ‘forever’ weighed heavily on me.
“Or until the Divine admits I have failed and removes me from this world,” he added. “Then I’ll be spending eternity elsewhere.”
“Alone?”
The vast nothingness that was his future terrified me. The calm, resigned voice with which he spoke about it drowned me with sorrow.
Leaning down to where he lay with his head on my lap, I placed a kiss on his forehead. I had no Divine power in me, but more than anything in that moment I wished I could absolve him of all his sins, so he could finally find the peace he had given me.
He cupped the back of my neck with his hand, keeping my face over his.
“Wait.” He shifted, rising on his elbow to me.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good.” He kissed my lips.
Soft and slow at first, it grew deeper and more urgent, until he moved over me, bringing me down on my back.
The brightening glow of the rising sun lit the room as he kept kissing me, our naked bodies moving in sync against each other.
“When I’m with you, everything else falls away,” he whispered as I opened my legs for him and he entered me again, tantalisingly slow. “Everything, however dark, disappears. You make the pain vanish.”
“It’s only fair.” I breathed harder as he began to move faster. “Since you’ve helped me chase my darkness away, too.”
Heat built up between my legs as something achy and beautiful swelled inside my chest.
I waited until I sensed him tense, then I let go, coming hard and taking him with me.
Together.
Chapter 15
I MUST HAVE FALLEN asleep again because when I finally woke up, the bed curtains were drawn closed, with a narrow strip of bright sunlight cutting through between them.
The events of yesterday flooded my mind.
Apparently, I was free to leave this place. Always had been, according to Raim.
The thought made me feel foolish—I had essentially confined myself. Yet I did not regret the weeks I spent here. As Raim had guessed correctly, this quiet time on my own, absolved of any responsibility and worry about the outside world, turned out to be exactly what I needed. This morning I felt rested and ready to face the future, whatever it would bring.
The list of things I should do rushed into my mind—ask Raim if I could use his phone, make some calls, check my email . . .
All of them could still wait for a little while, though. What I really wanted to do first was to see Raim. The last I remembered was snuggling against his large, warm body as he held me while I drifted asleep.
The memory made me smile as I opened the bed curtains, squinting in the sunlight.
“Morning,” Raim’s voice greeted me.
I blinked, finding him standing by the bed with a breakfast tray in his hands, as if he knew I was up.
“Morning,” I replied, my smile stretching wider.
“How is your knee?”
His tone chased the grin off my face. The coolness in his voice and the severe expression weren’t new. After the night we just shared, I expected something warmer and more personal, though.
“My knee? It’s fine.” I swung my leg back and forth off the bed, to test it.
“Let me see, please.” Raim set the tray on the night table then inspected my knee closely, the touch of his warm fingers quick and efficient. “No swelling, it seems.”
“No pain, either,” I assured him, taking the mug of coffee from the tray. “I’ll stretch it a bit today, just to make sure. But it is fine, I swear.”
Without saying a word, he walked over to the chair by the fireplace.
My own mood subdued, I sipped the coffee in silence, wondering what happened to make him change from being poignantly passionate last night to sombre and taciturn this morning. He seemed distracted.
“Is everything okay . . .” I broke the heavy silence between us. My voice trailed off when I spotted the grate from the bathroom window leaning against the armchair.
He lifted the grate, turning to face me. “Is this how you got out yesterday, Dee?”
“I . . .” Lost for words for a moment, I rubbed my forehead. “Listen, I’m really sorry. I promise I’ll have it fixed—”
“How did you break it off?” he didn’t let me finish.
I blanched under his questioning stare, scrambling for a reply. The years of reinforced silence about my ‘condition’ were hard to shake off all at once.
“With your bare hands?” he insisted.
“Raim . . .” I set the mug aside, straightening my spine under his glare.
“Sorry, I know I scared you that first night when you got here. I wrote off that sudden burst of strength when you tossed me off as a surge of adrenaline. Being with you made me lose my head for a moment. I couldn’t trust my own perception of events then.” He shook his head. “But this . . . Dee, tell me. Did you wrench this solid, wrought-iron window grate out of concrete, using nothing but your bare hands?”
“Yes,” I confessed, dropping my gaze to my lap.
“How?”
“I—I come from a . . . special family.” I twisted the end of the bed sheet in my fingers. Sharing the deepest secret of my family still had a tang of betrayal of those who were no longer here. At the same time, if there was anyone I could trust with this, it was Raim. He kept his own secrets for centuries, I believed he would keep mine safe, too. “All of us are a little unusual. My mom could move things with her mind. My little brother did that too, just like her. He also levitated. Having two abilities is rare, though not entirely unheard of in our extended family. My parents were exceptionally proud of him, though. Mom called him her Baby Miraculous.”
A sweet ache churned in my heart at the memories of them as it always did. I remembered feeling jealous of Owen, hoping I’d get more abilities, too, as I grew. Not all of them manifested at once, some took time. But the much-higher-than-the-average strength was all I ended up having. And even that felt more like a burden than a superpower to me, most of my life.
“My dad could walk through walls,” I said, “like you.”
Dropping the grate to the floor with a loud crash, Raim sank into the armchair.
“He wasn’t a demon, Raim,” I rushed to assure him, even as some doubts snuck in. “Not an Incubus. My father was born like every human on Earth. I had grandparents, I got to meet them both—Nonna and Nonno. Just like my own parents, they had regular lifespans and aged at a perfectly normal rate. Dad passed away from age, poor health, and stress. Other than walking through walls, he was an ordinary human man . . .” I blinked, considering what I had just said. “Wasn’t he? Raim?”
Elbows propped on his knees, he rested his head in his hands, fingers buried in his hair. When he met my gaze, his expression terrified me. I crawled to the end of the mattress, closer to him.
“What is it, honey?” I asked softly, keeping my voice calm despite the rising concern. “Do you care that I’m not exactly normal? Is it a problem?”
When Raim finally spoke, it didn’t sound like an answer to any of my questions, but more like an echo of something going on inside him.
“Every last drop,” he growled, his voice deep and dreadfully ominous.
“What are you talking about, Raim?” Fear prickled along the bare skin of my back.
He got up from the chair and came to me. Lifting my chin with his fingers, he directed my gaze to his.
“You have her hair,” he said softly, cupping my face. “And his eyes. An unusual combination, but not unique enough for me to suspect. Or maybe I just didn’t want to see it.”
“To see what?�
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“Your father was not an Incubus, Dee. However, he descended from one. Your mother, too. Most likely, they shared the same ancestor.”
“There is no way,” I shook my head, struggling with what he was saying. “They weren’t even from the same continent. My father was born in Italy. His family didn’t come to the United States until he was two. And my mom was a fifth generation American . . .”
Dad did have extended family in the states, however. I recalled him taking me to a family event on a ranch in Arizona when I was little. Could my parents really be some very distant relatives? So far removed, they wouldn’t have known of it themselves until they learned about each other’s special abilities?
“Fifth generation?” Raim sounded as if he were thinking out loud. “There must have been more before that, all of them descending from the same couple.”
“Olyena and Gremory?” I exhaled, in shock at my realization.
“I tracked them through centuries,” he groaned, letting go of me. “Never once did I get any reports about them having children.”
“If they knew you were tracking them, they could have intentionally kept any information about their children hidden from you.”
A dark cloud descended upon his face. “I would have never harmed their offspring.”
“But they couldn’t have known that for sure.” His crestfallen expression made my heart twist with compassion. “It may not have been because of you. From what I know about history, Olyena’s and Gremory’s lives would have to be spent mostly in secret anyway. Especially, considering how they ended. Their fears were warranted and their precautions made sense.”
He sank to his knees in front of me as I remained sitting on the edge of the bed.
I tried to see myself through his eyes. Nine to ten centuries ago was a world away for me, a time so distant it became an abstract concept. For Raim, however, all of that was a part of his life. The woman, who died long before any of the people I had ever met were born, was someone he’d known personally.
And intimately, to some degree.
The Last Unforgiven - Freed (Demons, #5) Page 11
