by Cherrie Lynn
“Done what?”
“You should have taken me when you had the chance. You wouldn’t be in all this trouble, and I could be with you.”
The statement sparked such a vile reaction in him, he had her face in his hands and her head tilted back before he realized it. She gave a tiny gasp as his gaze bored into hers, and he spoke with such emphasis that each word shook her. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think that. Everything that’s happened here today, everything we’ve done, was to keep you safe.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do. You’re irrational.”
“I don’t care,” she repeated, practically snarling at him. “Don’t tell me I’m fucking irrational when for the first time in my life, I know exactly what I want and where I belong. That’s with you, wherever I have to go. I want you. Take me.” Her hands slithered up over his shoulder, fingers kneading.
Aghast at her determination and the dark, violent passion it stirred in him, he fought the urge to leap off the bed and put as much distance between them as possible. She’d just handed him her soul on a platter, after everything he’d gone through to let it go.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he hissed, but his hands weren’t making any move to release her. Cold blackness welled up inside him, a chilling void that would draw her into it if he didn’t keep it in check. “You have no idea what you’ll be giving up.”
“I’ll be giving you up if I stay and that’s too much.”
“Has Riam told you that you could have the chance to be like him someday? An angel. Madeleine, think about it. Everything you’ve done, every life you’ve lived, all the good things you’ve done, all the pain and the trials—every bit of it has been leading up to that. To what you told me you wanted, to being a part of something bigger than yourself.”
“Maybe it’s all been leading up to you.”
His breath hitched, stuttered and stopped. “It’s out of the question.” The words strangled him. With a sudden burst of effort, he shoved her hands away from him and stood, pacing away from the bed to stare out the window. Outside, it was a picturesque spring morning. Inside, he felt as if all of winter collected in his heart.
There was a rustle behind him, and he turned to see Madeleine on her feet, toddling toward the door. “What are you doing? You should rest.”
“I’m fine.”
He moved to get in front of her and guide her back to her bed, but she shoved at him with a strength that surprised him. “Get out of my way.”
“Where the fuck are you going?”
“I’m going to talk to Riam.”
Oh, hellfire, that would spell disaster. “That isn’t…advisable at the moment.”
“It’s advisable for you to get the hell out of my way, Ash. I’ve been a pawn in your little game my entire life. Do you realize that? And now you’re going to stand there and make this decision for me? I won’t have it.”
He could only stand and watch as this little mortal woman defeated him. Again. She pushed past him, staggering on her unsteady feet but throwing off any of his attempts to help her. He could only follow her into the hallway, and stand uselessly behind her as she caught the attention of the angel who’d been talking to Celeste.
Riam frowned as he saw her. “You should—”
“No, I shouldn’t. I want you to know that if Ash has to go back to Hell, then I go too.”
“Madeleine!” both Celeste and Riam snapped, as if they were shocked parents dealing with an unruly teenager. Riam’s gaze whipped up over her shoulder, connecting with Ash’s and glowing impossibly blue. “This is your idea of helping the situation? You son of a—”
“Hey, don’t look at me. This is all her.”
“Because you’ve poisoned her mind!”
“For the first time in my life, my mind is absolutely clear. But is it true what he just told me?” she asked. “He said I could become like you someday.”
Riam’s glare sharpened, if that were even possible. “Ordinarily the Candidates are never told that they’re—”
“See, that’s my problem with this whole thing. All this secrecy, all this planning and plotting I’m utterly unaware of. Is it that way with everyone? Is this all just a big game between the two of you, an eternal power struggle? Is that the meaning of life?” She scoffed. “Then I don’t care about living anymore. I don’t care about being one of you and perpetuating the cycle. I just want to make my own decision, and I choose to be with him. I love him. And I know he loves me just because I know what he was willing to give up for me. You can’t tell me there was anything poisonous about it.”
“I was standing there when they said he was as good as dead if he came to help you. If you go and they kill him, Madeleine, you’ll be alone and in more misery than—”
“If I stay here, I’ll be alone and in misery. If I go, maybe they’ll spare him. This was all about me in the first place, wasn’t it? It can only help if he delivers me like he was supposed to.”
“The problem with your logic is you’re forgetting who you’re dealing with.”
“No, I’m not. I’m standing right next to one of them.”
“She’s got a point there,” Celeste said, looking none too happy about Riam’s last statement.
Ash had scarcely been able to breathe through this exchange. Riam had lost most of his animosity while watching Madeleine’s tirade, and he stared at her now with increasing heartbreak. After a long, silent moment, he looked back up at Ash. “She’s declared her wishes. She’s yours. It’s up to you.”
Gently, Ash took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Madeleine—I can’t take you away from the sunlight and this world you love. The people you love. Don’t ask me to do it.”
“Is it really that bad?”
“Yes,” three voices chorused at once.
“But I’m used to it,” Ash added. “You’re not.”
Her lower lip quivered. “I won’t get used to it in time?”
He stared at her, considering. Who was to say? With him at her side—if he could stay at her side and not meet a grisly end—she might glory in the darkness. He thought of that first night in her apartment, staring down at her in her bed, at her face split by light from the window. Half in light, half in shadow. Each equally beautiful. Madeleine had as much darkness in her as she had light. Maybe he’d been the one to put it there, but it was a part of her now and she would carry it with her always.
Maybe it’s all been leading up to you.
“I want you to think about it,” he said. “I don’t want you to make any hasty decisions you’ll regret.”
“And you’ll regret this one,” Riam grumbled.
“Hey,” Celeste said, giving Riam’s arm a shove. “You’ve said your piece. Thank you. But you haven’t thought to ask the opinion of the one who did give up everything for one of them.”
Riam gave a sweep of his arm as if to indicate the floor was all hers, then turned his back, pacing a few steps away.
“Look,” Celeste said, taking Madeleine’s hands. “When they stripped my wings and cast me to earth for loving a demon, they might as well have sent me to Hell for the shock of it. Simply having a mortal body hurt like I can’t describe. I came to earth often before that, but fitting in to life here was another matter entirely. For a long time I was alone. I didn’t have Damael, but he haunted my every moment, waking or sleeping. When I finally saw him again—it made it all worth it. Do I wish things could be different? Yes, of course. But would I do it all again?” She smiled. “In a heartbeat. For him.”
“Thank you,” Madeleine said quietly, a calm settling over her features as if this was the confirmation she’d been waiting for.
“I want you to think about it too,” Celeste said. “In the end, I didn’t have a choice, but you do. I can’t say what you’ll be facing if you go there.” She eyed Ash warily. “I’d be very careful, if I were you.”
“You don’t even have to tell me.” He was actually consid
ering this, then. If he was honest with himself, he’d know he’d been considering it from the moment she suggested it. Rubbing a hand over Madeleine’s shoulder, he said, “It’s you I’m worried about. If you end up there alone…”
“Ash, you were willing to sacrifice yourself for me. How would I be worthy of that if I’m not willing to do the same thing for you?”
She wanted to be worthy—of him? What backward alternate universe had Riam dropped him into? He couldn’t speak; he could only look at her, her earnest blue eyes and soft, trembling mouth. Look at her and know he could never be without her as long as he was alive.
“I have an idea,” he said, but he was speaking more to Riam’s back than to anyone else. Seeming to sense that, the angel turned around. “But I need your help.”
Chapter Sixteen
Night fell. Madeleine stood alone on the balcony outside the bedroom she’d been given, looking up at the stars. A light ahem behind her turned her head. Riam lent his otherworldly glow to the darkness as he stepped out and joined her at the railing. She smiled at him and went on perusing the stars.
“This is absolutely what you want?” he asked.
“I just want him.”
“I think he has a good idea, giving you a glimpse of what you’re in for before you commit…but I wish I could change your mind about the whole thing.”
“You can’t.”
“Oh, I know.” He sighed. “You’d have been a force to reckon with, Madeleine. I’d have loved to have seen you wearing wings someday. I think you’d have made every demon in Hell tremble.”
“I doubt that.”
“I don’t.”
They spent a moment in silence. Madeleine closed her eyes as a breeze grazed her cheeks, and she pulled her light sweater closer. In a moment, Ash was going to drag the soul from her body as Saklon had tried to do. As she’d seen Ash himself do to someone else. Her heart thudded dully and a fine tremor shook her that had nothing to do with the wind’s chill. Earlier she hadn’t been afraid…and she still wasn’t. Exactly. She was simply apprehensive, she decided. She’d have thought she would have been terrified.
“There’s not a chance of that happening for me if I do this, huh?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head. “Ask Celeste what happens to angels who fall in love with demons. We can forgive a lot, but not that. I’d hoped once you learned what he was, what he’d done, you would hate him.”
She wanted to tell him she found that pretty fucked up. But she bit down on the words. Riam didn’t have to help them tonight—he could have escorted Ash straight back to Hell as he was supposed to. Despite his position on the demons, he’d agreed to give this crazy scheme of theirs a shot.
“You wouldn’t happen to be a bit of a hopeless romantic yourself, would you?” she teased.
He chuckled. “Not at all. I leave that to the fickle mortal heart.”
“Oh, so I’m fickle?”
“No, not you. Obviously not.”
She reached over to touch his hand on the rail, almost expecting her fingers to go right through his. They didn’t. His hand was as solid as hers, but cooler to the touch. “Thank you. You’ve done so much for me, and you didn’t have to. I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier. And I’m sorry I can’t be everything you want me to be. It’s not that I don’t want to.”
“Madeleine,” he said, facing her and turning her so that he could hold her shoulders. “You are. You’re headstrong, loving, self-sacrificing and innately good. You won’t lose that even if you never wear a golden halo. It’s all right.”
She nodded, tears stinging her eyes. “Thank you. Can I… Can I give you a hug?”
“You’d better.”
She didn’t know exactly where to put her arms, because his wings were in the way. But she managed. Maybe some of his light would rub off on her, because she needed it.
Inside the bedroom, Ash was waiting, giving them some privacy. His expression was dark, and he and Riam exchanged curt nods as Riam left the room, leaving them alone.
God, she did love him. He seemed to cast a shadow over the room’s pale, pastel décor as they regarded each other across the slight distance between them. Then he opened his arms, and she rushed into them, clinging desperately to him and giving release to the tears she’d managed to hold in with Riam.
“Make love to me,” she whispered. “I need to be with you one last time…like this.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than his lips met hers. Then clothes were coming off, a slow revealing she knew both of them savored. She gasped and bit down on a curse when she saw the marks and bruises on his flesh, fresh tears brimming in her eyes though she’d thought she couldn’t shed any more.
“They hurt you,” she said, trailing her fingertips over an angry red welt with the barest of brushes.
“Already healing.” He took another brief taste of her lips. “I’m resilient. All I could think of was getting back to you.”
“Oh, Ash, I love you.” She didn’t know how to say what she meant without sounding incredibly mushy, that she wanted to give him all the love he’d never had. So she tried to show him with her kiss, the gentleness of her touch on his wounds. There were so many she could hardly touch him at all without brushing against one. But he never winced, never drew away from her. If anything, he only grew more impassioned.
He kissed her and caressed her until she ached, until her legs gave and he lowered her to the bed. Her breasts, her thighs, her belly…he subjected them all to a slow exploration, deliberately avoiding the needy place between her legs until she wanted to scream with frustration. When finally he did venture there, he found her slick and ready. He waited until that desperate, frenzied moment when the tip of his cock was poised at her entrance before he returned her words.
“I love you, Madeleine.” And he sank into her, smothering her cry with his kiss. With slow, smooth strokes, he nudged her to the edge of bliss and sent her tumbling into its welcome depths again and again. It was thrilling with no barriers between them. When he came, she felt it, loved the sensation of him spilling into her as he shuddered and groaned in her ear, and she found a completeness with him she hadn’t quite realized had been missing before. She knew just who he was now, what he was.
In the sweet moments afterward, as they lay catching their breath, he placed his hand against her cheek. “I had it all wrong.”
“Hmm?”
“I was wrong. I always looked at it as if you belonged to me. It was the other way around all this time. I belong to you. If I had a soul, you stole it centuries ago.”
She smiled dreamily at him, letting herself get lost in his dark eyes. Whatever they would face tonight, they’d face it together. It was going to work. It had to. “No matter what I said the other day in my apartment, I’m yours, Ash. This is one soul you didn’t have to steal.”
“Well, here we are,” Maddie said with a little laugh a couple hours later. She and Ash sat on the bed facing each other. Riam stood silently beside her. Maddie would’ve happily stayed in bed with Ash for the rest of the night—or the rest of her life—but it was time to see if her crazy plan would work.
Ash nodded. “After everything we’ve been through, I never thought it would come to this.”
She reached up and laid her palm against the side of his face. He automatically turned his head to kiss it. “It’s going to be all right,” she said. “Don’t you think so?”
Ash’s eyes had never reflected light, something she’d noticed with some curiosity a few times. Now, she swore she could see something shining in them. “If I didn’t think there was a chance, I wouldn’t do it.”
“Okay.” Somehow that made her feel better, that he had even a modicum of hope. “I’m ready.”
More than anything, she was afraid of feeling the way she had when that other demon had attacked her—the horrific, scalding pain was still a fresh memory. Ash must’ve been reading her thoughts as he took her hand. He looked deep into her eyes and she trie
d to draw upon the strength she saw there.
“It’ll only hurt until you’re detached. Once you’re completely pulled free, you won’t feel anything.”
Panic set off inside her as she remembered floating in a black void of numbness. “Will I be able to see or hear—”
“Yes, although not the way you’re accustomed to seeing and hearing now. You’ll sense your surroundings, though. You’ll know I’m with you.”
She nodded, taking a deep, steadying breath. “Okay.”
“Take my hand,” Riam said. She obeyed, still holding on to Ash with her other. It was an odd sensation, touching both of them: one hot, the other cool. A strange energy zinged through her.
“Please make it fast,” she said, hating how small and pleading and cowardly she sounded all of a sudden.
Ash’s gaze never left hers. His black eyes seemed to fill her universe. Power was rising there. She could see it. At the last instant, she instinctively wanted to throw herself away from him, but he didn’t give her a chance. His free hand shot to her chest and everything within her tore loose. She had a moment to emit one cry at the agony of it, then his fingers dug into her flesh, twisted and pulled…and it was over.
For a moment, everything was dim, blurry and distant. She heard voices—Ash saying “I’ve got you, it’s all right.” Riam telling him to hurry—he didn’t have much time. There was no opportunity to get accustomed to the strangeness of it. Suddenly she was falling. Wind rushing all around her. The longer it went on, the more aware she became of his arms locked around her, holding her to the steady anchor of his body in the maelstrom. So fast, they were going so fast, surely when they hit the bottom…
It seemed as if it would never come, as if she’d go on falling forever. In truth it probably lasted only a few minutes. Then, all at once, it stopped. Everything…stopped.
“Madeleine, look,” Ash said, his voice near her ear—did she have ears? Did she have eyes? How could she look? It was all dark…
He pulled away from her and she realized it was dark because her face had been crammed against his chest. Here, she felt solid, she felt real again. That stood to reason, she supposed, if a soul was capable of feeling the torment promised in this place.
