by Jodi Redford
Confusion and wariness surged through him. Why was she talking like this and looking at him like she was two seconds away from jumping his bones? Particularly considering everything that’d happened earlier in her office? Trying to make sense of it, he dragged in a deep breath. It hit him then, the total lack of her scent. He growled low in his throat, stumbling away from her.
“What’s wrong, hot stuff? Aren’t you happy to see me?” Her smile provocative, she leaned in to kiss him.
“Get away from him.”
He jumped at the furious demand in Clarissa’s voice. Only the words hadn’t issued from her mouth. He jerked his focus sideways and noticed Clarissa slumped in the opposite doorway, a wealth of fear and weariness riding her features. Staggering backward, he slashed his attention to the other Clarissa.
Sweet Jesus. Another Clarissa. What the fuck…
A peeling laugh erupted from the Clarissa imposter in front of him. “Oh, you should see the look you’re wearing right now. In fact—” A distortion flickered over her face and suddenly he was staring at himself, his mouth gaping in perfect duplication of his twin.
He was half convinced he was suffering a psychotic breakdown. That none of this was truly happening and he’d wake any minute and laugh with Clarissa about this incredibly crazy dream.
“Enough.” Clarissa—the real one—hurried from the doorway and rushed at the doppelganger, shoving it against the wall. A hiss tore from the creature as it tried to claw at Clarissa’s face. He leapt to defend his mate, only to collide with thin air when the thing, whatever it was, vanished.
A raspy chuckle floated behind them and he whirled, his gaze landing on the creepy trucker dude from the bar. His already befuddled brain stalled, unable to cobble together even a passing explanation for what was going on. And why the hell Clarissa seemed to be smack dab in the middle of the insanity.
Another figure materialized next to the trucker. It took him a second to figure out why the dude looked familiar. It was the guy from Tatum’s. The one he’d thought was only a figment of his imagination.
The one who’d had his tongue rammed down Clarissa’s throat.
A roar ripping from him, he pushed away from his mate and lunged toward the dickwad. Just like the doppelganger had done, the guy vanished and Logan banged into the wall. A hearty chuckle came from the trucker. “Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark.”
Logan swung his arm. And punched through nothing but thin air again. What were these motherfuckers? Panting, he swung around. His blood froze in his veins when he saw the dickwad from the bar cozied behind Clarissa, stroking her possessively with his inhuman, talon-like claws. Fearful for her, and enraged at the blatant poaching of his territory, he clenched his fists and stalked forward. “Keep touchin’ her and I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”
A laugh snaked from Clarissa’s captor. “Something tells me that you’d love to kill me regardless if I touch her or not.”
“True. Guess it all comes down to the degree of pain you wanna suffer before I put you out of your fuckin’ misery.”
A tsking sound came from the creature. “So much rage. So much wrath. You know, I have a sibling that I suspect you’d get along swimmingly with. Still, I more than anyone understand where you’re coming from. Sweet Clarissa is certainly a prize worth killing for.” A hot flare of covetous lust glinting in those creepy eyes, he bent his head and licked the side of her face.
Clarissa’s violent shudder only stoked the fury that’d erupted within Logan the instant that fucker’s tongue made contact with her cheek. “By the time I’m done with you, you’re gonna beg me to kill you.” He took a menacing step forward. “Let go of my woman.”
“Your woman? I think you’re mistaken, wolf.” A heaping dose of derision was shoveled on the last word. “I own Clarissa. She belongs to me.”
The zealous smugness in that hissing voice as it crowed about ownership made him see red. “She’s not a possession. Especially not yours, asswipe.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Tell him, Clarissa. Tell him how your soul belongs to me.”
“Her soul? Who do you think you are, Satan?” More like a fuckin’ loon.
“I’m a million times more powerful than that horned weakling. My catalog of souls is far superior as well. Though Clarissa’s will always be valued above all others. From the first moment she approached Gluttony with her request, I knew I had to have her.”
What the hell was this fruit loop babbling about? Keeping a wary eye on the psychotic creature, Logan inched closer, not wanting to spook him and inadvertently bring harm to Clarissa. Still, he had to figure out a way to safely get her out of here.
“Did you know, sweet Clarissa, that Gluttony balked about exchanging your father’s contract for yours? Good ole Glut always has been a stickler for the rules. I went to great lengths to convince the others to bend them. You should thank me for that. In essence, I saved your father.”
Tears had started rolling down Clarissa’s cheeks, and Logan stared at their watery tracks. Son of a bitch. Why was she crying like the nonsense spouting from this creature’s mouth should have any affect on her? Unless…
Swallowing hard, he gazed at Clarissa. “Baby, tell me you didn’t—” Christ. He couldn’t even say it because it was so preposterous.
Holding his stare, her luminous eyes filled with more tears.
The oxygen billowed from his lungs. “Sweet Jesus.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Why the hell would you give your soul to this lunatic creature?” He knew he was shouting, but he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Not when his world was fracturing right before his eyes.
“To save my father. He was going to be taken, Logan. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“What are you saying? That his life—his soul—is more precious than yours?” He hated the necessity that forced him to sound so callous. It wasn’t that he thought she should have left her father’s future hanging in the wind. Hell, who knew what he would have done in her place. That was the damnable part. Deep down, he couldn’t judge her for the decision she’d made, no matter how much its outcome devastated him.
A patronizing chuckle tumbled from the scumbag. “You assume sweet Clarissa’s motives were entirely pure. That there might not have been something…deeper…compelling her to seek out my sibling that fateful day.”
Logan bared his teeth. “What the hell does it matter why she did it?”
“Oh, it’s vitally important. To her. Not that I’m not grateful for her eternal quest for redemption. It is, after all, the key that’s always kept her shackled to me, one way or another. Isn’t that right, my dearest?”
Clarissa’s watery gaze dropped to the floor. Her fierce battle against whatever private demons plagued her squeezed his heart. “Baby, it doesn’t matter what you did. Whatever you think you did.”
“I envied them.” Her soft words were almost inaudible. “Sweet goddess, how I envied them.” She looked up, the pain in her eyes almost unbearable to witness. “Do you know how many times I sat on that park bench wishing one of those families would adopt me so I’d never have to be alone anymore? It ate at me, constantly. But I figured it was my lot in life. You can’t choose the parents you’re given. Or the ones who walk away from you.”
He ached to go to her, to hold her in his arms and take away every ounce of her agony. But when he took a determined step forward, she warded him off with a shake of her head. “Please, I—I need to say this, to get it out of me.” She knuckled her nose, her chest expanding with a fortifying breath. “After my mother left, I thought I’d banished the ugly envy that twisted my insides. But it wasn’t truly gone. Just buried. Waiting for the perfect moment to rear its hideous head and force me to feed it.”
Her voice wobbled for a moment before steadying. “I never expected to see her again. She was supposed to be gone. Nothing more than a painful ghost from my past. At first I was so angry that she was back in town and hadn’t even bothered to contact me
or my father that I didn’t pay much attention to anything else. But then it hit me. She was with two young girls. Two young girls who weren’t me. Smiling at them in a way that I’d secretly imagined a million times during my little fantasy episodes.”
His hands cramped as he made a fist, resisting the urge to reach for her and stop this anguished recounting of history. He noticed her captor’s rapturous expression during her confession. It was as if the creature got some vicarious thrill from her suffering. It made him long all the more to rip the bastard to shreds.
“It was one of the lowest moments of my life. Even weeks later, all I could see was that look on her face. I knew I needed to move on, needed to move out and get away from everything that reminded me of her. My father wasn’t happy about the decision. He kept insisting that I needed to be there for when she came back.” She winced, giving him a terrible suspicion where this was leading.
“She was never coming back. I’d convinced myself of it, but not him. I—I decided that there was only one way he’d ever see the true light about her. I’d have to shine it, bright and glaring. So I began following her, building up my case. When I had enough evidence to nail her, I laid it all out for him. Needless to say it didn’t go well.”
“And that’s where I came in.” The scumbag almost sounded proud of his role in the whole tragedy.
“You fucker. You took advantage of them both.” His fury returning to the forefront, Logan stormed forward.
“I’m merely a facilitator. Humans are entirely capable of destroying themselves without my assistance.”
Logan took a swing, but the bastard vanished. Clarissa tumbled into his arms and he hugged her tight, burying his face in her hair. “Rissa.” He choked on the sorrow jackknifing in his throat.
“It’s okay. I don’t regret the decision I’ve made. Just like I…” She clutched him, her hands trembling. “I don’t regret falling in love with you.”
He’d waited a lifetime to hear those words. Her saying them now was bittersweet. He bracketed her face with his palms, his eyes searching hers. “Then stay. I need you, Rissa. I’m fuckin’ beggin’ you.”
“It’s too late.”
“No. We’ll find a way to get you out of this contract. Whatever it takes.”
“I love you,” she repeated, her lips trembling. One hand left his waist and stroked his cheek before she settled her mouth on his. Her kiss felt precious and fragile, as if it would be the last they’d ever share.
He refused to believe it. Refused to believe he was losing her. A massive shudder shook around them, and he opened his eyes just as the walls of the house began ascending. The sight left him frozen, unable to comprehend what was happening. Clarissa cupped his jaw, and he jerked his gaze to her.
Regret and sorrow clouded her eyes. “Goodbye.”
“Rissa.”
Her entire body bucked before slumping into his arms. The house suddenly vanished around them, leaving him standing in a vacant field, clutching her lifeless body.
Chapter Twenty
Thanks to the amount of shaking his hands were doing on the steering wheel, he wasn’t entirely sure how he managed not to crash the Miata. Probably the only thing that kept him on the road was his determination to get Clarissa to her sisters and her soul back to her body. He roared into the coven house’s drive, squealing to a stop in front of the porch. Jumping from the vehicle, he raced to the passenger door and hoisted Clarissa’s limp form into his arms. He ran into the house, calling for help at the top of his lungs.
Constance and Fiona came jogging from the parlor. They paid his nudity no mind, instead their eyes going huge at the sight of Clarissa. Both witches rushed forward, but Fiona was the first to speak. “What happened?” she demanded, grabbing Clarissa’s deadweight arm.
How did you go about explaining someone’s soul had been ripped from their body? Hell if he knew, so he blabbered out every piece of the story, hoping there was some part in there that would offer Fiona and Constance a clue as to what to do next. Both witches took everything he’d heaped on them in stride, but he didn’t like the uncertainty lurking in their eyes.
“You’re gonna bring her back,” he insisted, convinced that the desperation in his voice would make it so.
“Neither of us has any experience with soul retrievals,” Constance finally admitted, her face on the verge of crumpling.
“Then find someone who fuckin’ does.”
Fiona’s teeth worried her bottom lip. “That’s not something you can just look up in the Yellow Pages. I’m not sure it’s even possible in this case.”
“Why the hell not?”
Fiona met his steady stare for a moment before averting her gaze. “You said this…thing…almost has some kind of fixation on Clarissa.”
“Yeah. What’s that got to do with anything? He’s a fuckin’ monster that I’m gonna annihilate. End of story.”
Constance sighed, apparently in response to his tirade. “I think what Fiona is trying to say is that the psycho won’t want to give Clarissa up without a fight.”
“Fine. Let him bring it.”
Fiona’s soft exhale matched Constance’s. “We don’t even know what we’re dealing with. It’s virtually impossible to fight an invisible enemy.”
“That sounds like quitter talk,” he bit out. “After everything this woman has ever done for you—for this coven—you’re gonna just throw your hands up and admit defeat? Let her die?”
Fiona recoiled from his harsh words like he’d struck her. “She’s my coven sister. We’re here for each other, no matter what. Hell will freeze over before I let her die.”
“Good. Then get on the horn with the guild and every other group you can think of so we can start devisin’ a plan to get her back to us.” Yeah, he was barking out orders like he was Patton or something, but he had to do something—anything—to keep his rising helplessness at bay.
Leaving Constance and Fiona to get the ball rolling on their end, he carried Clarissa upstairs to her room and settled her on the bed before climbing in beside her. He tenderly smoothed the hair from her face and kissed her lips. They were warm, and he could feel the soft, even flow of her breaths. Looking at her, it was so easy to believe she was merely sleeping and would wake with the merest nudge.
He knew that wasn’t the case though. From the moment she’d collapsed, he’d tried endless times to stir her. Stretching onto his side, he bundled her close to him, nestling her cheek against his drumming heart. If there was any light left in his world, she would hear the desperate beat of his pulse calling her home.
“Sweet Clarissa.”
She opened her eyes, the seductive singsong voice echoing around her. Twinkling pinpoints of light glimmered overhead. They winked briefly before shooting away. She pushed up from the patch of parched earth she’d been curled upon and glanced about. A foreign landscape stretched as far as she could see, bathed in a strange sort of twilight.
What was this place?
The inky outline of an enormous tree drew her attention. It seemed to be the only living thing on the horizon. She set off to investigate. As she drew closer, it became clear that even the tree had been stripped of life. She traced the deep grooves in the dried husk of its trunk, the utter silence of the oak’s spirit creating a deep well of sadness within her.
“Alas, not all things can thrive here,” a sibilant voice whispered.
She spun, her gaze meeting Envy’s. The creature’s eyes were darker than usual, seeming to recede into the twilight. Her focus returned to the barrenness surrounding them. “You brought me here to die.”
“No. Back there, you are dying. But here? Here you will be eternal.”
The sinister stillness of their vacuum-like void made Envy’s voice inordinately loud. She was suddenly acutely aware that they were the only ones standing on this desolate plain. “Where are the others?”
“Keeping the home fires burning, so to speak.”
She was instantly reminded of the oily lake
of fire, and shivered. “You’re torturing all those innocent souls. Stripping them to the bone, just like this tree.”
“Sweet Clarissa, the revulsion in your voice wounds me. Those so-called innocent souls you speak of are getting no less than what they deserve. What they’ve sought from the very beginning of their useless, pathetic existence.”
“Will that be my fate as well? Burning for my sins?”
“No. You are special. I will keep you at my side for as long as I wish it.”
And once you no longer wish it? The unspoken question elicited an icy sluice of fear. She shook off the sensation, determined not to let it get the best of her. The creature’s twisted logic regarding those condemned souls brought her determination to defeat Seven back to the forefront.
She would kill this monster, even if it took the complete destruction of her soul to do it.
The odd assembly of lights she’d noticed earlier returned, glowing with a bright intensity that beckoned. Transfixed, she reached toward the sky. An angry hiss came from Envy, and the creature snatched her hand. “It’s time for us to leave, sweet Clarissa.”
Giving the sky one last glance, she allowed Envy to tug her away from those comforting lights.
Chapter Twenty-One
Fiona knocked on the doorframe before entering Clarissa’s bedroom. She plunked a plate of sandwiches on the dresser, her expression stern. “You haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours. Starving yourself won’t help her.”
He eyed the food, his stomach growling. Truthfully, he hadn’t given much thought to anything beyond Clarissa. But Fiona was right. Going this long without sustenance was unnatural—and dangerous for a shifter whose metabolism required more protein and energy than most. Reluctantly leaving Clarissa’s side, he strode to the dresser and picked up the roast beef sandwich, gobbling it down without really registering its taste. From the moment Clarissa had been taken from him, life had stopped consisting of flavors or anything else that’d once brought him pleasure and happiness.
