by Michele Hauf
“I have faery blood that traces back five generations,” she explained. “It’s dormant in the recent generations, but we still tend toward some physical anomaly associated with the sidhe. My great-grandmother’s eyes were violet. And my grandmother is half faery. But that’s not a truth Rook needs to worry about.”
“Isn’t it?” Oz stepped closer, and she shuffled against the wall, fearing the horns. “I will not hurt you, Verity. If either of us were capable of causing you harm, it would likely be Rook, not me.”
“Rook would never hurt me.”
“Not purposefully. He cares about you. I am impressed at his capability to love.”
“Why?”
“Why not? The man is without a soul.”
“Does lack of soul imply an inability to love?”
“It should. I give him the emotion and caring he requires to exist.”
Interesting. As dangerous as it felt to have him stand so close to her, she was warming to the demon. He was handsome in a weird way because parts of him resembled Rook—she even picked up the tobacco-peach scent of her lover, albeit tangled within a slight sulfurous odor—yet Oz was his own entity.
“So about Rook being friends with a vamp—”
The demon put up an admonishing hand. “I will not play your silly game of twenty questions. If you have something to ask of him, you will do so directly.”
Oz had been there when they’d played strip twenty questions. Verity wanted to hide her face until she recalled that the demon knew many more intimate things about her than how she answered questions.
“Now. There is more within that you hide.”
The demon leaned forward, sniffing at her skin, moving his face so close she worried again about the horns. And when he glided down to sniff at her neck, she felt her nipples grow hard and hated herself for that reaction.
“Watch it, buddy. I’m Rook’s girl.”
“Do not flatter yourself, witch.” The demon’s eyes glowed red at her. “I am not interested. I am a married man with a baby on the way.”
“You’re a—how is that possible?”
“I make good use of my twenty-four hours of freedom a month.”
“That’s why Rook wants his soul,” she guessed. “If he gets it back, you get freedom. And what could be more important than you having the freedom to be with your family?”
“Exactly. I must be there for the birth of my child. It is any day now. I will not be denied that joy. Rook and I have been companions for centuries. I have never disputed our connection or tried to force him to seek his soul, until now, when I have a purpose to freedom. You had the soul.”
“It was stolen. But Rook knows that.”
“Ah!” Oz reared from her, his body stiffening and his fingers arching into claws at his thighs. He stood with knees bent, as if ready to charge or perhaps in defense. “Now that was interesting.”
“What?” Verity couldn’t imagine what he may have seen in her, but his reaction frightened her.
The demon dodged to the bedside table for the notebook and pen Rook kept there. Oz scribbled a word on the paper and turned it to show her. When she almost spoke it out loud, he put up a finger to stop her.
He didn’t want Rook to hear their conversation?
The word he’d written was vampire. So he wanted to talk about what he’d admonished her not to discuss—no. He’d seen that inside her? Hell.
Verity nodded to confirm his suspicion.
He wrote something else. The spell did not work?
She shook her head no.
“Four days until the full moon. You had better find that soul, witch, and let Rook take out the vampire who stole it or—” The demon opened his mouth wide to reveal fangs.
Verity stumbled backward, but Oz came at her with his mouth wide, as if a vampire lunging in for her neck. The demon stopped with his mouth only inches from her throat and chuckled out deep and syrupy laughter.
“Get away from me!” She shoved at his chest, but he did not move. Hard and as solid as the statue she had once compared her lover to. “Bring Rook back.”
“I’m not finished with you yet.” He grabbed her wrist and placed his palm against her chest as Rook had done that first night he’d found her huddled by the wall after the attack. “Something is blocking Rook from seeing your truths, and I will find that—” The demon hissed and swore, “Bloody Beneath and all the demons in Daemonia.”
Oz exploded away from her and snarled as if defending himself against an aggressor.
“What?” Verity pleaded. She pressed both her palms to her chest, only feeling her rapid heartbeats. “Tell me!”
Oz stretched back his shoulders, flexing the insane muscles that wrapped his torso. Her lover’s torso. Oh, she wanted Rook back!
“You have an old soul,” the demon said.
“Well, yes, but—why does that freak you out? Reincarnated souls are nothing new. I’ve told Rook about it.”
“But yours is…familiar.”
“How so?”
“Describe it. What do you know about it? Tell me, witch!”
“My—my mother,” Verity hastened out, “she always said I was gifted the soul of a witch who died two deaths. That can’t possibly—”
The demon shook his head and lashed out at nothing before him. He growled and beat at his chest, fighting…himself?
“Rook?” Verity called. “Is he trying to return?”
Oz stumbled across the room and slammed his back against the window frame. A horn clacked the window, cracking it. With one last growl, he fell to his knees and bowed his head. Horns receded into his skull. His hair shifted and changed to Rook’s brown with gray salting above the ears. His body changed minutely, claws retracting and muscles rippling to encompass the slightly altered body shape.
And then he was simply Rook. A man, panting and huffing, hands to the floor before him.
He looked up at Verity and cried, “Marianne?”
* * *
Coming back from Oz always disoriented him. Rook could never manage to stay on his feet while the demon receded into him, the subtle shifts in the demon’s body conforming to Rook’s physicality. His mouth went dry. His ears rang. And the horns—it hurt like hell when those things spiraled back and screwed into his brain.
He collapsed against the wall, catching his palms against the ancient flocked paper. Inertia forced him to land in a sprawl. But what he’d heard Verity confess may have been the greatest reason for his inability to stand.
She was the reincarnated soul of a witch who had died twice?
In his lifetime he’d known one witch who had fit that description.
“Rook?” Heels clicking across the parquet, Verity knelt before him. She touched his shoulder gently. He shivered and winced against the last biting twists in his brain. “What is it?”
He clasped her hands, anchoring himself. Staring into her eyes, he hated that he still could not read her and that Oz had achieved such an intimate connection with her.
But he also came to a strange realization: If she were the reincarnation of Marianne, had his former wife somehow protected him from seeing Verity’s truths?
“For what reason?” he asked aloud.
“Rook? Are you okay? You said a name.”
He bracketed her face, studying the details of her warm, rosy skin, her narrow, deep violet eyebrows, her perfect nose and open mouth. Scented like sugar and roses. Nothing similar to what he remembered of Marianne. His wife had been fair and seemingly frail but strong, so strong. Her eyes had been pale blue, her lips barely pink. Freckles had dotted her nose and high on her cheeks.
Everything about Verity was bold and lushly tinted with rose and violet. Yet…could she truly be a reincarnation of Marianne?
“Who are you?�
�� he pleaded.
“You’re scaring me, Rook. I don’t know what to say to you.”
“Oz saw your truth.”
“Yes. But I didn’t think it was anything remarkable. My hair—I told you it was natural.”
“Yes, part faery. That’s not it.”
“The vampire bite.” She looked down, her face still in his hands. “I didn’t want to tell you because—”
Yes, he recalled that strange exchange now. Oz had attempted to hide it from him, but he’d seen the demon write on the paper. “You should have told me, Verity. You think you’ll transform to vampire?”
“I don’t know. I thought everything was fine until it became obvious it was not. The spell didn’t work. I’m frightened. I didn’t know how to ask for your help. My mother said to never trust any man, and yet my grandmother—oh. That’s not important right now. But you are intent on finding the vampire who attacked me, so I have to leave my fate in your hands.” She stroked the hair over his ear, her blue-violet eyes glinting with worry. “That’s not what’s troubling you, is it?”
He released her and pressed his bare shoulders against the wall, looking aside. If Oz were still out it would have made this easier. Oz spoke the truth always and with such ease. The demon had been right; he was the one who gave Rook his emotion. Oz handled emotion with skill and élan, never angering or blowing his cool, as Rook often did.
“We will discuss you and the bite,” he said.
“Yes, we should.”
“I cannot abide you becoming vampire,” he hissed.
“Of course not.” She bowed her head and studied her fingers, entwined in a nervous twist. “I don’t want that either. I’d sooner die.”
Eyeing her sternly, he wished the fact that she had been bitten and feared transformation was the only thing he had to worry about. Hell. If he didn’t kill the vamp who had bitten her before the full moon, she could change to vampire. They had, what, three or four days until the full moon? How could she have let it go so long?
“Who is Marianne?” she asked.
Tilting his head back and closing his eyes, Rook thought about pushing Verity away. Telling her to get out, to leave him in his newly dredged-up misery. How dare she bring this back to him?
But she couldn’t know the events that had pushed him toward the Order so many centuries in his past.
He offered quietly, “She is the witch I told you I had watched burn at the stake. She was…” he lifted his head to look directly into her tearing eyes “…a witch who died twice.”
Fingers flying to her mouth, Verity gasped. The tears spilled down her cheeks, and Rook thumbed a hot droplet away. He pressed his thumb to his finger and squeezed the salty drop. When had he ever shed a tear for Marianne?
You have never had the ability to show your pain in such a manner. It is not a weakness.
Sometimes he hated that Oz was there.
“But that can’t be,” she started.
“How do you know you are the reincarnation of such a witch?” he asked.
“My mother always said it. She knew things like that. Same as when I told you I knew about people and their place in the world.”
“Still never fathered a child,” he offered but couldn’t find the lightness that should have accompanied that comment.
“Yes, well, my mother always thought it was strange. I mean, a witch who died twice? How can you die twice? But that’s why she knew it to be true because no one could make up a thing like that. And she never doubted her intuition.”
He nodded. It was a damned insane thing to die twice. But possible. He knew it as he knew the blood that coursed through his veins was tainted with demon blood. Marianne had died twice.
Because of him.
Chapter 14
“Who was this witch?”
Pressing his hands over his face, Rook inhaled, taking a moment to calm himself. To let his breath spill out unfettered. Because he must. He must tell someone. He had chained the agony within his heart for too long.
“My wife,” he said on an achy gasp.
“Oh, my goddess,” Verity whispered. Kneeling between his legs, because he still sat on the floor, she touched his knee. “When were you married to her?”
“Fifteen eighty six. When I was young and mortal. I served King Henri IV in the light horseback cavalry. They called us carbineers. We were married only five years. I didn’t believe in witchcraft back then. And Marianne was a witch.”
“Did she convince you?”
“Yes. But only after summoning demons as a boastful answer to my constant insistence that she was nothing more than a product of her own beliefs.”
“Witches are real,” Verity whispered.
“I know that. But in the sixteenth century, most tended to believe that women who thought they had powers were either in league with the devil or had created the scenario in their own troubled minds.”
“What of witch hunters? Didn’t they have them back then?”
“Yes, but they also believed more in the mental state of the women than that they could possess actual supernatural powers. Or else, that they were demon possessed because of their alliance with the devil Himself.”
He caught his head in his hands. Did he want to get into this now? He had things to do, like find Slater and the vampire who had bitten Verity.
You tell her all now. Or you will never earn her trust. It is a difficult issue for her. Marianne needs you to do this.
“Get the fuck out,” Rook muttered.
That is what I am trying to achieve. Freedom. With trust, the witch will act as bait for the vampire who took your soul. If you care about her, you must tell her everything.
“You talking to Oz?” she asked.
Rook nodded. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right. Was Oz one of the demons your wife summoned to prove to you she was a witch?”
“Good guess.”
“Will you tell me about it? I want to know how Oz got stuck inside you and…how your wife died twice.” The stroke of her fingers along his cheek felt too tender, yet it was all he wanted. “If you trust me?”
Did he trust her? She’d not told him about the spell not working against the bite. Had it been fear that kept her silent, or was it lack of trust? He was already in pursuit of Clas, but had he known Verity’s condition, he would not have relented until the vamp was ash.
He had to get out there, find that bastard and shove titanium through the vampire’s chest.
Not yet. You do trust her. She is all you have right now.
That wasn’t correct. Always, he had King. But he and King had not discussed Marianne in centuries. King knew it was Rook’s cross to bear. And he’d dragged that burden through deep channels all his life.
He pulled Verity close and turned her to sit against his chest and between his legs. Wrapping his arms around her, he clasped her hands in front of them and kissed the side of her neck. She smelled like macarons. That made him smile briefly. If only the world could fade into violet hair and macaron kisses. Easier that way.
Get on with it!
Very well. He owed Oz this confession.
“Marianne had her sights set on controlling demons without the use of a familiar. It’s difficult for any witch to accomplish, and few nowadays can do such a thing, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“That is the familiar’s principal task—to assist a witch in the summoning of a demon.”
“Exactly. But Marianne loved animals so much she couldn’t allow herself to use a familiar in such a manner, even though they are classified as shapeshifters and not true animals. One evening she managed the summoning on her own, though it quickly got out of hand. She had conjured a rage of demons from Daemonia, a great swirl of blackness that rose above our cottage situa
ted on the outskirts of Paris, very near the Bois de Boulogne.”
At mention of the park, she twisted to look at him.
“I’ll get to that,” he said.
It was going to hurt like hell to dredge up all this stuff from memory. Long ago buried, literally and mentally, Rook wanted to do this as much as Oz wanted to remain inside him.
Yet he also wanted Verity’s trust. And perhaps even her love.
“Most of the demons escaped Marianne’s control. Neither of us knew what happened with them. Some were corporeal, so we assumed they walked the mortal realm, whereas the incorporeal ones, well, they may have found a human host. One dashed through me and got stuck. Asatrú. A truth demon.”
You see? You are finally embracing your truths. Good boy, Rook.
“An annoying truth demon,” Rook felt inclined to add. “It was after witnessing that incredible display, and knowing a demon roiled within me, that I had no choice but to believe Marianne was a witch. She apologized for the magic gone wrong. She guessed it was because of the pregnancy—she was soon to give birth—that her magic had been so difficult to keep in hand. And the next few days would become the blackest days of my and her life.”
Verity pulled his hands up and kissed them, holding him tightly. The heat of her tears spilled over his skin.
Succumbing to the cool wash of memory that flooded his thoughts, Rook whispered, “Some memories haunt me vividly…”
Paris, 1592
She had suffered quietly through the day, fingers clenching the bed clothes and only taking the water Giles offered from the pewter cup in small sips. They called it labor for a reason, she’d said at one point.
But now Giles was worried. Her skin and hair were soaked. The bedclothes were wet from her laborious exertions. A strong woman who would never show others her pain, she was barely holding on now. Her waters had gushed out early this morning. It was now twilight, and the babe had yet to even move. Or so Marianne had said after probing over her stomach with her fingers.
“He’s stubborn,” she whispered.
Always, she managed that small smile of reassurance. And she was sure the child was a boy and said he would grow up like his father, stubborn yet fierce.
