Varina sat up on her elbows to examine the rest of her new body. She was dressed in the last clothes she remembered putting on, but they were absent the bloodstains she’d have expected. She knew she’d been in bad shape—even if she hadn’t braved a look, the terror in Campbell’s eyes had been enough to convince her. Yet now, she felt fine. Better than fine, even. The pain that had chased her into unconsciousness seemed far from her, a nightmare rather than reality.
A grunt to her right broke the illusion of solitude. Varina inhaled and twisted around, only to have her heart drop to her stomach.
Campbell was half in and half out of a chair he’d planted by her bed, his head bent at an angle that couldn’t be comfortable. His clothes were frayed and spattered with dark splotches of blood, as were his hands and what she could see of his neck and face. The rugged whiskers that peppered his chin and jaw were thicker, his cheeks somewhat sunken and his hair mussed. A large red gash stretched across his wrist, triggering something buried under fog in her mind. It didn’t take long to unearth—the pieces, once presented, fell quickly into place.
Varina slipped off the mattress to the floor, marveling at the fluidity of her movements. Nothing felt off or wrong, rather amplified. The way her legs worked, the feel of the air against her skin—changes minute enough to keep from overwhelming, but significant enough to appreciate.
She knelt beside Campbell, between his splayed legs and placed her hands on his either knee. Her chest tightened as she looked at him, took in the new lines around his face, the worry that remained etched in every expressive feature, even in sleep. She knew what was coming—what he must have thought. It was written plainly across his face.
Varina pressed her lips together and squeezed his knees. “Campbell.”
He moaned and twitched, but didn’t awaken.
She began stroking his calves. “Campbell,” she said, louder. “I think you’d be more comfortable in a bed.”
At that, he murmured something in response and rolled his head. She was just about to continue when his eyes opened.
It took a moment for the sleep to clear away. The first thing he did was smile lazily as though they had just dozed off.
Then he bolted upright so hard the chair lurched forward. Relief and fear ate up the lines of exhaustion on his face, and he clearly didn’t know which to give the floor.
“Varina.” He made her name sound like a prayer. “You’re awake. You woke up. You’re… Are you okay? Does it hurt? I don’t know what to do, but I can find something— There has to—”
Varina pushed herself to her knees and cut him off with a kiss. He went rigid, trembling, then melted. His mouth tore at hers with unabashed hunger, small whimpers rumbling through his chest that sounded almost like sobs. He buried his fingers in her hair and drew her up to him, and for the first time in what felt like centuries, her world was whole. Campbell kissed with his entire being, equal parts desperate and reverent. Like he wanted to stamp her taste onto himself. Like he feared this wouldn’t last.
Her hands found his shoulders. “Campbell—” she gasped between kisses.
“Mmm?” He didn’t bother pulling up.
It took a few pushes, but she managed to forge some distance. “I…I need to tell you something.”
At that, his face fell. “Oh.”
“I love you.”
A long moment stretched between them, during which he stared, dumbstruck. Finally, he said, “What?”
“I love you.” Varina offered a soft smile. “I…I wasn’t sure you got that earlier.”
“I…” Another long silence, then he broke off, running a hand through his already haggard hair. “I wasn’t going to hope that you meant it. It didn’t seem you could have meant it, after what I did to you. After… I know that was terrible.”
“Yeah, it was.” Varina held her breath a moment, somehow managing to ignore the flash of pain in her chest. “I’m not going to pretend that didn’t hurt. It did. A lot.”
He flinched. “I know—”
“I don’t know if you can ever really know how much it hurt. It…” She looked away, a lump forming in her throat. “Not because you don’t feel. Not because it doesn’t matter to you. Just because…it’s mine. Trusting you was the hardest thing I’ve done, and the easiest, which scared the shit out of me.” Varina inhaled and forced herself to meet his gaze. “I loved you before. It was because I loved you that it hurt so much. But I know… I know you didn’t mean to. I know it wasn’t done to hurt. I know you probably felt you didn’t have a choice. I don’t know how I would’ve reacted if you’d been straight with me from the start. Assuming I didn’t kick you out, I know I wouldn’t have let you get as close as I did. I wouldn’t have let myself get close to a demon.”
“Not a demon,” Campbell said, his voice small.
In spite of herself, she smiled. “So…it hurt. I think it will for a while. But I love you. That doesn’t go away. No matter how… It doesn’t go away.”
A storm crossed his eyes, one that hurt to watch. He seemed to struggle for words, licked his lips and shifted. At length, he cleared his throat and began, “I have people I care about. Three sisters, three brothers.”
“And Campbell makes seven,” she said. “Ergo, the Seven Deadly Sins.”
“Right.” He inclined his head. “And their… The people they love. All of my sisters are in relationships with guys I don’t necessarily like—brother’s prerogative—but they are guys I can say I’d go to bat for, if it came down to it. And my brother Ira, he’s involved with a Virtue.”
Varina arched an eyebrow. “Like the Seven Virtues? Those exist too?”
Campbell lifted a shoulder. “Why not?” he retorted, as though he didn’t quite believe it himself. “I haven’t gotten a chance to really know them—my in-laws, or whatever they are. But they treat my sisters well, and I have no reason not to like Cassie—that’s the Virtue—except for her horrible taste in men. Outside my siblings and their partners, the list of people I give a shit about is short. Lucifer, of course, and maybe Pixley. That’s it.”
“Pixley? That’s a name?”
“It suits her. You’ll see what I mean.” The smile on his face looked pained. “I love them, I’m protective of them, and I’d kill anyone who tried to hurt them. But I don’t think… I’ve been a selfish bastard for centuries, and as much as I love them, I don’t think I have it in me to die for them.” He paused, and the smile—if one could call it that—melted just as quickly. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I know I wouldn’t die for them. I just don’t have that wiring, and I’ve always felt broken because of it. I like living too much. I like this world. I…”
Varina frowned, shifting her weight. There was so much in what he’d said, and even more that he wasn’t saying. The obvious being she knew it wasn’t true—at least not the way he thought it was true. Campbell was emotionally closed down at times, but she knew he felt deeply.
He’d offered his life for hers downstairs. Unless that had been a fluke, a sleight of hand she hadn’t known to look for, she was pretty sure he was full of crap.
As though hearing her thoughts, Campbell blew out a breath, shuddered hard and looked down. “It’s not like I sat around and thought about this. Like I made a decision that I love myself more than I love them. It’s not even that—it’s less that I love myself and more that… More that I’m a goddamned coward.”
“But—”
“The world nearly ended a few weeks ago. I’ve told you that much.” He swallowed. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you the whole thing if you want, but…”
A shadow darkened his face. Varina leaned forward and took his hand. “You don’t need to tell me anything right now,” she said. While she wanted the answers eventually, she knew better than to ask for them now.
“I do.”
“Campbell—”
“The kind of guy I am, Varina. I’m a coward.” He shook his head. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve liv
ed in years. Lucifer created us right after we were thought up by humankind, but time has a way of not registering when you have so much of it. We’re eternal, so we don’t think the way I imagine most humans do. At least I don’t. I don’t even think my siblings have any idea of how long we’ve lived. I hear them say two thousand years, and that seems too damn long and not long enough at the same time.” Campbell released a shaky breath. “In Rome a few weeks ago… Did you hear about the Colosseum?”
She nodded, images from newscasts flickering through her mind. Something about a huge disaster involving the destruction of one of the most iconic structures of the ancient world. Varina wasn’t one to follow worldwide news closely, but she did remember some of the images that had flashed on televisions across every dive bar she’d visited while doing her best to ignore the pull—both internally and externally—to return to Mount Zion.
“That was Hell Demons,” Campbell said. “And us. We were lured there. Lilith had captured my sister. We got there, all of us, and… There were so many of them.” He gave another hard tremble, and the light in his eyes brightened. “Lilith had been collecting Hell Demons. Releasing them and collecting them and when we were there, she set them on us. There were hundreds, maybe more. And only eleven of us. And I…” He broke off, breathing heavily, his hand going to his side.
His scar.
The pieces came together, and she understood.
“Until then, I’d never feared death,” Campbell continued a moment later. “I’ve never thought of it as being something to fear. I’m eternal. But that night… There were so many of them. And they were everywhere. All around me, then over me, then digging into me, and I saw the end of my eternity, and… And I’m a fucking coward. I can’t get that out of my head. I can’t stop seeing it. Feeling it. Every night I go back, and they’re always there, waiting to finish me off. And I’m terrified one night they will, even though—”
“Why are you telling me this?”
He jerked, the strange light in his eyes breaking at once. “What?”
“You have night terrors. This is the reason?”
He hesitated before nodding. “I can’t get it to stop.”
Varina licked her lips. “Why are you telling me?”
“I thought you wanted to know.”
“I did. I do. I just… Why now?”
“Because you deserve to know what I am. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known, and I…” His lower lip trembled and he stiffened, tearing his gaze away again. “I am terrified of dying. I thought that was the worst thing, and I keep seeing it. But after I met you… I’ve realized there’s the thing that scares me, and the thing that will kill me. Losing you to Legion would’ve killed me, especially if I had means to stop it.” He shuddered again, meeting her eyes once more. “So when I say I love you, Varina, that’s what I mean. I’m a fucking coward, but I’m a coward who loves you. I don’t know if that—”
Varina rose on her knees and kissed him, hard and full, swallowing his words and regret, and releasing the pain still lodged in her chest. There was more, she knew, that he wanted to tell her—maybe even needed to tell her, but she didn’t need to hear it. Everything she needed was right here. And perhaps the future was uncertain, but for the first time in her life, she wasn’t facing it alone.
That made it worth the risk.
When she pulled away, she couldn’t help but laugh at the somewhat dazed look on his face. “Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?” she teased, nudging her lips with his.
He shook his head. “You’re the first.”
“Well, you do.”
A wry grin played with his mouth before falling, the haunted look returning to his face. “I never want to hurt you again.”
“So don’t.”
“But I don’t know myself. I’m not who I thought I was.”
“No one ever is. Not really.” Varina kissed him again. He smelled of blood and sweat, but he tasted like home. “But here’s one thing I’m sure about—you’re not a coward. That’s a lie your brain is telling you. You couldn’t have done what you did for me if it were true.”
“That wasn’t bravery. I was scared shitless.”
“Yeah. So was I.” She pulled back just enough to meet his gaze. “I learned a long time ago that being afraid is a normal part of being alive. That as long as I felt fear, I cared enough about myself to want to keep living. And I am scared a lot—I’m scared now, of whatever’s coming next. Of what I am, what I became. Of living forever.” She paused. “Even of you.”
A flash of raw pain seized Campbell’s face. “I—”
“I know,” Varina said. “But I can’t help it. I don’t know if it’ll ever go away, but loving you is…dangerous. It scared me before and it scares me now, but I trust that you love me too, so I’m going to try to trust you not to hurt me again, even if a part of me thinks I’m being an idiot.”
At that, Campbell lurched forward, his hands going to her face. He searched her eyes for a moment, then kissed her, hard and frantic. His whiskers abraded her skin as his tongue caressed hers. Varina tunneled her fingers through his hair and held him to her, her chest swelling. There was so much in his kiss—fear, desperation, remorse, need and the drive to prove himself, if only to her. She could have been imagining it, but she didn’t think so. Every part of him, for the first time, was stripped and on display, and he was giving it to her. Demanding she see him and terrified of how she might react.
Finally, he broke away, his expression somewhat crazed, his chest heaving with the force of his breaths. “I won’t hurt you,” Campbell swore. “Ever again. I won’t.”
Varina offered a small smile. “That’s…that’s very… I love you for saying that, and I know you mean it, but that’s sorta unenforceable. We can’t predict the future.” She frowned. “Unless that’s one of my special powers. Is it?”
He shook his head. “Fine. Then I promise you the truth. Always. No matter what, you’ll have the truth from me.”
“Cam—”
“I can control that. What I tell you when you ask—that is something I can give.”
Her heart did a funny jump as the rest of her searched for the catch, but there was none. Honesty was something he could offer outright. He might not be able to prevent the truth from hurting—no one could—but having the truth, trusting him to give it, was something she knew she needed.
“Okay,” Varina agreed. “Then I have a question.”
“Anything.”
“Why did Legion call you Superbia?”
Campbell’s face fell. “This is a test, isn’t it?”
“You really think I didn’t notice that?”
“No, I was just hoping you’d have forgotten or didn’t care enough to ask.” He scrubbed a hand down his face, inhaled, then offered a short nod. “Lucifer named us—the Sins—the Latinate words for the sins we represent. Superbia is Latinate for pride.”
“So your real name’s Superbia?”
“That’s a way of looking at it.”
Varina arched an eyebrow. “What’s another way?”
He hesitated. “There is no other way.”
“Where does Campbell come from, then?”
A long, tortured sigh rode off his lips. “Do you really need to know this?”
“I let you turn me into something other than human and we’re probably going to be together a long time. I think I need to know your name, or why you don’t go by it.”
Campbell huffed again before straightening his shoulders as though steeling himself. “This is dumb,” he warned her. “My brothers and sisters all go by their real names, but shortened. Well, Ira and Gula don’t because you can’t really shorten those names. But my sisters are Avaritia, Luxuria, and Invidia. They go by Ava, Luxi, and Invi. My brother, Acedia, goes by Ace. So…when I was younger, I wanted to go by…well, Super.”
Varina couldn’t help it. She snorted. “Super?”
He raised his chin. “Yes.”
“
Wow.”
“Well, my asshole brothers didn’t like that. So they started calling me Sue, then Supe.” Campbell looked away, his jaw tightening. “Supe stuck for a while, actually. Until the late 1800s.”
“What happened in the 1800s?”
There was nothing for a moment. “Don’t make me say it.”
Varina pinched him. “Spill or I start calling you Supey.”
He looked at her with wide, horror-filled eyes. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wanna try me?”
“I…” He stared at her a moment longer as though weighing his options, then finally gave a long sigh and hung his head in defeat. “Campbell’s Soup.”
Varina blinked. “What?”
“The soup company. Campbell’s? It was formed in the 1800s. My brothers had been calling me Supe for years. It’s one of those sibling things, I guess. The more you protest a name, the longer it stays attached to you.” He released a breath. “So I got my sister, Invi, to call me Campbell in front of them once, and I threw a huge stink to see if it’d take. It did. I had to keep up the act for a few years, but eventually, I just was Campbell. To everyone.”
“You…you named yourself after soup.”
“I was just soup for a long time. I wanted—”
“Cam…oh my god.” And she couldn’t help it—a bubble of laughter popped within her, and she was lost. Varina rocked back, her entire body trembling with the effort to keep upright, but she lost the battle and wound up on the floor, hard, damn near painful peals of laughter ripping through her mouth.
It occurred to her, as she lay back recovering, that this was what happiness felt like. No dark underbelly, no waiting for the crash—just free-floating joy.
Every day could be like this. From here on out.
Varina heard Campbell move, but didn’t open her eyes until she felt his arms sliding beneath her. Then she was in the air, cradled to his chest, and he was walking toward the door with intent.
“Where are we going?”
Deliverance from Sin: A Demonic Paranormal Romance (Sinners & Saints Book 5) Page 29
