"You can't avoid this, Kate. We need to talk this through."
I didn't want to talk. I was doing fine. Just fine. Give me a little more time - a few centuries - and I could come to terms with his deception.
Right now, it was too raw. Too new. Too devastating.
"Just leave." His presence alone was breaking down my defenses. I could feel his body heat. Breathe his earthy smell. My fingers itched to touch his skin.
Even his sin, tattooed in plain sight over his shoulder and arm, beckoned me. His horrible, deceptive sin. A part of him. The cause of my heartache.
It always responded to my touch. Wrapping itself around my hands as if to bind me to it. As if it wanted me.
His sin didn't just twist a person's desires, turn them against themselves. It attacked their hidden vulnerabilities.
It made an outcast witch feel wanted.
A curse capable of overcoming.
A half bred feel whole.
His bit off snarl was the only warning I received. In seconds I was shoved up against the wall. Strong arms wrapped around my thighs and pulled me up, spread my hips. Ash pressed his hips in between mine. Pinning me to the wall.
He moved one hand under my ass and tilted me so we were groin to groin. His hard heat pressing right up against me.
He slid his other hand into my hair and pulled my head back. Then he kissed me.
Hard.
He didn't try to cajole or seduce his way in. No. He took what he wanted. He bit my lower lip and thrust his tongue in when I gasped.
Fierce. Dominant. And desperate.
I could feel it under my hands, in his tightly knotted muscles. In the way he gripped my hair.
He stroked and explored my mouth, leaving nothing untouched, demanding things I wasn't ready to give.
His hand on my ass squeezed and I moaned. I felt his body relax slightly at the sound.
I shoved at his chest. Ash lifted his head, pulling my lower lip into his mouth before he moved away.
"Don't fight me, Kate." He pressed a kiss into my temple. "I never meant to hurt you. I've wanted you from the moment I saw you."
Don't fight him? He hadn't meant to hurt me? He wanted me?
He was killing me.
He'd said this before. I'd pushed him away and told everyone I was fine. I could deal.
I wasn't fine. I was the complete opposite of fine.
Ash had broken my heart. Ripped it apart and played me for the fool.
Everything I'd been pushing down, welled up. All the hurt, the pain, the insecurities, the fears, the denials and finally the tears. The stupid, wishy-washy and healing tears.
My entire body shook with the force of the sobs.
I cried as if my heart had just been broken all over again.
I lost track of time. Lost awareness of where I was. Didn't know where Ash was. Didn't care. I cried because I needed to. Because I was afraid and hurt. Because I finally could.
I didn't remember the sobs ending. The tears stopping. Didn't know how long I cried.
I heard a strong heart beating under my ear. Steady and unrelenting. I felt strong, powerful arms holding me to a large, hard chest. My legs propped over one of his, my entire body held and supported by his.
And heat. Warm, inviting, comforting heat.
He'd held me like this before. I'd been attacked and beaten all to hell and Ash had held me to him, like I was something precious he didn't want to lose.
It wasn't his sin. His sin acted on my desires, not his. Ash had wanted to hold me. He'd wanted to comfort me, help heal me in any way he could. And when I'd healed myself, he had simply held me.
Without agenda, without making a move, without anything, but his desire to keep me close.
Just like now.
I didn't know how to fight this. Wasn't sure I wanted to.
He'd confessed. Admitted his sin, his bargain with my scary aunt and his true past. I'd pushed him away ever since. Unwilling to listen, to open myself back up to him. Afraid.
And he kept coming back. He had lost his bargaining chip in me. Ash held me now because he wanted to. Because he'd hurt me and that hurt him.
Ash might be a demon, the King of Demons, but he wasn't bad. He wasn't cruel or evil. It had changed him when his father killed his mother. She'd loved him. More than likely the only being ever to do so given the structure of the demon realm.
His father had taken that away.
And Ash had found a way to leave the demon realm permanently.
I could understand that.
I'd been in search of love and my own happily-ever-after for as long as I could remember. There wasn't much I wouldn't do to find that happiness. If offered a chance to achieve my dream, would I have turned it down?
It didn't excuse him, or his not-quite-full truths. I still hurt. I wasn't ready to forgive him.
But I could understand.
It was a start.
Ash's arms tightened around me. Pulled me in as close as he could. His chin dropped to rest on the top of my head.
"Be mad at me. Hate me. But don't leave me, Kate. I know I should have told you the truth." His chest swelled under me. "I was afraid. And then when I realized why Morgause wanted to find you, I was even more afraid." He squeezed me so tightly I could barely breathe. "I've never been afraid before. All I wanted was to find a way to keep you safe. I'd do anything to keep you safe."
It hit me suddenly that he had. I'd been so caught up in my own heartache, I hadn't seen it.
I wedged my hands between us and pushed. Ash loosened his hold cautiously, as if afraid I might try to escape.
I looked up at him. "You said you made a bargain with Morgause?" Ash nodded. "What happens if you don't keep that bargain?"
Ash stiffened. "It's forfeited."
"You mean, you have to stay in hell."
"Yes."
Well, shit.
I might have been making some progress in healing and understanding, but if Ash couldn't leave hell, we were still doomed as a couple.
21. Forget Progress.
I walked slowly up the stairs to my apartment. I didn't have it in me to move any faster.
I was caught. Trapped in the middle, unable to reach land or water. Dog paddling in stasis.
Any progress I might have made towards healing my relationship with Ash had ground to a complete halt. Even if I did forgive him, even if he did love me, what good was any of it if, in the end, we still couldn't be together?
I wasn't just between a rock and a hard place, I was caught between a scary aunt who wanted me dead and the demon love of my life with whom I couldn't have a relationship.
Every time I felt like I was making progress, I was flipped backwards. Hard.
It was enough to thoroughly depress a witch.
Ash had finally left. I'd dried up, thank the Spirits, and asked him to leave. He'd finally agreed. With the promise that he'd be back soon.
I didn't know why he would bother.
Ash couldn't leave hell. Not unless he handed me over to my aunt to be killed.
And I couldn't live in hell. As I witch, I needed sunlight, animals, nature. Hell had none of those things. It was hell. Barren, rocky, lifeless.
I'd end up dead, inside of a month, without the connection to nature.
I couldn't see any scenario in which I was involved with Ash and I lived through it. And a dead me sort of mooted the whole point of a relationship.
I refused to come back as a zombie. I'd tried matching a zombie once. Never again. Their partners could never get past the rotting flesh.
I wouldn't be able to get past my flesh rotting.
My happily-ever-after was in the toilet. Again. Swirling round and round.
I stopped at the top step and eyed my door.
I didn't want to face him. Call me a total Coward, but I didn't know if I had it in me. I didn't think he would gloat, Al loved me too much for that, but he'd resented Ash from the get go.
This would just be mo
re ammunition for him that we were meant to be together.
A cursed to Fail in Love witch and a Chihuahua who channeled the ghost of a New jersey mafia hit-man.
The perfect match.
I sighed, clenched my fingers around my key and decided to use my magic instead. I'd walked slowly, painfully so, up the stairs. There was a chance he hadn't heard me.
I cast three spells. One to unlock the door, one to silence it and one to swing it open.
The edge of the door missed his nose by a centimeter. If that.
"Ya tryin' to sneak in?"
For such a small dog with itty bitty teeth, he knew precisely how to narrow in on the kill zone.
"Ah . . ." I had nothing.
He tilted his head, blinked his eyes. I crumbled. Those wet, bulging eyes get me every single time.
"I'm sorry, Al." I leaned down and scooped him up, pressing my face into his neck. "I had a bad day." An awful, horrible, gut-wrenchingly depressing day. "I just want to sit with a glass of wine."
Or a couple of bottles of wine. The bottles sounded better.
"And ya don't want me around?"
Did his voice tremble? I tugged him closer, practically smothering myself in his smooth fur. I couldn't look him in the eye.
"No! That's not it." It sort of was, but I refused to hurt him anymore. "I'm not good for much conversation tonight."
I left it at that. I didn't know what else to say.
"What about Ass?"
There was a reason Al had been an excellent hit-man in his human mafia days. I knew he wasn't deliberately trying to hurt me. It was second nature for him to wound mortally every time.
I took a deep breath, inhaled his doggy musk and made myself pull back so I could look at him.
"A stupid wish." I opened my mouth to say something more, but my throat closed up. The words stuck in my chest, caught in the tangled mess that made up my life, my lost dreams and hopes.
The loneliness and fear stretching before me.
I pulled him close and wrapped my arms around him, hoping I could use his little body to help hold the pain inside.
"Doll?" He licked the back of my hand, tilted his head up.
I shook my head at him. I was beyond talking at this point. I didn't know any words that could describe the rawness inside of me. Like all my emotions had been scraped away, leaving nothing but exposed nerves and weeping blood.
I kissed his nose, went into the kitchen and grabbed the chilled bottle in my fridge. I didn't bother with a glass.
I pulled one of my deck chairs closer to the railing where the sun still beat steady. Tucking Al into my lap, I cast a spell and removed the cork.
My hand shook when I raised the bottle, but I ignored it.
If this was what I could expect from life - assuming I managed to survive my aunt - I needed to get used to it.
Set my hopes and wishes aside and deal with the reality in front of me. I had a successful business, great friends, Aunt Tabitha and my Chihuahua. It would have to be enough.
I'd get used to raw and bloody. I'd have to.
****
I woke the next morning. Actually, I opened my eyes. I hadn't slept. I'd given up around three and simply closed my eyelids.
I'd considered a spell, but for some reason I didn't have the energy to cast it or brew any tea with calming herbs.
In fact, not even the wine had done anything. I'd finished the entire bottle of chilled wine and had opened another one that hadn't been chilled, it was lukewarm at best and I managed to drink half of that bottle too.
It hadn't done anything except force me out of bed at one to brush my teeth and pee.
After locating Al under the covers near my hip, I rolled in the opposite direction so I wouldn't crush him. I grabbed clean underwear and pulled on a pair of jeans from my floor.
They were loose.
I stood there waiting for a burst of happiness, a desire to shake my booty in triumph, a feeling, any feeling.
Nothing. Nada. Zip.
I wasn't even raw.
I'd surpassed it. I was simply numb.
Despite consuming a bottle and a half of wine, no food and no hangover, I'd managed to actually lose a few pounds and I could have cared less.
I would have said I was an unhappy witch at that moment, but I wasn't. Just a numb one.
I finished dressing, pulled my curls into a high, utterly unruly ponytail and headed for the kitchen.
Al walked in as I finished my first cup.
"Did ya sleep at all, Doll?" He actually raised his lip when I shook my head no. "And I bet ya haven't had anything to eat, have ya?"
I decided it was best not to ask him if he meant the few minutes I'd been out of bed or the entire day yesterday.
"Ya can't keep going like this, Doll. It isn't good for ya."
I knew that. All too well.
My problem was, I didn't know what was good for me anymore.
22. Worries.
Aunt Tabs called shortly after I arrived at work. She didn't even bother to pretend she was calling for anything else.
"Al says you're a wreck."
I had a landline he could get to on the desk in my office. It was a push button and Al liked to call my Aunt as well as make the calls for our take out on the nights I didn't work.
He'd been a busy little Chihuahua that morning.
"I'm not great." I could admit that much. I racked my brain for something a little more comforting. "I did find a match for Snake yesterday."
I had made a note to call both Snake and the kindergarten teacher this morning. Separately. At least, I sincerely hoped it would be separate phone calls. Snake had a tendency to arrow straight towards his target. I'd stressed the importance of behaving as un-Dom-like as he possibly could.
Ordering food for his date at dinner was fine. Ordering nipple piercings was not. And sleeping together on the first date was rather tacky.
"You did? That's wonderful! He is such a nice man and he deserves . . . No. You are not going to distract me, Kate."
I hadn't been trying to distract her. Truly. I'd simply been trying to find something positive to talk about. Which meant avoiding my emotional state and life.
"Al has never called concerned about you." I knew that. If he had, my aunt would have called immediately. She's the odd witch in the coven, the one who doesn't have any problems confronting things.
"He is truly worried, Kate."
I sighed. Wonderful. I'd upset both my aunt and my Chihuahua. I hadn't meant to. And, honestly, I wasn't one hundred percent sure I could do anything about it.
My life sucked at the moment.
"I know he is, Aunt Tabs. I'm doing the best I can right now."
"He said it's over between you and Ash."
I had to pause for a minute. I was afraid my voice would break and that would upset my aunt even more.
"I don't know." I understood why Ash had done what he'd done. I wasn't sure I was ready to totally forgive him for it yet. And I wasn't sure it would make a difference either way.
If his sin kept him in hell and I couldn't live there, where did that leave us?
"You don't have any kind of a feeling?" She sounded baffled and I understood.
"No."
I'd never had an inkling of my intuition when it came to Ash. I knew he'd been keeping secrets, but nothing else.
I always have some sort of feeling when it came to my clients. It's what made me so good at my job. My own intuition and my magic. They didn't fail when it came to love.
I never got a feeling when it came to my own love life. I'd always assumed it had to do with the curse. Sort of a cosmic way of saying, "why bother? You're cursed. You know this isn't going to end well."
I did know. I'd just blatantly ignored it in favor of Ash.
And look where that got me.
"I don't either."
"You don't?" It was my turn to be baffled.
Aunt Tabs got feelings about everything. In the past, she'd b
een quite upfront with the dismal demise of any temporary relationship I'd been in. She'd always been right too.
It was part of the reason I'd kept my relationship with Ash a secret. I figured she'd been waiting for the time when things started to fall apart before she gave me the bad news about how it was never going to work between Ash and I.
Like now.
"No. I haven't been able to get any kind of a feeling with the two of you."
I know I'd basically doomed us in my mind, but that totally freaked me out.
"What does that mean?" How could she not have a feeling? Aunt Tabs was the most intuitive witch I knew.
"I don't know. I've been trying to figure it out. I thought maybe the itchy feeling I've been having lately might be a delayed response to the two of you, but that's not it. You've definitely got some sort of trouble coming your way, Kate. And it has nothing to do with Ash."
Lovely. Every time I thought I hit rock bottom, I found a lower level.
"I've got to go, Aunt Tabs." I really didn't, but my loving aunt was depressing me more than I already had been.
"All right, dear. Please be careful." Her worry carried through the phone to wrap around me. "Oh, Al is going to have a sleepover tonight."
Hmmm. Definitely a good thing, bad thing. One the one hand I wouldn't have to put on a happy face for anyone, but on the other hand it gave my aunt and my Chihuahua plenty of time to make plans involving my life.
No happy face won. "All right. Kiss him goodnight for me and I'll see him tomorrow."
"I love you, dear."
"I know you do, Aunt Tabs." It was the one constant in my life since I'd been born. "I love you too."
****
I didn't want to spend my evening alone, depressed and quite possibly sobbing into a large bottle of wine. Make that, definitely sobbing. And you could add another bottle into the image as well.
That really would make me the pathetic witch.
I'd been that witch way too many times in high school.
Désirée Norma-Sue had left a few minutes ago. She and Phil had plans. Date night plans.
I tried not to be jealous and simply happy for a friend.
I failed. Completely.
I wanted a date night with a certain demon.
Demons Don't Always Tell The Truth (Kate Storm Series Book 3) Page 13
