by Marie Hall
“We’ll need a room too, something far in the back, more cave-like, where she won’t feel so exposed.”
Cain was wincing and holding onto his genitals. “Take mine. I’m sleeping in Flint’s anyway.”
“Thanks,” I said, and then went in search of Pandora. This problem was becoming almost more than I could handle alone. As much as I didn’t want to think it, the time might have come to consider bringing Luc and her hoard back into the picture.
I found Pandora almost twenty minutes later. I felt the smack of the heat wafting off the spring the moment I stepped inside the hulled-out room.
Pandora’s clothes were scattered on the floor, along with the long-handled silver butter knife. She was fully immersed in the large spring, sitting on the bottom with her head tipped forward and her legs crossed Indian style.
Sighing, exhausted, but unwilling to leave her alone, I stripped off my clothes and joined her. The calm waters with curls of steam rolling off the surface was almost too hot to bear.
But I grit my teeth and did it anyway.
The waters were deepest at the center, where they came almost to my chin. Scooting back, I headed for the makeshift bench that’d been chiseled out of the wall itself and sat. She finally kicked to the surface, taking a deep breath when she came up. I wasn’t trying to look, but even so I could see all the scars that lined her once- flawless body. I curled my fingers on my lap and looked away because staring at them only made me want to do something stupid and violent.
“You need to leave me alone, Ash.”
I lifted a brow. “No.”
Flicking water my way, she moved to the opposite side of the spring and sat down. Her breasts floated enticingly, and I hated that my cock suddenly stood to attention at the sight of them. This wasn’t the time, but my body always seemed to have other ideas when she was around.
“You saw what I did back there. I almost killed them. I would have killed Abel.” She stared at her hand.
The spot where the Gray Man had stabbed her was now smooth. So she was clearly still capable of healing. Whatever they’d done to her at Creatus had to have been done with spelled knives, just like the one Luc had used on her centuries ago.
“But you didn’t.”
“Because you stabbed me!” She pounded her fist into her seat, causing the water to bubble up to the surface. “How is it that I can think, and feel, and know that it’s not right and not want to do it, and yet I still couldn’t stop from snapping? There’s no excuse for this, Asher. None.”
“And I’m not making one,” I barked.
Her eyes widened, because up until now I’d been nothing but patient, but my patience was wearing thin. I wasn’t a saint, and I refused to let that place drive her insane anymore.
“But you have to stop pissing and moaning about what you can’t change and fucking realize that you are different, Dora. You are. But you can fight it. You did fight it, so stop flagellating yourself about it.”
Her mouth snapped shut, and she glared unholy fire at me. But she didn’t say anything, and I blew out a breath because I knew my risky gamble had paid off. The last thing I wanted was to send her deeper into her killing rage, but staying where she was, that wouldn’t help either. And deep down I think she knew that.
“You can’t live that way.”
She turned her face to the side.
“You ever wonder how I got my scars, little demon?”
I could sense her curiosity in the way her fingers began to twirl through the water. “How?” she finally said.
I hated talking about my scars, about how I’d gotten them. I’d never told another soul why I had them, but I would tell her.
“I got them because of you.”
“What?” Her brows formed a question mark, and I knew I had her full attention.
There was still a lot I couldn’t tell her, but this wasn’t one of those things. Leaning my head back, I stared sightlessly at the red rock above me.
“I was sent to kill you. It took me months, but I finally found you.”
The waters swished around me as she moved in closer.
“I remember you telling me that.”
“I finally found you, and you were holding that little girl. Holding her and whispering that she wasn’t alone. You intrigued me. So rather than kill you, I followed you around. When that little girl breathed her last, I saw you bury her. But what impressed me most was that you read her last rites. I wondered why. Why would a demon do such a thing?”
Her thigh slipped against mine as she sat down beside me.
“So I followed you the next day, and the day after that. And every day I told myself, I would finally do it, rid the world of more demon scum. It was my sovereign right and duty as a priest of the Lord to end you.”
For a while I stopped speaking, just allowing myself to remember Pandora as she’d been then. There’d been no purple streak in her hair back then. It’d been black and silky and had fallen to below her ass. Even the hideous clothing of the day had done nothing to hide the lush, feminine curves of her body.
“God, I wanted you,” I groaned as my cock grew even harder. “And I hated you for it.”
“But you didn’t know me.”
I turned my face so that I could look at her. “You were a Lust demon. A born siren built to ensnare men. It’s what I kept telling myself. All around you, I saw your family acting as they should. Luc screwing around and fucking any woman he deemed worthy. Vyxyn and Kane and Bubba, all of them, rotten to the core. But I wasn’t sent to kill them. So even as I hated them and hated you, I couldn’t seem to make myself do it. And each night when I went and reported back to my master that I’d not yet found you and the lie sat hot and heavy on my tongue, I’d go back to my room afterward and cut myself as penance to my Lord.”
She wrapped her fingers around my face, and I moaned, so desperate for more of her touch.
“You’re covered with scars, Ash.”
My jaw clicked from one side to the other. “I didn’t stop cutting until I realized I’d never be able to do it. The day I was visited by a seer.”
Her hands dropped, and I clenched my jaw. We were headed into dangerous territory. I needed to be careful what I said to her, but I also was tired of keeping secrets.
She shook her head. “Why? What did she tell you?”
“The truth. About you. About me. About who it was I actually worked for. About our fate.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in destiny.”
My lips twitched. “I believe in choices, little demon. In will. But I also believe that sometimes there is something even greater out there than what you dreamed possible.”
“So she told you to love me, and that’s that.” She clapped her hands together.
I smirked. “I already loved you. I didn’t like you for making me feel it, but you were different, and now so was I. And it finally made sense why.”
“I wish you would tell me why.”
“It’s in the book.”
She licked her lips. I remembered what that honeyed tongue of hers tasted like, and I was hungry for more.
“Grace told me where your key is.”
My grin was half-hearted at best. “I knew coming here was the right choice. I suspected she’d have learned something by now.”
She nodded, looking straight ahead as though lost in thought.
“Dora, I think we should go find Luc first.”
She frowned. “No. It’s time I learned the truth, Ash, all of it.”
“Yeah.” I scrubbed my jaw. “I figured you’d say that.”
Chapter 13
Pandora
Fire.
My body is convulsing and foam is seeping from my cracked and bloody lips.
Ya-el. Ya-el. Ya-el.
My eyes roll to the back of my skull as their hands reach inside my cracked rib cage.
“Look at me.”
It takes everything I have to look. The leather wraps on my wrists have rubbed me
raw. My skin is oozing and torn, revealing the meat below. But I barely feel it. I stare on in horror as the man in the white lab coat smiles and yanks my heart out, massaging it gently and caressing it.
“This, Ya-el, this is the seat of power.”
His black gloves are covered in my gore as he slowly rotates my heart. The red organ beats powerfully in his hand.
Drool slides down the corner of my mouth as I cough and hack, knowing it’s impossible that I’m still alive. How can they do this to me?
“Show it a little love”—he glides his finger along the smooth muscle—“and it’ll do anything for you. But wound it”—swiping up a pen knife, he nicks the left ventricle and I scream—“and it’ll never be the same again.”
I slammed my hands over my ears and screamed from the depths of my soul, raging and kicking out at the heavy weight bearing down on me.
“Pandora!” Asher’s voice penetrated through my fog. “Wake up. It’s just a dream, wake up.”
Still stuck somewhere between awake and the haze, I punched out wildly, connecting with his jaw hard enough to make his teeth snap together.
There was a low growl, and then his hands grabbed mine and pinned them powerfully above my head.
My heart raced so hard and fast I swore it was going to jump out of my chest. The ragged sound of our breathing was the only thing I heard.
Slowly, slowly the dream peeled back, replaced by a vision of his warm brown eyes staring down at me. A lock of hair had slipped over his right eye, and he looked more exhausted than I felt.
The heavy lines shading his eyes were what finally released me from the perpetual nightmares that plague my sleep.
“We’re in a bedroom. It’s just you and me,” he whispered softly. “Nothing here can hurt you.”
His body was warm. He was sitting with his knees spread on either side of me, and I could see the contours of his muscular chest and arms flexing as he held me still.
I nodded and took in a jerky, shuddery breath.
“You hear me, little demon? You’re safe. I’m going to let you go now.”
I bit my lip and glanced to the side as his hands carefully eased off me.
The bedside clock read just barely three in the morning.
“I’m sorry, Ash.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my pounding skull. My heart still didn’t beat normally; it was running sprints inside me.
“It’s fine.”
It was not fine. I was not fine. Far from it. But I remembered what he’d told me at the spring earlier and I knew he’d snap at me again if I said it, so I pinched my mouth shut and nodded, pretending like I’d accepted his words for what they were.
Absolution. That I was forgiven.
But his words meant nothing to me when I couldn’t even forgive myself.
Rolling onto his back, he draped an arm over his eyes. I didn’t even know what to say to him. He’d never asked me what’d happened there, and I didn’t know whether that meant he didn’t care (which I doubted—no one sane would continue to put up with my crap if they didn’t care… that at least I could recognize as the truth now) or he just didn’t want me to revisit it.
Truth was, I didn’t want to talk about it. With anyone. But I also wished there was someone in the world who understood me enough to know. And he was the only someone I wanted it to be.
Sitting up and thoroughly disgusted with myself, I knew there’d be no more sleep for me that night. Anytime I closed my eyes it was always the same old crap anyway.
I shoved my fingers through my hair, and the scars across my chest and thighs stretched the tight skin.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d sat there before I realized Asher wasn’t asleep. His large, warm palm gently rubbed my back.
It felt so good and so awful at the same time. I scooted forward, out of reach. All I wanted was for Ash to touch me, to hold me, but accepting that touch was like a little bit of torture.
Not because I wanted to hurt him anymore. I didn’t. But I knew I couldn’t give him what he needed either. I was so damaged. I had nothing inside of me to give.
I felt the mattress shift, and though I desperately wanted him to stay in the room with me, I bit my tongue. I’d put him through hell, and I couldn’t say I blamed him for leaving. Deep down I’d expected this anyway.
In theory, loving something broken sounded easy enough. Love would heal all wounds, would make things better, would give the other person the strength to get up and dust themselves off and become whole again.
But that was shit.
Just a fairy tale we told ourselves to keep us strong enough to keep trying. The truth was loving something like me meant lots of sleepless nights, broken hearts, and eventually the reality that no matter how much you tried and what you did, it would never be enough to break through the damage that’d been done. And that was when our saviors left us to drown in our own misery. It wasn’t their fault, and it wasn’t our fault either.
Life was a cold-hearted, merciless bitch, and sometimes there wasn’t a happy ending.
But then I heard a sound I’d not heard in so long. The tuning of an acoustic guitar string. Gasping, I glanced up.
I’d noticed the polished guitar when we’d first walked into Cain’s room that night. For a moment, my fingers had itched to pick it up, but Ash had looked so tired that I’d ignored it and joined him in bed.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed now with his head bowed. Our cave was pitch black, but I could easily make him out.
His eyes were closed, and every cell in my body tensed up as I heard him sing to me for the first time.
Asher’s voice was low and throaty with the hint of a delicious burr behind it. The song was heartachingly lovely. The lyrics were ones I’d never heard before. The words wove a picture of a couple, one of them crying and broken and the other saying they’d never let go. How there were shadows, but I’d never be alone. Close my eyes, I’d be all right, nothing could hurt me, because we were safe and sound.
My throat tightened up as the crescendo rose and his strumming took on a more frantic pace.
Who was this man? Why would he do this for me? Why did he care so much? So big, so beautiful, so strong, and yet so vulnerable with me.
Luc had never shown me this, countless lovers down the centuries had never shown me this. When we’d first met, I could never have imagined that we’d be here someday, that I’d need him the way I did or that he’d need me right back.
I was so silent, afraid to breathe, to even move for fear that he’d stop. I’d never known Asher could sing, or that he could play. I never wanted this song to end, never wanted to wake up from this moment.
I wanted to freeze time, suspend us in it, and never leave there. We still had to face so many worries, so many problems, like the possibility of what was in that book.
Who Asher was really, and what decision I’d ultimately make. Would I give into this darkness or could the impossible happen? Could I overcome this evil? Was I strong enough?
In that moment, I wanted to be. I wanted to be everything for him. I wanted to make his sacrifice not be in vain. But more than anything, I wanted my priest to hold me.
My eyes shimmered when the final strain of the song hung suspended between us. He didn’t move, but I did.
It was time to make a choice. That’s what Grace had told me—that I could choose which path to take. I didn’t know what the final outcome of my story would be, but I was at a crossroads, and for tonight my path was clear.
I got up to my knees, crawled forward, and plucked the guitar from his lax hands.
Tonight I would be strong. Tonight I would believe that we were safe. That what existed outside these walls wasn’t for us, because it was just me and my Asher.
Tipping his chin up with the tip of my finger, I waited until his warm brown eyes looked at me.
I’d covered up completely when I’d exited the spring, so ashamed of my scars, of what they’d done to me. Grabbing hold of the hem of my shirt, I
slid it off me and tossed it to the floor.
His breathing ratcheted up a notch, but he didn’t reach for me. Asher still slept in the nude, and I bit my bottom lip when I saw his cock spring to life.
I could do this.
I could.
Lust shuddered deep inside of me. For so long all she’d wanted was this man, only him. I’d never thought it was possible for a demon to love, but she did. She loved him as I did. Tonight wouldn’t be sex, because this was Ash. It would be so much more than something as base as that.
I got to my feet, yanked my sleeping pants off, and tossed those away too. My body trembled; my stomach was a twisted mess as I stood before him, completely bared.
I refused to look down at my feet as his eyes traced the hideous lines that would forever mark me. Tension breathed between us, an exquisite friction of mounting desire tempered by something deeper and fuller—something that’d been crafted by time and pain and learning that there could never be anyone for me but him.
Kneeling back down on the bed, my palms were slick as I grabbed his hand and tugged him to me. All of this I did silently, but we didn’t need words. We were so far beyond that—he knew me, really knew me. And I knew him.
He needed to know this was okay, I was okay. I could see it in the tightness of his shoulders and the way his jaw clenched. Even as I sensed his need, I felt his fear.
Fear that I’d reject him, that I’d turn him away as I had so many times already.
Lifting his hand, I rolled each finger down until only his pointer remained extended. The muscles in his chest trembled.
Pulling his hand toward me, I guided his finger to the worst of my scars. The one that ran from the base of my neck to the tip of my pubis.
“They cracked me open fifty-two times,” I whispered, and he shuddered, but he didn’t pull away.
Every muscle in my back clenched as he felt the mottled indentations of my flesh, of the skin that was now rough and smooth and stretched so tight that at times it was painful to even breathe.
