Ashes

by Erica Stevens

  “Annabelle was a woman that I was in love with.”

  She inhaled sharply, biting into her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. Devon winced for her, it was not her physical pain, for she did not feel that, but he could feel the twisting emotional agony that wrenched through her. She did not flinch though; her eyes did not even flicker. She remained as still as stone, only four feet away from him, though it suddenly seemed like miles.

  “Or at least I had thought I was.”

  She released her bottom lip. His eyes latched onto the drop of blood that quivered on her mouth. This was not the time or place, and although he had glutted himself, he could not stop the thrill that shot through him. The need. If she sent him out of here tonight it would destroy him, but if she didn’t…

  Well, if she didn’t, he may well destroy them both.

  He didn’t know which was worse.

  Then he met her unwavering gaze again, and he knew. He could keep control of himself for her; he could do anything for her. He could stay by her side, for to lose her would be far worse than the ninth circle of hell. Yes, though it was the hardest thing he would ever do, he would stay by her. If she would still have him.

  Fear tore through him. He may lose her, but he could not lie to her. Not about this.

  “What happened?” she asked softly.

  “I happened.” Confusion marred her brow. “Maybe you should sit.”

  She frowned at him, but she turned toward her bed and moved stiffly forward. She stopped before it, but did not sit. Instead, she turned back to him, hugging herself tightly. She seemed to simply have forgotten to sit as she watched him closely, her eyes weary and lost. In fact, she seemed to simply have wanted more space from him.

  The subtle shifting of the trees outside cast shadows over her face and hair, hugging her lithe body. He stared at her for a long moment, his heart hammering with the fear that he may never be welcome in this room again, may never be able to hold her and love her again. “Go on,” she said softly.

  Devon sighed as he ran a hand through his disheveled hair, he tugged on it as he began to pace. “Annabelle was a simple farm girl when I met her.”

  “When did you meet her?” Cassie interrupted, her voice soft but carrying a steel edge of resolve.

  He stopped pacing to face her. “Over a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  Her eyes widened as she swiftly made the connection to the time when he had stopped feeding on, and killing, humans. Turmoil spun through her eyes, her hands clenched tighter upon her arms as her breath froze. “I see.”

  Her voice was choked, her eyes distant. He could see the swift retreat she made from him, the walls she slammed into place to keep herself sheltered from hurt, and pain. To keep sheltered from life. He was looking at the woman that he had originally met, the girl who had avoided life. This was the girl who had kept herself locked away from the world in order to keep herself from experiencing the pain she had originally experienced with the harsh truth about the death of her parents, the monsters of the world, and the knowledge of what she truly was. She retreated swiftly behind her walls before he could shatter everything that she was.

  Desperation seized hold of him. He could not be the one that drove her behind that wall of hopelessness and despair again as she simply waited to die. “Annabelle was the oldest of seven children, a good girl who helped her mother take care of her younger siblings. I met her at a barn dance in Iowa.

  “She was young, beautiful, and so very innocent and sweet.” Cassie shuddered, her head bowed as she squeezed her eyes shut. Devon clenched his teeth, his hands fisted at his sides as he realized that he had just described Cassie. He rushed heedlessly on, knowing that his next words might drive her even further away, but he had to get them out.

  “And I wanted to destroy all of that.”

  Her head shot up, her eyebrows drew tightly together as she frowned at him. “I don’t understand.”

  No, there was no way that she could understand what he had once been. He did not want her to, not completely anyway. “I was a different person back then Cassie. I wasn’t even a person. I was a monster. I lived to kill, to destroy. I lived for the thrill of the hunt and the game.”

  “Game?”

  He sighed. “Yes, it was all a game to me, and Annabelle was perfect for it. She had no idea about the cruelty of the world, no idea of the pain that lurked within the shadows. Annabelle was sweet and she was in love with Liam, a boy just like her. And I wanted nothing more than to ruin that love. I wanted her for myself, simply because I could not have her. At first I tried to seduce her, tried to lure her away like I could with any other woman. She refused my advances, which only increased my interest, my intensity for her.

  “I convinced myself that I was in love with her. That I would never be happy without her. I became obsessed with her, and the challenge that she represented. I was used to getting whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it, and I was going to have her.”

  Cassie stared out the window; the tips of her lashes were silvery in the moonlight. Her delicate jaw was set firmly, her nostrils flared slightly. Though she remained unmoving, he could feel the sorrow she radiated. “So what did you do?” she asked quietly.

  “I spent a month trying to lure her away from Liam, but she was having none of it. Her mind and heart were filled with dreams of their future, their children, and their happiness. I hated him for it, and I was going to demolish it. No matter what it took.” She looked back at him, her eyes questioning but distant. “When it became apparent that she would have none of me, I took her by force.”

  Cassie’s eyes widened, her breath inhaled sharply as she took a swift step away. The back of her knee connected with the bed, her leg buckled slightly, but she managed to stay on her feet. “Not like that Cassie,” he rushed on, realizing how the words had sounded. “I changed her. I thought if she became one of us she would want nothing more to do with Liam, that she would want me. I thought it would be wonderful to shatter her innocence, to turn her into a monster, to introduce her to the evil that suffused the earth.

  “It was to be my greatest accomplishment.”

  “I see,” Cassie said dully. “And once she became a monster you grew tired of her?”

  Devon ignored the twinge of pain in his heart. He deserved her contempt, he hated it, but he deserved it. He had been an awful thing back then. He had been one of the cruelest, coldest vampires to walk the earth. He had relished in the kill, savored in every one of his victims, and enjoyed the dying light in their eyes. Though he had tried to make up for his almost six hundred years of murder and mayhem, he knew that he could never atone for the blood that stained his soul. A soul that only Cassie had managed to ease the pain of.

  “No. Annabelle never became a monster.”

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered, confusion swirling through her eyes.

  “I didn’t either,” he admitted. “I thought that once we were changed, that was it, we were all monsters. I thought that the demon took over; I thought that we had no choice but to destroy life, to toy with humans before killing them. I never knew how wrong I was. Yes, Annabelle awoke with the same intense hunger that all new vampires awake with, but she didn’t go for humans.

  “Somehow, she managed to keep enough reason through her transition, and enough restraint, to control her hunger. Something that even I, at my advanced age, had never done. I just took and killed, and took some more. But that night Annabelle did not kill, at least not humans anyway. I found her in a field of cows, half the herd had been slaughtered before her hunger was finally satisfied. Animals are enough to keep us going, and strong, but it takes more of their blood to fully sate us.”

  Cassie nodded as she licked her lips nervously. Her hands were clenching her arms so tightly that she was leaving bruises upon her fair skin. A fact he was certain that she was unaware of. Though he wanted to go to her, to stop her from hurting herself, he remained where he was. She would flee from him now. He knew that.
r />   “I was mortified, and so unbelievably stunned to find her there among those cows, crying.”

  Cassie glanced at him, an eyebrow lifted sharply in surprise. “Why was she crying?” she asked softly.

  Devon closed his eyes. The image of Annabelle, sitting in that field, surrounded by dead cattle with tears running down her blood streaked face was seared permanently into his brain. Annabelle’s delicate shoulders had shook; her hair had been caked with dirt and blood. He had been so conflicted, and so confused as to what she was doing. He had not been able to understand why she would choose such pitiful fare when there were so many humans out there to enjoy. He had especially wanted her to go for Liam, thinking how wonderful it would be to watch her destroy the person she thought she loved so much. It would have been the crowning achievement in his destruction of everything good in the world.

  “She was crying because she had killed the cows,” he choked out, his voice hoarse as the tidal wave of memories threatened to consume him. He tried not to think about the person he had been back then, what he had done. Especially, what he had done to Annabelle. What he had wanted to be his crowning achievement had ended up becoming his ultimate downfall. At least his downfall from the world of drudgery and murder.

  “I didn’t know how to react to that. I mean, who would cry over dead cows? And why was she feeding from damn cows when there were thousands of humans to destroy? I simply stood there, watching her, listening to her lament about the fact that she had killed them, and that the farmer would not have enough milk and meat for his children now.

  “She confounded me, but I found myself utterly fascinated by her. I had seen many many things in my long life, but I had never seen a vampire cry over their kill. And I sure as hell hadn’t ever seen a vampire show regret for their actions. We didn’t know what regret was, or at least that’s what I had believed.

  “When she calmed down enough to actually speak, she looked up at me, not with accusation and hatred, but with a wealth of sadness and compassion. I had done this to her, and she was sad for me!” Devon began to pace restlessly again; his skin crawled with the memories assaulting him. He hated the person he had been, hated the things that he had done. Annabelle had been the worst thing he had ever done, but without her, he wouldn’t be the person he was now. Without Annabelle he would still be a monster, preying on the innocent, and he wouldn’t have Cassie.

  If he still did have her.

  “I sat down beside her, unable to move, the realization of what she was now was earth shattering to me. For although I had inflicted her with the demon, her goodness had been so pure, so true, that she was able to fight against the monster. Even when she had been out of her head with her need for blood, she still had enough control of herself not to murder, not to kill. I had never met anyone like her, never met anyone with such a pure heart. Until you.”

  Cassie’s gaze blazed into his, tears wavered in her eyes. She blinked them back, as a mask of hardness settled over her refined features. “I hated myself for what I had done to her. And I suddenly began to rethink my entire existence. I had never been a good man when I was alive. I had been rich, spoiled. I had taken what I wanted even then. As a vampire, I was the epitome of a monster, and I had reveled in it. Until that moment.

  “We sat silently in that field, her grieving the loss of her life, me grieving everything that I had done. Grieving for all of the souls that I had extinguished, and there were so very many of them. More than I ever want to think about again. I’ve been trying to do right since that night, but I can never truly wash the blood from my hands, from my soul.”

  He grew silent, pacing over to the window. The moon was beginning to set; the night was quiet except for a small fox creeping across Chris’s front lawn. “What became of her?” Cassie asked softly.

  “She taught me how to control my hunger, showed me that there was goodness in the world, a fact that I had never wanted to believe. It was easier to justify my actions if I believed that everyone was just as evil as I was, whether they were human or vampire. I began to feed on animals, determined to try and change who I was. I had always loved a challenge, and this was the biggest one I had ever accepted.”

  “And did she grow to love you?”

  He laughed shortly, turning away from the window. “No, Annabelle never loved me in that way, it was always Liam. And as I began to change, I realized that I did not love her. I never had. I was incapable of love at that point in my life. All I was capable of was cruelty. If I had loved her, I never would have done that to her. The more I got to know her, the more I realized this. What she felt for Liam was love. It was real, and it was true.”

  A single tear slid down Cassie’s face, her voice was filled with pain as the mask wavered. “And she lost him.”

  Devon managed a wry smile as he shook his head, running his hand through his hair again. “No, I did do one good thing back then. I convinced her to go to him, to approach him slowly so as not to scare him. He had never thought that she had just abandoned him and her family; he had always thought her dead. It took a couple years of coaxing, but eventually she went to him. I think, in the end, she went to him because of the pain that Liam was in over losing her. He had never moved on, never found someone else. Liam was only a hollow shell of the man that he had once been.

  “And when she went to him, when she told him, he did not run screaming from her in horror. He did not shun her or turn her away. He accepted her.” Cassie’s tears rolled freely down her face now, Devon was certain she didn’t even realize she was crying. “He turned for her.”

  Her head bowed, her hair fell forward in a golden shield. “That was when I truly realized what love was, and that I did not have to be a monster. I had been feeding from animals the whole time, but it was then that I realized that although I was no longer human, I did not have to give into the darker side of my existence. I had made the wrong choices when I was changed, but now I could do something to try and make up for it, and that was what I vowed to do.

  “I stayed with them for a few more years, until I gained better control of myself. For unlike Annabelle and Liam, I knew the pleasure of human blood, and I knew the rush of power that came with it. It was harder for me, but when I felt confident enough to go on my own, I did so. They needed their time together, and I needed to start trying to make amends for my sins. I will continue to do so for as long as I exist.”

  Her heart was in her eyes as she stared at him. “I didn’t know love until I met you Cassie. Annabelle showed me the rightness of the world, but you brought me back to life. You showed me what it was to put someone ahead of myself. To be willing to die for someone. You showed me what it was to truly love.”

  A soft sob escaped her, her tears fell more rapidly, but she didn’t move. Did not come to him. No matter how much he wanted her forgiveness, her understanding, she was still not ready to give it. No matter how hard it had been to tell her about Annabelle, he knew there were even worse atrocities in his past.

  “And Elizabeth and Isla?”

  Fighting the urge to groan, Devon’s hands fisted as he resumed pacing once more. Her questions were wandering closer to areas he did not want to tell her about. She was getting dangerously close to Robert, the worst secret that he harbored, and one he didn’t want her to have any knowledge of. Ever.

  “Elizabeth is the woman that changed me.”

  At Cassie’s sharp inhalation, he returned to the window, keeping his back to her. How did he tell her about the monster he had been, even before he had become a vampire, and still look at her? He couldn’t.

  CHAPTER 19

  Cassie stared at Devon’s rigid back, fighting the urge to go to him. Her hands itched to touch him, longed to ease the pain and self loathing that he radiated. But if she went to him now he would stop talking, and there would be no other chance for her to learn about him.

  Though he may not want to remember these things, he needed to talk about them, and he needed to be forgiven for them afterward. He
needed her forgiveness, and although she didn’t know what was still to come, she knew he would receive it. This man before her was not the monster that had done these things.

  This man was the one that loved her, cared for her, cherished her. Even with all the women in his past, and she was certain that there were far more than these three, it was her that he wanted. Her that he truly loved.

  “I was born in Devonshire England, hence my name. I was the second son of a Duke. I was wealthy, spoiled, and without the added burden of inheritance that my older brother Robert had.” Cassie frowned as his tone changed a little, a hint of anger crept into his flat voice as he said his brother’s name. She didn’t have time to ponder it though as he continued on. “Robert was serious, studious, smart, the apple of my father’s eye, his one true son. I was a cast off, the one that would only count if something happened to Robert. I prayed everyday that nothing ever did happen to him, for I wanted nothing to do with my father, or any of his responsibilities. I despised the man for his indifference, and hated him even more for his cruelty.”

  He kept his gaze focused out the window, unwilling to turn back to her. His shoulders were stiff, anguish poured from him. Though she wanted to know the truth, it was not worth this. These memories were destroying him, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to know what cruelty his father had bestowed upon him. “Devon you don’t have to do this, you…”

  “Yes I do,” he interrupted harshly, his voice hissing out of him. “You need to know. You have a right to know.”

  Cassie’s mouth snapped shut, her stomach tightened into a hard knot as she slid limply onto the bed. This was something that he had to do. “My father had what you would call anger issues. Issues that he took out on me, the wasted offspring. I cried out once and my mother came to my defense, she was punished for her insolence so I learned to take every beating in silence.