My Immortal (23 page)

What concerned Marley, maybe more than Damien’s relationship with Marie, was what he had done, who he had been, in the two hundred years between Marie and her. She had a sense of him then, and she knew him now, but how had the one grown into the other? “What happened between you and Marissabelle?”

His voice hardened. The tenderness, the sorrow, the guilt that were always present when he mentioned his wife vanished. Marley thought in his expression she saw glimpses of a harder Damien, the one who earned the name Death’s Door.

“She used me. I used her. I was in a destructive phase, risk-taking, trying to find the weakness, the way to end my life. It was not a good time for me, and Marissabelle was entirely too much like me. She craved the thrill, the danger, and she embraced anything licentious, eagerly explored all avenues of sexuality. I had the very appealing idea that she would want to take my role, that I could tell her the truth, ask if she would like immortality, to be young forever. But together she and Rosa backstabbed me, and I wound up the same as before, with Marissabelle immortal as well and triumphant. Sixty years ago somehow Marissabelle won her freedom, and very much enjoys that I don’t know how she did it.”

“So you would give up your immortality?” Somehow that question felt very important to Marley. If after everything he’d been through, he would still cling to his immortality, hold tight to that invincibility, she would have her answers.

“Yes, I would give it up, without hesitation. If I knew how, I would. I don’t want this, I don’t want to be this man. I want the chance to prove to myself that there is good inside of me.”

“Anna…Marissabelle…she hates you.”

“She is a bitter, vain woman and she always has been.”

“She lost her daughters. Made degrading choices so she could better her son’s life.”

Damien scoffed. “It’s a sympathetic picture she paints. But I never saw evidence of the loving mother. What Marissabelle had in spades was lust. Lust for money, power, sex. She was the mirror of me in my youth and the perfect partner when I was determined to destroy myself. Physically and emotionally.”

Marley wanted to pass judgment, wanted to turn her nose up at Marissabelle’s flaws, even at Marie’s weaknesses, but she was no different. She too had succumbed to lust, to greed, to the lure of selfishness.

“I do feel responsible for introducing her to Rosa, though. Perhaps without our influence, she wouldn’t have become the most notorious mistress in New Orleans.”

“I think sometimes we overestimate our influence on other people.” Sorry she’d steered the conversation back to Anna, Marley stared up at the dark sky, unsure what she was supposed to do now, and she felt stunned, numb, jumbled. “My sister, Lizzie, is here, Damien. With some creepy guy who seems to be ordering her around. I almost think there’s some kind of dominant-submissive relationship going on between them. It was disgusting.” Everything, everyone felt disgusting. Even she felt disgusting, out of control, all the worse for her sins and flaws because she had been so damn certain she was
better
.

“Given how you’ve described Lizzie’s personality, I’m not surprised. Maybe we should go back to the house so you can talk to her.”

“I can’t talk to her. She’s too busy giving total strangers blow jobs because her boyfriend told her to.” Marley closed her eyes. God, this hurt so much.

“
Ma cherie
…I’m sorry.”

“Will you stop having the parties, Damien?”

“It’s part of my bargain. I have to, or the Grigori will punish me. I could survive that, I’m sure, but they’ll also punish Rosa, which I can’t live with. And they’ll take Rosa de Montana, they’ll burn it to the ground…all I have left of my family, my father, Marie, and in the end I’ll still be in servitude, chained to them. I could survive all that, I know I could, but in the end, after destroying everything that I have, they would take my soul. I would be lost in their power…no longer me, just a vessel of their evil. I may hate what I am, how I have to live, but I’m still me this way. I am in control. I don’t want to lose the essence of my soul…Does that make sense?”

“Yes.” Better to lose pieces of himself than the whole.

“And these people at the parties, they live this way because they want to. I have no real influence on them, I’m just a setting they chose, and without me, they’d just go somewhere else.”

It was a justification and they both knew it. But Marley knew he had no choice. On the other hand, she did, and she couldn’t willingly take part in any of this. It had nothing to do with her feelings for Damien, and everything to do with her respect for herself. The truth changed everything. Before, when she had thought they were two lost souls searching for comfort, it had been different. Then again, they were still two lost souls. But she had always intended to leave. That hadn’t changed. What had changed was the understanding that if she stayed now, knowing what she did about Damien’s servitude, about Rosa, she would be allowing herself to hover near the edge of what she knew to be wrong. She needed to pull herself back before she tripped over.

“I can’t stay, Damien, you know that. I have to go home.”

He sighed. “So nothing has changed? You’re still leaving?”

“Yes.” Her heart pounded. “Unless you ask me to stay.” She didn’t mean to say that, but the words slipped out, illuminating how shaky her convictions were, how vulnerable.

Damien rubbed his jaw. Then he picked up the cell phone she’d dropped and hurled it out toward the swamp with a roar of frustration. Marley jumped a little, but just waited for him to say what he needed to say.

“Damn it. You know what I have to do, Marley. You know if I ask you to stay, it just starts all over again. Rosa and her father, they’ll have me by the balls, and I will slowly do to you what I did to Marie, until you can’t stand me or yourself any longer. No matter how much I love you, how much I want to keep you with me, pretending that everything is okay, it isn’t. This is who I am.” He stabbed a finger into his chest. “I am a demon servant. And if I want to be able to live with myself, to retain any piece of decency in me, I have to tell you to go home.”

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but it was what she needed to hear. She knew he was right, knew that she would compromise herself, lose her hold on her principles for selfish happiness, pleasure. “Is there a way I could help you? There has to be a way to break free.”

“If there is, I don’t know it.”

Marley felt guilty, like she was abandoning him, like she was just tossing him to his fate and running. It tore at her heart. “I understand everything about the past, Damien, and I can accept it, because I know what kind of a man you are now…I could even get over my jealousy at the thought of you in bed with Marissabelle and Rosa, but I can’t deal with the immortality, the Grigori. I’d feel like I was turning my back on my faith, letting myself…”

He covered her mouth with his hand. “Shh. You don’t have to explain. It’s the right thing and we both know it. That doesn’t mean I like it, but it’s what I want for you. For me.”

Tears flooded her eyes. She was on her side, but had never bothered to sit up. Now she did, reaching for him, pulling him toward her, kissing him with all the frustration and heartbreak she felt. Their mouths collided, tongues thrusting, and Marley slid her hand down, yanked at the button on his jeans, needing him.

Damien slowed her hand with his and ran his lips along her jaw. “Marley. This has to be the last time then. The absolute last time.”

“I know.” She brought his mouth back to hers and buried her hands in his hair.

Damien pushed her back onto the ground and they yanked at clothes, clawed at each other, hot, moist mouths sliding together, bodies grinding.

Marley heard her panting, felt the warm air on her skin, embraced the deep, wet ache between her legs. The night was sharp and clear around them, the swamp humming with insects, and she felt bruised, smacked, but alive, and appreciative of that fact. It amazed her that she could feel anything any longer, yet she did, even more so, everything stark and sharp and pricking, like she’d been dunked in ice water and pulled back out, dripping and shivering.

Damien’s tongue moved over her, stretching the neck of her tank top down and tasting her breasts, his knees kicking and shoving and maneuvering her thighs apart while she worked his jeans down.

It wasn’t pretty or tender or slow, but desperate, hard, demanding, her head pressed down in the hard-packed grass, expensive clothes shoved away brutally as an inconvenience. This was what she wanted, to feel him, ferocious and primal, their frustrations bursting out as they pounded their bodies together.

Damien was hot and possessive as he shoved her skirt up, yanked her thong to the side, and for the moment he was hers, only hers, regardless of the past, ignorant of the future. When he pushed inside her, she cried out, the power of his motion skidding her on the grass. Wrapping a leg around her, he rolled them, until he was on the ground, Marley on top of him.

She spread her thighs farther, eyes half closed, swarming in sensations, wants, the agony of knowing now was it, all there was ever going to be. Skirt caught between her leg and his hip, Marley yanked it out of her way, balanced her knees in the grass, and started to move on him. Each slide up was a delicious tease, each push down a soothing ecstasy.

Shoulders tense, hair falling in her face, damp with sweat, Marley took Damien into her over and over, until they were both panting, thrusting, slapping together with all the urgency they felt. Her teeth tore into her bottom lip, Damien’s fingers dug into her waist, rubbing her flesh raw. When she forced her eyes open, looked down at him, she let herself go, sinking into the pleasure, wrapping it around her, holding on to her tight, agonizing orgasm as long as she could.

Damien gripped her forearms and flipped her onto her side with more ferocity than finesse. Marley blew her sticky hair out of her eyes, lightheaded and blissfully exhausted. Prepared to lay back and let him do all the work, Marley was shocked when he shifted her hip up, so one leg crossed the other. “How…”

The question died on her lips when he pushed forward into her, intense and determined, touching everywhere, tripping off a whole new buildup.

And as they climaxed together, Damien stared down at her in the dark and said, “I love you. I love you.”

It was more than she had expected. Yet it could never be enough.

Marley leaned into Damien, his arm around her waist as they walked back down the path, her muscles sore, body satisfied, mind empty, heart full for now.

“Will you spend the night in the
garçonnier
with me?”

“I thought you said that was the last time.” Not that she was going to object to a sleepover.

He nudged her hip. “It was. I just thought you’d be more comfortable with me than alone in the house.”

“Yes, I would. Thanks.” Marley smiled up at him, then stopped walking when she heard a snort of disdain.

Rosa was in front of them, hands on her hips. “I wondered where you were hiding tonight. Nice grass stains. Let me guess, you’ve been doing a little midnight gardening.”

“How did you know?” Damien drawled. “Those oleander bushes needed trimming.”

His answer clearly irritated Rosa. She crossed her arms over her chest, which was barely covered in a gold bikini top, body jewelry wrapping around her waist and attaching to her belly button ring. Her peasant skirt glowed white in the moonlight. “I want to talk to you, Damien. Now. Alone.”

“I’m sorry, it will have to wait. Marley is leaving in the morning, and we’re spending some time together.” Damien pressed her waist, urging her forward, clearly intent on passing Rosa on the path.

Marley didn’t like the look on Rosa’s face. She thought Damien was making a mistake in disregarding her. “It’s okay, I can go ahead.”

“No.”

“Listen to your little girlfriend, she’s obviously smarter than you. I want to talk to you right now.”

But Damien just strode on past her. “You sound like a three-year-old, Rosa. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”

Marley heard Rosa gasp, glanced at her over her shoulder, and saw her screwing her hands into fists, saw the rage on Rosa’s face. Then suddenly Marley felt a whoosh around her ankles, felt heat licking her legs.

“What the hell?” Startled, she jerked back, looked down, and saw the hem of her skirt was on fire. “Damien!”

She looked around frantically, not sure what to do. The heat from the flickering flames was stinging her skin, and she bent at the knees so the skirt would hit the ground and she could swat at it.

Damien swore and stomped on her hem with his bare foot. The fire died, and the fabric smoldered. “Rosa, that is not fucking funny.”

“What?” Rosa sniffed, studying her fingernails.

As Marley stood back up, she felt the back of her skirt lift like a wind had caught it. “Oh, God!” Now the seat of her skirt was smoldering. There were no flames, but the fabric was darkening, making crackling sounds as it smoked and spread out in a circle. She felt the heat on her backside and froze in panic.

Damien smacked her hard, preventing a flame from springing up. Marley stumbled forward from the blow.

“Look, if you’re into spanking, that is your business, but I could do without seeing it.” Rosa looked to be fighting a smug smile.

Marley was suddenly afraid of that smile. Rosa had powers she didn’t understand, and she clearly saw Marley as the enemy. Skirt still hot to the touch, Marley started to turn around when the whole hem burst into a colorful fire ring. She screamed, and Damien yanked her skirt down to the ground and pulled her out of it.

“Damn it, it, that’s enough,” Damien told Rosa, seriously annoyed with her. She was scaring the hell out of Marley and he really didn’t like that.

She glared at him. “Don’t mess with me. I’ll set her on fire like a human Molotov cocktail if you don’t show me some respect.”

“You’d never do it.” Damien tossed Marley’s skirt a few feet away from them and stared down Rosa. She looked serious, but he had never known her to be truly malicious. Mischievous, yes. But cruel, no.

“Want to try me?”

No, he didn’t want to risk it. “Fine, you win. Does that make you happy?”

Marley was clinging to his side in her tank top and thong panties. Damien yanked his shirt off over his head and handed it to her. “Here, put this on. Go ahead back and wait for me in the
garçonnier
. Lock the door behind you. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

She nodded, eyes huge with fear, and she took the shirt from him, fingers trembling slightly. “You’ll be okay?”

He smiled at her and kissed her lightly. “I’ll be fine. Rosa and I understand each other.” He patted her backside gently. “Go on.”

She nodded, pulled the shirt on, tugging it over her butt, and walked quickly, glancing back over her shoulder. The bush to her left burst into flames and she skittered away from it. Damien started toward her, but it fizzled out and Marley kept going.

“Nice, real nice,” he told Rosa.

She shot him a look of pure gleeful triumph as she twitched Marley’s skirt around on the ground with the toe of her sandal. “Expensive label. That’s too bad.”

“Going to pay me back for it?”

“Oh,
you
bought the skirt. I should have guessed. That girl doesn’t have the taste to buy something this nice. How sweet of you. But then you were always good to your whores.”

She was trying to get a rise out of him, and damn it, it was working. Damien forced himself to take a deep breath. “What would you like to discuss, my dear? Obviously it’s something urgent if you felt the need to play fire starter.”

“Don’t mock me. You’re already on my shit-list. I’m serious. I’d love an excuse to burn this house to the ground.”

Why did Damien suddenly feel like that wouldn’t be a bad thing? It sometimes felt like Rosa de Montana held him captive as much as the Grigori did. “Don’t be so damn sensitive. Since when do you take a little ribbing so seriously? I thought we were better friends than that.” Rosa looked volatile enough that he felt the need to defuse her anger.

“Friends?” She laughed. “That may be stretching it. What we are is two sides of a coin, a mirror to the other, male and female versions of the same person. But the one huge difference between us is that I accept who I am, and you fight it over and over, and you exhaust the hell out of me.”

“Then let me go. If I’m such a burden to you, just cut me loose, resign me to hell, let me return to the vulnerability of mortality.” It was futile to ask, but he had to. He would give anything to be just a man again.

“You’d like that, I know, but the thing is I can’t do that. But there is a way for you to gain your freedom.”

“How?” She was toying with him, he was certain, but a small part of him still hoped, still ached to have an answer.

“Like I’m going to tell you. You have to work it out yourself.”

“You mean by getting someone to take my place. That’s what Anna did, isn’t it?” At one time he had been desperate enough to try that, and had rationalized Anna wanted what he offered, which she had. But it hadn’t been right, he knew that, and he wouldn’t do it again, under any circumstances.

“Yes, that’s what she did, but there is another way.”

“How?”

“Come on, I can’t spell it out for you. That would be too easy. You have to get enlightened and shit…you know, seek the answer in the obvious and you’ll find peace.” Her anger seemed to have dissipated, and she flicked his arm with her finger in amusement. “Look inside yourself, dummy. That’s the way these things always work.”

“You’re joking.” She sounded like a fucking fortune cookie.

“Dead serious.” Rosa crossed her finger over her heart. “But that’s not what I came to tell you.”

“No?” This conversation was only frustrating him. Damien struggled for patience.

“Nope. I meant to tell you he’s here, you know.”

“Who?” It wasn’t like Rosa to talk in obscurities. That was Anna’s specialty.

“My father.”

Damien had to admit, that shocked him. As far as he knew, he’d never met the demon to which he was enslaved. “Where? In the house? Who is he with?”

“You’re cute when you’re being stupid. He’s with Marley’s sister.”

“With Lizzie?” Damien was astonished, but equally amazed he hadn’t seen this coming before. “Oh, shit, Rosa. None of this was a coincidence, was it?”

“Now you’re finally catching on.”

His mind was racing, forcing the pieces into the puzzle. “You and Anna gave the letters to Marley, didn’t you?”

Her eyes gleamed, black with shiny flecks of gold. “Duh.”

“Why?”

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.”

His temper flared. “Cut the cutesy shit. You’re not a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. What do you want? What does your father want with Lizzie?”

“I can’t tell you! Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t. Don’t you get it? You’ll have to figure it out yourself.”

What he needed to do was go to Marley and then find her sister. “Fine, whatever. I wouldn’t expect you to do something for someone other than yourself.”

Her shoulders slumped and she took his hand, wiggled it back and forth. “Don’t do that, don’t be mad at me. I care about you. You know you’re like family to me.” She grinned. “Kissing cousins. But seriously, I care about you. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for Marie to kill herself. I thought she’d say yes, not drink a bunch of poison.”

Damien felt everything inside go ice cold. “What do you mean?” he asked in a steely voice, extracting his hand from Rosa’s. “Yes to what?”

“I offered her the chance to save you and the baby. All she had to do was offer herself to my father. It was a good bargain, I thought she’d take it, and everyone would be happy.”

“The
baby
? She was
enceinte
?” Pain ripped through him, tearing open wounds he’d thought were long since healed.

“You didn’t know about the baby?” Rosa asked in astonishment. Then she said, “Oops. Sorry.” She made a whoopsie face, like she’d just accidentally revealed a surprise party, not that his wife had been pregnant when she’d killed herself.

Everything made much more sense, though, why Marie had done what she had. She would have rejected the idea of sleeping with a demon, even if it meant death to escape it. In that regard, she had been a much stronger person than him.

He should have known, he should have protected Marie, his child. Like he needed to protect Marley now.

The truth came to him in a flash. This was his punishment, once again. The punishment of lust. He started to run.

Marley knew the minute she clicked the lock on the door of the
garçonnier
that she wasn’t alone. Whirling around, she saw Lizzie’s boyfriend, Alex, sitting in a chair at the table.

“What are you doing here?” Too freaked out from Rosa’s little display of fire power, she didn’t bother to be polite. She was in a T-shirt and her underwear, her lover was immortal, and her sister had appalling taste in men. She had no interest in chatting with this creep. “Where’s Lizzie?”

“In the house, naked. I put her on a couch and gave the room an open invitation to do whatever they’d like with her.”

Marley’s stomach churned. “You’re disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself for taking advantage of someone as needy and insecure as Lizzie is.” And for the first time, Marley realized that truly was what drove her sister.

“That’s not how I’d describe Lizzie. More like how I’d describe you.”

She wasn’t going to rise to that bait. “Did you need something? Because this part of the plantation is off-limits to partygoers. I need to ask you to go back to the big house.”

“Waiting for your lover?” Alex had long legs and he stretched them out casually, his elegant fingers tapping a rhythm on the chair arm. “I confess I had hoped Damien would appreciate your unique charms, but even I am surprised at how taken he is with you. It seems our boy fancies himself in love. I find that amusing in the extreme.”

Marley’s irritation turned to fear, and she gripped the hem of Damien’s T-shirt. “What are you talking about?”

“I keep forgetting you don’t know who I am. I am Rosa’s father and a Grigori demon.” He stood up and bowed to her. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, my dear.”

For a split second, Marley thought she was going to faint. Her fear clawed up and down her back, her throat, ringing in her head, and she swallowed hard, pushing back bile. “What do you want?” she whispered. God, this man, this demon, this walking evil, was with her sister. Had Lizzie completely under his control.

“I should have thought it was obvious.” His eyes raked up and down her body. “I want you.”

Marley fought the urge to take a step back. “For what?” Not that she thought he was looking for a good cook or a teacher for his children. She knew what he wanted, but the very concept made her feel ill, raw terror rising like vomit inside her.

“Let me explain myself. You look a bit concerned. I want you as my lover, perhaps eventually my wife if we are both so inclined.”

His voice was smooth, cultured, low and coaxing, and he smiled, his manner neither threatening nor intimidating. He looked like a wine connoisseur, a piano virtuoso, a patron of the arts. He had none of the wildness Damien possessed, that instinctive edge of danger that surrounded him. This man was physically attractive, his features smooth, cheekbones high, hair neatly trimmed. But Marley could see that the intense look in his eyes didn’t match the casual tone.

“I’m not so inclined.”

He laughed, and the sound sent a shiver down her spine.

“And you already have my sister. What do you want me for?”

Alex, if that was really his name, shrugged. “Sure, Lizzie has been fun, but there’s just no challenge there, Marley. I am a demon. I love to promote sin. A woman like Lizzie will sin with or without me. I only encouraged her to dive fully into her base nature. Maybe when I was younger, that would have satisfied me. But now it’s just not enough. I want you. I want the thrill of turning a good girl bad. Now that would be very satisfying indeed.”

There was no way, ever, that Marley would willingly have sex with that man, creature, whatever he was. She wondered if she could run for the house, or if she should stay and talk to him, waiting for Damien. Not that she really wanted to force a confrontation between the two. If Rosa could set things on fire, Marley could only imagine what Alex could do. But no matter what he was capable of, she was not going to sleep with him.