Villain (6 page)

“Stella,” he said in a low, hard voice. “It. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”

But she hardly paid attention to his words, because, of course, it was her fault. If she hadn’t been so wanton…“Yes, it is!”

“It’s not your fault, Stella,” he repeated, reaching out to her even as she stepped sideways to avoid him.

“I told you,” she began with a voice perilously close to breaking, “if you gave me your body, I’d give you mine.”

He was silent, his hand reaching out to her and again being avoided by her. Taking another step backward, she swallowed the lump in her throat and gathered the courage to meet his gaze. “Take it.”

His eyes widened.
What?

“I said take it.”

He frowned angrily.
Stop it
.

“No,” she said flatly. “Summon her back. Use your magic, use my body, it’s yours. Use it and bring her back.”

Gabriel’s hands balled at his sides, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
Shut up, Stella
.

She felt her body start to shake. “You want to do it. Don’t pretend you don’t, and I want you to. I do!” She felt so lonely with Faith inside her, haunted by her horrible memories and her dreadful past. If Faith wasn’t happy, Stella never would be. She knew it now. She wasn’t giving her life to anyone when it had never even been her own in the first place. “I’m not doing this to be noble. I just can’t stand it.”
She pines away for you in my mind, and I feel like I pine for you too, and you’ll never be mine, ever!

His face was twisted with rage, sparks burning in his eyes. “Stop this,” he said, that low hiss quivering with withheld power.

But she was deaf to him, to his words, and instead she spread her arms apart, tears stinging in her eyes. “Take me out of this body and call her in please.”

“Never.”

“Do it.”

“Shut the fuck up, Stella!”

“Do it, damn you!”

With an unearthly roar that filled her ears, he lunged at her, red-hot rage flashing in his eyes as he spread his palms open and covered her face with them. Words spilled out of his lips, dark and poetic, like a foreign chant brimming with magic, and then his spell took hold of her, flinging her into blackness.

Chapter Four

“You’re coming to, thank God!”

Stella stared up at the lines of worry on her mother’s face, and then quickly sat up on the bed, gazing around at her small, cozy bedroom.

“What am I doing here,” she asked, “in my room?”
Damn you, Gabriel, you stupid, hotheaded man
.

He’d damned well better hear that!

Her mother took one hand in both of hers, brown-green eyes just like Stella’s staring back at her in concern. Stella hated making her mother worry. She hated how the dear woman’s fretting never seemed to end. Stella sometimes wondered if maybe it
was
better that she leave. Her mother seemed to have no life except Stella’s, no interest except Stella, and yet her daughter’s life had been so dreary, such a big nothing, filled with fevers and nightmares and someone else’s thoughts. Her mother—so dedicated, so giving—didn’t deserve this kind of life at all.

“I found you like this on your bed. You were hardly breathing.” Her mom’s voice shook as she ran her knuckles down Stella’s cheek. “I’ve been so worried. For a moment, I thought—”

Stella stared at her grimly. “What?” she demanded, her voice breaking unannounced. “That the Villain took me, is that what you feared?”

Her mother cautiously nodded.

Stella shot to her feet, thrusting her hands in the air. “Maybe I want him to take me. Maybe I want him to take me and do what he would with me!”

Her mother froze on the bed, her eyes widening. “Stella!” she gasped, wrapping her arms around herself to suppress a shiver. “Don’t ever repeat that again in my house!”

Stella pursed her lips, determined not to cry, not in front of her mother, not for that silly, stupid man.

Her forehead creasing with worry, her mother bounded from the bed and rushed to her, hugging the breath out of Stella’s lungs. “Oh, my darling, my baby,” she cooed, tears brimming in every word. Stella let her herself be held, let her mother’s chubby, pliant arms remain wrapped around her, let them try to give her peace. “Sweetie, I’ve never told you this, but maybe I should have.
Oh, dear God, this is difficult
.” There was a long pause. “The day you were born…”

Stella pushed herself back to study her. “I know what happened, Mother. I know it’s…I know it’s the day after she killed herself, the day Gabriel burned her body.”

Her mother covered her mouth, stifling a shriek before nodding. “Dear God, yes. That’s his name! He burned Mr. Dawson’s house that night too. No one had ever heard from Mr. Dawson since. We’re all sure he was killed in the fire. Then the Villain stole her body from the grave and burned her to ashes and spread them on the sea. Mrs. Grieves heard him, speaking strange words, angry words, words of his … black magic.” Her mother’s eyes seemed to darken, and they looked unfocused, as if she were there, reliving it all over again. “Those crows that like to follow him went crazy that night. I could hear them out on the streets, cawing and cawing that ungodly sound. My birth pains were so heavy, but I was scared and…oh, dear God, one of those ugly birds cracked the window open—just like that! The hideous black thing burst into the room. The midwife panicked, but I was already halfway through the labor. The bird flew and flew around the room, shrieking like they do. Your father went crazy. He fetched a broom and tried to get it out, kill it even, while I pushed and pushed, and then you were born, and we heard your cry, and the bird stopped flying, suddenly just pausing by the window and…
staring
at you…and then it was gone.”

Stella asked something she’d always wanted to, and yet had never dared. She squeezed her mother’s shoulders, the touch gentle as her voice. “Why did Father leave us?”

Her mother sniffled and shakily brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. “Well, I was so busy with you, I never did have much time for him. You used to have such strange dreams, and go into trances all of a sudden, and then the fevers! You were such a sick little girl! He used to tell me—in fact we always fought because of it, because I refused to admit it—but the truth is, he always suspected…Oh, sweetness.” Stella had never seen that expression on her mother’s face, and the look of it filled her with dread. “I think you might be cursed.”

Stella stared blankly at her as her brain digested the news, then she realized, feeling strangely unaffected, that she wasn’t surprised at all. She knew there was a reason she couldn’t ever seem to be happy. She knew there was something different about her, a reason the townsfolk kept a safe distance from her. She knew there was a reason she hardly ever smiled, hardly ever felt the desire to do anything but what she must. Until…

She hugged her mother then, as tightly as she could, and buried her face into her hair. “Oh, Mother,” she said feelingly. “I think I
am
cursed.”

When she felt the plump woman stiffen in her arms, Stella quickly expelled a breath. “I’m in love with the Villain.”

* * *

Damn you, Gabriel, you hotheaded, stupid man!

He had heard her, and he had smiled; he was
still
smiling over that. She wanted to give him her body, and that touched him beyond measure, made his heart feel so damned heavy he was barely able to carry it in his chest.

He’d felt rage at first, that she should even tempt him to do so, that she would think him so low, so capable of taking someone’s soul away. He’d been so angry, she was lucky all he did was send her home. But yet he’d pondered over it for hours afterward, concluding there was only one reason anyone would do something so unselfish. Only one reason Stella could know what Faith knew.

And then he’d realized Stella
was
Faith.

He’d trembled at the realization. Joy and love and disbelief all tangled and twisted inside him. His magic—it felt strong now, a burning light, more powerful than ever, simmering with energy in the pit of his being.

Growing up, Gabriel had thought his magic was evil. It had been too strong for such a little boy, and he hadn’t known how to control it. Several times as a kid, he’d been angry, and he’d wished for things he shouldn’t have. His father’s drunken bouts hade made him wish to be left alone, and one morning his wish came true. His father never woke from his sleep. Gabriel was sure he had killed him.

He’d felt so ashamed, so guilty, that he swore he’d never use his magic again. He’d tried to hold it back from then on, contain it, ignore it. But then the years passed, and he met her.

Faith Harrison. Beautiful, kind, warm-hearted Faith.

Was she blind? he’d first wondered when she smiled that dazzling white smile at him. Gabriel had turned to look at the sidewalk behind him, certain she
couldn’t
be smiling at him. Not that angel. Certainly not.

But she
had
been smiling at him, and although Gabriel didn’t believe in love at first sight, that hadn’t kept him from falling, hard.

He never told Faith about his magic, and yet she was a curious little thing, asking more questions than she should about everything. One day she trapped him, holding the bud of a lily in her hand, and wistfully wishing out loud that it open for her. Like the love-sick fool he was, wanting to impress his lady, Gabriel fell for that, and in less than a second the flower bloomed in her hand.

Faith had turned to him with wide, worshipping eyes. “I knew it!” she had said, waving the lily at him. “I knew it. I knew it. I knew it!”

From then on, Faith steadily encouraged him, steadfast in her belief that magic could do good, and that Gabriel
was
good. He’d desperately wanted to believe her, and yet he never truly embraced this “goodness” of which she spoke.

He knew what he’d done.

The day Faith had killed herself, when Gabriel had felt his whole world collapse and thought of ending his own life, he’d realized maybe his magic
could
have done some good, maybe his magic
could
have saved her.

Maybe his magic could still save her.

He’d taken all that magic then, gathered it in the very center of his being, letting its warmth spread out to his palms, the soles of his feet, as he made a single spell.

I will not age a minute until you come back to me.

Come back to me.

Come back to me.

He had released her soul, offering it to the wind, giving her the freedom she so envied of the birds, and hoped this time, he could do something good.

When she came back to him, he would let nothing keep them apart. He would let nothing harm her, nothing take her away from him.

“I’d die before he touches me,” Faith had told him, and God, how Gabriel regretted hearing those words. The first night of her forced marriage to that sonofabitch gangster, she had tied a rope around her neck…

Gabriel had gathered every single rope in town from then on, and spent years controlling them, moving them at his will, as if somehow that could bring her back.

It didn’t.

Sighing, he headed to the corner of the cave and reached out for the heavy, leather-bound book.

Sitting down on the ground and setting it on his lap, he traced the pentagram with his finger, whispered a prayer, and opened the Book of Shadows.

* * *

Stella should have known her mother wouldn’t let it rest after that confession. First, she became hysterical, then thoughtful, and then she called Kevin. Stella wanted to shake some sense into her mother, ask her why she insisted in pairing her with Kevin when her mother knew she was in love with another man. Then Stella realized her mother would never stop being a mother, even if what she thought was best for her daughter was the complete opposite of what Stella knew she truly needed.

So instead Stella asked Kevin to walk with her to the park, thinking she might as well tell him she wasn’t interested in marriage—at least not to him—and be done with it.

She found it rather hard to bring up the subject when he didn’t say anything personal, only went on and on about technology in the world, and how he planned to slowly modernize the town.

Several cars drove by, people returning from work in the city mostly, the motors humming softly. When Kevin signaled a bench under an oak and asked her to sit, Stella suspected the direction the conversation was heading. Finally.

“Stella, we’ve known each other since we were kids,” he said, and instead of sitting by her side, he went down on one knee before her.

Which was not good.

“Yes, you’ve been a good friend to me, Kevin,” she said cautiously, stiffening when he took her hand over her lap and gently squeezed.

Kevin was handsome, in his own way. Not sinfully handsome like Gabriel, not big and dominant and breathtaking, but there was a calm, simple look to Kevin that wasn’t altogether displeasing. His eyes were warm, a deep honey color, his light-brown hair neatly trimmed and soft.

“I’ve always liked to think of you as more than my friend, Stella,” he countered, his eyes searching her own.

Quickly retrieving her hand from his, Stella suddenly regretted she was having this conversation in the first place. “Kevin, I’m sorry, but I—”

“Marry me.”

Having expected those words did nothing to keep her heart from plummeting down to her toes. “Kevin,” she said, sighing dejectedly. She hated hurting people; it wasn’t in her nature at all. Oh, Lord, now how was she supposed to phrase her rejection to minimize the blow a bit?

“Kevin, thank you, I—I’m really honored you would even ask. I’m sorry if I’ve given you the wrong impression but I…well, I just don’t love you in that way.”

He took her hand again, this time between both of his as he gave her an eager squeeze. “You will. I know you will. Just say yes, Stella. Say yes, and I’ll make you the happiest woman in town.”

Which wasn’t saying much at all, since everyone was so depressed around here; even the little dogs walked droopily across the grass. Oh, how she wished to disappear. Where was a witch when a woman needed one?

“I bought a ring.” Kevin reached into his pants pocket, somehow making Stella feel even worse. A ring! All that trouble he went through only to take it back.

“It’s a whole carat, too,” he said. He flicked the burgundy box open.

Stella stared down at it without truly seeing it, feeling lower than low. “Oh, Kevin.” She felt absolutely horrible. First she’d made Gabriel’s life hell, and now, it was Kevin’s turn. She lifted her lashes to him, desperately searching for the right words.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I believe this is my cue.”

Stella jerked her head back as that husky voice poured over her like honey. A looming figure stepped out of the shadows of a tree and into her line of vision. Oh, my God, Gabriel, in broad daylight, looked bigger than a live Paul Bunyan. If Stella had thought he would die like some kind of vampire under the sun, she needed to think twice.

Gabriel looked just as at home under the light as in the darkness in which he hid, every inch of his long, sinewy body exuding maleness and strength. As Kevin rose and turned around to scowl at him, Gabriel’s presence made him look pale in comparison. Gabriel was tall, broad-shouldered, and in command even of the space around him, while Kevin looked slim and unimportant.

“Umm. Do you mind?” Kevin asked, looking both confused and irritated by the interruption.

Gabriel eyed Kevin in derision, measuring his height and breadth. “Yes, I do mind,” he finally said. “The lady’s spoken for.” Then those piercing black eyes clashed with hers. “Hello, Stella.”

Stella had gone mute, and hoped to God Gabriel couldn’t hear her thoughts, for all she could think of was being ravaged, pilfered…robbed completely of her innocence again, by none other than the town villain.

If he ripped her clothes off and took her, right there on the bench, she wouldn’t have summoned up a protest. She stifled a shudder, her nipples brushing against her shirt, aching for his mouth, her sex pulsing so hard she had to press her legs shut to still it.

Kevin was too outraged and offended to even notice her turmoil. He was staring at Gabriel with a scowl, hands balled at his sides. “Spoken for?” Kevin said. “By whom?”