Fallen (43 page)

“No. I like this apartment.”

“We’ll have more room if I sell my absinthe spoon collection.” Not that it took up any space really, but it was the segue he’d been looking for, a way to reassure her his addictions were a thing of the past.

She glanced up at him. “Only if you want to.”

He nodded. “It’s time.” That was the past, and he wanted to embrace the power and beauty of living in the now.

They walked in the warmth, Sara’s sandals shuffling on the sidewalk, her sky blue skirt billowing around her legs, crossing through Jackson Square. He could leave New Orleans now, but he wouldn’t. It was home.

As they climbed up the hill to cross the tracks and reach the river, an old man approached them with a smile.

He held out a vibrant pink flower to Sara. “Have a wonderful day, precious,” he said, with a nod of his head and a hand flourish.

“Thank you,” she said and accepted the offering with a bright, warm smile.

Gabriel tried to tip the man, but he waved him off. When Gabriel turned to say something to Sara, tears were in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s a hot pink carnation,” she said. “My mother’s favorite flower.”

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say, but she shook her head.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s good. It’s a sign. She’s telling me she’s okay.”

Sara stopped in front of the river, not on the observation steps that were crowded with tourists, but fifty feet away. They were above the river, not in direct contact with the water, but the privacy worth the distance.

Removing the tie to the bag, Gabriel tipped it over and watched as Anne’s remains drifted down through the air. Sara tossed the carnation after, and its weight pulled it faster so that it caught up with the ashes and intermingled among them, until they collectively descended into the water.

Fallen.

Gabriel took Sara’s hand into his and walked away from the river.

Turn the page for a look at THE TAKING the next paranormal romance by Erin McCarthy. Coming soon from Jove Books.

NEW ORLEANS, 1878

Camille Comeaux lit the candles on either side of the French doors to the gallery, igniting taper after taper, and watching with pleasure as the flames cast dancing shadows on the wall behind, framing the doors with a moving, undulating arch of darkness.

“Don’t light too many,” Felix said from behind her, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders. “You’ll risk a fire.”

Enjoying the press of his strong fingers on her bare shoulders, Camille lit another candle and still one more, pleased with the effect, excited by the danger. If the draperies caught on fire, it would only be fitting. Conjuring the dead deserved drama.

“I want to be sure it works,” she told him. She wanted that more than anything.

She knew that Felix didn’t understand her drive, her need, but then she knew he was using her, the same as she was using him. He wanted her wealth, and perhaps her body, while she wanted—needed—his power. His magic.

“It will work,” he said, leaning around her and snuffing the last two candles she had lit by squeezing the flames between the tips of his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t perform any ritual that isn’t successful.”

It was easy to believe such confidence, and Camille studied his profile, pleased with her choice of hoodoo practitioner. Daring, bold, and successful, Felix was also singularly beautiful, with the thick dark hair and rich skin tone that revealed the African heritage of his mother’s family, along with the narrow, aquiline nose of his French father.

At some point soon he would take her virginity, along with the vast amounts of her money he had already acquired. She knew that. Perhaps even tonight. Regardless of when it happened, it was inevitable, given the course she had set them upon, and she could not regret it. The future had been altered irrevocably when her entire family had perished in the fever four months earlier, and every day, every decision had led her here to this moment.

This was the night she would call forth her mother and father and sisters from the grave.

Felix stared at her, and she stared back, a smile playing about her lips. There was a question in his brilliant blue eyes, a doubt that she could see the ritual through to the end, and it made her laugh out loud. She had no doubts, none whatsoever, and she would do whatever was necessary to speak to them, to express her love, her loneliness, her grief and desperation.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Perhaps he thought she was mad. Perhaps she was. Certainly twelve months earlier she would never have imagined that she would be standing in her parent’s bedroom
en chemise
with a man such as Felix, the expensive chest of drawers from France converted to an altar for his implements to aid in the ritual. A year ago, Camille had been a pleasant, content young woman of wealthy means, her days busy with embroidery, playing her instrument, receiving callers with her mother, and doing acts of charity in the hospitals of less salubrious neighborhoods.

But she was no longer that girl. She was a woman now, a manic, angry woman with no one to love her, and no one to live for. Camille grabbed the open wine bottle off the altar and drank straight from it, the sweetness sliding down her throat. “I am absolutely certain.”

Felix didn’t hesitate. He closed the distance between them and kissed her, a hot, skillful taking of her mouth that had Camille’s head spinning and her body igniting as the candles had. He gripped the back of her head, his tongue tasting and teasing, his thumbs brushing over the front of her chemise, finding her nipples and stroking them.

Camille was always surprised at how good it felt when Felix touched her, how wonderfully free and alive it made her feel. She ran her fingers over his bare chest, excited by the hard muscles, by the power his body contained. Whether it was the wine, or the excitement, or the sexual desire stirring to life, she didn’t know and didn’t care, but she could see through half-closed eyes that the room was in motion, the shadows pressing in and back out again, the furniture crisp and sharp, the candles appearing pliant and alive.

Everything was dark and warm, the yellow glow of the tapers plunging the altar into light, yet leaving the corners of the room black and secretive. Felix slid his tongue across her bottom lip and she shivered, her body aching deep inside, between her thighs. He stepped away and turned his back to her, leaving her breathing hard and reaching up into her hair to pull the pins away, to let the brown tresses tumble over her shoulders. Her bare feet dug into the rug and she licked her moist lips, the heat from the sultry September night, from the candles, from her own pleasure and excitement, creating a deep flush on her face along with a dewy sheen between her breasts.

When Felix turned around to face her again, he had a snake in his hand, its long brown body wriggling in an attempt to escape. But his captor brandished him high in the air, chanting lowly. Camille hadn’t known about the snake, had never guessed one of the baskets was holding a living reptile, and she gasped. Not from fear, but from excitement. This was right. This was magic.

Felix’s hand moved the snake so skillfully that it looked as if it were dancing, its body moving to a rhythm his master created, a decadent, primitive form of expression. A glance down the length of Felix’s hard chest and past his trousers showed that his bare foot tapped out a beat, and with his free hand he pulled a stick from his pocket and hit the chest of drawers, the sharp rap of the rhythm loud in the closed room. The hand tapped out time, the snake did his dance, Felix’s foot went up and down, but the rest of him held still—a hard, lean body of control.

“Dance for me, Camille,” Felix commanded, his eyes trained upward.

She did, first swaying softly, hands in her loose hair, then she closed her eyes and let her body feel the rhythm. It started in her feet and worked its way up to her hips, to her shoulders, until she was careening to the staccato beat, feeling it from inside her, springing to life, wanting out, needing air to fan the flames.

“You have the power,” he told her. “The magic comes from you. Reach for it.”

It did. She could feel it boiling up in her body, and she would have it. Camille opened her eyes as she moved, dancing in a pounding circle, her arms reaching up and out, sweat trickling down her back, and she loosened her chemise in a sharp tug at the ribbons, wanting the air, wanting the brush against her bare skin, wanting Felix to see her, wanting to connect with her very essence, the heart of who she was.

Felix brought the snake to her, and where she would normally have recoiled, Camille didn’t flinch or retreat, but instead danced for Felix while the reptile twisted and turned in front of her. They moved together, and she tore at her chemise with trembling, excited hands until she was completely naked, writhing like the snake, her fingers in her hair.

“You
are
ready,” Felix said.

She was. She was ready for whatever this night would bring.

By
USA Today
Bestselling Author

ERIN McCARTHY

In the late eighteenth century, plantation owner Damien du Bourg struck an unholy bargain with a fallen angel: an eternity of inspiring lust in others in exchange for the gift of immortality. However, when Marley Turner stumbles upon Damien’s plantation while searching for her missing sister, for the first time in two hundred years it’s Damien who can’t resist the lure of a woman. But his past sins aren’t so easily forgotten-or forgiven...

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