Flame Unleashed (Hell to Pay) (17 page)

“How did your husband’s company fare?”

Pulling her damp hair over one shoulder, she finger combed it as she stared into the darkness. “Depends on how you approach the question.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, from the point of view of following orders, the company performed admirably. William’s company held their line and pushed inward toward General Jackson’s forces. But in terms of attrition, it was catastrophic. Half of the company was cut down in the field.”

“What about your husband?”

“So, the day after battle, I happened upon a delirious soldier with blood-soaked bandages around his chest and belly. There was grime and gore everywhere. Even his trim moustache had been coated. It was William. I was so horrified, I actually vomited. He had that scent of death about him. You know the smell?”

“Of course,
chère
.”

Shame coated her like tepid mud. “I’m sorry, I know you’ve faced death before, too.”

“Yes, but this is your story.” He placed her hand in his and squeezed gently.

“So when William woke up, his pain destroyed me. All I could think was that my husband lay dying. Who would support the children? Who would be my companion for the rest of my life? Despair is the best word to describe how I felt. No human should have to suffer the way he did. So I yelled out to the heavens, to the stars, the moon, for someone to help me save this man.”

“And you got an answer.”

“Of course. Jerahmeel. Like you, I simply signed on the dotted line.”

“Did it work?” He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, the reassuring circles calming her.

She flicked her hair back over her shoulder and stared at him. “William walked out of that dirty field hospital two days later. The surgeon declared it a miracle that his belly wound had closed and sealed without so much as a hint of infection. My prayers had been answered, and William received an honorable discharge from the army.”

“So he came home?”

“Yes, and for a week or so, things were perfect. He was a loving father and kind husband. Our life, far from the frontline of the war, rolled on in a perfectly calm manner.”

“Until?”

“Until one day, I woke up with a knife attached to my leg and a hunger to kill like nothing I’d ever known before. I thought I was losing my mind. I tried to take the knife off, but the pull it had over me ... It was a part of me.”

Odie nodded, a mere movement of shadow in the darkness.

“One day, Jerahmeel appeared again and gave me my marching orders, as it were. I found a criminal in Rockville and killed him, but an acquaintance nearly witnessed the kill.” Reclaiming her hand, she dropped her face into her palms and scrubbed, as though she could erase the memory.

“No witnesses, that’s the rule.”

“I know. Believe me, I know. So every week or so after that, I took a trip to Washington or Baltimore to roam more freely with a larger selection of criminals and more places to keep a kill hidden.”

“Wait. You returned home after each kill?”

With her chin resting on her hands, she looked up at him. “So I did two things I wasn’t supposed to do. That’s what drew Jerahmeel’s attention.”

“What?”

“I told my husband what had happened and what I was. And then I stayed with my family.” Nausea speared through her again, like her transition to Indebted happened yesterday.

Even though Odie knew perfectly well what being an Indebted entailed, she still hated the crimes she had to commit in her new existence. Even speaking the words made her all the more ashamed.

When he rubbed his jaw, the scratching sound made her nerve endings tingle.

“That’s bold,” he said. “Jerahmeel forbade me to have further contact with my girls.”

“That’s what he told me, too, but I couldn’t do that. I loved my children so dearly. For whatever reason, Jerahmeel made an exception for me to stay with my family. My freedom lasted about a year.”

“Wow.”

“Unfortunately for me, I believed in complete honesty with my husband. Little did I know that integrity was not his strongest character trait—not by a long shot. Neither was sobriety or fidelity.”

“What?”

“I had wondered why William was so accepting of what I’d become, especially given the potential for my Indebted status to ruin his good society name. He encouraged me to take trips to feed the knife’s needs. He supported my decision to travel some distance away from Rockville to obtain the kills, even take extra trips if needed. At the time, I thought he was simply helping me with the situation.”

“But?”

The worst part of the tale by far, how her trust had been repaid by his cheating. She made a conscious effort to relax her jaw, so tightly did she clench down, almost to hold back her disgrace. But what’s done had been done. Might as well share everything.

“But he was slaking his own personal desires while I was gone. Drunk more evenings than not. And enjoying his time with a childhood friend of mine, no less. He told her that I would be out of the picture soon and then he’d marry her.”

The grind of Odie’s voice contained his anger, but only just. “That must have devastated you.”

Unshed tears burned as the memory played in her mind like it had happened yesterday. “I came home one day after a trip to Baltimore and found them together, one room above where my children were playing. I got very angry, angrier than I can remember ever being before.”

What went unsaid was how her power had erupted at that very moment. The weird screaming whistle in her mind had threatened to split her head open, tried to rend the humanity from her soul. At that moment when she reached into William’s mind and pulled out his carnal sins for examination, her terrible power had fully manifested.

She wasn’t ready to share that piece with Odie, though.

 “My yelling must have been impressive. The other woman fled, half-dressed. My children were crying. And William cut me to the bone. He told me I was no longer fit to be a mother, much less a wife, and I could never fulfill his needs. Because of the monster I’d become, he said I had to leave for the children’s benefit and never contact them again.”

“Horrible. Did he recognize the part about how he was the one committing adultery?”

“In his mind, it was but a logical step on his way to replacing me as his wife and securing a more suitable mother for his children.”

“You sacrificed everything for him.
These were your children
,” he whispered.

Her voice cracked, despite trying to maintain control. “Don’t you think I know that? I lost everything. My mortality, my humanity, my soul. I became something I despised. A criminal. I became Death.”

Fists formed at his sides. “And he repaid your sacrifice by throwing you away?”

“He threatened to tell everyone what I’d become and why I took trips to the bigger cities. Then he’d publicly divorce me.”

“That’s cold. What a bastard.”

“Yes, but colder still was my death he faked after I left.”

“You’re kidding.” The intensity in his shadowed stare made her insides clench.

“I wish it were a joke. I moved to Pennsylvania, started a new life, and entered nursing school. Months later, I discovered that he somehow got a body that looked like me, mutilated it, and publicly mourned the death of his beloved, precious wife. Complete with a lavish funeral, no expense spared. You know, the funeral seemed so silly. But what wasn’t funny was how I never saw my children again.”

“Do you know what became of them?”

“It was too painful to find out, so I buried them deep in my heart and then went on with my life, such as it was. Nursing school twenty or thirty times, trying to find a purpose for this hellish existence.”

“Awful.”

He smoothed a piece of her hair over her back. Whether her shudder came from the fragile trust growing or the frank catharsis that, after 150 years, she could finally tell her story, she didn’t know. All she knew was, she needed to finish the hellish tale, get all of the hidden pain out.

“Each time I matriculated, I got split even further into two people: quiet and competent Nurse Ruth and the tempting seductress who killed evil people. Neither person was the real me, but both were necessary for my mental survival. I couldn’t allow the real Ruth to be the killer. But I had needs beyond nursing that I refused to explore. So I got very good at hiding, pretending to be what people expected. Or didn’t expect, as the case might be.”

Odie lifted her hand and brushed his firm lips over the inside of her wrist. A sensation like a shiver wrapped in electricity shot up her arm and down her torso into her core.

“Well, now you know the sordid history.”

“You’re an amazing woman, mother, and wife.”

The weight in her ribcage had disappeared. Although she hadn’t cried, she was exhausted, as if she’d wept for weeks. Her head hurt at the memory of her children, but the weight that had been holding her down for hundreds of years had gone. Hope pushed up like a butterfly emerging from a too-long sleep in the cocoon.

She shook the torpid heaviness off her shoulders. The lightness felt like freedom and new life. She had crested a mountain and was peering down the other side. Her history created the person she was today, but her future lay at the foot of the precipice.

Where Odie waited for her.

Could she take the leap of faith with him?

Desire flared. Holy hell, she wanted him more than ever. She glanced sideways at him and licked her lips.

That tongue darting over her lips was all it took to break his dam of restraint. Odie yanked her around the rest of the way to face him, kissing her deeply. He wanted to replace her pain with pleasure. He wanted to commune with her in a way that shared their pain of becoming Indebted and turned that torment into something good and pure.

On the steps of the porch, he poured out his own suffering, his own experiences, his sympathy for her sacrifice, into the kiss. It was meant to be a balm for her, but instead, every press of her lips against his soothed his own battered soul, piece by piece.

She ran her fingers through his hair and over his scalp, sending shock waves right to his groin. The scrape of her nails across his head sent his mind reeling. If she continued, his balls would explode, they were so tight right now.

Desperation drove his hands in a frantic need to touch every inch of her body. He wanted to draw her into himself, take away her pain. Wanted all of that and so much more.

“Ruth, I need you.”
Mon dieu
, but his voice had gone ragged, like the words shredded his throat. “But I have no right to ask. After what you’ve shared with me and all you’ve been through.”

“You have every right and even more reason.” When she brushed her breasts against him, it took all his preternatural strength to keep from tearing her clothes to pieces.

“I want you. Here.”

He waved a hand to encompass the dark porch, the quiet night, and the rows of trees and acres of land surrounding them. No one would see them, but he had to take Ruth here, exposed, outdoors, in any way he wanted. He wanted to strip away all of her costumes and free the true Ruth. He wanted to be equally as bared to her. No pretense, no roles to play. Just two people. No hiding.

Her breasts heaving, she focused on him for a full minute.

The definition of torture lived in those sixty seconds of silence.

Slowly, she pulled off her top, revealing ample breasts beneath a lacy bra. How could he have neglected this area earlier this evening?

Dropping kisses on the tops of her breasts, he smiled when a shudder passed through her. Excellent. He wanted her to know every bit of his hunger, his desire. He had waited hundreds of years for a woman like this; he was going to savor every inch of her body.

And he was going to enjoy her outside of the confines of polite society, outside of the structure of the house, outside of any pretense.

He pulled her forward by her waist, appreciating how her luscious hips flared below his hands. Sampling her body earlier today had not been enough. An appetizer, really.

When he unclasped the bra and drew it down her arms and away, the sight before him robbed him of speech. In the moonlight, her skin glowed. The darkness of her taut nipples contrasted beautifully with her creamy skin. Rapt, he drew his hand down her breasts, lifting each heavy globe and teasing the tips into hard pebbles until she groaned.

After unbuttoning her pants, he moved down two steps as he slowly removed the khakis. Slow torture indeed.

She lowered herself to sit on the top step, in all her nude glory, luminous in the moonlight. Glorious. Amazing.

“
Chère
, the porch. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Will the wooden planks hurt you?”

“No.”

The sweet sound of her breathy words caressed his ears. “Then they won’t hurt me, either.”

She sat forward, her dark nipples tempting him. He climbed the steps to better explore her full breasts. Each time he squeezed and licked, her back arched as a sigh passed through her mouth. An entire lifetime could be gladly spent, enticing those sounds from her lips.

When he trailed a hand over her curved abdomen and lower, he spread his fingers and caressed her curls. As he cupped her folds, she rocked against his hand. She reached for him, but he placed her hands at her sides, and she gripped the edge of the step.

He nudged her legs wide, so she sat, totally exposed, on the top step of his porch. “Stay in this position,
chère
. Please.”

He scooted down several steps, not caring how the wood splinters dug into his knees. As he lifted his head up to meet her feminine lips, he inhaled the warm scent of her arousal. He slid his tongue up one side of her soft skin and down the other, then swirled around her nub, sucking until she began to shake.

When he gently nipped the sensitive folds, her hands clenched in his hair. His desire spiked. At some point, she’d given up holding on to the porch, and he didn’t care one bit.

Lifting one hand, he parted her folds, exposing her heated core. Her salty taste went straight from his tongue to his hard erection, which strained for release.