My Immortal (25 page)

Marley closed her eyes. Rosa had known all along. Had planned for Marley to come to Rosa de Montana. Had used Lizzie. Marley felt ill, her fingers clamped onto her suitcase.

“Going somewhere?” a voice asked from the doorway.

Spinning around, eyes flying open, Marley felt her heart rate ratchet up again. It was Alex, looking refined and in control.

“Alex!” Lizzie ran over to him and kissed him, wrapping her naked body around him.

He tolerated the embrace, but no more. “Seeing your sister off?” he asked. “It looks like she’s leaving in the morning.”

Actually, she’d been intending to leave right then, and hoped like hell she could find a hotel room at one in the morning in New Orleans. In retrospect, it didn’t sound like a great plan. Maybe Damien would let her spend the night in his town house on Esplanade.

“Yeah, Marley has some bug up her butt, as usual. She said the most awful things to me.”

Marley turned back to her packing, figuring Alex already knew what she was doing, and she wasn’t about to stand there and argue in a circle with her sister. They would just have to patch things up later, when Marley was gone from this place, when Alex ditched Lizzie and she wanted her big sister again, like she always did. Marley would be there, of course, like she always was.

Alex’s offer to her was a false one, and she couldn’t accept it, no matter what the consequences. Damien wouldn’t want her to, and freeing Lizzie from Alex still wouldn’t fix what was wrong with her. And no matter how pretty it was in pictures, Marley didn’t want a life that was based on falsehoods, weakness, the seduction of sin.

I sensed you had an answer ready for me,
Marley heard Alex say. She whipped around and stared at him. He was letting Lizzie kiss along his shoulder, bump her hips against him. Lizzie gave no appearance that she’d heard him speak.

So your packing is your answer? You’re leaving, refusing my offer?
His lips weren’t moving. But she could hear his voice, clear and hypnotic, in her head.

Marley shivered. She wet her lips with her tongue and nodded. “I can’t. I won’t.”

You’re certain? Absolutely certain? Not even for Damien and Lizzie?

“No.” Down that path lay destruction for all of them.

“I’m sorry you’re leaving,” he said out loud. “We were just getting to know each other so well.”

Lizzie pulled her head back and looked at him, instantly suspicious. “What does that mean? You’ve never even said two words to Marley.”

“Actually we might have said more than two words when we were fucking in the guest house a little while ago.”

Marley felt the blood drain from her face. So this was her punishment for refusing him. “Lizzie, he’s lying, we didn’t…”

But Lizzie was already weeping, big wet tears. “Alex? Tell me you didn’t.”

“I didn’t think you’d mind,” he said, all honest astonishment. “We have an open relationship. And Marley was so tempting. She came to me, in tears, with an adorable pouting lip, upset because Damien used her badly. I felt so sorry for her heartbreak that I thought it would be in bad taste to refuse her overtures. Besides, I enjoyed how shy she was with me. A sweet, innocent good girl is so arousing sometimes.”

It was exactly the right thing to say to revive Lizzie’s anger. She pushed away from Alex. “Don’t sleep with my sister again, Alex. I’m serious.”

“Since when do you give orders in this relationship? If I want a sister act, you’ll do it.” He grabbed her elbow when she would have stomped away from him. “But truthfully, I’d rather have Marley alone. She intrigues me, the way she was such a quiet, shy lover, yet so quick to come.”

Marley gasped, a sick feeling spreading in her gut.

“But…but I thought you loved me.” Lizzie’s voice sounded whiny, pleading. “I thought we were getting married.”

“Elizabeth, there are girls you marry and girls you don’t. You’re fun, but Marley is the kind of woman a man wants to marry, not you.”

Marley closed her eyes. He was so very good at this.

Lizzie let out a little gasp. Then she turned to Marley and said, “Don’t you ever speak to me again. I despise you. And don’t go near my son, either.”

She ran out of the room, hands covering her face, her nakedness never a concern.

Marley looked at Alex, resigned, tears in her eyes. She had done the right thing, but she had just lost her sister, completely and forever.

Alex smiled and gave her a shrug. “I’m sorry, my dear, but for every action there is a reaction. You had to know there would be consequences for your refusal.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“I’m disappointed, I must say. I was greatly anticipating my success with you.”

“We don’t always get what we want,” she said, voice and emotions raw.

“True.” His touch caressed her cheek, her lips. “Enjoy your lonely, barren life, Marley Turner.”

When he left, Marley stared into her suitcase, the jeans and shirts she’d already packed blurring and shifting.

That had sounded like an ominous prediction, one she really feared was going to come true.

“Oh, thank God, there you are,” Damien said from the doorway. “When you weren’t in the
garçonnier
, I…”

Marley looked up when Damien stopped speaking.

“What are you doing? Are you alright?”

No, she wasn’t, not in the least, but she was going to have to be. Marley finished stepping out of the jeans Alex had put on her and flung them into the corner of the room. “I’m as good as can be expected. I just told the demon that I will not do what he wants me to do, and in return, he told my sister I had sex with him. Lizzie hates me.”

Though it seemed Lizzie had been angry with her even before Alex had lied about them. Marley was still shocked to realize that her sister had manipulated men Marley had been interested in. Obviously, she was totally stupid, just like Lizzie always said, because she had never seen that. Not once had it even occurred to her to suspect Lizzie of that kind of betrayal.

“What did he ask you to do?” Damien asked, coming into the room and closing the door behind him.

“Nothing.” She blushed as she reached for her own jeans out of her suitcase. It was embarrassing the way Alex had so easily picked up on her wants and desires, and the image of Damien with that woman, with his children, played again in her head.

“What did he ask you to do?” Damien repeated, and he sounded so angry, so jealous, that she turned around, shook her head.

For the first time, she saw the traces of the Damien that Marie had known.

“What sick thing did he suggest? Tell me, Marley.”

That almost made her laugh. What the demon had suggested hadn’t sounded sick at all, not the way he surrounded her sexual compliance with everything she’d ever wanted. “It’s not what you’re thinking. He asked me to live with him, have his children.”

“What?” Damien had been moving toward her, but he recoiled at her words. “And you said no, right?”

She nodded, wanting to cry, but afraid she was out of tears. There were just none left in her.

“I’m so sorry…that was meant for me, Marley. Meant to be my punishment—to have to watch you with him, as a family, having the children I want so desperately, with the woman I love.” He wrapped his arms around her. “But obviously he didn’t understand how strong you are. The strongest woman I’ve ever known.”

Marley let herself lean on his chest, just one more time. Breathe in his scent, take comfort in his strength. “Even though he offered to free you if I did, I couldn’t, Damien, I just couldn’t. It’s so vile, so wrong, what he is, and I didn’t think you’d want me to give myself up for you. And no matter how enticing he tried to make it sound, what he doesn’t understand is the vast difference between lust and love. He can only offer me lust. You can offer me love, and that is trump every time in my book.”

“I would have never wanted you to sacrifice yourself. That would have destroyed me, knowing I’m not worth it, knowing you’re worth so much more than that. Because nothing has really changed. I can love you, do love you, but I’m no better than Alex.”

“The very fact that you can love makes you better than him.” Marley wiped her eyes on his T-shirt and drew in a breath. She could do this. Even though she felt cold and tired and sick, her heart splintering like dried wood. She would do this. “But you’re right, nothing has changed in circumstance. I still have to leave. It’s the right thing for both of us, I think. At least for now. I need some time to think.”

Damien didn’t say anything, but his arms tightened around her.

“Can I spend the night at your place on Esplanade? I can leave the keys with the manager or ship them back to you.”

“Of course,” he said, voice hoarse. “I’ll drive you there.”

“No, I can’t…really. I need to be alone. Please. I’m afraid I’ve used up all my resistance tonight, and neither one of us needs to drag this out.” What she really needed was a soft, safe bed, and the oblivion of a few hours’ sleep. As it was, she wasn’t sure how she was actually still standing. Her body felt numb, frozen from the inside out.

“Okay.” Then he gave a muffled laugh into her hair. “God, I can’t believe I’m just letting you walk away. I’m either a complete fool or I’ve actually grown up.”

“I’m going with the latter.”

“And it only took me two hundred and thirty years,” he said. Then he pulled back and gave her a kiss, soft and devotional. “
Au revoir,
Marley. May you get everything you deserve.”

“Good-bye, Damien.” She touched his cheek, stroked that long, masculine cheekbone. “I’m proud of you.”

For a minute, she thought he was going to say something else, but he just reached into his pocket, pulled a key from his key ring, and pressed it into her hand. He closed her fingers around it, his green eyes boring into her, then he nodded and left.

Marley turned and clicked her suitcase closed.

Damien was walking across the yard, heading toward the road, and the river, wanting to get away, wanting silence, when he heard someone calling his name. He turned and saw Marissabelle striding toward him in jeans and a tank top. She wasn’t the lush twenty-five-year-old Damien had known, but more like a woman of forty. Alex had obviously decided to show her mercy.

But gone was Anna. It was all Marissabelle, from the saucy sway of her hips to the triumph on her face. “I’m leaving,” she said. “Just wanted to tell you that I hope you rot in hell.”

The timbre of her voice was more like what he remembered, before age had ravaged it, and the sound raked through the stores of his memory, drew up unpleasant associations. Marissabelle had been part of his past, the violent decade when he’d been intent on driving himself to the grave, defiant and miserable. “Thanks. You too.”

She laughed. “You can do whatever you want with the house. I’m heading to New Orleans. I’m not sure what I’ll do, but maybe I’ll get a job in a club or something. I might as well use this body again, though I should probably spend a month or two doing some Pilates. The last time I was forty, women were expected to be soft and curvy, not tight and bony like they all are now.”

“Well, good luck.” What the hell else was he supposed to say? And did she think she was going to make him jealous if she took up stripping? He had finally come to terms with the fact that he hadn’t been responsible for her downfall—she had ordered that fate for herself. He had merely been witness.

“She wasn’t right for you,” Marissabelle said. “Come on, you know that. People like us, Damien, we never change. We’ll always walk on the dark side, and a girl like Marley, she walks the straight and narrow.”

He wasn’t going to have this conversation with her. Damien started walking again, giving her a wave as he turned his back on her.

She called him an absolutely atrocious curse word, but he ignored her and walked to the road, crossing it in the dark, climbing the levee. He sat down on the grass and watched the Mississippi roll by, moonlight reflected off the water, the small waves lapping against the shore.

He wasn’t sure where he’d go from there, if he had the ability to go on as he had before. Nothing had changed. He was still a Grigori servant, and they still had the power to destroy everything, everyone that mattered to him, to take his soul, if he refused to serve.

Yet everything felt different. He was different.

And whatever the consequence, he suddenly knew he could no longer serve as an accomplice to the demon. He was done even if it meant death.

He was the first Damien du Bourg, and the last.

And he was going to will his plantation, his town house in the French Quarter, everything he owned, to Marley. She would take care of his legacy, tend the houses, appreciate his history.

Lying on his back, he stared up at the sky, grateful for everything he’d been given, regretful that he’d wasted so much. Rosa floated in front of him, doing that hovering thing that he couldn’t stand. She only did it when she wanted to remind him she was a demon-child. Like he ever forgot.

“You’re blocking my view,” he told her, too tired to play games with her.

She landed on the grass with a soft thump, sitting beside him. “You look so pitiful I actually feel sorry for you.” Wrapping her arms around her knees, she nudged his leg with her foot. “You hate me, don’t you?”

He sighed. “No, I don’t hate you.”

“But I gave you this, and it makes you miserable.”

“I asked for it. You warned me you couldn’t undo it. I take responsibility for my own actions.”

“I wanted you to be sorry you’d asked, you know, and I wanted you to love me. But I didn’t really understand what love is. I’m not sure I ever will. I think the demon in me overrules the human.”

Damien glanced over at Rosa. She had her chin on her knees. “I don’t know, Rosa. I wouldn’t be surprised if you met a man and found yourself head over heels. Sometimes I think you’re a pretty big softie for a demon. Look at how many times you’ve watched my back or warned me about something.”

“I set you up this time. I knew you’d fall for Marley.”

He shrugged. “I don’t regret that. Not at all. And you did what you had to do.”

“Damien…”

“Yeah?” He plucked at the grass blades with his fingers, waiting for her to continue.

“I was with Marie when she died,” she said in a rush. “I tried…I tried to help her. I felt…guilty. I didn’t know I could feel guilty, but I did, that night. But it was too late. The only way to save her was to change her, and she wouldn’t accept that. I’m sorry. I truly am.”

Damien sighed. “As am I.”

“She held my hand, wanting comfort, I think.” Rosa made a sound in her throat. “It was terrifying, the idea that someone was looking to me for comfort instead or sex or recklessness. But I think that I actually did it, I comforted her, because before she died, she smiled. It was beautiful, Damien, to see her at peace.”

In the dark, he closed his eyes tightly, fighting back the emotion that crashed over him in big, violent waves. It didn’t take the pain away, but it helped. It did. Reaching out, he touched Rosa’s hand, threaded his fingers through hers. “Neither of us is as terrible as we fear, are we? I think there’s hope for us yet.”

“Shit.” She sighed. “I’m totally going to regret doing this, I just know, but then when have I ever done anything smart when it came to you?”

He glanced over at her. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m leaving Louisiana, heading north, but I wanted to tell you one last thing before I go.” She leaned over, stared straight down at him. “Damien, you’re free. You’re mortal again.”

It took him thirty seconds to process what she was saying. “Don’t fuck with me.”

“No, I’m serious. I’m not supposed to tell you, because, well, my father finds it amusing to free servants and not tell them. Then when they do something, take a risk assuming they’re immortal, and die never knowing what hit them, he enjoys the irony.”

Damien went up on his elbows. “You’re serious?” She looked serious. And for all the complexities of their relationship, he did trust her. Rosa had human compassion in her. Yet he didn’t feel any different.

She nodded. “Yes. So don’t kiss a cottonmouth, okay? You’ll be six feet under, and that would really upset me, I think.”

“Did you do this for me?” He was suddenly touched beyond belief.

But she shook her head. “No, you did it for yourself. When you offered to sacrifice yourself for Marley, you showed yourself unworthy of the gift.”

So that was that. The elusive answer.

Damien fell back on the grass and started laughing.

Sunday night Marley parked her car in Mt. Adams and picked her way through the parking lot of the church, glancing back at the monastery hovering precariously on the steep hill. She stood at the edge of the grass, where the railing separated the parking lot and pathway from the sudden decline, spilling the hillside straight down to the river.

She stared at the Ohio River in the dusk, at the landscape she’d known her entire life. This was home, yet she had returned different. Pensive and thoughtful, heart aching, but no longer feeling the hysteria she had at Rosa de Montana the night before. Alex wasn’t here, or Rosa, or Anna. Neither were Lizzie or Damien. It was just her and a future that was hers to determine.

A barge glided by, silent and large, rusty and weatherworn.

It had been the right thing to do, to leave. But it hurt, great slicing jabs of agony, and she felt raw, though determined. She would take the confidence she’d gained, the strength she’d honed, the convictions she’d sharpened, and she would live her life. On her terms. Her way.

Clutching the railing, she whispered, “Please forgive him,” not sure if she was beseeching God or Marie or the whole of humanity. She just knew that Damien didn’t deserve to suffer anymore, and that he had paid for his mistakes ten times over.

That the punishment of lust should be followed by the redemption of love.

Marley stared at the water, seeing her answer. Then walked away.