Once You Go Demon (Pure Souls) (32 page)

A laugh rumbled through his chest. “Like hell. Once you go demon, you’re stained. Don’t believe he’s any different, Riona. He’s a deceiver. To you, and to himself. It’s only a matter of time before his nature reveals itself. How many times will you forgive him? For lying? For obscuring the truth? For taking advantage of your sorrow for his own gain?”

Her mind retraced the last few weeks. Jerry, knowing what she was, but saying nothing. Him, in her hours of grief, never failing to take advantage of a moment to say just wrong thing. His manipulation of her heart and her body, letting her fall into the trap of desiring him, then turning her out when finally she’d sought him out.

Her conflict must have broadcast in her features. When she opened her eyes again, a smug grin plastered on Marc’s face.

“You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?” Marc asked, a twinge of taunt in his timber. “Already been mistreating you, hasn’t he? Answer me honestly, Riona, when he’s kissed you—oh, I know he’s kissed you—did you close your eyes and wish it was me? Did you pretend my soul was calling to yours, and that we were together? How many ways to fall did you imagine, just to be with me again?”

At that last statement, her breath halted, her eyes went wide. How did he know?

Marc’s outstretched hand tempted her even still. “Come with me, Riona. You don’t need to plot, I already found the way. You’re a married woman now. Invite me to your bed, and your adultery with a demon can tip the scales in Hell’s favor. Not to mention, you’ll finally be mine.”

Jerry leapt to his feet. “
Lisumkartun
!”

His energy amassed on the tips of his fingers before hurling itself forward. Riona recognized the defensive spell, and wasn’t surprised when Marc’s body went flying backwards, landing with a thud on the other side of the bed.

“Riona, don’t listen to him. Remember what I said: as a demon, Lucifer controls you. You won’t have a choice. You’ll be Hell’s whore.” Jerry’s voice was weak, his grip on her lessening. “Get out of here, quick.”

Riona bit her lip in frustration, images of her body pressed against Marc’s in the heat of passion dissipating. “But Dee …”

“Ramiel will protect him,” Jerry promised. “Don’t listen to Marc. He may corrupt you, but they won’t let you die. Once you’re damned and in Hell, you can’t breach Heaven.”

Her fists clenched with determination. “Then I’ll vanquish him,” she spat as she took a few steps in the direction where Marc’s body had landed.  “It’s my duty.”

“No, you can’t!” Jerry warned. Her eyes filled with misunderstanding. “There’s no time to explain it now. Just get out of here.”

“But how?” she laughed out. “I can’t even see the door. Are we even still in the mortal realm? Are we in the Grotto? Hell? New Jersey?”

He pulled her down so he could whisper in her ear. “You’re part-angel. You can shift.” He interlaced their fingers. “
Keritza azah neferterium.
Say it! Say it now!”

“Riona …” Marc’s voice caught her attention. Turning her head over her shoulder, she saw his form rising from the shadowy protection of the bed. “It’s your destiny. One way or another, you’re ending up in Hell. You’re ending up with me.”

Riona turned one more quick glance to Dee, praying that Jerry was right and that Ramiel would protect her other pillar, before throwing her arms around Jerry. “
Keritza azah neferterium!”

Chapter 36

Birdsong and the melodious giggle of a stream drew her from her nightmares. Riona’s body felt as though it had been ripped into pieces and stitched back together overnight. She sat up against the protest her equilibrium gave, and looked about. A few feet from her makeshift bed on the ground, a smoldering pile of embers atop a mountain of ash glowed. She looked to her arms and legs to find herself clothed, if the burlap sack and knitted bottoms she wore could be called clothes. Her mind worked to piece together her current circumstances versus her memory. Her hands ran through her hair, and as her fingers parted the locks, her right hand caught and tangled.

“What the …?” Finally freeing her hand, she saw red strands on her finger looped around something crystalline and gold. A ring, she realized, and more precisely, a wedding ring. “Holy Drew Barrymore!”

“Holy Drew Barrymore? Well, that’s one I haven’t heard before.”

Her head and body jerked. She took a defensive posture against whomever was coming through the nearby brush. The hair took her a moment, but as soon as she saw the face underneath it, her tension ebbed.

“Where am I?” That seemed the most obvious question to ask, though about a million more were vying to get to the front of the line to follow up.

Persephone grimaced.  “I won’t say you’re somewhere safe, that would be a lie. I’m not sure how you got here, but …” She dropped her armful of branches on to the fire and pointed off into the distance where a mountain range jutted into the sky. “That’s Olympus there. And if I don’t get my ass back up there soon, there’s going to be Hell to pay for both of us.”

Confusion crept in and made itself at home. Images flashed behind Riona’s eyelids as she winced and tried to recall the series of events that led her here.

“What happened, Riona? Is Dee okay?”

Riona calmed her internal screaming and reached out her consciousness. She felt her soul connect with the heavenlight that enabled her power. While she couldn’t use it as a means to communicate with her pillars, it at least provided her with a means to learn their fate. The light was balanced, content.

“They’re … alive,” she ventured. “I can’t tell you more than that, but both Dee and Jerry are alive.”

Persephone’s features glowed. “Thank the gods. And Ramiel?”

Perplexed as to why Persephone would ask after someone she so clearly loathed, Riona felt her features screw up. “I have no way of knowing, but it’s damn near impossible to kill an archangel.”

“Yeah, but not
totally
impossible,” Persephone muttered. She fished one of the newly-deposited twigs from the fire and pushed around the pile, encouraging the flame to grow. “As soon as you’re able to move, let me know. We have to get back up before dusk, and unless you got a minivan hidden somewhere nearby, we really have to hike it.”

“I’m going to Olympus?” Riona asked. Persephone bobbed her head. “No, I can’t. I have to get back. I have to … Oh, my God, Jerry. What Jerry must be thinking after he saw me with Marc.”

“Marc?” Persephone bolted to her feet. “Marcello Angelleti? But he’s not supposed to be able to rise until tonight.”

“He came back early,” Riona explained. “Our wedding night, and I end up making out with a demon.” And the worst part was, even after she’d learned it was Marc, part of her still wanted him.

Her scrambled cries confused the goddess the more. “Wait a minute. I thought that whole wedding thing was a fake. You mean you
actually
married Gaius Gallicus?”

Tears pricked the corner of her eyes, but Riona managed to confirm it.

“And then you made out with Marc? As in, used-to-be-a-Pure-Soul-and-now-is-a-demon Marc?”

Through a wallowing sob, Riona said, “I thought it was Jerry! I thought Jerry had taken off his glamour, and when my father told me that …” Every ounce of her sorrow turned to flame, alighting her anger from within. “My
father
… Shit, my father set me up. Like, from birth. Is everyone I’m supposed to love going to end up my enemy?”

Persephone’s eyes narrowed. “Do you love Jerry?”

Riona asked her own heart the same question. “Yes.”

“And Marc?” Persephone pushed.

Biting her lip, Riona knew she couldn’t deny it. “Does that make me evil? Was Marc right? Is it just a matter of time before I end up in Hell, too? Look at what I’ve become. In the last day, I went through with a fake wedding to deceive my biggest client, married a man who I knew I could never commit my heart to fully just because it made me happy for the moment, and nearly became an adulteress.”

“I don’t believe in destiny.” Persephone reached her hand down and wrapped it around Riona’s, pulling the witch to her feet. “But one thing’s for sure: you’re going to fit in on Olympus.”

About the Author

Killian McRae would tell you that she is a rather boring lass, an authoress whose characters’ lives are so much more exciting than her own. She would be right. Sadly, this sarcastic lexophile leads a rather mundane existence in the San Francisco Bay Area. She once dreamed of being the female Indiana Jones, and to that end she earned a degree in Middle Eastern History from the University of Michigan. However, when she learned that real archaeologist spend more time lovingly removing dust with toothbrushes from shards of pottery than outrunning intriguing villains with exotic accents, she decided to become a writer instead. She writes across many genres, including science fiction, fantasy, romance, and historical fiction.

www.killianmcrae.com

Other titles:

A Love by Any Measure

12.21.12

Pure Souls - Book One: Pure & Sinful

Acknowledgements

Always and firstly: to Mary Ellen. I would be nothing without her.

To Lisa: For being a friend, a cheerleader (it must be genetic, huh?), and a thorough and awesome critique partner.

To Melissa and the editing team at There for You Editing: for making sure I dotted my I’s, giving guidance, and forcing my dangling participles into submission.

To my kids: for their patience with me, and their ability to make the simple, simpler.

To my dear friends Denise and Robin: for never once thinking my undertakings were mockable or scandalous.

To Jamie, Tammara, Elish, and Tina: for reminding me that a woman is many things, but all of them are awesome.

And lastly: to a good number of teachers in my time who saw a little girl out of place in her environment, and held her head above water long enough for her to see the boat that would sail her away.

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