Far From Heaven (16 page)

“All right.” She turned to face him fully, her chin lifted in determination and her eyes still streaming but resolute. “Why? Why me?”

“First let me ask you something. Do you really believe me?”

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve thought there must be some reason, some explanation for the weird things that have happened to me. I would think you were crazy right now, or lying to me, except it all makes perfect sense. And thinking back on some of the things you’ve said and done…” She lifted a hand and wiped at her eyes. “I wouldn’t believe you, I don’t want to believe you…except that it’s the answer I’ve been searching for all my life. Maybe it makes me a fool, but…”

“You’re no fool. Quite the opposite. You were targeted because of your worthiness, Madeleine. That’s how it works. I’d have done anything to claim you. I… No, that wasn’t it. I was in love with you.”

“So you would damn me?” The crack in her voice caused a fresh shard of pain to rip through him.

“To have you with me, yes. It didn’t matter to me. I just knew that I wanted you.”

“Because you’d known me in past lives.”

He nodded. “Only the very best souls get to come back again and again. Most only get one go at it. You’ve been a queen, a martyr, a philosopher—often you’re a healer or philanthropist of some sort. It would explain the desire you were describing to me about being part of something bigger than yourself. You always have been.”

“I’m sure not now,” she said bitterly.

But you will be. Just wait.
“I’m not asking for your forgiveness, I’m not even trying to make excuses or ask for your understanding. My own selfishness is the sole reason for what I did.”

“And you’re just going to let me go now?”

“It’s not quite that simple. As I said, you have to name a replacement.”

“Anyone?”

He hated himself,
detested
himself—along with Riam, Nicolae, all the world and the realms above and below—for having to lie to her yet again. But she would do the right thing. He knew she would. “As far as I know.”

“What would happen to them?”

He sat back, tearing his gaze from her and fastening it on the thin hardback books resting on her coffee table. He’d wanted to rip her away from this world of normalcy. Take her to a place where she’d never hold a book again, never see flowers like the ones in the ornate vase on the end table next to her. Never again hear the music that was so dear to her.

And now he had to tell her exactly what he was, what he’d had planned for her.

“I would tear out their soul. I would kill them. And I would take them to Hell, which is every bit as bad as you’ve been led to believe all your life.”

“Oh God.” She stood up from the couch, her movements slow as she wandered a few paces away and stopped. She must be in shock. He supposed it wasn’t every day a girl found out she’d been sleeping with a murderous, rampaging demon who’d set his sights on her soul next. “That’s what you did to the guy who shot at us, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to go,” she said without looking at him. “Please.”

He got to his feet and stood behind her. “I need your answer, Madeleine.”

“I
can’t
,” she sobbed, and the sound tore something loose inside him. “I can’t do that to someone else. I can’t do it to myself, either. I
hate
you for this. Please just go, I can’t do this.”

What if she didn’t answer him? Would she be freed by default for refusing to name another? He was losing his touch, to neglect to get clarification on these matters.

“Whether you feel you can do it or not, it’s upon you. You must decide.”

She whirled to face him, her face as white as Riam’s robes. “Don’t make me say the words that will damn my soul, or anyone else’s. I won’t do it. I don’t belong to you, dammit. I don’t belong to anyone. No one had the right to do this to me, not even my piece-of-shit father.
I didn’t ask for this!
” She stumbled backward as she screamed at him, and he feared she might trip over something and hurt herself. Everything she’d been holding inside all these years was flying out, and if he were mortal he’d fear for his own safety.

“Maddie, be careful.”

“What do you care? You ruined what life I had and now you want to take eternity away from me too. I was falling in love with you!” She grabbed a picture frame off the table near her and hurled it at him. There was a cross hanging on the wall; she snatched it off and clutched it to her chest, triumph suffusing her expression.

“That won’t do any good, not to a contracted soul.”

She threw it at him. He dodged it easily and turned slowly back to look at her. She had plastered her back to the wall behind her, and now she finally slid down it to crumple on the floor like a discarded rag doll. The carpet muffled her wild, racking sobs, but every one of them was like a dagger driving into his chest.

He couldn’t do this anymore. The need to pick her up and comfort her and tell her he would never hurt her was too much to resist, but she would reject him. She would fight him and scream at him and possibly injure herself, and he didn’t know what the hell to do.

As quietly as he could so as not to startle her, he knelt on the floor. The instinctive urge to touch her assailed him, but he beat it into submission. “Madeleine, I’ll leave. All right? I’m not going to lay a hand on you. You don’t have to answer right now.”

Her sobs quieted, but she didn’t lift her head.

“I don’t want to hurt you. I didn’t even want to scare you. All of that’s in the past. Let me try to fix this. I’ll do anything, everything I can to fix this. Please…” His voice gave out. He was about to ask her to trust him. How fucking laughable was that? Trust the monster who’d come to steal, kill and destroy her, who’d waited and stalked and bided his time until the moment she was most vulnerable. Because he’d been such a coward. “I’ll find answers. Don’t be afraid of me when I come back to tell you what I’ve learned. It’s a necessity.”

She picked her head up then, looking at him with half-blind, red-rimmed eyes. “What if you can’t fix it? Are you going to take me? Can’t you just let me go?”

When she looked at him with such pleading, spoke to him in that broken voice, he wanted to rip the contract to pieces. Damn the consequences.

“I don’t know.” One moment longer they looked at each other, and then he stood. With barely leashed savagery, he strode to her door and scarcely resisted ripping it from its hinges as he slammed his way out. The air itself here was stifling him. He needed to go home, recharge, realign. Figure out what the hell he was going to do.

It wouldn’t matter. He was fooling himself. He could spend a century prowling the caverns below with nothing but his tortured thoughts and he still wouldn’t be any closer to a revelation about Maddie. He’d fucked up. That was what it all came down to. He’d fucked up and loved her.

Ash ceased his relentless pace and stood still in the middle of the parking lot of Madeleine’s apartment building. His shields were still in place, so he threw his head back to the deepening twilight of the heavens and roared a single name.

“
Riam!
”

Maddie stared at her closed front door, still numb and trembling. She wanted to go to bed and never have to get up or face anyone else ever again. She’d gone from dating guys who left her to dating guys who wanted to kill her. She hated to think what was going to come around next.

It was thoughts like these that kept her sane, because she really couldn’t deal. She couldn’t. Ash was…evil. There had always been something a little odd about him, but…

Wiping her eyes, she made herself get up and lock the door. Get up and deal, the way she always did, even when she knew she couldn’t. Carefully, she walked into her bathroom, fearing her legs might give out at any minute. The cold water she splashed on her face snapped her awake to the world again, but it was a world she didn’t want to be in anymore. The reflection in the mirror was one she didn’t even recognize. Pale skin, hollow eyes. Even her lips looked thin and compressed. Her hair was a mess from wallowing on the floor and on Ash’s shirt.

A fresh wave of tears threatened as she ambled out of the bathroom into her bedroom. The sight of her bed, all neat and turned down and just waiting to be rumpled up, was almost her undoing. She’d hoped she and Ash would end up there tonight. She was getting damn tired of all her dreams being dashed on the rocks. Memories of them together assaulted her. How passionate he’d been. Had he been thinking of killing her even then? Taking her to Hell? Had he only been waiting for his moment?

He’d almost done it that first night.

She barely refrained from collapsing again at the thought. The mugger… Ash had put his hand on the man’s chest, and the man had screamed and dropped. She remembered the weird feeling that had washed over her when Ash put his palm over her beating heart the first night they were together. She’d pulled his hand away and kissed it, and the sensation stopped.

God, she’d thought her love life was a disaster before. In a moment of melodrama, Delia had once announced that men were only good for murdering the soul. Ha.

Well, Dee, I’ve got one for you.

A blip of hysterical laughter escaped her lips. She couldn’t call Dee. There was no one to turn to. No one she could go to with this. She was so alone. She’d never felt so alone.

“Riam!” Ash never thought he would ever in his entire existence call upon an angel’s name. If the bastard didn’t answer him…

“You called?”

He whipped around at the voice behind him to find Riam standing with his arms crossed, a quizzical expression on his normally serene face. “I want out of this.”

The angel’s eyebrows shot upward. “What?”

“I said I want out. I want this to just…go away.”

“Then you have to break the contract.”

“There isn’t some buried-deep rule I don’t know about that nullifies this thing without my interference? She’s a potential angel, for fuck’s sake. Surely you can pull some strings for one of your own.”

Riam laughed, the asshole. “Trying to keep yourself out of hot water, as it were?”

“I don’t want to overlook an easy solution.”

“Right. Sorry, but no. She’s not one of my own yet. If you want out, you have to break it. Only you.”

That was as he’d feared, but it had been worth a shot. “I also wanted to ask what will happen to her. What have I done? Have I…ruined her chances?”

Riam pursed his lips and tilted his head back and forth, considering. “Probably not. It depends. I mean, I would have to get confirmation on that, of course. I’m not the final say on the matter. But she can’t be held responsible for what you did to her.”

Ash pulled out the contract. He ripped the black string and unfurled it, staring blindly at the words he once thought would give him everything he wanted.

“You love her,” Riam said.

“How astute you are.”

“Oh, I’ve known from the beginning. Ever since I was assigned this case and I wondered why you didn’t take her from the moment she came of age. Then, every time we thought you were getting close, you pulled back. You gave her more time. Others who’ve been watching her throughout all her lives know how enamored you were of her. It doesn’t take a scholar to see.”

Ash glared at him. “You and Nicolae did this on purpose, didn’t you? The whole two-week stay, pushing her into this decision…you knew all along I wouldn’t follow through.”

“Maybe.” But Riam’s smile gave up nothing.

“Fine, we’ve established I’ve been wonderful entertainment for all of you. I don’t give a fuck. I just want to know she’s going to be all right.”

“She’ll be perfectly fine. How could she not be? You’ll be away from her.”

It was the truth. He was the source of all her problems. But he didn’t want to be, not anymore. He wanted to protect her. What if something happened to her and he was locked away rotting in some dungeon, unable to do anything about it? Or worse.

Ash closed his eyes and pushed out his next words by sheer force of will. “I need you…to promise me something.”

“And that is?” the angel asked warily.

“I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me when I destroy it.”

“They can’t strike at her again. They’ve already tried that in the past, on another case. New rules were instituted to stop it from ever happening again. If you destroy that contract, she’s free.”

Ash nodded, more questions crowding on his lips. He couldn’t seem to get them out, to ask for the angel’s help.

“Well, if you want to ask me to watch over her…I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t interfere personally. She’ll make the choices to gain her wings or she won’t. It’s up to her.”

“That’s what I wanted to ask.” He stroked the rough, thick parchment with his thumb, circling his own burnt-on initial. How he wished he could take it back. Or at least go back. He’d been so sure of things back then. He’d known who the hell he was.

“What I can do, though, is petition to place her under divine protection for a time. If it’ll make you feel better.”

“It would. Thank you.”

“Well?” Riam asked after silent moments stretched out between them. “Are you going to do it?”

His masters were going to kill him if he did. He’d been trying to convince himself it wouldn’t go to that extreme, but suddenly it was something he knew deep in the blackness of his own heart. The rule Riam had referenced assured it. To voluntarily release or even unintentionally lose a soul Hell needed would carry harsher penalties than ever before, because it was strictly forbidden to try to reclaim them.

There’d never been an easy way out of this. He probably would have faced death even if Madeleine had refused to name another, thus rendering the contract null and void. It still would have meant failure on his part.

Trembling, he grasped the contract at the top with both hands. Riam’s brows dipped lower, a troubled furrow appearing in his forehead. “You would truly do this for her? Sacrifice yourself?”

Madeleine’s face appeared in his mind, smiling at him. Beautiful. Then that face became lit with an ethereal glow, and snowy white wings spread beyond it. One of
them
, just as she was meant to be from the moment she was born. She would be the best of them.