by Maria Luis
“A debt is a debt.” Holding my head up high, I meet his furious stare. “Hastings fulfilled his half of the deal and I’ll do my part when the time comes.”
“Then when he comes knocking, it’ll be my goddamned face he sees.”
“The debt isn’t yours to pay.” The words sound strangled, even to my own ears. “You can’t shield me from the dark, just like you can’t protect me from what you’ve done. Did you think I wouldn’t understand, about your mum? Did you think I’d turn my back on you when my own father wanted me dead?” An awful thought hits me, and air pumps hard and fast into my lungs. “Is the . . . Is the only reason you’re telling me now because you want me to run?”
His jaw visibly tightens. “I’m giving you a choice. A chance to w-walk away, if that’s what you want,” he grits, stepping back. “I won’t back you into a corner, not when you d-deserve everything that’s good in this world.”
“I deserve happiness.”
He flinches as though I’ve physically struck him. “You do.”
“I deserve love.”
His voice is hoarse when he says, “You deserve nothing less.”
“I deserve a man who will lay down his life for me—is that what you’re saying?”
This time, his teeth audibly grind together. “Yes.”
“And what do you deserve?”
When he stares at me in mute surprise, I know that I’ve caught him off guard. Then his gaze shifts to the altar, where he left his mum’s necklace. A myriad of reactions flirts with his features but the one that takes hold, the one which furrows his brows and hastens his breathing, is a swift kick to the gut:
Wonder.
“I don’t . . .” Shaking his head, he looks up at me from beneath thick, dark lashes. His cheeks are flushed, the blue of his irises glittering with suppressed emotion. “No one has ever asked me that, and I don’t . . . Fucking hell, I don’t know.”
Oh, Damien.
“You deserve happiness,” I say, softly, “and you deserve love.”
“Rowena . . .”
“You deserve someone who will bleed with you and who will catch you when you fall.” Gently, I push the silver chain out of reach. Nightmares have no place between us nor do the ghosts of the dead. “You deserve a love that lasts a lifetime; the kind that’s captured with a shared glance from across a room and the brush of fingers when no one is looking. A love that burrows deep in your bones and gives you strength when all hope is lost.”
Dragging in a deep breath, I whisper, “You deserve me because I will lay down my life for you, for as long as I live. I will never let you stand alone, not even when we’re old and gray. But please don’t walk away because you think it’s best. Please don’t play the hero when we both know that I’m already yours.” Blinking rapidly to clear my vision, I clutch the altar and hold on for everything that I’m worth. “My heart beats only for you, Damien. And without you, I’m in hell.”
51
Damien
I’ve died a thousand times over since that day behind Christ Church Spitalfields. I’ve chased vengeance with reckless abandon, and I’ve spent over two-hundred nights plotting the deaths of the two men who made me a prisoner in my own land.
The Mad Priest, Carrigan called me.
I hated him for it.
Because it was true.
Only a mad man unburies his dead mother. Only a mad man murders with little remorse, and only a mad man drags a good woman down into the depths of hell because he can’t bear to let her go.
And drag her I did.
With dirty brick under my spine and damp air heavy in my lungs, I brought Rowena to the belly of London and nudged her right into a merciless cavern of nightmares. Her shattered cries will haunt me for the rest of my life. The memory of her tears will forever drive me to my knees. She stands before me now, backlit by the sun streaming in through the window, while I remain a fugitive in the eyes of the law.
Chained.
Collared.
Nothing has changed.
A good man would list out all the reasons why he’ll bring danger to her front door. A better man would walk away and leave her to her life. But while Rowena may soften my rage and strip away my hate, even she can’t turn me into someone I’m not. The angel is dead at my feet, the devil perched on my shoulder, and Rowena Carrigan is mine.
“You run now,” I rasp, giving into sweet, fucking temptation by placing my hand next to hers on the altar, “and I’ll let you go. I won’t ever be the man who b-bends you to my will, and I promised that I’d have all of you or none of you at all.”
Defiance lifts her chin. “And if I stay?”
Heat flares inside my veins. “Then I’ll be yours from this day forward, until the air is gone from my lungs and the m-memory of us is forever tattooed on your soul.” My hand slips over hers, temptation be damned, and I skim my palm over her forearm. Gooseflesh teases her skin and a shudder breaks past her lips when I bring my gaze to hers. “I’ll love you, Rowena, like the monster I’ve always been, and I’ll cherish you like the hero I’ll never be to anyone but you.”
“I don’t need a hero,” she whispers, her violet eyes luminous in her face, “I only need you.”
Fucking hell.
My hands tremble as I round the curve of her waist to drag my palms up her spine, past her shoulders, until I’m cradling the base of her skull. Fire burns in my thigh. Sunlight slants across the bridge of Rowena’s nose, the crest of her chin, and I feel its warmth against my throat as I urge her backward across the chapel.
She doesn’t mention my broken gait.
She doesn’t ask where I’m leading her.
The stone floor echoes hollowly under my boots. The pews mock me, taunting me with the promise of resting my aching body. But I’ve not come back from the dead to sit and let the world pass me by, and when Rowena’s spine collides with the glass window, there’s nothing but want and need tangled in my soul.
I lower one hand to the iron latch and push the window open. Dropping my head to hers, I brush my lips over the shell of her ear. “Go or I’ll h-haul you out myself.”
Her fingers dig into my sides, her entire body rising onto her toes. “Do I have a choice?”
“It’s an ultimatum, Miss Carrigan, you’re all out of choices.”
The audible hitch of her breath stirs the want, fuels the need, and I feel her pull away to obey. With her head lowered to avoid the frame, she throws one leg over the windowsill and onto the grass. Does the same with the other, only to stop halfway, her bare foot poised on the sill. Violet eyes find me and, with the touch of her tongue to her bottom lip, she asks, “You plan to chase me?”
I plant one hand on the stone frame. Curl my body inward and let my mouth drift so close to hers that I can nearly fucking taste her. Soon. Feeling her hot breath on my lips, I give her a slow, ruthless smile. “Run.”
Her husky laughter is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
Grasping my face, she stamps a hard kiss on my mouth, quipping, “I look forward to being caught, Mr. Godwin,” and then she’s off. The sun hugs her frame as she winds her way through the garden, her fingers flirting with the flowers that have already started to bloom in their beds. Then she throws me a glance over her shoulder and even from here, there’s no mistaking her pure joy. Touching two fingers to her lips, she holds out that hand to me—
A vow, a promise, that together, we are not alone.
I follow her.
My leg throbs and my heart soars, and I may not be free of the chains that Carrigan and Guthram shackled around my wrists but every step through Holly Village’s grounds is a gift that was almost ripped away from me for good. I push the sleeves of my jumper up to my elbows. Then strip it off completely, leaving me in a thin, short-sleeved shirt that allows the breeze to brush against my skin. My boots are abandoned by a small pond.
Bare feet sink into the grass.
Head tipped back, lids slammed closed, I allow sunshine free reign ove
r my face.
And then I track the woman who’s buried herself in my heart.
Listening for the sound of rustling movement, beyond the birds chirping in the trees, I watch for a glimpse of her amidst the ancient sycamores that follow the curve of Swain’s Lane. Instinct drives me left, away from the main street and toward the heart of the estate.
Holly Village’s Gothic façade slips from view. The clustered trees grow scattered as the ground gently slopes toward a stream. Up ahead, a Palladian building with a domed roof and ornate columns dominates the landscape. A flash of navy catches my eye, and I spot Rowena disappearing around the backend of the old temple.
There you are.
I chase her with slow, measured steps.
Stalk her with hope in my blood and love in my heart.
She, the she-wolf. She, the phoenix rising.
A woman no longer broken or ruined but still mine.
I find her tucked away behind the temple with one arm slung casually around a stone column, her body facing a thick grove of trees that separates Holly Village from its neighbors. She doesn’t turn at the sound of my approach and I take full advantage, bringing my hands to her hips and my lips to the back of her neck.
An involuntary shiver ripples down her spine.
“Looks like you’ve nowhere to run,” I murmur against her skin, my voice dredged in gravel, “and no one to come and s-save you.”
Rowena’s head falls forward with a small sigh, and the arm she’s loosely wrapped around the column becomes a firm hand that she plants against its grooved surface. Then her ass thrusts backward, right into my groin, and a smothered hiss hits the back of my clenched teeth. That cunning smile flashes when she peers back at me over one shoulder. “I don’t know, Damien, maybe I intend to let the world hear me scream.”
My cock hardens.
Pulse races.
“Maybe,” I allow, slipping my hand over her throat as I guide her backward to my chest, “I’ll find a way to keep that pretty mouth of yours full.”
Her hands clutch my forearm, nails unforgiving talons, even as her head tilts to the left in open invitation. “Back to being the B-grade villain again, are we?”
“Would you h-have it any other way?”
“No,” she breathes, as my lips hit the slope of her shoulder, “no, I’ll have you just as you are—oh, God, Damien.”
I spin her around, clasping her wrists in one hand, and press them to the column above her head. Her back hits stone. My heart pounds ruthlessly against my ribcage, the sound so loud in my ears that it drowns out the birds and the quiet lapping of a nearby stream. In this tiny corner of London, there is no war or death or bloodshed.
There is only us.
Only this.
“A wish, love,” I manage, fighting both the pain in my thigh and the grip on my vocal cords, “make a wish.”
Understanding dawns in her expression. Her chest expands with a sharp, sudden inhale, and her hands strain against my inflexible grip. A moment later, she bites down on her bottom lip and I nearly come undone. The pressure leaves her mouth pink, swollen. Then, softly, “I want you to kiss me.”
“Close your eyes.”
Rowena’s lids flutter shut obediently. Her chin notches north, lips pursed in expectation. But I don’t submit to the request. Instead, I trace my fingers over the delicate lines of her face, the way she did to me at the Palace. She ruined me that night. Showed me all the ways a man harboring so much hate, so much rage, could bend to the will of a gentle touch.
I don’t want her to bend. I only want her to feel as I did then.
Wanted. Craved. Treasured.
She squirms in my grip, her breath coming faster against my throat with every pass of my fingers over her soft skin. I dance them down over the slope of her nose, follow the natural hollow of her cheekbones. When I skim my fingers along her jawline, her lips part and her fragile eyelids tremble.
She’s beautiful. Otherworldly.
A woman who has fought for life, both mine and her own, and survived to show the world that she will never kneel at their feet. A queen, even if she wears no crown. Awe for her gathers as a knot in my throat. Deliberately, I let my thumb pause over her full mouth. Deliberately, I tug down on the plump flesh.
Her breath catches.
Pupils remain dilated when her lids slide open, the violet irises nearly swallowed by black. She whispers my name, her voice low and husky, and a sweep of color stains her cheeks pink with lust, love, the same desperate, damnable need that’s driven me to the brink of madness ever since she fell into my life.
“Tell me again.”
“Kiss me,” she begs, touching her tongue to the rough pad of my thumb, “please just kiss—”
I seal my mouth over hers.
Any hope I had of restraint, of maintaining some semblance of control, disintegrates the moment that she parts her lips and tangles her tongue with mine. She tastes like liquid silk, like happiness and dreams. With a low growl, I anchor one arm at the base of her spine and haul her up against me.
Our kiss is feverish.
Wild.
It’s fucking heartbreak.
With every brush of her lips, I fight the nightmare of death and destruction. With every whimper that she feeds me, I taste her tears and terror. Her courage kept me alive, her fierce grit the only reason that she’s even in my arms at all. Sunlight hits my back, warming my shoulders, but there’s no turning away from Rowena.
I cup her face, my touch reverent, and angle her chin.
“I thought I’d never feel you again,” I growl against her mouth, feeling anguish like a dagger to the chest. “I wanted to hold you. Needed to kiss you. And I couldn’t move even a finger to reach for you.” Desperation floods my broken body, and I feel no remorse when I nip at her bottom lip and she shudders against me. “It was a f-fate worse than death.”
“Let me go,” she breathes, jerking her wrists against the restraint of my hand, “and then make a wish.”
Holding her gaze as I release her, my shoulders round forward when she presses her palm to my left clavicle. Her touch is a brand on my fucking soul. I feel her heat, the gentle pressure she exerts when she hooks a finger in the collar of my shirt to pull me down.
“Tell me your wish.”
“Touch me,” I rasp, brushing my lips over hers, “just touch me.”
Agony pulses in my thigh but I barely notice when Rowena’s hands are drifting down my chest to slip beneath the fabric of my shirt. Her palms are warm on my stomach, steady, and then she’s guiding me backward. One step then two, until my spine hits rough stone and she’s tugging on my shirt in a wordless order for me to strip.
I don’t need to be told twice.
Clutching the fabric at the back of my neck, I pull the material over the top of my head and toss it aside. My body is bruised. Scarred permanently in ways that it wasn’t a week ago. Dark lashes fan her cheeks as Rowena lowers her gaze to my chest. Gently, her fingers graze the tattoo of the raven before sweeping down to the Old Norse quote of Huginn and Muninn. With her palm laid flat over the script, she leans forward and presses her lips to the bruise dusting my collarbone.
My breath catches. “Fuck, Rowena . . .”
The breeze dances across my naked skin and Rowena’s lips land a little lower with each and every kiss. I dig my fingers into the stone, praying for strength when she’s clearly determined to send me up in flames. When she sinks to the ground, her fingers nimbly working the button of my trousers, I might as well be voiceless all over again.
Every word is jammed in my throat.
“If you’re Death,” she says softly, her lips briefly landing on my left thigh as she works my trousers down my legs, “then I’m the raven that you send to the slain.”
“If I’m Death,” I counter gruffly, locking my hands around her shoulders, “then you’re the m-mercy in my bones that gives me hope.”
And then I yank her up and slam my mouth back down on hers.
I devour her with possessive strokes of my tongue and swallow her mewls as I ease her against me, her spine to my chest. The stone wall offers support when I may not have managed otherwise, and I tip Rowena’s head to the side to give me room to play. Grazing my teeth over her ear, I sink one hand down past her sternum and stomach to cup the apex of her thighs.
With a sharp cry, her hips roll restlessly against my palm.
I take pity on us both.
My fingers sink beneath the elastic waistband of her joggers, and I feel her strain onto the tips of her toes. Waiting. Hopeful. Her breathing grows ragged as I trace the seam of her knickers—but I never delve beneath the cotton. It’s the anticipation of what’s to come that heightens the need. The sweet, fucking temptation that pulls me closer to where she wants me most with every pass. She won’t come until I’m buried inside her.
“Please,” she begs, panting, “Damien, please.”
I press a single finger over her center—and find her soaked. A guttural groan scrapes my raw throat. She arches in my embrace, the back of her head colliding with my chest. As if hoping I’ll crack under the pressure, she slips her palm over the back of my hand, intent on bringing me back to her clit.
The frayed edges of my control hold strong.
With my left arm banded across her chest like a barbed-wire fence, I drag my teeth over the curve of her shoulder and shift my hand to grip the flesh of her inner thigh. “Another wish,” I growl.
“To love,” comes her husky voice, “and be loved.”
Yes.
My body moves before my brain even registers the motion. Molars grinding against the pain, I lower us to the stone floor. My hands drag her shirt above her head, exposing the healing skin along her collarbone and stomach. Cheeks flushing, she lifts a hand to cover the blisters over her belly, but I intercept her quickly.
“You’ve lived when the w-world expected you to fail,” I husk, sitting back on my heels to pull her joggers down the length of her legs. “You’ve stood tall when a weaker soul would have crept back into the shadows. Every scar you bear is a battle that you’ve fought and won. Wear them proudly and apologize for nothing.”