The Last Unforgiven - Freed (Demons, #5)
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The Last Unforgiven
FREED
Demons, book 5
By Marina Simcoe
Table of Contents
Title Page
To My Captain
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
The Real Thing
Thank you
More by Marina Simcoe
About the Author
Please Stay in Touch
To My Captain
The Last Unforgiven - Freed
Copyright © 2020 Marina Simcoe.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact the author.
Marina Simcoe
Marina.Simcoe@Yahoo.com
Facebook/Marina Simcoe Author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover Design by Naomi Lucas and Cameron Kamenicky
First Edition
Spelling: English (Canada)
Editing by Two Horses Swift
The Last Unforgiven - Freed is a paranormal romance. It contains sexual situations, graphic descriptions of intimacy, and violence. Intended for mature readers.
Chapter 1
RAIM
The symphony ended, the needle of the gramophone uselessly skipping at the edge of the record.
Hand on the window frame, Raim leaned his forehead against the cool glass. The Swiss countryside on the border with Austria was completely dark tonight, his estate plunged into black nothingness.
A sudden loud knock on the heavy front door scraped against his nerves. He didn’t move from his position by the window, though—a demon would enter, even with the doors closed. A human could go back to wherever they came from, for all he cared.
The loud knock came again. As if the uninvited visitor had the right to demand entry into Raim’s house.
Letting go of the window frame, he strolled to the front door, shirtless and barefoot, wearing but a pair of silk pants. The intruder of his privacy would have to deal with his half-undressed state.
He opened the door. “Father?” Shocked, Raim stared at the elderly man flanked by two younger humans in suits. He had met the current Priory Elder on many occasions, but never had the Elder personally visited Raim at any of his dwellings.
A large, black vehicle was parked in the circular driveway. Served him right for neglecting to lock the gate.
“To what curse of the Divine do I owe the honour of your visit, Father?” Raim asked flatly, not inviting the Elder in.
“I need to talk. Coming here myself seemed like a more practical option than summoning you.” The man held Raim’s stare with challenge.
The memories of the burning lashes of chants as his demonic essence hovered suspended in the power of a summoner sent hot and cold needles up Raim’s spine.
The Elder couldn’t possibly remember the summoning because he wasn’t there—couldn’t have been—it had happened more than six hundred years ago.
However, humans had long found a way to preserve their knowledge through records and archives, beyond their limited lifespans. Though the Elder had not been born then, he knew all about Raim’s disgrace, and he never failed to remind him of the one and only time Raim had fully submitted to a human.
“Let me in,” the old man demanded.
“What for? I’m no longer a Grand Master and have no business with your Priory.”
“I heard you’d abdicated your position.”
“Abdicated?” Raim scoffed. “It wasn’t a royal throne.”
“Maybe, but you have reigned—”
“Not anymore,” he bit out. The Elder was beginning to test his patience. If it wasn’t for deep curiosity about the purpose of his visit, Raim would have already shut the heavy door in his face.
“You are The Grand Master, Raim,” the Elder stated, matter-of-factly. “Always will be.”
Raim drew in a long inhale. The title of Grand Master that he had fought so hard to gain and keep had become a part of him, one he could no longer be completely rid of even after giving it up.
“Why are you here?” Raim scanned the man’s emotions quickly. His unusual serenity was puzzling. The hostility Raim normally saw in members of The Priory was muted by a feeling of confidence in the Elder, instead of being amplified by fear as it often had been.
“I’ve come to have a chat with an old friend.” The Elder slid the end of his walking stick in the gap between the door and the frame.
“Friend?” Raim lifted an eyebrow in question. The desire to find out the true purpose of this visit made him open the door wider. The Elder entered promptly, leaving his escort outside. “You must truly believe in our ‘friendship’ if you’re willing to come in alone. Either that, or you’re losing your common sense, old man.”
“My common sense tells me that if you wanted to harm me, my bodyguards wouldn’t be able to stop you, anyway. They may as well stay outside.”
Raim spotted a sliver of orange glow between the buttons of the Elder’s suit jacket—the man was wearing his soros amulet. He did not entirely place his safety in Raim’s hands, after all.
“Very well then.” Instead of going back to the sitting room, Raim led the Elder to the more formal and less intimate grand room of the house, making sure to enter it first. It would be ridiculous to let the Elder’s amulet lock him out of a room in his own house, leaving him having to request permission to enter afterwards.
“Can I offer you a drink?” he asked, playing the part of a host.
“Do you have anything older than me?” The teasing glimmer in the Elder’s eyes reflected his good humour, again making Raim wonder about the reasons for this unexpected serenity in the man at the head of The Priory.
“Older than you? Plenty.” The hatch of the antique liquor cabinet squeaked when Raim opened it, taking out the dark, dusty bottle he had brought from Scotland several decades ago. “Scotch?”
“Please.” Propping his walking stick against an armchair in front of the grand fireplace, the Elder lowered himself into the seat.
Pouring two fingers in a set of crystal glasses, Raim brought one to his unexpected guest, then leaned against the mantle of the fireplace.
The Elder took a tiny sip from the glass and closed his eyes, obviously enjoying the drink. His expression brought to Raim’s mind the faces of the Council members during Feedings, when they consumed the sexual energy of the human Sources, savo
ring every drop of it.
“This bottle would fetch thousands of euros today,” the man observed, staring through the whisky in his glass at the light of the chandelier.
“Maybe, if I had any intentions of selling it.” Raim took a sip of the amber liquid himself.
Normally, he preferred the taste of wine to liquor. Wine gave him the illusion of relaxation. The intense burn of the nearly-century-old whisky was more fitting, though. There was nothing relaxing about dealing with The Priory.
“Why are you here?” he repeated, keeping the Elder’s emotions in focus.
The man set the glass on the side table, leaning back in his chair.
“In a way, I’ve come to say goodbye.”
Another goodbye?
Not that parting with the Elder brought up the same emotions as saying goodbye to Caryss did. In fact, as far as the Elder was concerned, Raim had hardly any emotions at all.
“My doctors have given me six months to live,” the man continued. “Cancer . . .” He poked at his chest with his thumb in several places, as if stabbing the tumours inside.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Raim replied evenly. All humans died. It was simply a matter of when and how.
“I’ve decided, however, that I won’t be needing more than two of those months,” the Elder added unexpectedly.
“Are you planning to end your own life?”
“My death is inevitable. I’m simply planning to take control of how it will happen.” The Elder steepled his fingers in front of him, an odd smile playing on his face. “I’ve also decided to make it worthwhile by taking all of you with me.”
The Elder paused, as if giving Raim some time to absorb his words.
After a moment of confusion, understanding flooded Raim, prickling his skin with cold.
“The soros urn.”
His mind flashed back to that dreadful day he was summoned by The Priory’s Elder, over six hundred years ago.
The summoner had been strong. It was the only time in history an Incubus had been brought fully under the power of a human. That Incubus happened to be Raim. Completely exhausted by the futile attempts to resist, he had accepted the man as his Master. Under his orders, Raim had read and translated the carvings on the soros urn from the language of his world.
That day, Raim was also the only demon who ever escaped the bond of his Master after it had been formed. His ever-present rage proved to be stronger than the hold of the chants. Aggression had exploded inside him, giving him a burst of strength to loosen the bond that held him captive. He had used that moment to kill the summoner and break the circle to escape.
No one dared to summon Raim again after that, but he always worried that it would happen to another Incubus one day. Although he called all Incubi by their demon names, he was the one who started the tradition of using human names during meetings with The Priory, to protect them from the fiery torture of the summons.
There was no point for Raim himself to hide behind a human name since his had already been recorded by The Priory.
The treaty that Raim signed with them shortly after was an attempt on the part of both parties to find a way to coexist. However, having found the one undamaged urn first and taking it into their possession, the members of The Priory had gained the upper hand. From then on, they had the means to end the Incubi’s existence on Earth at any moment, simply by touching the urn. They’d held this threat over Raim ever since.
“You’re a foolish human.” Raim shook his head.
“Most would consider my sacrifice heroic,” the Elder argued with a pretentious air. “I will finally accomplish what no one has dared to do before—touch the soros urn and put an end to all Incubi on Earth.”
“You will take all of your Priory with you.” That was what the writings, engraved on the urn, warned about. The touch of a human or a demon would banish the Incubi blood from this world. Every last drop . . .
The engravings also stated that the humans responsible would perish, too.
“If you touch the urn, all of us will be gone, including every one of your precious Priory.”
“Not necessarily. The carvings read ‘those who touch and those in charge of the urn will vanish.’”
“Right. The Priory is in charge.”
“I am the Elder of the Priory, responsible for the whole organization and therefore in charge of the urn. If I touch it—alone—I will be the only one who’ll die.”
“Is that what you told them?” Raim scoffed. “Is that how you’ve managed to convince the rest of your Brothers to back your plan?”
“My Brothers didn’t need to be convinced. There are quite a few of us who believe that demons must be cleansed off the face of the Earth, no matter the cost. We’ve had the means to be rid of you—fully and completely—for generations. Yet the cowards before me never used this power to do what’s right.”
“‘Quite a few’ doesn’t mean ‘all’.” Raim noted the Elder’s righteous conviction wavering at his words, proving his assumption correct. “You didn’t share your plan of self-destruction with everyone, did you?”
The Elder remained silent just long enough for Raim to see the truth inside him.
“You are about to murder everyone in your organization, without the knowledge or consent of those who would be losing their lives.” Raim folded his arms across his chest. “You personally would only be giving up a few months of pain and suffering from dying a slow death yourself. And you’re trying to present your plan as a noble sacrifice on your part?”
Even after a millennium of watching humans, the extent of the evil some of them were capable of astounded him.
The Elder shifted in his chair, regaining his composure.
“The results justify the means. You and your kind are the abomination that does not belong to this world. Look at you,” he gestured at Raim’s bare torso, the grimace of clear disdain distorting his features making scanning his emotions unnecessary, “gleaming with youth and health. You’re more than a dozen times my age, yet it is me who is standing at the edge of the grave. You will keep on living, never having to worry about what I’m dealing with or what I’m about to go through—”
“You wish for an eternity?” Raim huffed a bitter laugh, lifting his glass to his mouth for another drink. “Are you envious of my curse, human?”
“If the curse is what made you impervious to disease and death, then—”
“Silence!” Raim slammed the glass on the mantle. The crystal shattered, littering the surface with shards and spilling the priceless whiskey.
Shocked, the Elder swallowed the word Raim could not let him utter out loud.
No one deserved this curse. The human was foolish enough to envy him, but Raim couldn’t bear for anyone to wish for that upon themselves, in his presence.
Obviously, the Elder failed to understand any of it.
“I am going to change it all, demon.” He straightened in his seat, glaring at Raim. “Promptly and completely.”
Raim scanned his emotions carefully once again. This time the resentment was at full bloom. The Elder’s undisguised hatred for Raim and all his kind rose to the surface—thick and toxic.
“My initial plan was to let the Incubi earn their Forgiveness, since they all dove right into that—eager and willing. Then, once they turned mortal, we would exterminate them all, the way one gets rid of dangerous pests in their house. That would have taken time I no longer have, however. Besides, the assumption we’ve had for a while now has recently been confirmed—there is more of your blood out there, and I want them all gone.”
“More of our blood?” Raim wondered if the man’s sanity had partially departed him.
“Your kind has been breeding, spreading your tainted demon blood all over our world for centuries.”
“Your memory is playing tricks on you.” Raim shook his head. “The first demon-human offspring is not even two years old yet. There have been a few more born since, I’ve heard, but all are still infants. Are yo
u afraid of babies, Father?”
“They won’t be babies forever, but they will live for centuries. Merging two worlds by breeding apparently gives the offspring abilities impossible to predict and therefore even harder for us to control than your kind.”
“How do you know that? It’s your fear that speaks in you—”
“One of our own strayed from the principles of The Priory. He created a separate, unsanctioned by us organization, all members of which are now dead, including its founder—Monk Steffen Keller. We have been conducting an extensive investigation into his dealings and operations. He had a supplier in Toronto, Canada, whose warehouse perished in a fire over a year ago, under unexplained circumstances.”
The Elder paused to catch his breath, his illness more apparent now in the rapid rise and fall of his chest and the sweat beading on his pale forehead.
“I can’t say I’m sorry, either about the death of your Monk or the loss of that warehouse,” Raim stated coolly.
“I did not expect you to be. We were unable to identify the person responsible for the fire, only that it was started by unnatural means. However, the incident prompted me to investigate closely a number of other, unexplained events that have been swept under the carpet throughout history. Specifically, those involving walking through walls, something your kind is capable of doing.”
The Elder lifted an eyebrow, as if waiting for Raim to confirm. Since The Priory had been well aware of this ability of Incubi, the Elder was probably just taking a break—talking obviously physically exhausted him.
“Our investigation led to the discovery of Incubi offspring,” he continued. “For centuries they have been living all over the world, breeding with humans, over and over, to the point that it would now be impossible to accurately identify those with the demon blood in them.” Disgust thickened in the Elder’s emotions, a feverish blush coloured his pale sunken cheeks. Hatred, as strong as passion, rose in a black, gloomy bloom, marring all colours inside him.
The toxic hate seemed potent enough to taint the old man’s perception. Raim had walked this Earth for centuries, yet never did he hear anything about demon offspring until the one born two years ago.