The Possession

by Jennifer Armintrout

  “Fire,” he said without hesitation, and my heart twisted at the thought of the girl in the desert. “I would remember fire.”

  Chapter 22

  Do-Over

  A good, long walk always helped Max clear his head, but for some reason, wandering the streets with the Soul Eater’s goons in town seemed like a bad idea. He’d headed downstairs to the shop, remembering belatedly that Bella was there. So he sat on the steps in the misting rain, paralyzed by the maelstrom of thoughts whirling around his head.

  How could she? He’d just finished drugging Nathan for the night when Carrie and Cyrus had stumbled in, clothes disarrayed, post-sex guilt written over both their faces. It was bad enough that Carrie had brought that bastard into Nathan’s house, but sleeping with him? After what he’d done? The very thought of it made Max feel used. Betrayed.

  Oh, other words were hot on the heels of that one. Words like conned and slut and bitch. Then, more forgiving words. Stressed. Hurting. Confused. He forced those resolutely away. He didn’t want to rationalize her behavior. The cold, hard fact of it was Carrie had fucked her old sire while the new one lay practically dying in their bed, trapped in his nightmares.

  Fine, it wasn’t their bed, per se. Nathan and Carrie hadn’t really committed to each other, aside from the blood tie. But in Max’s opinion, that was commitment enough.

  Even if he wasn’t practically dying—that had been an exaggeration, and Max hated to exaggerate—Nathan was still out of commission. Every second, Nathan relived the worst night of his life, a night whose horror Cyrus had taken part in.

  Max was a smart man. He could fool himself with anger for only so long before it would inevitably desert him. When it did, he would have to face the real reason her betrayal bothered him so much.

  It mirrored his own.

  A light drizzle made the pavement wet. He ducked his head and brushed his palms over his hair, slicking it back from his face with the rain. It would be morning way too soon. He should be seeking shelter. But if he went upstairs, Carrie was there, either waiting for Nathan to get better so she could dump him, or waiting for him to die so she wouldn’t have to, and downstairs was Bella.

  And temptation. God forbid Max forget that one.

  Whether from a natural attraction or the revulsion between them, Bella made him painfully aware of his body. She made his blood vibrate in his veins just by speaking. His cock got hard at the sight of her. The memory of her taste and smell tormented him. Even her weird, canine habits seemed sexy in a disturbing way. He hadn’t slept the last two days because she was too damn there.

  In that time, he’d barely thought of Marcus.

  He had no right to forget. Hell, he had no right to have to remind himself that his own stupid actions had gotten his sire killed. The image of the girl with the sweet smile and cold eyes flashed through his brain. As always, the parade of what-ifs followed. What if he’d resisted the ridiculous urge to meet her again? What if he’d told Marcus about her before things had gotten out of hand?

  No, he knew why he hadn’t. Marcus would have told him to end it, whether he’d known the girl’s true identity or not. Marcus had loved Max fiercely and far too protectively.

  If only Max had realized she’d been an assassin. The signs should have been obvious, if he hadn’t been so horny and stupid and young and in love. But now he knew better. Love didn’t get you anything, and it was more trouble than it was worth. Not that he loved Bella, or the bitch that had killed his sire. It just seemed better to nip the notion in the bud before things went any further.

  With the air growing warm despite the drifting rain, he chose Bella, and stepped into the bookshop.

  She’d taken to the place the way only a truly strange person could. It had good “energy,” she’d claimed. Max had explained that the pipes had broken earlier in the year; the good energy was probably the lingering mildew smell. Yet another example of how different they were. He could squirrel it away in the back of his mind, with the others he’d been squirreling away for days now as ammunition against his attraction to her.

  When he opened the door, the bells announced his intrusion, and she looked up. Her eyes narrowed and her body tensed in the split second before she recognized him and smiled.

  Her smile was amazing, but then, nothing about Bella was less than incredible. The way she moved, as though she were aware of every muscle in her body at every moment. The way she kept her expression maddeningly neutral, so there was no hope of discerning what was going on in her mind.

  She’s too good for you, anyway, he decided. Then, firmly, to soothe his reality-bruised ego, No, not too good. Too complicated.

  “You are all wet.” How did she manage to make such a simple statement sound like a proposition?

  The accent, probably. “I was taking a walk,” he lied, hating himself for lying to her. “Thinking.”

  “Oh?” She turned back to the counter, where an odd assortment of candles, bottles and herbs lay in neat piles. She lifted a notebook and frowned at the page. “No. You were outside the door. I could smell you.”

  “I don’t love you,” he blurted. Very smooth, Harrison.

  She looked up, clearly startled, and it gave him some satisfaction to see that he could shake her cool demeanor. “Good.”

  “Oh, whatever. I just broke your heart, lady. You know, and I know it.” He tossed his hands up in a gesture of total defeat. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be pulling all this ‘I don’t want a relationship’ bullshit.”

  Slowly, as though he were a rabid dog about to attack—great analogy, Harrison—she set her notebook aside. “I meant all of that. And although you repeatedly assure me I am wrong, I am still afraid you do not understand.”

  “A lot of women have said a lot of things, trying to tie me down, babe. You’re not the first to play hard to get.” The moment the words left his mouth, he had the distinct feeling he’d made a complete ass of himself. “You’re not playing, are you?”

  “And yet you did not believe me the first one hundred times I said it.” She laughed softly. “I am not trying to trick you or trap you. I like you. You are funny and good in bed. But there honestly is not room in my life for a relationship.”

  “Mine, either,” he agreed emphatically. If this was the outcome he wanted, why did it feel as if he was losing a very important game in the final quarter?

  With a roll of her eyes, she went back to her inventory. “No, you are tied up in your own obligations.”

  “Why did you say it like that?” He went to the counter and pulled himself up to sit on the end.

  “Count these,” she instructed, handing him a neatly tied bundle of candles. “There should be seven.”

  He didn’t bother to look at them before tossing them aside. “You think I’m not too busy with other things for a relationship?”

  With a heavy sigh, she braced her arms against the counter and hung her head. “Do you forget I have animal instincts? Do you think I cannot sense what you are feeling when you are inside of me?”

  Her blunt words drew graphic pictures in his brain. “I know that when we’re…I know I feel nothing from you.”

  “You are holding on to guilt I cannot fathom. Whoever you lost, you cared for them very much. But the only thing standing between you and another love is your unwillingness to let the past die.” She didn’t answer his accusation.

  He rarely let himself get angry. It seemed the last few days he’d found compelling reasons to allow that part of him to slide. “Why don’t I feel anything from you?”

  “Because there is nothing to feel.” The words came quickly, as though they were rehearsed.

  Or used often.

  Cold fury coiled in his gut. He jumped down and faced her, his hands balled to fists in his sides. As long as his nails bit into his palms, as long as that pain kept him aware of his body, he wouldn’t be tempted to take his anger out on her physically. “Was this all a trick?”

  “What?” Confusion crossed her face.<
br />
  “You know what!” His disgust and pain overwhelmed him, forcing bitter laughter from his chest. “You’re playing with me, trying to get me to fall for you so you can get some sick pleasure from rejecting me. How many men have you done this to?”

  “None!”

  Were those tears in her eyes? They were a nice touch. “Right. This isn’t some sick game you play to get your kicks. You came on to me on a whim. I can’t believe I fell for it.”

  “It was not a trick!” She folded her arms across her chest. No, not folded, wrapped, as though hugging herself for support or comfort. “You were the only one.”

  The air in the shop felt tight, as though the oxygen had been sucked out of it. Max swallowed. “What?”

  “You were the only one. Ever.” She looked away. “I have been so stupid.”

  There must have been a gas leak somewhere in the shop that was making him dizzy. “That’s impossible. You said—”

  “Before I was a liar. Now everything I have ever said is true?” She cried openly now, a sight he’d never imagined he would see. “Decide for me which it is, because it is not fair to change the rules!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have…” He wouldn’t have. That’s what he would have done. Virgins weren’t for him. He liked an experienced girl, a girl who didn’t need to be coddled, a girl he could—

  God, he was going to hell.

  “The rules are different for my people. We must pretend to be human in a world where our culture is constantly attacked as being old-fashioned. This, casual sex, it is not the kind of thing a werewolf does. But I am to pretend I am a normal human female? Perhaps, if I were, things would be less complicated.” She smiled sadly, a tear sliding down her face. “Werewolves mate for life. I could not…experience what I did with you with another of my kind without grave commitment. I wanted to pretend, for just a minute, with you, that I am a normal human female. I do not know why I chose you. It was not a trick. I thought, from your reputation at the Movement, that you were a man who would go to bed with a woman and think nothing of it. We would both be safe. But I do like you, even if there is no chance we could be anything more than a happy memory in a month’s time.”

  Women’s tears were a weakness Max couldn’t stand. He reached out and pulled her in, reveling in the warmth and life of her.

  She was the sensible one. Of course they had no future. He was little more than a glorified corpse. She was a cursed dog person. What kind of life could they have, besides one of complications?

  It was all a pretty fantasy. How could he be offended, when she’d used him to build something so beautiful in her mind?

  He touched his lips to her forehead, intending only comfort. His body, dead though it might be, wasn’t satisfied with a tender moment, and soon he was kissing her without any idea how he’d gotten to that point.

  “The ritual,” she mumbled against his lips, turning her face slightly away from his.

  “We’ve got time,” he promised. The clock on the wall chimed 6:00 a.m. “It’s probably too late for me to make it back upstairs, anyway.”

  “So I should take pity and have sex with you?” Her smile curved against his.

  “No.” He lifted his head and gazed down at her. Had there ever been any clue to her innocence in her face? Something hidden there he might have noticed if he hadn’t let her looks and hard demeanor fool him? “Let’s pretend we’ve never done this before.”

  She seemed hesitant. “What do you mean?”

  He brushed a wisp of sleek, black hair from her face. “Let me do this right. If I’d had any idea I wouldn’t have been so…”

  “Advanced?”

  He didn’t want her to think he was laughing at her, but he couldn’t hold his amusement back, either. “That’s one way of putting it.” He felt the smile die on his lips as he stroked the side of her face with his thumb. “I could have made it better for you.”

  “It was good. Not great.” The Bella he remembered was back, her mysterious expression teasing him. “We will try it your way. I will do anything once. Or twice.”

  Max wanted to believe he’d found some peace of mind by confronting her, but as he sank into her on their makeshift bed of discarded clothes, he knew he’d only lost himself more.

  Chapter 23

  Fear and Loathing

  I was waiting in the living room with Cyrus when the sun went down and Max and Bella returned from the bookshop. I hadn’t gotten much sleep. I’m sure I didn’t look any better than they did, though I hoped my expression wasn’t quite so grim as theirs were when they came through the door. I noted the way they gripped each other’s hands, and for a terrifying moment, I thought the worst had come to pass.

  “Oh my God,” Cyrus whispered beside me. “There’s no hope then, is there?”

  Max frowned. “Why the hell would you say something like that?”

  I found my voice, buried under layers of potential grief. “Because you look like something horrible has happened.”

  “Nothing horrible has happened. In fact, I came up with a way to cure Nathan.” Bella gently pulled her hands from Max’s grasp. “But it is not ideal.”

  “By not ideal, she means it will definitely work, but it’s crazy. And you’ll probably go along with it. At least, if you’re any kind of fledgling you will.” Max stood and paced behind the couch, but offered no further comment.

  “Does someone want to tell me what I’m supposed to be going along with?” I stood and moved away from Cyrus, too aware of his nearness. I knew Max and Bella had noticed it, as well.

  So did Cyrus, apparently. He went to the other side of the room entirely, leaning on a bookcase to put as much space between us as he could.

  “The Dark Night of the Soul only works if someone has a shameful memory or a regret,” Bella began, looking to Max as though inviting him to jump in anytime. “Max told me you knew better than any of us what that memory would be.”

  Cyrus scrubbed a hand over his face, appearing wearier than I’d ever seen him. But I wouldn’t excuse him from hearing what I had to say.

  “I got a fly-on-the-wall view of the night Nathan was turned.” I focused on Bella’s clear, unprejudiced eyes. If I looked at Cyrus and saw his remorse, or at Max and saw his anger, I wouldn’t be able to continue. “Cyrus showed me, by combining his blood and Nathan’s. Nathan had taken his wife, Marianne, to see the Soul Eater, thinking he was some kind of faith healer.”

  I recounted the whole tale in the graphic details I’d seen, and the back story I’d heard from Nathan himself. Marianne had been young and beautiful once, until cancer had ravaged her body and left Nathan with precious few options to save her. He’d taken his weak and emaciated wife to Brazil on the word of a doctor who’d recommended Jacob Seymour as a faith healer. Nathan couldn’t have known, but the Soul Eater had set a trap for them on the night of the Vampire New Year, a trap Cyrus had helped plan. When they’d arrived, Marianne and Nathan had learned too late the kind of monsters they’d fallen in with. Cyrus had brutally used Nathan in front of his dying wife. I shut my eyes as I recounted his horrified screams and the way he’d pleaded with Cyrus, not to stop for his sake, but to do whatever he wished and only leave Marianne alive.

  As I spoke, Cyrus slid to the floor, sobbing openly, and Max glared down at him with hate-filled eyes.

  “His father made him do it,” I said quietly when it seemed Max would stalk across the room and tear Cyrus limb from limb. “Leave him be.”

  Still, I held nothing back for Cyrus’s sake as I explained to Bella how he had drained Nathan’s blood and left him weak for the Soul Eater. “After Jacob turned him, he tormented Nathan. The Soul Eater’s blood was already diluted from a year of not feeding, and it wasn’t enough for Nathan. But he didn’t offer him any hope of relief, and Nathan was helpless. He killed Marianne and fed from her because of the hunger.”

  Cyrus sat with his arms wrapped around his bent knees, his face down. When he looked up, his eyes were rimmed
with red.

  He opened his mouth as if to speak, but Max cut him off. “If you talk now, I swear to God I’ll rip your fucking head off.”

  “Max—” I began, but Bella interrupted.

  Her voice was stern yet kind, like a mother admonishing her child. “You cannot change the past by killing him.”

  To my utter astonishment, Max returned to her side, still shooting murderous looks at Cyrus, but seemingly pacified.

  Bella looped her arm through his. “Has he confronted Cyrus about this?”

  I nodded. “They didn’t have a big, tearful reconciliation or anything, but they exchanged angry words.”

  “And the Soul Eater is controlling him now, so they have an open link.” Bella nodded decisively. “It will work.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, dabbing my moist eyes with the sleeve of my shirt. “But do you mind cluing me in on what ‘it’ is?”

  “Bella thinks that if Nathan has made peace with himself, the Soul Eater can’t use the memory to control him,” Max said, the muscles of his jaw ticking as he clenched his teeth.

  “He has faced two of the parties involved, but it is the third he really desires closure with,” Bella explained patiently. She hesitated, clearly waiting for my light bulb moment before she continued.

  “Marianne,” I breathed. Of course, Marianne. “But she’s dead.”

  “So was I,” Cyrus interjected, his voice thick with recently spent tears. “But here I am.”

  “You can bring Marianne back?” My stomach clenched in anticipation of her answer. If Marianne lived again, where would that leave me?

  I scolded myself silently for my selfishness. What did it matter where my path lay in the scheme of things? I should just be happy Nathan could be with his wife and be happy again. If I could give him happiness, even through my own misery, I should want to. He was my sire. It would be the right thing to do. It wouldn’t make up for betraying him with Cyrus. But I’d do it, gladly. He deserved that, at least.