The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance

by Trisha Telep

“I plead very, very, inexcusably guilty on that charge,” Kyle said, laughing genuinely as he held up his hands in mock surrender.

  Katrina laughed with him, and had the sudden thought that it had been a long time since she’d actually shared a teasing laugh with someone. Sometimes when she and Nikolai were alone she could get him to laugh, but laughing with someone was different. This was unique and special. She enjoyed it.

  Kyle caught her thoughts without meaning to, effortless as always, and agreed that this was enjoyable. Nice.

  “So,” he continued, picking up the thread of his tale, “I set about cleaning up the mortal form I was ‘borrowing’, earning a little money, and generally trying to make myself presentable and somewhat respectable. After all, I wasn’t your average, everyday demon, and if she was going to see me, I wanted her to actually see me, not simply the pitiful mortal I was using.”

  “From here it doesn’t look like so pitiful a mortal,” Katrina observed, deliberately eyeing him up and down before winking at him.

  It had the desired effect, and Kyle smiled at her jesting.

  “She must have thought the same, for when I finally presented myself to her, she remembered me, and greeted me with a smile, by name.”

  Katrina bit her bottom lip in a wistful grin, almost bursting. “Oh, that’s wonderful!” She clapped her hands. “I was hoping she would remember you. She’d probably been waiting to see you again, all that time, wondering what had happened to you and what, if anything, she’d done to frighten you off.” Katrina giggled.

  “Indeed, she had,” Kyle said with a nod. “Just as you say.”

  Katrina nearly spit out the drink she’d just taken. “I wasn’t serious,” she said, looking at him incredulously. “That’s movie stuff. Not real life!”

  “Regardless, it was so,” Kyle said with a gentle smile. “Just as it is in fairy tales. It surprised me that she did remember, for time passes so quickly here. Nonetheless, she had been waiting, just as you say, to speak with me again. And all I could do was gaze at her. Every move she made was entrancement itself, from smoothing her dress to touching her hair.”

  His words faded as he lost himself in the memories of his Catrine. When he finally remembered himself, he apologized to his hostess for his inattention.

  “Don’t apologize,” Katrina said. She reached to pat his hand lightly, ignoring his almost imperceptible look of disapproval at her touch. “I asked, and it’s nice to hear you talk about her. Though I’m not sure I want to hear the end.”

  Kyle nodded and looked away. Yes, it ended. All things end. Even time itself would end one day. Some things simply ended before they should, or so he felt at times, even though he knew better.

  “For months, mortal months, we carried on thusly,” he went on, but his words had lost their enthusiasm. “I would visit and we would simply talk, or go for a walk, or I would carry her shopping from the market. I never entered her home.”

  Katrina nodded, indicating her continued attention and interest, but didn’t interrupt.

  “Catrine went every week to confession,” he continued. “And I would wait outside for her. Outside the churchyard. It was consecrated ground, and I could not set foot on it, but she would come from it happier and smiling, so I was always content to wait on her. I would have waited on her until the end of time. Winter was slowly giving way to spring, but March was exceptionally cold that year. She was concerned that her offering to Saint Joseph for his feast day would be too meagre. I negated her concern. That led to a discussion of saints and souls and why I wouldn’t come to confession with her.

  “ ‘It’s so cold out here, Kail,’ she would say before going into the church. ‘At least come in from the cold and warm yourself. Won’t you please come in from the cold?’ She said those words so often. I never understood what she was talking about, because I didn’t feel the cold, or the warmth, or anything else like she did. And I told her so.”

  “Oh, Kyle,” Katrina said, swallowing hard as tears prickled at her eyes. “What did she say?”

  “I shouldn’t have been surprised, but she told me that she already knew I was different. She just hadn’t known how,” he answered. “And so my explanation of who and what I was didn’t surprise her exactly, but it distinctly unnerved her. All those months, unknowingly consorting with a demon. She accused me of befriending her so that I might take her soul. It was the one time I got angry with her. I told her that if I’d wanted that, I would have taken it already without having to spend so much time with her. She slapped me and refused to speak to me any more. But we had made plans for the Feast of Saint Joseph and I would not abandon her simply because she no longer wanted anything to do with me. At least, that’s what I told myself. In truth, I just didn’t want to be away from her, not even for a moment. I wanted her for myself, and I was unaccustomed to wanting for anything.”

  “How did she come back to you? Or did she?” Katrina asked, settling her nerves with another sip from her glass.

  A half-smile touched Kyle’s lips. “Demons are patient,” he said. “And again, time passes differently in the mortal realm, and though it was only hours to me without her, it was days to her. But even a mortal hour can seem an eternity when your soul is cut to the core, and I knew I had hurt her deeply. Why that concerned me, I didn’t know. I didn’t know demons could love.”

  “Demons can love?” Katrina echoed, her brow furrowing.

  Kyle nodded lightly, then shook his head. “Well, no, not truly,” he clarified. “Our father made us in his image, as he had been made. Although he had been given a heart, his envy and hatred of Man twisted it. When he created his own children, he had to duplicate his own form, though he made the hearts he gave us small, hard and virtually useless so that we might never discover we had one. If we did, he feared we would begin to question him, as he had questioned his own Father. We would no longer truly be demons. We would become obsolete in a sense. I was the lord of his demons, and I had discovered my heart, though I did not know it yet.”

  Kyle took a sip from his glass and waited. He could sense her question, but let her phrase it for herself.

  “So what did you do?” Katrina asked.

  “The only thing I could think to do,” Kyle replied. “I went to see her, one last time, to tell her she didn’t have to worry about seeing me again, if that’s what she wanted. I had no wish to harm her, or see her come to harm, or have her be afraid of me.”

  Kyle ran a finger absently around the rim of his crystal goblet.

  “She was waiting for me, and chastised me for being late to accompany her to the church. She had to make her offering upon the altar to Saint Joseph,” he said, his voice steady though it was clear the words hurt him to say as he relived the memory. “She thought I’d forgotten and, in truth, I had. But I went with her, and when we arrived, we stopped outside the churchyard.

  “She told me everything she’d been thinking. Her thoughts had always been sacrosanct to me - I had never pried into them or allowed myself to hear them. I remember realizing that at that moment, as she spoke. She told me her feelings. All I could do was listen. I’d dropped to my knees when she reached to touch my face and, when I looked up at her, all I could do was apologize and beg her forgiveness for causing her grief.”

  Kyle hesitated then, but Katrina heard him force himself to continue.

  “She asked me to please rise, as I was making her uncomfortable kneeling on the ground. I offered to come with her into the church, even knowing I could not, though for her I would try. If only she would forgive me for everything . . . for being what I was. I told her that I hadn’t ever lied to her - as ridiculous as that sounds coming from a demon in a mortal body.”

  Kyle paused again, and Katrina could see him visibly struggling to maintain his composure. She waited patiently until he found it and continued.

  “She kissed me then, leaning down to do so,” he said softly. “Right there in front of anyone who cared to look. Her. An unmarried, pious woman, virtuous
and sweet, kissing a son of the devil she spent her life avoiding. Oh, it was chaste, even for that time, but still. The bravery. The audacity. And the moment it ended, I heard inhuman laughter.”

  Katrina bit her lip again to keep from asking questions, but she had a fair idea as to what happened next. After all, Kyle was here, and his Catrine wasn’t.

  Kyle was silent as well, looking unseeingly into his glass. After a long moment, he looked up at Katrina. His pale, sea-green eyes were filled with obvious anguish, but no tears fell. None could. He didn’t have any to shed.

  “We had been found out, some time before. A young initiate, a low-ranking demon trying to earn a name for himself, had been spying on me - on us - and reporting back to my father. I hadn’t had a clue about it. I’d been focused solely on my need of her, and not how reckless or careless I was being. I only cared about being with her.” He sighed, then continued.

  “Nothing happened immediately; nothing could at that moment. It was a holy day. That didn’t change matters, however, only postponed how quickly my father could act. Still, we went on as if we hadn’t a care in the world. We enjoyed the day together. Catrine made her offering, and we spent time talking about things no human should ever know about. There were things I was glad to tell her, and questions I was happy to answer. She spent the day with me as though I were a man. And when night fell, she spent that with me too, in her father’s orchard with only a fire and her two dogs to chaperone us. I think she knew there would be literal Hell to pay for being with me, and had decided I was worth it. As I’ve said, she was a brave and unique woman.”

  “Was?” Katrina made herself say.

  Kyle nodded stoically. “We talked long into the night, and she told me a great many things. She told me—” Kyle broke off, unable to continue. He closed his eyes and finished his drink before looking directly into Katrina’s eyes.

  “She told me she loved me,” he said, his voice strong and firm. “Even knowing what I was and knowing that a life together was impossible in all ways. She let me hold her then. I never had, before that night. I’d never once tried to touch her, not even lightly. I was always content to just look at her, be in her presence and listen to her voice. Not once had I asked her for anything, but that night I did. I asked her to let me feel her in my arms, and she allowed me to hold her until midnight when the holy day was over. Then they came for me, and it all ended.”

  “Who came?” Katrina asked, wanting to hold his hand but not daring to. His demeanour had changed back to the dark and imposing one she knew. She didn’t want to disturb him further. Kyle could be dangerous enough when he was calm, she’d been told.

  “The one who had spied on us and others. With them they brought a severed human head that my father spoke through. I told you, he cannot leave physically, but there are ways he can enter the mortal realm briefly.”

  Kyle studied the golden ring he wore on his right little finger, twisting it absently.

  “I was given a choice,” he continued, his voice now devoid of any feeling or warmth. “Admit I loved her, or be ordered out of existence. There are very few things that can kill a demon, but one of them is being ordered out of existence by Lucifer. This is what we term ‘The Annihilation’.

  “I didn’t understand at the time why they offered me such a seemingly easy choice - say I loved her or be ordered out of existence. I was suspicious. Nothing is ever as it appears, especially when offered by Lucifer. I took a moment to try to figure out what tricks my father could be up to. Catrine naturally took this for hesitation on my part - I was a demon after all - and she imagined I would betray her. She pleaded with me, and with my father. She just kept begging me to say that I loved her.

  “My father offered to let her choose my fate instead of leaving it for me to choose. However, as brave as she was, she was not prepared to take on the Devil, whom she’d been brought up to fear her whole life. Staring a talking severed head straight in its dead eyes wasn’t something she could do either, even if I could have prepared her for it. It had taken her long enough to decide she could live with loving a self-admitted, willing servant of Lucifer. But all this was too much for her. Or so I thought.”

  “What did she do?” Katrina prompted when Kyle lost himself again in his memories.

  He got up from his chair and paced to the balustrade, looking out into the dark garden.

  Katrina got up and went after him, sliding her arms around his lean waist. Kyle stiffened, but her embrace only tightened in spite of her fear. She leaned her head against his back and spoke, gentle but firm.

  “Kyle, tell me. What did she do?”

  “Release me and I will answer you,” Kyle replied. It took more control than he wanted to admit not to shove her away. She was only trying to comfort him. But she was not his.

  Though his tone was even, Katrina heard the dire warning in it and slowly let her arms drop from around his waist. She took a step back, horrified at her audacity but unwilling to draw attention to her mistake by apologizing for it. She was in a different world now, a dangerous world; she had to remember that.

  Instead she offered him a nod, as he so often offered to her, and he continued.

  “She confessed herself, to him and all present, unashamedly,” Kyle said quietly. “And dared my father to fault her for it, for ‘love is never wrong’, she told him.”

  “She’s right,” Katrina said as she returned to her seat. “It isn’t. It’s the one thing that keeps me sane when Nikolai talks about things that just make my mind boggle. I don’t suppose your father took too kindly to that.”

  The understatement made Kyle burst out in laughter.

  “No,” he admitted with a shake of his head though he kept his eyes on the dark of the garden. “No, he didn’t. He killed her. Or rather, he had Kihirin do it. Right in front of me. I was held in my mortal form, trapped by a power greater than my own. It took the entire power of seven of them, plus what my father could spare, to restrain me and keep me in form. I couldn’t even go to her as Kihirin drained her life. He was in mortal form and used a scythe to slit her throat. She kept her eyes on me as he prepared to do it, telling me the whole time that she loved me and it was worth it. When she was all but gone, they released me. I went immediately to her.”

  Kyle’s voice had again lost some of its might, and Katrina wanted to embrace him again, but she didn’t dare. Kyle wasn’t like Nikolai at all, and neither could nor would be soothed by a hug and a kiss.

  “She knew, though, didn’t she? That you were with her?” Katrina asked in a whisper, knowing Kyle’s keen ears would hear her.

  “Yes,” Kyle replied softly, “she knew. They never had any intention of letting us alone - letting us be with one another. They’d always planned to stop us in whatever way they could, and I was a fool to think I was indispensable. At that moment, I didn’t care about any consequence that would come of the proclamation my father wanted me to make. I professed for her, and told her what I should have told her the moment I knew it. ‘I love you,’ I said. She smiled and made me promise to remember the day we had together, the holy day, and I promised her I would never forget. Then she died in my arms, and I could do nothing but watch.

  “And as her soul left her body, I tried to stop it, even though my power had already been stripped. I was as powerless as a mortal, and I couldn’t do anything to stop her death.”

  Katrina tried not to let her tears fall, but she couldn’t help it.

  Kyle turned around to regard her, and she hastily wiped her eyes. He crossed the veranda to the table she was again seated at, took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and offered it to her.

  “Shh,” he said as she accepted it hesitantly.

  A fleeting thought of warning crossed her mind about accepting something offered by a demon, but it wasn’t enough to dissuade her. Besides, he’d helped her and Nik before. But why? Demons never did anything selfless, did they?

  She was so caught up in her own thoughts that she almost didn’t
hear what he was saying.

  “If Nikolai returns to see you’ve wept, he’ll never again allow me in your house, and you made such a fuss to have me here.”

  Katrina laughed as she dried her eyes and blew her nose. “So she died.”

  “Yes,” Kyle said softly. “She died for love of me. Because she loved me. That is why, my lady Katrina, I choose to be ‘alone’, as you say.”

  “But you professed for her like they wanted,” Katrina said to him with anguished eyes. She sniffed once more and dabbed at her nose with the handkerchief. “And . . . and . . . if you’d done that to begin with, she wouldn’t have been killed!”

  Kyle simply looked at her and Katrina cringed at the stupidity of what she’d just said. Now that was “movie stuff. It was Lucifer, after all, and he wasn’t exactly an honest guy.

  “What happened then?” she asked, mostly to cover up her silly accusation.

  “I had become human,” Kyle said with a shrug. “Though this was yet unknown to me and to the others who stood by. A demon cannot love, ever. If a demon finds his heart and professes love, he will become mortal. Human. Demons cannot love, therefore they become something else. When I professed for Catrine, I became human. The mortal I’d been in possession of, his soul and mine fused. Two souls cannot share one body without fusing. As the mortal’s soul was already damned by his own hand, and mine was given to me by my father, Lucifer thought it his property and took it for his own, leaving me—”

  “A body without a soul,” Katrina said with him.

  “Yes,” Kyle affirmed. “In his words, ‘forced to live off the blood of those I betrayed him for’. Worse, I betrayed him for love of a mortal — something he cannot abide. He took back what he’d given me, though he had no right to it. Looking back, I should have entrusted it to my Catrine. I should have given her my soul as well as my heart.”

  Kyle bent down to look Katrina firmly in the eye.

  “Remember that, Katrina,” he said gently. “When you’re at your wits’ end with Nikolai, and the Council and the Destrati, and immortals and souls. When you grow weary of the War Between the Sides, remember that it all comes down to one thing and that is love. It was love that began it, and someday, it will be love that ends it. Remember.”