He sighed. “That would be a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”
“I don’t understand, then.”
“It’s not that he kills. It’s how he kills.”
It was my turn to not understand.
“He likes it, Hev. Sometimes he kills because he has to, but mostly he does it because he enjoys it. There’s something about him that’s twisted… He’s violent.”
The image of him at the cemetery this afternoon flashed into my mind. He had the upper hand. He could have just punched through that demon’s chest, but he didn’t. He cut off its head and then threw the body away like it was nothing. “The curse,” I said to myself.
“The curse?” Sam echoed.
“Right before we got you back, Gemma told me that Riley’s family line is cursed with servitude to Beelzebub. She thinks the reason he’s so mean is because of the curse.” I explained to Sam in detail about Riley’s grandfather and the deal he made with Beelzebub all those years ago.
“So Riley works for Beelzebub?” Sam said thoughtfully when I finished talking. He went to the fridge and pulled out a water.
“I don’t think it’s like that,” I said, feeling like I was betraying Sam with my feelings. I liked Riley. I went to grab a water too, but Sam handed me his before I could open the fridge door.
His whiskey-colored eyes were intense as he looked down. “This is exactly why I didn’t want him around,” he whispered. God, the deep, smoky tone of his voice was wonderful. He cupped my face in his palms. “Riley is twisted. He would backstab his own mother and now we find out he’s cursed, but yet… he’s likable.” His fingers flexed against my jaw.
“He helped me. He helped you.” I protested, trying to prove he wasn’t all bad. I didn’t want to believe he was.
“Yeah.” He dropped his hands and walked across the room. “And now I owe him.”
“No.” I protested. “It isn’t like that.”
“With Riley, it’s always like that.” He turned to stare at me with hardened eyes. “Don’t let his charm fool you, Hev. You can like him, but remember he’ll turn on you if he’s offered something better. There’s a reason he’s back. He wasn’t helping you out of the goodness of his heart. He wants something.”
I didn’t want to believe that. But I could feel Sam thought he was telling me the truth and Sam had good instincts. The best. Which made what I had to admit next even worse.
“There’s something else,” I whispered.
His whole body tensed as if preparing for a blow. I took a breath and the words rushed out. “He spent the night with me.”
There was a charged moment of silence before Sam erupted. His body began to shake and swell, and for a moment I thought he might turn.
He was in your room? In your bed? Sam demanded, the words slapping into my brain with force. His eyes were flashing gold and I wondered if maybe I made a mistake. But if I hadn’t told him I would feel like a liar forever. I didn’t want to feel like I was hiding things from him. It made me feel dirty.
“It was nothing! He stayed to keep the Dream Walker out of my mind.” I wanted to retch when he turned away.
Tears welled in my eyes. “Those scars…” I pushed away a tear that dropped from my lashes. “You got those because Beelzebub was mad he couldn’t get into my mind. Because Riley was there.” I spent the night with another man and Sam was beaten for it. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t care about the damn scars!” he yelled.
“I was only trying to get some peace,” I said wearily. “I was so tired and the demon, it was the worst yet.”
“What demon?”
I closed my eyes. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “It was under the bed. It tried to pull me into some kind of vortex or something. I fought it off, but it managed to get the upper hand. Riley showed up and killed it.”
He protected you.
This hurt him worse than anything, I think. There wasn’t anything I could say.
Did he touch you?
No! It wasn’t like that. I got up and went to face him so he could see the truth in my eyes. We were fully dressed.
He didn’t say anything, but stood there with his jaw clenched and looking over my head. After a few minutes I turned away, going back to the bed and climbing in. I should have just taken my chances with the Dream Walker, anything to spare Sam. He didn’t speak and I was afraid if I did, it would only make it worse. Besides, offering excuses for what I did was wrong.
Behind me, the bed dipped with his weight as he lay down, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me against him. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he rasped against my ear.
I wanted to laugh. “You have a right to be angry.” If Sam spent the night with some girl, I’d probably claw out her eyes.
“I’m glad he was there to keep that psycho out of your head. I just wish it was me, not him.”
“It is you,” I whispered. “It’s always you.”
A purr vibrated in his chest and I rolled in his arms to face him. “Can you forgive me?”
“On one condition.”
“What is it?” I would do anything.
“Kiss me.” He smiled.
Chapter Seventeen
Sam
I jolted awake, not sure what caused the disturbance, but my senses were instantly alert and listening. It took a moment to remember where I was as I lay there in the dark, but the feeling of something soft and warm pressed against me was all the reminder I needed.
I smiled slowly. I was at home. In bed. With Heven.
Memories of what we had done washed over me and I forgot about waking suddenly, instead just reliving a few of those moments. Everything I went through down there—the feelings of hate, anger and regret—I would experience them all a thousand times over just to end up exactly where I was now.
Slowly, I moved, wrapping my arm a little tighter around her and pressing a kiss to the soft hair on her head. God, how I missed her.
Whatever caused me to awaken seemed to disturb me once more. I lay there and listened to everything around us, looking for something, but finding nothing—we were alone. I sensed no threat lurking. I heard no sounds other than the occasional car passing by and the low hum of the air-conditioner.
My stomach growled, hungry even after I ate that pizza. I was probably going to be hungry for days. I thought about getting up, seeing if there was anything else in the fridge, but I didn’t want to move. I’d waited so long for this that giving it up wasn’t going to happen.
I relaxed back onto the bed and drifted back into a light sleep, part of me still alert just in case. I don’t know how long I lay there—it could have been minutes or an hour—but Heven began to stir. She just shifted in sleep a few times, but then she began to shake and curl in on herself before straightening back out again. After a few moments, she slid out from my embrace, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and tiptoed quietly away from the bed. I opened my eyes and watched her as she rushed into the bathroom. She didn’t bother to turn on the light and several moments later she began to retch.
I jumped up from the bed and went into the bathroom, flipping on the light and crouching beside her. “Hey, not feeling so hot, huh?”
“I just started feeling… strange,” she said, reaching out to close the toilet lid. I helped her up and the blanket around her fell off her shoulder. I caught my breath.
“What the hell is that?” I demanded, looking at the welts across her back. I had just seen every inch of her and those marks had not been there. I reached out to touch one and she shrank back, a sound of pain escaping her lips.
It’s like she was scratched from the inside out, I thought to myself, staring in horror at the wounds. They looked angry and red, puffed up underneath her once-smooth skin. The skin over the wound was bubbled and stretched thin, looking like it might break open at any moment.
I think I was. She answered my thought.
“Heven…”
Help me to the bed?
“I think so.”
“What the hell did she do?” The words came out as more of a snarl than I intended and I tried to control my anger.
Heven didn’t answer; she seemed to not hear me. She was looking a little green again, and I grabbed her hand. “Heven, are you feeling sick again?”
“What?” she said, looking up at me, focusing. “No, I’m okay.”
“You should have left me there,” I muttered, feeling responsible for this.
“No!” She gasped, grabbing my wrist and staring into my eyes. “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine. He wanted answers I don’t have. He would have found a way to do this whether I was in hell or not.”
“What did they do to you?” I groaned.
“I’m not really sure. I want to see.”
“No, you don’t.” I protested, but she was already up and walking into the bathroom, turning on the light. I watched as she blinked against the brightness, then turned to stare at the claw marks on her back.
“Beast,” she murmured, her face going pale.
“What?” I asked.
“Hecate said the word beast. I look like I was clawed from the inside…”
Realization and horror dawned. “No,” I said, hoarse. “They wouldn’t.” But they would. They had. Is this what had caused me to wake? Is this what I sensed?
Beelzebub might be immortal, but that would only give me the pleasure of killing him a thousand times over.
“Sam?” Heven said, her voice low, as she stared in the mirror at her back.
I clicked off the light and ushered her out of the bathroom. “Tell me everything that happened.”
Maybe it wasn’t what I was thinking. Maybe I was wrong and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. She sighed and turned to face me. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not tonight. This is our night. You’re finally home. Beelzebub took so much away from us and I refuse to let him have tonight.”
She was standing in front of the bed, blond hair falling into her eyes and the blanket falling off her shoulder. She held out her hand and stood there in silent invitation. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to forget all about what just happened.
So I did. I pushed it all away, for her. For me. For us. Until she fell asleep in my arms.
It was then, as I was lying in the dark, that I couldn’t deny what I saw and what she said. I couldn’t deny what the hound in me was saying.
Hecate trapped a beast inside Heven, inside my love, and I hadn’t the slightest clue how to get it out.
For the rest of the night, I would awaken, sensing that thing inside of her every time it stirred. I would lie there and worry that I wouldn’t be able to get it out. I wondered about everything I didn’t know the answer to and everything that I did. I lay there and imagined ramming my fist into Riley’s jaw. Yeah, I guess I was glad he’d been here to fight off that demon in Heven’s room, but he was bad news… And he wanted something.
It was eight a.m. when Heven woke up. I knew she was awake before she even opened her eyes. I enjoyed the way she settled farther against me and tucked her hand between my side and the mattress, like she had no intention of ever getting up.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, keeping my voice to a whisper.
She stretched like a cat before answering. “I’m good.”
I smiled up at the ceiling. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” She sat up and looked over her shoulder. “How does it look?”
I looked at her back; it did look better. The skin no longer seemed stretched to the point of breaking. The welts didn’t seem as swollen and they weren’t as red. It seemed whatever was inside her was calm. For the moment. “Looks better.”
“It doesn’t hurt.” She lied.
“Heven,” I growled.
“Fine.” She sighed. “It’s a little sore, but nothing like last night.”
I brushed my fingertip over the end of one of the longer marks and sighed. “Did you understand at all what Hecate was saying when she did this to you? I only heard the very end.”
She turned to face me, tucking her legs under her and pulling the sheet up to cover her bare skin. “I did hear the word ‘beast’ once or twice. Beelzebub told her he wanted me to know what it’s like to feel true evil inside me and to only be at peace in the place I hate most. Which is hell.”
“Hecate trapped a beast inside you,” I said, voicing what we both were thinking.
She swallowed. “I guess so. By the looks of the claw marks on my back, I would say it wants out.”
“We need to get it out. Right now.” I jumped out of bed and went to the dresser to find some shorts and a T-shirt.
“I don’t have time right now.”
I dropped my shirt. “You don’t have time?” I said incredulously. What could be more important that getting that thing out of her?
“I have the viewings for my mom and the funeral tomorrow.”
Her mother. It still hadn’t sunk in yet that she was dead. My parents cast me out, turned me away, so in many ways Hev and I were both orphans now. With the exception that my parents were still alive. I guess in the back of my mind there was always that very remote chance I would see them again. That they might apologize for what they did to me. But Heven… Heven didn’t have that. Her mother was yet another victim of Beelzebub and the crap that I brought into her life.
A victim of my brother.
I looked at her sitting there with a sheet wrapped around her thin frame. She had lost so much, yet she was still strong. What would it do to her when she found out my brother was responsible for her mother’s head injury?
I sank down on the edge of the bed next to her. She reached out and wrapped her hand around my bicep. “I’m sorry about your mom, Heven. I wish I had been here.”
“I know.” She cleared her throat. “She woke up before she died.”
My eyes widened. “She did?”
Heven nodded. “She said horrible things to me, Sam. Those weeks of her accepting us… accepting me… that was Beelzebub controlling her. She said I wasn’t her daughter anymore.”
“Oh, babe.” I pulled her close. “She was wrong.”
Heven pulled away after a few seconds. “I have to go to her house today and take an outfit to the funeral home. There is a viewing this afternoon and this evening that I have to attend. I’m sure Gran is expecting me soon.” She glanced over at the clock and groaned.
“We’ll get it all done and I’ll be there with you through it all.” I promised. I brushed the hair back from her face and kissed her long and slow. “I missed kissing you whenever I wanted,” I told her when I pulled away. “You feel warm.”
She shrugged. “I’ve felt that way since I drank that tea Ana gave me.”
I pressed a palm to her head and studied her face. “Would you tell me if you were feeling bad?”
“Yes.” She climbed out of the bed, taking the sheet with her, and went into the tiny kitchen. “I’m not sure what’s in here, but I’m sure I can make you something to eat.”
The front door burst open and sunlight streamed inside the tiny space. I growled and moved to get in front of Heven when a familiar voice caught me off guard.
“Sam!” Logan cried, rushing into the room. “Sam! You’re back!”
My little brother launched himself at me and I caught him in a hug. “Hey, bud! It’s great to see you!” I couldn’t help but notice how thin he felt as I hugged him. He pulled back, and I got to really look at him.
I knew he was bad, but this was worse than I thought.
I held up my hand for a high-five, which he gave as he bounced around on wobbly legs. “We brought you some breakfast!”
“We?” I asked as Riley strolled in, kicking the door shut behind him.
The thought of my baby brother hanging out with someone like Riley made my skin crawl. Why did this guy think he could carve himself a place in my life?
He was carrying a large, flat donut box with a paper sack on top and a drink holder with three large coffee cups. I thought about tackling him to the floor. But he was holding all the food.
“You should have knocked,” I said tightly.
“I have a key.” Riley smirked and I wondered what my odds were of kicking his ass without harming the food.
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