“I can’t.”
The thing was, I was beginning to agree with Seth. I didn’t think there was anything else he could go back to, not if he was paralleling my lives. I’d jumped ahead of him at one point and made some educated guesses on what he would say, and I’d been right each time. I knew how many great loves I’d had as a succubus, and there were none left. Before Seth, there had been eight.
“Push through,” urged Hugh.
“I can’t,” said Seth. “They won’t let me. I’m not supposed to remember.”
“Remember what?”
“That life. The first life.”
“Why not?”
“It’s part of the bargain. My bargain. No, wait. Not mine. Hers, I think. I’m not supposed to remember her. But how can I not?”
It was another of those rhetorical questions, and Hugh looked to Roman and me for help. The imp had been confident there for a while, once the lives began rolling off so easily, but this was something different. Seth wasn’t making a lot of sense, not that this had all been particularly crystal clear so far. Roman made gestures that seemed to be both encouraging and impatient, with a general notion that Hugh should improvise.
“Who’s this bargain with?” asked Hugh.
“I . . . I don’t know. They’re just there, waiting for me in the blackness. After the first life. I’m supposed to go on to the light, but I can’t. There’s something missing. I’m incomplete. My life has been incomplete . . . but I can’t remember why. . . .” Seth furrowed his brow, straining with the effort of remembering. “I just know I can’t move on. So they make a bargain.”
“What’s the bargain?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Yes, you can,” said Hugh, surprisingly gentle. “You were just talking about it.”
“I don’t remember the details.”
“You said it was about you being incomplete. Something was missing.”
“No . . . someone. My soul mate.” Seth’s breathing, which had been so steady throughout all of this, grew a little shaky. “I’m supposed to go on with her, into the light. I can feel it. I wasn’t supposed to live that life alone. I wasn’t supposed to go to the light afterward alone. But she’s not there. She’s not anywhere I can get to now. They say they’ll give me a chance to find her, a chance to find her and remember. They say I can have ten lives to be with her again but that one is used up. Then I have to go with them forever.”
“This life that you can’t remember,” prompted Hugh. “You said it’s your first life, right? The one that’s on the other side of this, uh, extra thick wall of blackness? The life they say you’ve already used?”
“Yes,” said Seth. “That’s the first. The one I’m supposed to forget.”
“You can remember it,” said Hugh. “You’re already remembering parts of it, things you aren’t supposed to. Go to the other side of the blackness, before the bargain, before your death. What do you remember?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you remember a woman? Think about the bargain. The soul mate. Can you remember her?”
Seth’s silence stretched into eternity. “I . . . yes. Kind of. I feel her absence, though I don’t understand it at the time.”
“Have you made it back yet?” asked Hugh. “To the first life?”
“Yes.”
“What is your name?”
“Kyriakos.”
“Do you know where you are? Where you live?”
“I live south of Pafos.”
The name meant nothing to Hugh, but it meant everything to me. I began to slowly shake my head, and Roman gripped hold of my arm again. I’m not sure what he was afraid I’d do. It seemed to be an all-purpose attempt to keep me from interrupting the nightmare unfolding before me, either with word or movement. He needn’t have worried. The rest of me was frozen.
“Do you know the year?” asked Hugh.
“No,” said Seth.
“What do you do?” Hugh asked. “What’s your job?”
“I’m a musician. Unofficially. Mostly I work for my father. He’s a merchant.”
“Is there a woman in your life?”
“ No. ”
“You just said there was. Your soul mate.”
Seth considered. “Yes . . . but she’s not there. She was, and then she wasn’t.”
“If she was, then you must be able to remember her. What’s her name?”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I’m not supposed to remember her.”
“But you can. You’re already doing it. Tell me about her.”
“I don’t remember,” said Seth, the faintest touch of frustration in his voice. “I can’t.”
Hugh tried a new tactic. “How do you feel? How do you feel when you think of her?”
“I feel . . . wonderful. Complete. Happier than I ever believed possible. And yet . . . at the same time, I feel despair. I feel horrible. I want to die.”
“Why? Why do you feel both happiness and despair?”
“I don’t know,” said Seth. “I don’t remember.”
“You do. You can remember.”
“Roman,” I breathed, finding my voice at last. “Make this stop.”
He only shook his head, eyes riveted on Seth. Roman’s entire body was filled with tension and eagerness, anxiously straining forward for the last pieces of info to fill out the theory he’d put together.
“She . . . I loved her. She was my world. But she betrayed me. She betrayed me and tore my heart out.”
“Her name,” said Hugh, catching some of Roman’s excitement. “What was her name?”
“I can’t remember,” said Seth, shifting uncomfortably. “It’s too terrible. They made me forget. I want to forget.”
“But you didn’t,” said Roman, suddenly standing up. “You didn’t forget it. What is it? What is the woman’s name?”
Seth’s eyes flew open, either because of his own inner turmoil or from Roman breaking the trance. Either way, the calm state of relaxation was gone. Raw emotions played over Seth’s features: shock, sorrow, hate. And as he gazed around and reoriented himself to his surroundings, his eyes—and all of those dark, terrible feelings—focused on me.
“Letha,” he gasped. “Her name is Letha.”
Chapter 14
Seth shot up from the chair, face filled with hurt and fury. It was surreal. For a moment, he looked like a stranger . . . and yet, he also looked like everyone I’d ever known. Everyone I’d loved. Everyone I’d hurt.
“You,” he exclaimed, striding toward me. “How could you do that to me? How could you do that to me?”
I had never heard Seth yell like that. I cringed against my chair, too stunned to react. Meanwhile, Hugh seemed to come to life. He had been as shocked by Seth’s initial reaction as me, particularly since Hugh understood even less than I did about what was going on. He was still undoubtedly confused, but some instinct spurred him to action when he saw Seth advance. I didn’t think Seth would’ve hurt me, but he was kind of scary just then. Hugh grabbed a hold of Seth’s arm.
“Whoa, whoa,” said Hugh. “Easy there. Everyone calm down.”
Roman likewise seemed to suddenly realize something was wrong here. He’d been so excited by the developments, his face aglow as all his theories fell into place. Now events were moving in a direction he hadn’t foreseen. He rose, mirroring Hugh’s fighter’s stance. Only, Roman was doing it defensively, coming to stand in front of me, in case Seth broke Hugh’s hold. That didn’t seem very likely. The imp was strong.
“How could you do that to me?” repeated Seth, voice still roaring with fury. “I trusted you! I trusted you and I loved you!”
I had witnessed all of this unfolding but hadn’t dared allow myself to really and truly accept it. I had seen the impossible. I had seen Seth relive the lives of men he hadn’t known—men he couldn’t have known—walking back through the centuries of my long existence. Some voice inside of me kept saying, No, no, this isn’t happening. This can’t be r
eal. It’s some trick of Hell’s. I was working hard not to process what I’d heard because processing it meant accepting it. But with those last words, Seth penetrated something inside of my numb self. He broke through, and I snapped.
“I didn’t! I didn’t do anything to you!” I cried. I had to peer around Roman to meet Seth’s eyes and almost wished I hadn’t. They were cold. So terribly cold and hurt.
“You cheated on me,” said Seth, straining against Hugh. “Cheated on me with my best friend. . . .” Yet, even as he spoke, I could see him falter. The feelings he’d felt as Kyriakos were real, but he was examining it now as Seth Mortensen. The mixed realities were confusing him. It was understandable. They confused me.
“Seth,” I said desperately. “I didn’t do that to you. Think about it. I love you. I love you so much.”
Seth stopped struggling, though Hugh didn’t relinquish his grip. Seth’s features were still filled with hurt and confusion. “Not to me . . . to him. But I am him. I’m all of them.” Seth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. What had been reasonable and clear under hypnosis was becoming more difficult to grasp. “How? How is that possible?”
“Past lives,” said Roman. “You’re right. You were all of them. You lived all of those lives, long before you were born into this one.”
“Reincarnation? That . . . that’s impossible,” said Seth.
“Is it?” asked Roman, regaining some of his confidence now that the situation was no longer escalating. “How do you know? Do you have a direct line into the way the universe works?”
“So, wait . . . what about you guys?” asked Seth. “Are Heaven and Hell not real?”
“Oh,” said Hugh wryly, “they’re real.”
“All of it is real,” said Roman. “And vastly more complex than any faulty human system can understand.” He turned to me, expression softening. I must have looked terrified. “What Seth saw . . . what he lived through. You knew all of them, didn’t you? All of those identities?”
I focused on Roman, afraid I’d lose my nerve if I looked at Seth again. I nodded. “Yes . . . they were all people . . . all men I knew in my life.”
Hugh frowned. “How is that possible? I can get on board with reincarnation. I’ve seen enough to believe it can happen. But him always being reborn around you? You running into him—what was it, ten times? That’s statistically impossible.”
“The things we’re dealing with aren’t really governed by statistics and probability,” said Roman. “There are other forces at work here, forces that guide his rebirth. It was part of his contract, the deal you made as Kyriakos. What can you tell us about it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. . . . I don’t remember . . . I . . .” Seth shook his head, the anger returning. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Let me go. I need to get out of here. I need to get away from her!”
“Seth . . .” I said.
“But you’re the key!” exclaimed Roman. “The key to unlocking Georgina’s problems. You’re the other contract, the one Erik was talking about. You’re tied to her, tied to everything that’s been going on with her.”
“I don’t care,” said Seth. He seemed to just barely be able to keep his emotions in check. “I don’t care about your various and sundry plots! Do you have any idea what I just saw? What I just went through? I’m still not even sure I understand any of it! I don’t understand who I am! All I know is her—and what she did to me.”
“Seth,” I tried again. Or should I address him as Kyriakos? I didn’t know. “Please . . . I love you. I’ve always loved you. What happened . . . it was . . . it was an accident. . . .”
The look Seth gave me was dark and wary. “It sure didn’t seem like an accident when I walked in on you.”
“I never meant to . . .”
“To rip my heart out?” he cried. “To destroy my world? My life?”
“Roman,” said Hugh carefully. “Maybe we should give him some time to process this.”
“We don’t have time,” said Roman. “Hell can move fast—especially if they find out what we know. If we’re going to save Georgina—”
“I don’t care!” said Seth again, this time with more vehemence. “I don’t care what happens to any of you, and I certainly don’t care about what happens to her. It’s probably less than she deserves.”
“She didn’t do anything to you,” said Roman. “She’s been a pretty solid girlfriend, from what I’ve seen.”
“Seth,” I pleaded, knowing Roman wasn’t quite getting it yet. “I . . . I’m sorry. It was a long time ago.” My words were terribly, terribly inadequate, but Seth was tapping into things I’d forced myself to block out—because they were too painful.
“For you, maybe,” said Seth. “It happened over the course of centuries. One life for you. But for me . . . whatever you guys did with the hypnosis, it’s all here now. All of those lives . . . those memories. Here in my head at the same time. It didn’t happen ‘a long time ago’ for me. It’s like it just happened yesterday! All those feelings, all that pain . . .”
“It’ll fade,” said Hugh, not sounding as though he was certain. “What you regressed through is still fresh, and you weren’t brought out of the trance properly. Give it time. Or . . . if you want, I can put you back under and make you forget this.”
“And forget her?” demanded Seth. “So I can forget what a faithless, conniving bitch she’s been to me?”
“Seth . . .” I could feel tears forming in my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. If I could take it back, I would.”
“Which part?” he asked. “The part where you proved our marriage meant nothing to you? Or the countless other times you lied to me and broke my heart? Do you have any idea how I feel? What it feels like to be experiencing all of that at the same time? Maybe you’ve moved past it all and don’t care anymore, but it’s real for me!”
“It is for me too. I . . . I love you.” They were the only words I managed to get out, and they still weren’t enough. Where was all my usual glib charm? My ability to talk my way out of anything? I was still too choked up on my emotions, still reeling from the fact that looking into Seth’s eyes meant looking into the eyes of every man I’d ever loved. I wanted to convince him how sorry I was and explain that having a long life hadn’t dulled the feelings inside me. If anything, it had only provided more time for those feelings to sink in and punish me. I wanted to explain to him how I’d felt during that first transgression and how it had been a poor reaction to feelings I didn’t know how to process as a scared young woman. I wanted to explain that most of my actions since then, especially the times I’d pushed away other lovers, had been weak attempts at protecting them.
There was so much I wanted to say, but I just didn’t have the words—or courage—to get any of it out. So, I remained silent, and the tears spilled out of my eyes.
Seth took a deep breath, forcing. “Let me go, Hugh. I won’t hurt her. I don’t want anything to do with her. I just want to go home. I need to get out of here.”
“Don’t,” said Roman. “We need him. We need more answers, so that we can understand the contracts.”
“Hugh, let him go.” I barely recognized the voice as my own. Roman looked at me incredulously.
“We need him,” he repeated.
“He’s done enough,” I said flatly. In my head, Seth’s words echoed: I don’t want anything to do with her. “We’ve done enough to him.” When nobody reacted, I met Hugh’s gaze squarely. “Do it. Let him go.”
Hugh glanced between Roman and me and then made a decision. Still keeping hold of Seth’s arm, Hugh steered him away from us and walked him to the door. Roman made more protests and took a few steps toward them, but I remained frozen where I was. I didn’t look behind me, not even when I heard the door slam. Hugh returned, and Roman slumped back into his chair, sighing with frustration.
“Well,” he said. “Once he calms down, we’ll get him back and talk things out.”
“I
don’t think he’s going to calm down,” I said, staring off at nothing. I don’t want anything to do with her.
“He’s just in shock,” said Roman.
I didn’t answer. Roman didn’t know. Roman didn’t understand the full scope of our history together. He hadn’t seen Kyriakos’s face after my betrayal, the grief that had been so deep it had nearly driven him to suicide. That was part of why I’d become a succubus, using my soul to purchase peace for him in the form of forgetfulness. It was the only way to save him. But if he remembered everything now, if he really was Kyriakos reborn . . . then, no. He wasn’t “just in shock.” I had done a terrible, terrible thing to him, and his outrage wasn’t unfounded.
A shiver ran through me as I thought about the instant connection I’d had with Seth, the feeling like I’d always known him. It was because I had always known him. Life after life. I’d always felt like we were bound into something greater than ourselves . . . and we were. Something great and terrible.
Hugh dragged up a chair and sat across from me. He caught hold of one of my hands. “Sweetie, I swear to you, I had no clue any of that would happen.”
I gave him a halfhearted squeeze back. “What . . . what did you think would happen?”
Hugh glanced at Roman. “He asked me if I could hypnotize Seth and attempt some past life regression. I had no idea what it was for. Fuck, I had no idea it would really work, let alone walk us through nine emotionally damaged lives. Ten, since we now seemed to have fucked up this one.”
I felt hollow inside, hollow and aching. I turned to Roman, astonished I could manage any sort of reasonable discussion when my world had just been destroyed. “How did you know it would happen? How did you figure all of this out?”
“I only figured some of it out,” said Roman. “It was actually your stupid Santa stuff that tipped me off. About how that guy was worried about Santa being in two places at once?” He scoffed and raked a hand through his hair. “I started thinking about how everyone says your contract is fine and how Erik had mentioned a second contract. We’d already deduced Hell wanted you and Seth apart, but why? And I thought, what if it’s like the Santa thing? There’s nothing wrong with your contract or Seth’s in and of themselves, but together, something goes wrong.”
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