by Olivia Waite
She was human-sized, this demoness, which meant she was strong in her craft. With a shock, James realized he’d seen her before, following Miss Lakeland out of a ballroom on the night he’d first met Virginia.
The demoness smiled up at him with head cocked and said, “Tell me something— do you like it?”
James frowned and folded his arms across his chest. He’d spent his whole life in the nude, so why did it suddenly make him feel so vulnerable? “Like what?” he demanded.
“Having a soul of your own,” she said, as though he were an idiot. “Does it feel different than stealing one?”
“I wouldn’t know,” James returned, stung. “I’m an incubus. We feed on pleasure. We don’t steal souls. That’s your work, not mine.”
The demoness laughed and moved a little bit closer, her wings curling and uncurling in the evening breeze. “You don’t steal souls—but you’ve got one, haven’t you?” Sharp claws glinted in the moonlight as she toyed with a lock of her dark hair. “I have a good nose for souls. And there’s more than a whiff of human about you, love.”
“Of course there is,” the incubus scoffed. “I spend most of my time around humans.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” the demoness went on, her voice still playful. “Oh, there’s some woman’s scent on you, of course—but it’s more than that.” She grinned at him, obviously enjoying his irritation. “You’ve gone native.”
“I can’t have a soul,” James repeated, but inside he’d gone as cold as the night sky between stars.
“But you’ve got one. And now you’re hiding your nakedness in a garden,” she teased. “What could be more human than that?”
James wanted to refute it, to shout until his throat went dry and his voice failed him, but there was a lump of ice in the center of his chest and the words simply would not come.
The demoness was close enough now to reach out and run one sharp-clawed fingertip down James Grieve’s bare chest. “It makes you very interesting, you know,” she went on, her tone sinking to a low purr. “They tell a lot of stories about your kind— how one night with you can drive a mortal mad—and if even half the stories are true...” Her hand flattened and her palm started to slide lower along the skin of his torso. “I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to be fucked by an incubus.”
James grasped her wrist and pulled her hand away from him—but that only gave the demoness the opportunity to step forward and press her nude body against his.
“Come now,” she urged, leaning in to the contact. “Those mortals will never be able to understand you. How could they? Everything’s so easy for them—they are born, they sin, they cling to their souls or lose them to someone like us, they die and are punished or redeemed. They don’t know what it’s like to struggle for centuries, to be caught between two sides in an eternal war. They’re so innocent, so naïve, so—human.” Her body was still all lush promise, but her voice had now turned to a bitter hiss that James recognized.
“Envy,” he said, naming her. He let go of her wrist and she stepped back with another laugh, her bitterness masked now but far from gone.
“You don’t seem too pleased about the new addition,” she said. “And it’s still a small, new-looking kind of soul. If you decide to let me relieve you of it, it would be an absolute pleasure.”
She gave him a wink. James felt too queasy to offer any of the retorts that came to mind and the demoness laughed at him again.
“If you reconsider my offer, I’ll be easy to find,” said Envy. “Especially for someone like you.” She turned with a saucy wiggle of her hips and vanished back into the ballroom.
James no longer felt like a monster. Instead he felt ripped apart. Savaged.
Doomed.
If he had a soul—his mind tried to rebel at the very thought, but he forced it through—if he had a soul, it meant he was mortal. It meant he was liable to judgment for his sins. The panoply of transgressions he’d committed in his long and wicked life made his mouth go dry with terror. It was no use to say that he’d been created for such depravities. He’d committed them and now they would be credited to his account. But that wasn’t the worst of it, by any means.
Having a soul meant he was going to die.
And with all those sins, he was certainly bound for Hell.
James shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. Had he always been able to feel the cold so acutely, or was this some new trick his traitorous body was playing on him? Was he catching one of the many illnesses to which mortals were prone?
The wind stirred the tree in a sudden gust and James Grieve flinched in alarm, worried about falling branches. A sturdy enough blow to the head would be the end of him now—and it wouldn’t take more than a minute for it to happen. Was this better than a long illness, or worse? He couldn’t decide.
He was tempted to take to the skies and hover safely above this suddenly dangerous world—but that idea had dangers of its own. Would he still be able to fly? Or would his wings wither away and no longer come when he called them? What if it happened in mid-flight and he fell from the sky and dashed himself to bits on the cold city streets? There he’d lie, his heart’s blood oozing into the gutter, while mortals gawked and gasped in horror.
In the middle of this storm of doubt and fear there came the sound of a door scraping open. James held his breath and hoped he was dark enough to blend in with the leaves and foliage behind him.
A woman stepped out onto the darkened terrace, light streaming over her shoulder.
Not a woman, James realized—another demoness.
But this one was gowned and coiffed as daintily as any member of the ton. James had never seen a demon wearing clothes before—not in all his centuries of wandering the earth, nor during any of the times when unsatisfied hunger had flung him smarting back to Hell. Her red gown made her skin more vividly green and her black hair was piled high on her head in some complicated pile of twisting curls. Her fingers, he noticed, were human in shape, not pointed or clawed. She was not like Envy, one of those lesser creatures who fed on the sins and souls of mortals—this second demoness was one of Hell’s own powers, fashioned in the image of the angels. One of those whose hands delivered divine punishment to the souls of mortals eternally damned.
She was peering carefully into the shadows. “Mr. Grieve?” she said. Her voice was low and a little raspy.
Had she sought him out like Envy had, sensing a new and culpable soul? Had he already sinned and his punishment been determined?
“Mr. Grieve?” the demoness repeated. “James?” She waited for a response that James did not offer. “I’ve been sent by Miss Greening,” she said.
James stepped out of the shadows, hardly daring to hope. “Really?”
“No,” the demoness admitted, “but she would have done, if she could. Her mother has her trapped in the parlor with the other proper ladies.” She shrugged as though impatient with the mysterious rules of human society. James relaxed at her casual tone. This was not the workings of the divine machine, then. The demoness went on. “I am Idared, Lady Lambourne.”
She held out her hand and James bowed over it. “An honor, my lady,” he said automatically. Then his sluggish brain made sense of everything. “You’re the one who married a mortal,” he said, still wondering at the strangeness of it.
Lady Lambourne raised her head and arched her brows. “Surely you’re not disparaging me for my choice?”
“By no means,” James hastened to assure her.
“I’m glad to hear it,” the lady said. “But I will be missed before too long and there are things I must ask you.” She glanced over her shoulder at the parlor to make certain no one was around to overhear. “Miss Greening wrote this afternoon to explain things. She asked if my husband had any old clothes he wouldn’t mind loaning you, until you’ve sorted out this mystery of yours. There’s a parcel waiting for you on a rooftop around the corner”—James hurriedly committed her directions to memory—“that shoul
d put you in a tolerably decent state by human standards.” She glanced down his body and back up again. “Though I must admit it is a crime against aesthetics.”
James blushed. He almost put his hands down to cover himself but resisted. He was an incubus, after all.
Idared’s smile stayed friendly when she said, “I must ask, Mr. Grieve—precisely what are your intentions toward Miss Greening?”
James blinked. “Intentions?” he asked.
The lady’s eyes narrowed. Her smile was looking less friendly too, a silver knife in the darkness. His blood ran cold. “Perhaps you are not familiar with this particularly mortal turn of phrase,” she conceded. “You are an incubus, and no doubt accustomed to taking your pleasures as they come, until you tire and move on.” James shifted his weight from one foot to the other. What the lady said was true, but spoken aloud it seemed so...hollow. Flighty, even. A reduction of the dark and dreadful seducer he’d always imagined himself to be. Idared continued. “But she is mortal, Mr. Grieve, and time treats her differently than you. She is going to age, she is going to change—and eventually, she is going to die.”
And just like that, all the light was gone from the world. Oh, there were still traces of moonlight on the terrace and glinting on the edges of leaves, but it was a cold illumination, thin and brittle. He thought of Virginia’s laugh, the way she moved when she walked, the way she felt in his arms—then he thought of all that vanishing, disappearing from the earth as completely as if she’d never existed in the first place.
Death, he realized, was simply a greater name for loneliness.
“My intentions,” he said quietly, “are to stay with her, for as long as she’ll have me. And when she dies, I will be there.” The rightness of this thought settled around him like a cloak and warmed him against the darkness. “I’m hers,” he said simply.
“You’ve fallen in love with her,” said the lady softly.
Love. That was it, the proper word to tie around these tangled threads of admiration, yearning and upheaval. “I love her,” he agreed. Saying it aloud brought a peculiar rush of mingled terror and relief, not unlike his fear of death itself. “May I ask you a question, my lady?”
She inclined her head. “You may.”
“How did you resign yourself to mortality? I can’t imagine being comfortable with the thought of either my own or Miss Greening’s death.” The wind rose up and stirred the branches around him. James shivered. “How does one grow used to the idea?”
She gave him a strange look—after a moment, he recognized it as pity. “My situation is not an accurate parallel, I’m afraid,” she said. Her rough voice was only slightly louder than the sound of leaves moving against one another. “No death lies in wait for us. Lambourne has died once already and cannot do so again. And demonkind are immortal.” She gave him a considering look. “Aren’t we?”
“Most of us,” James said slowly. “But—I have reason to believe that this may no longer be true in my specific case.”
Lady Lambourne merely narrowed her eyes while James explained about Envy and her offer to corrupt him. “So you have grown or stolen or otherwise acquired a soul,” the lady said thoughtfully. “That is interesting.”
“But surely something like this happened between you and Lord Lambourne?” James asked, desperate for answers.
“Not that I know of.” She shook her head. “Perhaps it is because I do not trade in human souls like you and your kind.” James had never felt worse about his own existence than he did at that moment. “You needn’t take it so hard,” the lady went on. “Having a soul means that you are no longer a creature of Hell. That has to be worth something.”
“It also means that I am going to die,” James returned sharply.
“Well yes,” she chuckled, to James’ great irritation, “and then again: no.”
He frowned at her, anger rising sharp and hot within him. “Explain,” he demanded. Centuries of ingrained awe for those of her station compelled him to add, through gritted teeth, “Please.”
Her lips curved in amusement but she obliged him. “Souls are immortal. You’ve seen them, surely, on your own visits to Hell.”
James blinked. She was right. He knew that human souls were eternal things. His existence, though altered, would not be snuffed out like a candle on a bedside table. Even if there was pain in the moment of death, that was not so terrible a thing to fear.
But one dread still remained. “You were charged with the punishment of damned souls, were you not, Lady Lambourne?”
“I was a Knight of Hell, before my banishment,” Idared admitted.
“Can you identify sins at a glance, the way that Envy can recognize souls?”
She shook her head. “I cannot, Mr. Grieve—but it doesn’t take supernatural abilities to know that as an incubus the tally of your sins must be very lengthy indeed.”
She left him then, deep in shadow, caught between death and damnation.
* * * * *
Virginia had discovered that Miss Lakeland was actually quite pleasant to talk to when her demoness wasn’t around. They were discussing their enjoyment of the latest Minerva Press novel when the gentlemen came back from their port.
Lord Lambourne, of course, came with them.
She’d known he’d lately come to town with his wife, but had not known how a note from her would be received. His reply had promised every help but had also been quite brief, and that brevity had done nothing to soothe Virginia’s anxieties.
They had been seated far away from one another at dinner, which she’d found a relief. She had not talked much during the meal—too many demons prowling behind the chairs and beneath the tablecloth—and so she’d been quite able to hear his pleasant, clear voice as he conversed with Mrs. Gibson and Miss Lakeland, seated on either side of him. He was as charming and gracious as ever. It would be startlingly easy to imagine that time had briefly spun back several years to when he was escorting her and her parents to dinners like this one as a matter of course.
Except, of course, for the pointed, covetous glances leveled at him and Virginia whenever they interacted. The other guests were on point like a pack of hunter’s hounds, waiting for one of them to make some revealing move—a stifled cry, perhaps, or a wounded scowl. Aha! they would whisper to each other. She is still pining for him! Or: How cruel he is!
Neither Virginia nor Lambourne had graced them with any such reaction, so far.
Now to Virginia’s trepidation, Lambourne led Mr. Cave—and his glowering shoulder demon—to where she and Miss Lakeland were seated. She took a deep breath and got her face firmly under control.
“If you’ll permit me to interrupt,” said Lambourne, “Mr. Cave and I were discussing his recent delegation to Istanbul and the roughness of the voyage home.” He turned to the other gentleman and lowered his voice in a dramatic fashion. “Miss Lakeland recently graced me with the tale of how she became shipwrecked in those same waters when she was seven years old.”
“Shipwrecked!” cried Mr. Cave, while Miss Lakeland blushed under everyone’s curiosity. “You must tell me all about it, Miss Lakeland. How on earth did you come to survive such a catastrophe?”
The lady began to explain with shining eyes, glowing in response to Mr. Cave’s obvious fascination. The shoulder demon glowered harder, leapt off his perch and vanished into a knot of other dinner guests. Lambourne offered his arm to Virginia.
Everyone waited for her to refuse.
She rose with a smile and accepted. By unspoken agreement, they retreated to a tall window that flanked the door leading out to the terrace, in the farthest corner of the room, the only spot they could hope to be free from eager eavesdroppers.
Virginia knew Idared was out on the terrace, likely talking to James—she could see the occasional flash of red from the lady’s gown—but the glass was frustratingly crowded with candlelit reflections of dinner guests in polite conversation. No matter how hard she stared there was no way to tell what was going on o
utside. Of course it was beyond kind, what Idared and Lambourne were doing on her behalf, but Virginia hated feeling left out. She hated that it would be more remarked upon if she took a walk on the terrace alone than when Idared—who was considered eccentric even among the peerage—did the same.
It has only been a few minutes, she reminded herself. So she merely indulged in a sigh and turned to Lambourne. “It was very kind of you to give Miss Lakeland an opportunity to entice Mr. Cave,” she said. Best to start with a more ordinary topic, until the sight of them conversing ceased being novel to the roomful of spectators. “Though your efforts were anything but subtle.”
Lambourne’s mouth crooked in the half smile that had always made her heart skip a beat. It still did. “I am quite out of practice when it comes to elegant conversation,” he said. “Wickson is in a fairly remote area of the coast, so most nights Idared and I have only each other to talk to. And we aren’t what you might call formal about it.”
Virginia could imagine. “It sounds very lonely,” she replied.
Lambourne considered this. “Actually, it suits me rather well,” he said. “I’ve been modernizing some parts of the estate, while Idared devours the entire contents of my library. Maybe at some point in the future we will rejoin society on a permanent basis, but for now the distance is something of a respite.”
Virginia had visited Wickson a number of times with her parents. She had always felt completely ready to leave by the end of a week—the house itself was comfortable and well kept, but the surrounding estate was a forlorn, eerie place of towering cliffs, crashing waves and cutting winds. “I admire your fortitude,” she said. “The country quiet only makes me feel dull and melancholy. But then, I grew up in London and can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
“Oh, I remember that,” he said with a chuckle. “You were always so happy in company, whether it was a small dinner like this or one of the Season’s most crushingly populated balls. And your joy was thoroughly contagious.” He ran a hand through his hair, golden curls tumbling in the candlelight. A quick glance showed that the room’s attention had wandered elsewhere, no doubt because Virginia and Lambourne clearly had no interest in making a scene. “There were times when I thought that might be enough, that your love of the city and my love of the country could balance each other out and leave us both in the middle, content. But I could never quite bring myself to ask the question.”