Dancing With the Devil (5 page)

“Ah, yes.” Kit nodded. “Not easy living as the mortals do, is it? Especially when they start shooting.”

Her grin should have irritated him, but instead he found himself grinning back.

“In my defense, she did miss the first three times.” He glanced down at his arm and smiled ruefully. “But that fourth shot…”

After a lengthy silence, Kit shifted in her chair and shrugged. If she meant it to look nonchalant, she failed miserably. “You can get your powers back anytime you like,” she said. “All you have to do is ask.”

“Ha!” Deacon nearly choked on his laughter. “He’d like that, wouldn’t he?” The words had barely left his tongue when a sharp wave of prickles swept over the scars on his back. Guess his father didn’t appreciate being spoken about this way.

Not one to miss such things, Kit lifted her brow, twisted her mouth to the side and asked, “How bad was it?”

“Getting shot?” Deacon pushed up from the bed under his sister’s watchful gaze and moved toward the window. Damn her scrutiny; it made it that much tougher to hide each twitch and every wince. “Not as much fun as you’d think, actually.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, “and you know it.”

Of course he knew it, but he wasn’t about to discuss
the details of his torment with anyone. He’d learned to push each haunting memory into the deepest darkest part of his being, so if he tried hard enough, he could almost convince himself the suffering hadn’t actually happened.

Just another nightmare.

“How bad?” she repeated.

He leaned his right hip against the window ledge and exhaled slowly. “Bad.”

Outside, light teased the edges of the horizon, whispering its promise across the sky; the promise of another day, another opportunity to make things better.

Or to make them horribly worse.

“I don’t understand.” Kit pushed her hands through her hair, shaking the chaos loose around her head. “Of all the places you could have gone, you chose to come back here, even though you know he’s going to make you suffer for it. Why?”

Small as it was, Deacon couldn’t help his smile. “You know what these God-fearing humans say: that which does not kill us…”

“That’s not funny.” Her mouth turned down in a deep frown.

Kit watched him for a long time, her green eyes narrowing in close inspection, as though she expected to find some deep dark secret written across his face. Finally she gave up and shook her head.

“That time you spent with Lucille and her human did something to you,” Kit said quietly. “You’ve changed.”

Deacon blinked at her words. She was right; he had changed, and he had Lucille to blame—or thank—for that. He hadn’t yet determined which was more appropriate.

Lucille had somehow found it within herself to endanger her own soul for the sake of a human. It didn’t make sense.

Then again, few things about humans made sense.

“If Lucille had any comprehension of Father’s true wrath or the tremendous chance she was taking, she never would have let herself fall in love.”

“But you understand, don’t you?” Kit leaned over so her elbows rested on her knees.

Oh, he understood, all right. It was a lesson he’d never forget, and one he’d never survive learning again.

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither voicing what they knew the other was thinking. Best to keep fears and past pains buried inside. Talking about them only weakened a body.

“You’re not trying to break free, but you don’t want your powers back.” After a long moment, Kit threw her hands up. “Then why are you here?”

Deacon held his facial muscles completely still, refusing even the slightest twitch. “I need to make things right with Rhea.”

“You
what
?” Kit’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. “But we don’t make things right!” she cried. “That’s the other side’s job.”

“Do you think I
wanted
to come back?” he ground out. “That I
enjoy
these infuriating feelings of light that plague me day and night? Believe me, Kit, my life would be significantly easier if I’d never met this woman.”

Easier, yes; meaningful, no.

“Then leave! You don’t owe her anything.”

“You misunderstand.” He chewed the inside of his cheek before continuing. “I’m not here for her. I’m here for myself. Ever since I left last summer, I can feel her pain as though it’s my own.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” he answered. “It’s as though the pain in her heart runs so deep that she has somehow pushed it on to me.”

“Humans don’t possess powers like that,” Kit scoffed.

“I never thought so, either, until I met Rhea,” Deacon countered. “I don’t know how she’s doing it, but I’ve never had that feeling with another human.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“End it, of course.” If he could end Rhea’s pain, he could end his own, and they would both be free. “I’ll tell her the truth, apologize, she’ll forgive me, and that will be that.”

“You’re insane.” Kit blinked past her disbelief and shook her head slowly. “This woman isn’t about to forgive you just because you…ugh…apologize.” Her face puckered over the word. “You made her think you had sex with a whore. Human women don’t forgive or forget things like that.” Kit’s face smoothed into a wry grin. “It’s no wonder she tried to kill you.”

Deacon forced a smile back. He knew the truth. Rhea may have tried to kill him, but she hadn’t tried very hard. And no matter what she said, or how many shots she fired, the truth blazed from her eyes like a raging inferno.

She was mad and she was hurt, but she still loved him and he didn’t need his powers to see it.

“While we’re on the subject,” Kit said, “why
didn’t
you sleep with that whore? You paid her well enough.”

“I didn’t want to,” he answered at length. “I just wanted to make Rhea think I had.”

“Why?”

Regret swirled through him like a hurricane.

“Things had become complicated between us. It was like part of her was becoming part of me, and the longer we were together, the harder she was to resist.” Deacon chewed the inside of his cheek. “When it was time for me to leave and deal with Lucille, I never thought I’d come back to Rhea. But no matter where I was or what
I was doing, I could feel her pain. I knew if I didn’t do something drastic, she’d waste the rest of her life waiting for me.”

If Kit’s eyes rolled any higher, they’d probably roll right out of her head. “With talk like that, you’ll never be accused of being humble, will you?”

“Regardless,” he went on, “it didn’t work. She wants to hate me, and she’s tried very hard to do it, but she can’t.”

“You’re unbelievable.” Kit’s chuckle was not directed at the situation, but at him. “I bet if she heard you now, she’d hate you plenty.”

“No, she wouldn’t.” If only his voice sounded as confident as he wished it would. “And since it’s my fault she can’t hate me, I need to ease the pain in her heart so that she’ll stop pushing it on me.”

Deep creases puckered Kit’s forehead. “First you go out of your way to break this woman’s heart, and now you’ve come back to fix it. There is something seriously wrong with you.”

Undoubtedly.

“Humans call it affection.” A small flicker of light bubbled across his heart before he could do anything to stop it. “It’s a power unlike any we have.”

Something akin to horror fell across Kit’s face. “And you have this…
affection
…for her?”

“I think I do.” The light pushed toward the surface, but he forced it back. Kit didn’t need to know the depth of his affection; it was bad enough he knew about it himself.

The horror on her face turned to shock. “You’re not thinking about doing the same thing Lucille did?”

“Of course not.” He shifted his hip a little on the window ledge. “Rhea has made it quite clear she will never want me the way Lucille’s human wanted her.”

“Strange, then, that she chose to ‘marry’ you.”

“You know about that?”

“Of course. Word spreads fast as lightning in this town, especially around the poker tables.” Kit crossed her left leg over her right and set to swinging her booted foot back and forth. “So how are you going to ‘end it’?”

“Rhea’s smart,” he said with a shrug. “Once I tell her the truth, she’ll understand why I did what I did, her pain will subside, and then everything will be as it should.”

“The truth.” Kit grunted in utter disgust. “Need I remind you what happened the last time you told her the truth?”

“Need
I
remind
you
that I bear the constant remembrance across my back?” The mere mention of his scars made them tingle again, but he didn’t move, didn’t give Kit the slightest indication their father could still cause him discomfort, even from such a distance.

If it killed him, he’d never give evidence of the fear that iced his veins. The punishment for what he was trying to do would surpass anything he’d been through so far. Ye t for some incomprehensible reason, it paled in comparison to Rhea’s pain, pain
he’d
caused her.

It wasn’t as if he’d never caused another human pain before, but this was different. Rhea’s pain ate at him constantly, gnawing and grinding until he thought he’d go stark raving mad.

Kit’s voice continued to buzz in his head.

“And you think by telling her the truth, she will instantly forget all that you’ve done to her and you can both go on and live happily ever after?”

The bubble inside him popped, leaving nothing but a dim flicker of light in its place. “I’m the devil’s son, Kit. There is no happily ever after for me.”

“But you still want
her
to have one.”

Deacon ground his teeth together until his jaw ached.
The thought of Rhea finding happiness with any other man made the bile in his stomach boil. But given the choice of that or living the rest of his life feeling every twitch of pain in her heart…There simply was no choice.

Though he hadn’t shaved in days, Colin at least had washed this morning. He’d even gone so far as to shed the filthy sweat-stained shirt he’d worn for the last three days in lieu of a clean one. He hadn’t actually tucked it in, but Rhea wasn’t going to hound him about that.

It was enough for now that he didn’t smell like the bottom of an overflowing spittoon anymore.

As she tended the eggs and ham frying on the stove, Rhea tried to make herself as small as possible. Cramped at the best of times, the cabin was worse now with Deacon there. His presence overwhelmed the room, his scent filled Rhea’s every breath and his eyes followed her every move. Even with her back turned, she felt him watching.

She filled plates for both men, set them on the table, then poured herself a cup of coffee.

“I trust the laudanum helped you sleep.”

“A bit.” Deacon settled into one of the crooked chairs and grinned sheepishly. “You didn’t have to stay at the store last night.”

“I couldn’t very well stay here,” she said over the rim of her mug. “Unless, of course, I wanted to sleep in the barn—which I didn’t.”

“Most
married
people sleep together,” Colin grunted as he slumped into his own chair.

“Oh, honestly!” Even in the privacy of their own home, it was improper of him to say such things. Deacon’s smirk widened.

Colin stuffed a fork full of eggs into his mouth, then spun the utensil around to point it at her. “You’re the one who dragged me into this mess, Rhea, so don’t go and get all righteous on me now.”

“I did nothing to you.”

“No?” He choked on his next swallow, then beat the tines of his fork against the star pinned to his shirt. “You broke the law—how does that
not
involve me?”

Deacon leaned lower over his plate, as though ducking from Colin’s shouts. Or maybe it was the chunks of egg flying from Colin’s mouth.

“You act as though I killed someone.” She took a sip of her coffee, then set the cup of bitter brew on the table. “It’s a piece of paper, for goodness sake.”

Colin threw his fork down on his plate and shoved back from the table. “That piece of paper is a lie, Rhea.”

“A lie that has no effect on you or anyone else.”

“Except me,” Deacon mumbled over his eggs.

“Dammit, Rhea, if anyone finds out what you’ve done, neither of us will ever be able to hold our heads up in this town again.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “And while that might not mean anything to you, it means something to me.”

Her heart stuttered, as did the retort that sprang to her tongue. “That’s not fair, Colin. I only did all this to help restore our family name. You’ve never…I mean, I didn’t think…”

“No, you didn’t. That’s the problem.”

“Whoa.” Deacon set his fork down, raised both hands and slowly got to his feet. “I thought we decided last night to just carry on with this charade until we can come up with a better idea.”

“Right.” Rhea nodded nervously. Her throat burned with tears, but she swallowed them back. It was too late
for regrets. She’d acted in haste, and now she’d have to do what ever it took to make things right.

“Surely,” Deacon continued, “there must be a way we can rectify this without forging any more documents or causing any more trouble.”

“Yes,” Rhea said, desperate for a solution, “there must be something we…I…can do.”

Colin blew out a long breath and gripped the back of his chair until his knuckles whitened.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “All I know is that you’ve caused enough trouble by claiming you were married and then putting on the devastated widow act.”

Rhea could feel Deacon grinning at her. “Devastated by my death, were you?”

“Shut up.”

Colin’s pointed straight at Deacon. “If you were any kinda man to start with, you woulda married her the last time you were here instead of doin’ what you did.”

Rhea and Deacon spoke at the same time.

“I don’t think—”

“He couldn’t—”

Colin ignored Deacon and set his sights on Rhea. “And you.” He pursed his lips tight, shook his head and cursed quietly. “It don’t matter what he did or didn’t do. You created this mess, so now you’re going to do what ever it takes to fix things.”