Save My Soul (31 page)

Not anymore.

The warm, tingling sensation started along her body then. She had a moment’s panic, knowing he wouldn’t stop this time, that he would feed until there was nothing left. But then her orgasm came cresting over her, and she relaxed again.

As the last of her life slipped away, her soul was ripped from Luc’s arms. She floated behind him. Then she was huddled in the corner, sobbing, rocking back and forth as well as one can in a nonphysical form.

The memories of her previous lives flooded through her, but it was the most recent incarnation that had her crying uncontrollably. Luc was still turned away from her. The muscles in his back tensed, and she knew he knew. Somehow when her soul had been ripped from her body and gone through him, he must have gotten a flash of her memories, and he knew.

He rounded on her, snarling, his eyes glowing that eerie red again. “Beatrice!” he roared at her.

Anna couldn’t stop crying as she looked up into his eyes. “Don’t call me that! I’m not her anymore.”

He stalked over, menace pouring off him. This was what she’d been afraid of all along. She just hadn’t known it. The truth had been buried too deep in her subconscious.

This was why she couldn’t give him her soul, why she’d fought him and burning down the house every step of the way, why she’d been afraid of witches. Some part of her had to have known. She kept repeating to herself, he can’t hurt me, he can’t hurt me . How could one physically hurt a ghost?

But then he gripped her shoulders hard, and she had solid form again. He laughed the kind of laugh she never wanted to hear from him as he watched her realize he could make her physical.

“Oh yes, Anna. How do you think I’d be able to feed from you for eternity if I couldn’t give you form?”

“Please, Luc, I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was her. I swear.”

He growled again but stepped back, trying to reign in his anger. “Why? Why did you do it?”

Anna looked miserably down at her hands. He’d let go of her, and she was once again in ghostly form. She just wanted him to touch her again, even if in anger. So she could feel real.

“Where do you want me to start?”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, pacing and backing away from her even farther, as if he feared he might strike her if he didn’t put enough distance between them.

“I can understand parts of it. What I don’t understand is . . . knowing what I was, why did you put a spell on me to make me love you?”

“I didn’t.”

His eyes glowed brighter. “Anna, do not lie to me.”

“I’m not. I did a spell, but not that.”

“Tell me.”

She took a deep, steadying breath that suddenly she didn’t need, but that felt comforting all the same. “When I met you, the first time, as Beatrice . . . I didn’t know what you were. If I was any kind of decent witch I would have known, but I didn’t. It wasn’t until we were in bed together and I felt you feeding from me that something clicked in my mind, and I knew what you were.

“I realized you were going to kill me. I was scared. I didn’t want to die. I whispered the only spell I could think of into your ear. I was always good with incantations. I just wanted to unlock your humanity so you’d feel enough compassion to spare me. I just wanted to live.” She looked up at him, begging him to understand.

The glow faded from his eyes, replaced with guilt. “Go on,” he said, his voice more controlled, much of the anger seeming to dissipate.

“Then you kept coming back to me. And I could never resist you. Before I knew what had happened I was in love with you. Months passed, and I couldn’t handle it anymore, you being with others. I wanted to be with you, but I didn’t know if my spell would hold. I was afraid that as soon as I gave you my soul, you’d revert to what you were, I’d be tied to you forever, and you’d never stop punishing me for making you feel human. I was so angry, at you, at myself . . . I don’t know. I knew I’d never have the strength to leave you, and I couldn’t stand watching you walk away from me.”

Moments later, Luc was holding her. “How could you make me kill you? You selfish little . . . ”

“I’m sorry. I know it was wrong. I was only thinking of myself. I didn’t think about what would happen to you after I was gone. What are you going to do now?” She tensed in his arms. She was tied to him forever now, and she didn’t know if she could forgive herself, let alone if Luc could forgive her.

He pulled back, his expression softening before he sighed. “I expected you to either forgive or forget all the awful things I’d done in my past. To hold one mistake against you, no matter how bad . . . ”

“I don’t deserve forgiveness.”

“Does anyone? Why did you do the last part of the spell, the part about the house?”

“I wanted a fail-safe, so I wouldn’t back out. I couldn’t leave you, and I’d decided I’d die in your arms and then go to Heaven and forget about you. But I couldn’t.” She was crying so hard she could barely get the words out. He held her hand as she continued.

“Cain told me everything is a loop and you never break free. But I could have stayed there if I’d wanted to. If I’d been content to be without you, but I wasn’t. They let me come back. They could have sent me to Bangladesh, but they sent me back here. Some part of me always knew. I had to. But the memories were all locked away, and I couldn’t get to them. I’m so sorry. I said I loved you, and then I just left you in the house to rot.”

Of all the things she’d done, all the stupid mistakes, leaving him there was her worst. She should have burnt the house down first, so he’d at least have been free once she was gone. She didn’t know how he could look at her with anything but loathing. Yet all she could find in his eyes was calm acceptance.

“Why?” she said finally. “How can you forgive me?”

He held her hard against him as if she might disappear. “How can I not? I’m not saying I’m happy about the way it happened, but you’ve freed me.”

He didn’t have to tell her he wasn’t talking about the house. She’d freed him from the hunt, the hunger, the loneliness.

“And I loved you so much,” he said. “It killed me to lose you. No matter how mad I am at you, I can’t help but be grateful you’re back, and I’ll never lose you again.”

She pulled back and smacked him on the arm. “Hey! You love her more than me!”

Luc laughed. “You are so infuriating, Anna. I’ve loved two women and both of them are you. I don’t love one incarnation more than the other.”

“Luc . . . ”

He looked up to see the smoke seeping under the door. “Right.” He took her hand and led her down into the wine cellar to wait while the house finished burning.

***

Luc let go of Anna’s hand for the couple of hours it took so she wouldn’t get smoke fumes. Despite his reassurances, some part of her had feared he’d hold her into the flames and let her burn to punish her for what she’d done. She wouldn’t have blamed him.

Had their positions been reversed she couldn’t say with certainty she wouldn’t have done the same. He’d forgiven her much more easily than she would forgive herself.

Once the fire died away, he made love to her again. It wasn’t about the feeding. It was comfort, reassurance that nothing had changed about the way he felt. He still loved her. They’d be okay.

They were about to go up to the surface. “Luc . . . I don’t think this is proper attire.” All their clothes had burned away in the library.

He arched a brow as if it was incredibly stupid for her to think he’d let her go cavorting on the surface naked. The possessiveness in his eyes said he was the only one that would ever be looking again. As he held her hand in his, he went invisible, and she found she did as well.

“Nifty,” she said, but she was disturbed by the fact that she was, in some sense, not there anymore.

“You’ll get used to it. You’ll get a lot of my shapeshifting powers over time. The longer we’re together and the more I feed from you. It’ll make you stronger now that you aren’t tied to a human body. You can’t do any of it by yourself just yet, though. It might take a couple of decades before you can hold a solid form without me touching you.”

“A couple of decades !” she said turning to where Luc should be. “Luc, materialize when I’m talking to you!”

He did as she asked, shaking his head and laughing. “You get upset over the weirdest things. You just gave your immortal soul to a demon, and you’re upset I’m invisible while you’re talking to me? Eternity with you is going to be fun.”

“Shut up.” She punched him in the arm, but there was no malice behind it.

He made them invisible again, and they went to the surface.

The people of Golatha Falls never knew exactly what had happened at the house on Cranberry Lane, or for that matter what had happened to Anna Worthington and all her money. Luc spent weeks systematically going through the town erasing memories. But people kept talking, as people are prone to do.

Bits of legend built up about the strange happenings at the house. Still, most remembered what they had witnessed as dreams. And if it was weird that everyone in the town seemed to have had the same dreams, no one was talking about that part. Denial is a strong survival skill.

Bitsy and Mimi were the only two people in town who didn’t seem able to be enthralled. If anyone could resist the mind control of a formerly evil incubus it was those two stubborn old biddies. The old women spent a couple of weeks talking about being camped out on Anna’s front lawn with flashlights waiting to rescue her from the devil. Luckily, most of the people in town decided that the Baker sisters had finally hit senility, and they were shipped off to a retirement community in Florida.

The people at the bank were probably the most confused by what had happened. They seemed to remember Anna coming in a few days before the house burned down and withdrawing all her money, but that sort of thing usually took more time. There was paperwork to go through. Paperwork which didn’t exist. But it couldn’t be denied that the money was gone, and there were no signs of a robbery.

Anna’s anger at the harem had dissipated now that they no longer posed a threat. In hindsight, her jealousy made more sense in light of her previous life as Beatrice.

The harem continued to work with Tam on the business. They opened a candle and occult shop next to Sally’s. The town was really freaking out over the occult part.

Anna had a hard time maintaining anger at anyone, since her stupid spell had been the thing that started everything in the first place. Karma was seriously a bitch, and she wasn’t going to forget that lesson in the foreseeable future.

She transferred a large sum of money to Sara Johnson. The girl was confused by the sudden increase in her account when she got out of the institution, but the letter left for her in a safe deposit box explained things. Well, most things.

Anna had wanted to visit Cecelia Townsend, the one constant and close friend in both lives, but she’d been afraid the shock would kill the poor woman, and Cece, being who she was, would just haunt her forever. So, like a coward, she left a letter instead, watching outside the window as the woman read.

Cece would never see the inside of the house she’d spent that one evening in, but she deserved to know the truth. In the letter, Anna apologized for the spell that started it all, and heard Cecelia forgive her.

There was one person she did have to see. Tam was going to be pissed that she’d waited so long to come by. But she’d had things to take care of. Plus there was that whole avoidance thing she was still doing.

“Oh my God, Anna. I thought you were dead!” Tam said when she opened the door.

Anna had momentarily let go of Luc’s hand, and Tam went through her when they tried to hug. “Well, I sort of am.” She grabbed hold of Luc so she could hug her friend properly.

Tam pulled back and glared at her. “You know what I mean. I mourned you. And you’re not gone.”

“I could leave,” Anna said, only half serious.

“Get in this house.”

Anna and Luc went inside and spent the next two hours telling Tam the entire story. Tam burst out laughing at the end.

“Whatever you do, don’t tell me about it,” she said in a high voice, mocking Anna’s response to witchcraft.

Anna rolled her eyes. “What about you and your, the death card doesn’t always mean death ?”

“It doesn’t. I was just in denial that time. The rest of the spread really did look pretty good. And I knew you’d get together with Luc. But you said you didn’t want to know . . . so I didn’t say anything.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No problem.” Tam got serious then. “I guess I won’t be seeing you anymore.”

“I have to keep a low profile, and all, since people think I’m dead or at the very least a missing person, but it’s not like I’m banned from the planet or anything. We’re probably going to Europe for awhile, and then there are other dimensions to check out. But we’ll visit.”

“You better.”

Cain had disappeared soon after making Anna set the house on fire. She had mixed feelings about that. Sure, he was evil and couldn’t seem to stop betraying people, but if not for him she wouldn’t have Luc. And really . . . it was her spell. Still, she wished he could be punished.