The Demon Lover (45 page)

He got to his feet and extended his hand. “What do you say? Do we have a deal?”

I took his hand, which was icy to the touch. I considered whether this was something I desired. And then I realized how much it would piss off my grandmother.

“Yes,” I told him. “We’ve got a deal.”

Driving back to Fairwick the next day through the pouring rain I thought about all the secrets I would have to keep in the coming months: Frank’s cover, Soheila’s succubus nature, my membership at the Grove, the deal I’d made with the vampires … For a girl who’d always valued the truth I’d be telling a lot of lies. But then, as my grandmother had said, I had qualities I’d never suspected in myself.

But at least I got to tell one truth. I’d spent half the night reading my new grimoire, paying special attention to the section on reversing a family curse. I’d been surprised and relieved to find out that it didn’t involve any bloody sacrifices or burnt offerings. It required only that I speak one sentence to Nicky and mean it:

I forgive the pain your family gave to my family and release you from the pain we’ve given you
.

Pretty simple. Nicky would probably think I’d gone off my rocker when I said it.

I pulled up in front of Honeysuckle House, thinking about the power of forgiveness and the pain we unknowingly cause others. In my head I heard the last question Liam had asked me.

Is a lie really the worst thing if it’s told out of love?

I looked at my house for a few moments before getting out of the car. It was a little worse for wear after the long winter—there were tiles missing from the roof and the trim around the eaves could do with a fresh coat of paint. And I really should replace the shutters. But there were also daffodils coming up in the front beds and the honeysuckle shrubs were filling out with tender green buds. This was my home now—for better or worse. My great-great-grandfather had set out from here a bitter and broken man, but somehow I’d found my way back and somehow, against all odds, I’d landed on my feet.

I got out, but instead of going inside I cut across the lawn and walked though a gap in the trees onto the path. The ground was damp from the rain, but at least the snow was gone. I followed the trail to the glade in the middle of the honeysuckle thicket. The twisted branches were stained dark by rain. Against the new trembling green they looked like stained-glass windows.

Like a cathedral
, Dahlia LaMotte had written at the end of
The Dark Stranger
when Violet Grey and William Dougall find each other in a secluded glade in the forest. In the published book the scene ends with Violet accepting Dougall’s offer of marriage. In the handwritten manuscript there were a few additional lines.

I turned from my earthly lover and watched my demon lover rise in the mist beyond the trees. I could see longing in his face, a longing matched in my own sinews and veins. He was made up of a darkness that spoke to the darkness inside me. If he called to me, I would follow. But he didn’t call to me. He lifted a hand
—
in parting or benediction I’d never know
—
and then he vanished into the shadows from which he came
.

A fine mist rose from the ground, filling the arched doorway. I stepped closer and the mist parted for me, curled around me, and caressed my face. I felt it linger on the iron key I wore around my neck and lap at the marks on my wrist Liam had made when I was willing to follow him into the shadows.

He was made up of a darkness that spoke to the darkness inside me
.

Yes, Dahlia had that right. The truth—if I was going to be a stickler for the truth—was that I recognized something of myself in the incubus. Down at the pit of my being was a shadowy place, which had remained closed and hidden since I was a child, that was only now beginning to stir. The incubus had awoken it. And while I hadn’t fallen in love with the civilized man the incubus had made himself into, I thought I might have been able to love the wild creature of moonlight and shadow.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of sea air and honeysuckle.

“No,” I said, answering the last question Liam had asked me. “A lie told out of love isn’t the worst thing.”

Then, my face damp from the mist, I turned around and went home.

THE END

For L, who holdsthe key to my heart

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

M
any thanks to my intrepid editor, Linda Marrow, for going along with me into the woods on this one. I am also grateful to Jane von Mehren, Gina Wachtel, Dana Isaacson, and Junessa Viloria at Ballantine and to Robin Rue and Beth Miller at Writers House, for all their invaluable guidance and encouragement. Thanks to my early readers Gary Feinberg, Wendy Gold Rossi, Cathy Seilhan, and Scott Silverman, to my daughter, Maggie Vicknair, for her advice on serial fiction, and to Jeremy Levine for his invaluable advice on baseball memorabilia. My husband, Lee Slonimsky, gets the warmest of mentions for his constant support and faith, and Nora Slonimsky has been a crucial source of feedback, reading every word practically the minute I wrote it, and cheering on the demon lovah, as he became known in our household.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JULIET DARK is the pseudonym of bestselling author Carol Goodman, whose novels include
The Lake of Dead Languages, The Seduction of Water
, and
Arcadia Falls
. Her novels have won the Hammett Prize and have been nominated for the Dublin/IMPAC Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her fiction has been translated into thirteen laguages. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family.READ ON FOR AN EXCITING PREVIEW OF
JULIET DARK’S NEXT NOVEL IN THIS SERIES:
THE
WATER WITCH

PROLOGUE

T
he dream began as all the others had, with moonlight pouring through an open window, shadow branches stretching across the floor, the scent of honeysuckle on the air.

“You’re back,” I whispered. “I thought …”

“That you had sent me away,” he whispered, his teeth gleaming pearly white as his lips parted. “You did. But it’s not too late to call me back. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” I sighed.

The moonlight cleaved the dark, carving a cheekbone out of shadow, which I longed to reach out and stroke, so achingly familiar was the face taking shape just inches from my own. But I couldn’t move. He was still only shadow hovering above me, but I could feel the weight of him, pressing down on me.

“I can’t,” I panted. “It won’t work. We can’t be together.…”

“Why not?” he cooed, his honeyed breath lapping against my face. “Because they told you I was no good for you? That I would hurt you? How could I ever harm you? I love you.”

I breathed in his words and let out a long sigh. My breath filled his chest, each muscle rippling in the silver light like water running over smooth stones in a stream. I felt those hard muscles slam down against my chest, forcing the air from my lungs. He sipped the air from my lips, and the moonlight drew hands from the dark that stroked my face, my throat, my breasts.…

I gasped and his hips bore down on mine. I was filling him out with my breath. All I had to do was keep breathing, and he would become flesh and blood.

But I couldn’t breathe.

He was sucking the breath out of me, draining my life.

His legs parted mine, and I felt him rigid against me, waiting to enter me.…

Waiting for what?

He moved away, his body shifted lower. “You have only to call my name to bring me back,” he whispered, his breath hot in my ear. “You have only to want me to make me flesh again.” His lips sealed each word to my throat, my breasts, my naval.… “You have only to love me to make me human.”

Oh,
that
. If I loved him, he would become human. It seemed a small thing. I was close, wasn’t I? As close as his lips were to my skin as they brushed along my inner thigh. Tantalizingly close. I had only to call out his name and tell him I loved him for the waiting to be over, for the teasing to end.…

He was
teasing
me. The little nips on my thighs, the way he moved against me and then retreated. He was holding back, waiting for me to release him from his exile.

“You’re trying to bribe me,” I said, my voice cold enough to chill the summer breeze moving through the window. His lips froze on the crook below my right kneecap and grew chill. His face appeared above mine, more shadow than moonlight, already fading.

“I wouldn’t call it a bribe,” he said, his voice sulky. “Just a little taste of what could be.”

“But it cannot be,” I said, trying not to let him hear the regret.

He frowned. He furrowed his eyebrows and looked confused. He looked sweet when he was confused, like the little boy he must have been centuries ago before he became … 
this
. I could have loved that boy, I thought, but then the confusion turned to anger.

“Nonsense,” he hissed. “Those are just words.” His body curled into a coil of black smoke. “If you could feel what it’s like …”

The coil of smoke whipped against the windowpanes, smashing wood and glass. Moonlight flooded in, only it wasn’t moonlight anymore; it was silver water rushing into the room, a wave crashing over my bed, the water shockingly cold after the warm breeze and his hot kisses. I still couldn’t move. I was powerless to save myself as the water rose around me. It began pouring from the ceiling and down the walls, into my mouth. As the waters rose, his face floated above me, watching without pity as I drowned. This is what I had done to him, his expression seemed to say. I had exiled my incubus lover to the Borderlands and condemned him to an eternity under water.

I awoke, gasping in the moonlit bedroom, my body slick with sweat in the hot summer night; I’d never really feel warm again while he was trapped beneath all that cold water.

ONE