The Seventh Night (26 page)

“Reid…”

The whispery plea was cut short as his mouth came down on mine, hot and hard and devastatingly hungry. I parted my lips, and his tongue shot inside, so bold and glorious a possession, my senses spun with excitement.

An alarm sounded somewhere inside me, but I ignored it. Colors burst behind my closed lids, and a shower of fire ignited my blood, setting aflame the wild, wanton side of me that had been unleashed last night.

I wanted him. God help me, I wanted him again and again and again. I would never be free now. I would never again have a will of my own.

Reid’s hands tangled in my hair, releasing the pins that held it in place. It tumbled down my back, unbound and disheveled, a brazen symbol of the new me.

He lifted his mouth from mine, and, dazed and shaken to my core, I tried to back away from his embrace. His arms tightened around me.

“Don’t you dare,” he said. “Don’t you dare try to deny it.”

“This is hardly the time or place,” I said weakly. Now that his mouth no longer devoured mine, the world had stopped spinning, and I was all too aware of the curious stares and the laughing dark faces.

“Just so you know, Christine. There’s no place you can run to. No place you can hide from me.”

“You’re deliberately trying to scare me,” I said, lifting
my chin. “You’re getting even with me because of what I said this morning.”

“Don’t you think you owe me? You called me a murderer.” His gaze flickered briefly as he traced my lips with the tip of his finger.

“I was frightened, hysterical. You were the first person I saw when I opened my eyes.”

His hand had slipped to my throat, and his thumb caressed the deep hollow. My pulse flailed against his touch. His gaze held me in thrall.

“And now? What is it you believe about me now, Christine?”

“I believe you’re a man who always gets what he wants.”

He looked startled for a moment; then he laughed. “How perceptive you are,” he said softly, his finger running up and down my throat. “And as we both know, you have something I want very badly.”

My heart bounced against my chest. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“Have dinner with me tonight.” His eyes deepened, his voice lowered. “Have dinner with me tonight, and I’ll show you.”

His very presence was intoxicating, like a forbidden drug. I knew he was dangerous, perhaps deadly, but my body needed him, craved him with a dark, hedonistic addiction I had no will to resist.

“Where?”

“In my suite at the St. Pierre.”

Where it had all begun. Where he had made love to me so passionately and so possessively that I would never be able to be with anyone else. I was his now. No matter what, I was his. I would always be his….

The blue eyes impaled me, draining my soul of the
last remnants of my will. “Will you come?” he asked, so urgently and so seductively that my stomach fluttered with anticipation. I knew exactly what he was asking.

I slipped the
gris-gris
into the pocket of my dress, no longer wanting its protection. “Yes,” I said on a whisper. “I’ll come….”

What choice did I have? I was already…so close….

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Sixth Night

J
ust after dark I guided Rachel’s car into a parking space at the St. Pierre Hotel, killed the engine and sat for a moment, contemplating my dilemma.

It’s not too late to change your mind.

But wasn’t it?

It had been too late from the moment I set foot on Columbé, when the wheels of sanity had begun spinning wildly out of control. It had been too late ten years ago when I had seen him for the first time. My destiny and Reid’s destiny had been intertwined even before we’d met. One could not be separated from the other, and in truth, I wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise.

Because I was in love with him.

I could see it so clearly now, this fascination, this…obsession. I was truly, madly, deeply in love with him, and that fact alone was why I had never been able to forget him, why I would go to him now, in spite of my fears. I gazed down at the package from Lawrence Crawford on the seat beside me. Then I lifted it and tucked it beneath the front seat, out of sight. Out of mind.

I loved Reid, and I always had, always would…no matter what happened.

So tightly strung were my nerves that I scarcely remembered getting out of the car, walking into the hotel and stepping into an elevator, then finding Reid’s suite. I stood outside his door and knocked softly.

The door swung inward and I stepped through, gazing around in amazement.

The room was lit with dozens and dozens of white candles, and incense perfumed the air with the scent of violets. Beyond the double doors to the bedroom, more candles flickered and danced in the mild breeze that blew in from the balcony doors. I stepped gingerly into the bedroom.

“Reid?”

No answer, but the candle flames stirred. I turned around, but no one was there. My heart began to pound. The scent of violets thickened, lingering on the air like an unspoken promise. Like the candles, my senses stirred in awareness. I could feel his presence, knew that he was somewhere near me, waiting, waiting for me to come to him.

Slowly, my fingers trembling, I unbuttoned my dress and the silky fabric slid to the floor. I stepped out of my shoes, slipped out of my underthings, then lay on the bed with only candlelight covering me.

Shadows moved on the ceiling. A breeze from the open windows glided over me. The flames danced and bowed, waiting for the magic.

Then the air whispered with movement.

I looked up, and he was standing over me, his bronzed skin glowing in the candlelight.

Desire blazed like a torch in my stomach. There was something primitive about the way he was looking at me. Something wild…and fiercely possessive. His blue gaze beckoned, seduced, compelled me to yield to his silent command.

You’re mine now, Christine. I want to hear you say it.

“I’m yours,” I whispered, and he smiled, his eyes gleaming.

He moved around the bed toward me, and I watched, fascinated, as candlelight danced over his features, creating
alternate images of light and dark. He sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for me. But instead of pulling me into his arms, he turned me, so that I was lying facedown on the mattress.

His lips touched the back of my neck as he whispered to me dark, heated promises of what the night would bring. His hands—so large and powerful, and warmed now with some fragrant oil—glided down my back, smoothed over my thighs, then dipped between my legs.

Fire ripped through me. I had never felt so deliciously hot, so out of control. His slick fingers caressed me deeply, made me cry out for more, but his hand moved away, and I rolled over to face him, to draw him to me for a long, intimate kiss.

He pulled back, and we gazed at each other in the subtle light. The look in his eyes, so darkly erotic, made me want him desperately, even as I shivered in fear of the unknown.

He reached for the crystal flacon of oil on the night-stand. The glass sparkled like diamonds in the candlelight as he held it over me, tantalizing me with the look in his eyes. The warm oil dropped slowly, oh, so slowly, into the deep hollow between my breasts, then downward, drop by drop, onto my stomach, and lower still…

A storm of passion raged through me, sweeping me into a blaze so fierce, so powerful, I could do nothing but close my eyes and let the sensations take me. His hands were gliding over me, massaging the oil into every inch of my skin until I thought I would scream from the exquisite torture. The scent of violets hung over the air like a fragrant cloud. The flames of the candles danced wildly in the breeze.

I wanted him. Oh, how I wanted him! Now. Forever.

I reached for him, drew him to me with a desperate plea. He laughed softly, making me burn even hotter for him, and then—so slowly, the moment seemed forever prolonged—he lowered himself to me. I raised my hips
to meet him, and the joining instantly became wild, frantic…almost savage. Our bodies slid together in glorious abandonment. Time stood still, then spun forward at a dizzying, heart-stopping speed.

And still I wanted him.

With his hands all over me, his mouth devouring mine, still I couldn’t get enough of him. With our bodies linked, our souls mated, still I craved more. Even when the first waves of fulfillment rippled through me, even before the deep, powerful shudders of release had faded—already I wanted him again.

“What have you done to me?” I whispered once, when we were lying together, sprawled against one another, exhausted but not sated.

“I’ve put a spell on you, Christine.” His hands moved against my oiled and fragrant skin. “The scent of violets,” he murmured, drawing me against him. “True believers say it inflames passion, increases sexual desire.”

“But you’re not a true believer,” I reminded him.

He said, as he’d said before, “I’m not a
serviteur,
no.” But there was something in his eyes, a strange, secretive glow that made me shiver even as I was reaching for him, drawing him to me again and whispering to him my darkest secrets, my deepest desires….

* * *

Sometime just after dawn I awakened from a deep and dreamless sleep.

The filmy white curtains billowed ghostlike in the breeze. The candles had all been extinguished, but the room was softly illuminated by the blossoming light outside.

There was something in the wind, a chill, that seemed almost…ethereal, not quite earthly.

And I heard voices. Soft, furtive voices…

Shivering, I pulled the sheet around me as I sat on the edge of the bed. The voices were coming from the living room of Reid’s suite. I gathered the sheet around me and
moved toward the door. It was opened a crack, but I pulled it back a little farther, peering through.

Dressed in jeans and a dark cotton shirt, Reid stood at the front door, speaking in angry tones to someone in front of him. I couldn’t see the other person, but I knew it was a man. Both their voices were low, the unfamiliar one sounding almost frantic at times. And very defensive.

As I stood watching them, Reid lifted his hand and drove his fingers through his hair, an obvious sign of his agitation. Then, quite clearly, I heard him say, “Damn it, it
has
to be tonight!”

The other man muttered a response, and then I jumped as Reid grabbed the man and violently hauled him into the room. “Damn you. No excuses this time. You’re running out of chances.”

Reid released the man, and he staggered back, away from Reid. I saw the man’s face then, and my heart plunged to the floor.

Jean Marc! The driver who had abandoned me at the cemetery. The man who had denied the car window had been broken, denied that I’d been attacked. Jean Marc, who had told me so clearly, “I take my orders from Monsieur St. Pierre. We all do.”

“But I did exactly as I was told!” Jean Marc argued, echoing my memory with heart-stealing precision. Reid cast a glance over his shoulder, and I shrank back. When I looked again, he was shoving Jean Marc out the door. Reid followed him into the hall and closed the door between us.

I stumbled back into the bedroom, my heart hammering against my chest.
“It has to be tonight.”
Oh, God, tonight! Tonight was the Seventh Night.

It was Reid. It had been Reid all along. It was Reid who wanted my father’s soul.

Why couldn’t I have seen it? Why couldn’t I have known?

I had seen it. I had known.

I just hadn’t wanted to believe.

But it was Reid who would gain the most from my father’s death. It was Reid who would do anything to keep the St. Pierre in his possession. It was Reid who was ambitious, power hungry. Reid, who always found a way to get what he wanted….

And he’d wanted me. Wanted me because he knew as soon as he killed my father, I would inherit half of the St. Pierre. Two deaths might look too suspicious, but if I were in love with him…if I were under his control…

Oh, and how easily I’d fallen under his control. He’d told me everything I wanted to hear. He’d made me feel everything I wanted to feel. He’d used me so cleverly, so masterfully…and I’d been his most willing victim.

Frantically, I reached for my clothes, pulling on my dress, then searching for my shoes. Damn, I couldn’t find one of my shoes….

I sank to my knees and looked under the bed. The shoe was there, and as I reached for it, I felt something else on the floor. A red cloth bag—similar to the
gris-gris
Mama Vinnia had given me, only larger—was lying underneath the bed. I drew it out, then dumped the contents on the floor.

“The magic is strongest when you sleep.”
I remembered Mama Vinnia’s words as I stared at the articles on the floor.

Threaded through a broken chain, a gold snake ring glinted dully in the murky light. And lying beneath it, my paper image smiled up at me. The picture was an old one, one I’d sent to my father several years ago. I held it up to the light, my fingers trembling. There was a small indentation on the picture, just above my heart, exactly like the one I’d seen on my father’s picture. A
vévé….

But what drew my gaze, what had me gasping in terror, was the knife that lay on the floor. A dagger with
an intricately carved, bloodstained handle. I had seen that knife before, lying on the ground beside Lawrence’s mutilated body.

“Find the evidence,”
Mama Vinnia had said.
“Find out who wishes you harm. Search for the amulets and charms with which the
bokor
works the powerful magic. Search for something personal of yours that is now in the
bokor’
s possession. Find the evidence and bring it to me. Only with those items can we reverse the spell. That is your father’s only hope, my child. I fear it is yours, as well. Whose evil has been cast upon you, then shall it be cast back.”

And then, in my mind, I heard Reid’s voice as he’d gazed down at me.
“I’ve put a spell on you, Christine.”

I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to believe that he cared about me, might even be in love with me. I wanted to believe that he’d fallen for me years ago, when we’d first met, just as I had for him. Just as he’d implied.