B00AO57VOY EBOK Read online

  Now that was a tempting offer. But I really thought that I should probably hear the end of the tragic tale before we started making out again. That was the thing about Nathan. Once I started kissing him, I didn’t want to stop.

  “Stop stalling, Nathan,” I said gently, reminding myself that this was a painful subject for him. “Tell me what happened.”

  He was quiet for so long that I thought he wasn’t going to answer me. In the end, I took matters into my own hands. Turning in his lap, I took his face between my hands and looked deep into his eyes.

  “Tell me,” I whispered. “Nathan, I need to know.”

  “We found you actually tied to a stake in the north pasture,” he said, sounding more tortured than he had when he had told me of my other lives. “I could hear your screams as I rode up to the house to ask your father for your hand in marriage. You were still burning when I found you.”

  I could still hear him talking, but I wasn’t really listening to him anymore. He had given me the last piece of evidence I needed for my hypothesis. My dreams weren’t dreams, they were memories. I had been terrified of fire my entire life because part of me knew I was fated to burn. I had burned every single time. And, if my vision came true, I was going to burn again.

  Then, I realized that I had been missing something very important as I put everything together. Something that should have been so glaringly obvious that I felt like smacking myself in the forehead for not seeing it before.

  “Nathan, did Emily have a boyfriend?” I asked, ready for the anger this time. Nathan is kind of possessive.

  “Yes, you turned away a young man who had been courting you for some time the day I kissed you,” he growled, lost in the memory. “He took it badly, threatened you. It was only my love for you that saved his miserable life.”

  And there it was; the last piece of the puzzle. A jilted fiancée. An ignored admirer. A discarded boyfriend.

  And Jack—who, if he was to be believed, had been crushing on me since the day we met.

  “The answer was right in front of our faces the whole time,” I whispered, putting it all together at last.

  “What?” Nathan asked.

  “Don’t you see?” I demanded, jumping out of his lap.

  “See what?” he asked, confused.

  “You said we have to look for patterns, right?” I asked, practically sprinting back to the house with Nathan right on my heels.

  “Yeah…” he said hesitantly.

  “We’re the pattern, Nathan,” I told him, pointing from him to me and back again. “Nathan, it’s lust! This guy’s trigger is lust!”

  Six hours, four coffees, three boxes of research documents, and a severe migraine later, we had our demon. Turns out, I had been right. We were definitely dealing with a lust demon. Demons of lust had a long and illustrious history of stalking their prey and killing anyone who got in their way. And their favorite hosts were the bodies of people who already had lustful feelings for their intended target.

  Like someone with an unrequited crush on a girl maybe…

  The first recorded account Charles’ mom had been able to find of a lust demon was from the Book of Tobit in the Greek Old Testament. The story goes that a demon by the name of Asmodeus became infatuated with a young woman by the name of Sarah. Each time she would wed, he would kill the groom on their wedding night. He vowed no other would possess Sarah and he kept that vow until she wed Tobias, who was aided in getting rid of him by the angel Raphael.

  Though I refused to touch anything that looked even remotely like a personal item, I read every single thing collected on my various murders and the men who had been used to commit them. Every guy he possessed was someone who had been close to me in one way or another except for the guy in Montana, who, it appeared, had just been a convenient skin suit.

  My fiancé, Jean Luc, had been the son of the Marquis who owned the estate that bordered the one my father owned. We had grown up as playmates and were often seen together at society functions, dancing and laughing like the friends we were.

  People who had been interviewed stated they had been shocked by how inappropriate his pursuit of my hand in marriage had been. He had done everything but offer my father the shirt on his back to gain his permission to marry me. And it had all been for nothing because, in the end, I ran away and fell in love with Nathan.

  They found him two days after my murder, wandering the streets of Paris in filthy clothes and stinking like he’d fallen into a vat of wine. He was barely coherent, mumbling about the man in the shadows and his beautiful Eva. The only thing he’d had on him at the time was a bottle of Port and a lock of long, raven-black hair. My hair.

  He was beheaded in a public execution two days after that.

  Alexei—which, ironically, means defender—my admirer in Russia, had actually been one of the set painters for the ballet troupe I danced for. His crush on me had been common knowledge even before he became possessed by Bastian. Testimony given by my fellow dancers stated that it had been a quiet infatuation and that we had actually gotten along really well.

  That poor sap was found wandering around outside St. Petersburg the day after they dragged my body from the ashes of the theater. He was carrying my locket and telling everyone he came across that he had done something terrible and couldn’t remember what. He couldn’t remember anything, actually, since he had gotten out of bed one morning and decided to take a walk…six months before.

  He ended up in a mental hospital where he committed suicide by slitting his wrists. The mystery was, nobody knew how he had done it, seeing as he was in a cell with nothing sharp anywhere in sight.

  Cal Angstrom, my wanna-be boyfriend in Montana, on the other hand, swore he had only met me once when he had been to my father’s ranch to look at a horse. Which, apparently, was the last thing he remembered doing. It had been snowing at the time, he told the judge who presided over his trial, but when he had woken up the morning after I died, it was summer.

  When they found him, however, he was in possession of a very unique cameo my father had commissioned especially for his little princess. The actual cameo wasn’t in the box, but there was a drawing of it in the file. I smiled sadly as I traced the design of Nathan’s mark someone had crudely sketched. He might not have bitten me in my previous incarnations, but he had left his mark on each of my personalities nonetheless.

  Like Jean Luc, Cal said the only other thing he could remember was seeing something strange in the shadows, something that looked like it was watching him. Then…nothing.

  They hung him three days later.

  And then there was poor Jack, the next member of the Kill Ember club. Jack and I had been friends our whole lives, too. I think that’s what had really shocked me the first time he had asked me out. Jack and I had never had any interest in each other. I should have known something was seriously wrong when he started declaring his undying love when I refused to go out with him anymore. Jack wasn’t an undying love kind of guy. The boy had spent our entire high school career redefining the term man-whore, in fact.

  When I finally pulled myself out of the past and back to the present, I found Kim asleep on the couch, her head in Blake’s lap. Blake had his head back and his eyes closed, but I didn’t think he was sleeping. Perhaps sensing me watching, he cracked open one eye and gave me a tired smile I couldn’t seem to return. Instead, I let my eyes drift around the room until they fell on Tyler.

  Tyler had taken over an entire corner of the living room and had neatly organized piles of research stacked around him. He had been given the task of discovering anything Charles’ mother had come up with to lead us to a way to get rid of Bastian for good. Looking up to get another sheet to go over, he caught me watching him and waved me over with a gentle smile.

  “How you holding up, beautiful?” he asked when I slid down the wall next to him with a groan. “You look half dead. Ashley should take better care of you.”

  “Nathan takes very good care of me, thank you ve
ry much,” I muttered, reaching up to rub my throbbing head. “Have you found anything?”

  “Not yet, but I will. If I don’t find anything here, I’ll just keep looking somewhere else. Don’t worry, Em. I won’t let you down.”

  “Baby, Shea wants us in the kitchen,” Nathan said, suddenly popping up next to me like he had teleported himself there. Tyler smirked at him and I saw Nathan shoot him an extremely unpleasant look.

  Telling Tyler to let me know if he found anything that might be useful, I let Nathan pull me to my feet. I held on to his arm for a second, feeling my head spin from another round of sleep deprivation and hunger. I had been up since seven for school and it was almost dawn again. And the last food I remembered consuming was the carrot sticks I called lunch.

  “Come on, let’s get you something to eat, then I’m putting you to bed,” Nathan said, giving me a worried look.

  “Good idea,” I sighed, letting him practically carry me to the kitchen.

  Grams was sitting in the same chair I had found her in earlier. She looked as tired as I felt, and her eyes still held a shadow of the horror I had seen in them when I had come out of my trance to find that I had just watched myself die for the second time in less than a week, once in the past and once in the future. Nathan pushed me into the chair next to hers and then headed directly to the fridge to find me something to eat.

  Grams put aside the papers she had been going through and turned to study me instead. She traced over every inch of my face, taking in my glassy eyes and the shadows I was pretty sure were forming under them. I saw her eyes flicker to the neck of my fleece just before Nathan set a plate with a sandwich and some chips in front of me with a can of diet soda.

  “We have to make some decisions,” she said as Nathan took the seat across from me. “We only have seven days left. We’re running out of time. Unless we can find a way to stop Bastian in the next twenty-four hours, I won’t have enough time to get you ready to face him. That said I have come up with a new plan.”

  “What kind of plan?”

  “A dear friend of mine runs a safe house for cases like this,” Grams said, distractedly, her eyes focusing on my neck. “I think it would be better if you and Nate left town for a while, just until we can form a sound plan of action.”

  “And what good do you really think it will do me to run?” I asked, tiredly, popping the top on my soda. “He’ll just follow me, Grams.”

  “Yes, once he discovers your location I’m sure he will,” she agreed as I took a drink.

  The cold soda felt good to my sore, dry throat. It was my third can of the night. Along with the coffee and soda, I had also guzzled about six bottles of water and still I felt like I was walking through the Sahara at noon.

  “Then what’s the point?” I asked, lowering my soda and arching an eyebrow at her. “If he’s only going to follow me, what good will it do me to run?

  “I have to agree with her this time, Shea,” Nathan said quietly, reaching for my hand at the same time as I reached for his. “If he’s going to come after her anyway, it might be best to face him right here, on ground that’s familiar to her.”

  He shrugged and I felt my shoulders twitching to copy the action. I frowned, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me. Seriously, it was like every time Nathan moved I wanted to move. If he blinked, I blinked. If he twitched, I twitched. Crazy didn’t even begin to cover it. It was just plain weird and I had no idea why I was doing it.

  Pushing my plate away, I clasped my hands together in front of me and locked my feet around the legs of my chair in an effort to keep from moving. I saw Nathan’s eyes flicker from Grams to the neck of my fleece and had to force myself not to reach up and rub my mark. When I saw his face turn a whiter shade of pale, I started preparing myself for the worst.

  Try to stay still, Nathan whispered to me silently, a note of panic in his thoughts. It’s a spell. She suspects that I marked you and she’s trying to prove it. Just don’t move, baby.

  Yeah, that was a whole lot easier said than done. I tried my best, though, not really wanting to witness Grams turning Nathan into a crispy critter. When I continued to fidget each time he moved so much as a finger, I jumped out of my chair and went to put my plate in the sink, dropping my half-eaten sandwich and chips in the trash as I passed. Avoiding looking at Grams, I went to the fridge and got another soda out of the door. When I turned back around, she was standing right behind me. Before I could stop her, she reached out and yanked the zipper of my fleece down before pulling it back and staring at my neck for a long moment.

  “Yes, that’s what I thought,” Grams said, softly, gently touching the mark on my neck. “The scarves were a dead giveaway, idiot children.”

  Damn, I thought, scowling. Grams just kept looking at the mark on my neck. She didn’t look angry. She didn’t even look upset. If I had had to describe the expression on her face right that second, I would have said she looked…confused.

  “Why this time, Nate?” Grams asked, her eyes looking misty. “You’ve never marked her before, so why do it now?”

  For a long time, he didn’t answer. Grams didn’t seem to be in any big hurry, though. She just turned around and looked at him, forcing me to do the same thing. There was an odd look on his face and I could tell he wished she hadn’t asked him that. I found myself holding my breath, waiting to hear what he would say.

  “It’s different this time,” he finally said, softly. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, more than three centuries, in fact, and I realize now that I should have marked her each and every time. When something is yours—not your possession but part of who you are and who you want to be—you do whatever you have to do to claim it and keep it with you always. Even if it’s something you never thought you’d do. ”

  Good answer, baby, I thought, my eyes filling with tears.

  Grams looked at him for another long second and nodded her head like she thought so too. Then, announcing that she was going to bed, she turned and headed for the hallway. I was so busy staring at Nathan that I didn’t even notice her footsteps slow then stop. It wasn’t until Nathan frowned and pulled his gaze from mine to turn to look at the doorway that I realized something was wrong. I looked to see what had everyone so enthralled and felt my heart pick up speed when I saw the expression on Tyler’s handsome face.

  “We have a serious problem,” he said, locking his eyes on mine.

  “You found something,” I whispered.

  “Yeah. I found out we can’t kill your demon…unless we want to kill his host.”

  For five painful heartbeats, nobody moved, nobody breathed, and nobody in the room spoke. I waited for Grams to tell him he was wrong, or for Nathan to tell him, but neither one of them seemed inclined to do it. Instead, they stared at him with twin looks of devastation.

  “You’re sure?” I asked since no one else seemed to be interested in the job.

  “Yeah, beautiful, I’m sure,” he said, ignoring Grams and Nathan and heading straight for me where I was still standing beside the island. “Bastian is a demon of lust. Lust is about the body. That means the flesh becomes his power. When he possesses a body, he literally becomes that person while he inhabits it. His essence and the owner of the body’s essence meld together. To kill him, you will have to kill your friend.”

  “I…I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t kill Jack.”

  I tried to picture it, but my mind immediately rebelled. If I couldn’t even imagine it, there was no way I would ever be able to do it. And I couldn’t let anyone else do it. Jack was as innocent in all of this as I was. He hadn’t asked to be a meat suit—at least, I hoped he hadn’t. No, there had to be some other way, a way that wouldn’t kill someone I had been friends with half my life.

  “You’re sure that’s the only way?” I asked again, hoping the answer would change.

  “To kill him, yes,” Tyler said somberly. Seeing my eyes start to fill with tears, he said, “But don’t start panicking just
yet. I think I know how we can put him on lockdown without hurting a single hair on your friend’s head. And, as a bonus, we can get him exorcised at the same time.”

  “Whoever this woman was, she was amazing at researching every single aspect of each demon she studied,” Tyler continued, starting to spread the papers in his hands out on the island in front of me before pointing to the page directly under my nose. “That, my little super-witch, is a binding spell called the Rituali Cinis, or the Ritual of Ashes for those of you who are Latin impaired. There’s only one problem.”

  “Just one?” Nathan growled, his jaw tight.

  “Yeah, but it’s a pretty big one,” Tyler said, still looking at me. “The person he’s obsessed with has to do most of the work. You will have to summon him on your own, Em. You will have to activate the trap that will hold him. Only then will we be able to help you. If he senses any of the rest of us, and he will, we lose our shot.”

  “Are you insane?” Nathan roared loud enough to shake the glass in the window behind me. He shot to his feet and started to pace, pausing only long enough to give Tyler a filthy look every few seconds. “You want to use her as bait? No! Hell no!”

  “It’s the only way,” Tyler said, looking at me rather than the crazed vampire that was stalking back and forth across the kitchen. “The binding ritual might be able to get rid of him once and for all. Think of it as putting the genie back in the bottle…permanently.”

  “How does that work?” I flinched when Nathan turned his furious glare on me.

  “It works very much like good old Karma,” Grams explained, studying the incantation over my shoulder and rolling her eyes when Nathan growled again. “We will use the remains of the people he has destroyed to imprison him. Done correctly, we could bind him indefinitely to the lost plane.”

  “Which he’s already been summoned back from once,” I reminded her, feeling the little flame of hope that had flared to life in my chest die, leaving me feeling completely defeated.