Bewitch The Dark - The Devil To Pay Part 27

The inside was as empty and dark as the outside. More of the glittering stone covered the walls of the vast foyer. Elaborate frescoes were carved at the top of the walls, depicting baccha.n.a.lian scenes of excess and debauchery. Grotesques glittered in the black stone and cast waggish tongues at her as they sipped nectar from goblets and from between the legs of nubile women.

Dez loved the decadent atmosphere. It soaked into her pores and heightened her emotions. She tugged at the low neckline of the dress, imparting coolness to her heated b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Will you be mine?

The words were not spoken aloud, rather, Dez heard them in her mind. And yes, she answered, she would be his.

Chapter 21.

"N o, please do not look away."

His lover's voice reached in to pull him up from the drowning. Ivan had slipped under. He could withstand a witch's fix. But could he withstand knowing?

"Please?" she whispered. "I was not entirely beguiled."

He nodded and swallowed, and looked away. And when he returned his stare to her, she did not relent...

As she walked through the dark halls of Monsieur Black's castle, certain truths made themselves evident.

This man, who was a witch, was something more. He could conjure flame and blood and water without thought. Perhaps he possessed a bit of wizard in his a.r.s.enal.

There was something so large, monumental even, about Lucien. Perhaps demonic? She would not doubt if he dallied in demonolatry, as some dark witches were wont to do. Did he have ties to the devil Himself?

Dez believed in a dark being who tempted souls and breathed chaos. So many witches had been murdered, burned and hung because mortal idiots and inquisitions believed they were in league with the devil. But it was the devil inside mortal man in which Dez believed most strongly, not a dark horned beast.

He sat upon a throne of s.h.i.+ny steel. Her dark enchanter. The man of her dreams. Shadows crept about him, concealing his face, and the hands resting at the ends of each arm on the throne. A glint of white flashed where eyes should be.

The sight gripped Dez as if barbed arms had burrowed deep into her being and p.r.i.c.ked at her nerves all along her spine.

"Lucien?" Dez's heartbeat literally stopped. She pressed a palm over her chest. No, still there, beating desperately, yet m.u.f.fled, as if frightened to a meek cower.

Fear flooded Ivan's thoughts. It was as though he stood there in Dez's place, looking upon the prince of darkness.

"You have come of your free will, Desideriel Rosaline Merovech?"

Shadows cleaved to every part where she should have seen his flesh.

An odor, acrid and strange, clung to the back of Dez's throat. Brimstone.

Had she made the right choice? To come to this man's home, alone, and with intentions to debauchery? Did she really know him, as Ravin had tried to convince her? What were his intentions? He could be anyone, anything. A lecher. A madman. A murderer.

I want him to be my lover.

She had denied her heart too long. Had she not a right to happiness?

"Such doubts trouble you," Lucien said. He slid forward and took Dez's trembling hands. "But I must be true before I accept your submission."

"My submission?" She tugged her hands from his. "Whwho are you?"

"I am your greatest desire, Desideriel. And you, you are my desiderata."

The Latin word sounded extravagant and lush-yet its meaning chilled Dez's blood. "I am not a thing to be owned. Perhaps I've made a mistake."

And she turned to walk away-only to stumble into Lucien's arms. He'd moved so quick. His kiss conquered as swiftly.

And in the depths of the luscious claiming, Dez whispered, "Yes, I desire you."

"Will you abandon your life for me? Move from your home into mine?"

"Yes." She found her answer without delay. "You have me, Lucien."

"You will have no other lovers before me?"

"Never."

"No friends, no family, no accomplices of the heart?"

No friends?

"Yes. No."

She couldn't stop saying yes, yet she was too intelligent to be foolish like this. Her heart struggled against logic. Rational thought fought to vanquish desire. And since her heart had been exercised so little over the centuries, the other side of her managed a brief success.

"But love does not require such sacrifice as you suggest, Lucien."

"I must have it that way. Become my bride."

Dez stood in the entrance to her home, the Seine behind her. A shackle had been sprung free from her wrist. And she breathed in.

Away from Lucien's home she mastered her fickle heart with ease.

"I cannot sacrifice my freedom for a husband. No matter how desperately I desire his attentions. I cannot marry Lucien."

And later that evening, Dez watched as the shop where she purchased her magical supplies burned to the ground, along with the keeper and his family.

Each day that followed without her returning to Lucien's castle brought another devastating end to someone she cared for. She knew it was his doing. Himself? The very devil?

She knew in her soul what her heart did not dare to believe.

Dez stood in the open doorway of her home, looking upon the coal black carriage that belonged to Lucien Black.

"You are the devil," she said to the elegant man who stood at the bottom of her stoop. "You have taken every thing away from me that I have ever cared for."

"You still have me, my desired one."

She wanted to lunge at him and kick and yell and scream. Instead, Dez's legs bent and she fell into Lucien's arms. She had succ.u.mbed to Himself's charms. And she only wanted to feel the safety his arms offered.

Dez stood before an altar of bone, clutching a silver athame as she awaited the arrival of her diabolic fiance. So much she wanted love, to be cared for, to be desired.

She would do this. Because she had nothing left.

Tonight she would cut open a vein and offer herself to the dark lord for eternity.

Tonight she would...

Try to fight it.

"I cannot do this."

Her heart had been annihilated by Lucien Black's truths. And yet, Dez felt as though she could never gain the devotion, admiration and desire from another man, ever. And she needed it, she craved it. Her body longed to be wors.h.i.+pped and adored. It was as though she were halved inside. And the greater half sought love, while the lesser half still clung by its b.l.o.o.d.y, loosened fingernails to the hope for salvation. To do the right thing. To escape.

His entrance filled her veins and pores and the very air with the sweet stench of brimstone. He approached from behind, and she cautioned herself from turning to look at him. He would not be as she had seen him previously, as the man she had fallen in love with.

Can you love a creature? The very devil Himself?

No, she could not.

"You already do," a deep voice curdled up Dez's spine. "My bride, I am giddy with the expectation of your sacrifice. You will be mine in blood, soul and body. I shall drink out your soul as my vow to you, Desideriel."

Faltering, Dez stepped forward. She dropped the athame. It clinked upon the obsidian floor. Falling to her knees, she then shuffled backward, trying to get away, to distance herself from the sight of evil, of chaos. Of temptation gone bad.

Horns and black muscled flesh and distorted joints and red eyes. That was what she took in, processed, as the scream clawed up from her mouth. And for the first time, her eyes were opened. Logic defeated heart.

"I will not!" Dez cried. "I refuse!"

"b.i.t.c.h!" And he slapped her.

Her body soared across the room and landed against a wall. Bones broke and the blood scent crept out from cuts.

Every day following, Himself returned to the altar room. And every day, Dez, weakened without food or drink, shouted an effusive "No" at him. The pa.s.sive torture continued for a fortnight. Dez could no longer shout, she could barely breathe, but she would never change her answer.

"No."

And the world fell away from her. The walls of the castle began to crumble. The darkness shattered and the gray desolate night showered her with cold reality.

It was all gone. Lucien Black. The altar. The castle. Her hopes and desires.

Dez lay in the middle of a snowy field, bleeding and near death.

But she was happy.

Ivan dropped his head to his chest and sucked in a breath.

Dez had released the fix. His eyes watered as if walking through smoke. His body trembled-with knowledge.

"So now you know." Dez settled onto the bed, putting up her legs and leaning into the pillow. Still dirty from digging in the mud, she swiped at a smear on her cheek. "I went willingly to Himself, and I went against my will. Even after your mother's warning.

But it was love. For a moment. Until my eyes were opened. I'm so ashamed.

"I was taken in by a farmer and nursed back to health. Later, I returned to my home, which still stood, to my surprise, and I began to study diabology and taught myself to craft the most powerful spells against Himself. My devotion was to keeping that b.a.s.t.a.r.d out of my life. Forever.

"All I had wanted, he offered. Companions.h.i.+p. Connection. Love. He was right when he told you it was my only weakness. What a pitiful woman I am to be so easily devastated by emotion. I...I followed my heart."

They exchanged flickering glances. Both knew that Dez had followed her heart once again. Yet did she feel the same devastation this time around?

"We must never regret what we don't understand." Ivan slid up close and kissed her. "You were not of the right mind. He bewitched you. He is the master of bewitchments and temptations and seductions. You could not have won-and yet you did.

You survived, Dez. I'm so proud of you."

"Don't say that. I was a ridiculous fool led about by promises of s.e.x."

"You were strong. So strong."

With one sweet kiss Dez felt the last century of angst slip away. So easily Ivan accepted her and all her faults.

"I'm not one to throw stones," he said. "You're talking to a man who every night goes out and does the devil's deeds. If anyone should be fleeing this relations.h.i.+p, it should be you."

"Despite my initial reluctance, I love that you consider it a relations.h.i.+p. I wish it could remain so."

"Why can't it?"

He kissed the indents at her clavicle. Such intention in so simple an act. Dez s.h.i.+vered at the magnitude of his touch. No man had ever claimed her and yet released her in the same act.

"You're not going near Himself. If I have to bespell you to keep you here, I will."

Maybe he wasn't quite ready to release her. "My magic is stronger than yours."

"Dez."