Chapter Thirty-One
Marcus
Morning is a sharp spear of light slicing through a thick smear of fog that pushes against the windows. It slices across the room to shatter off the walls of mirror.
It’s moments like this that I almost regret having so many mirrors.
It hadn’t been my idea, but Catherine seemed to think it was necessary.
Not saying they didn’t come in handy, and I definitely didn’t put up a fight when she made the suggestion, but it was convenient for her when she was getting ready to see herself at every angle.
I also liked seeing her at different angles but for a very different reason.
When she allowed it. Passion was a required mandate when we first got married.
It was necessary to bring the boys into the world.
Afterwards, it was a duty for her and a quick release for me.
I did my best to make it enjoyable for her when she let me, but THE majority of the time, she went on her knees, and I did my best to make it quick.
Part of me understood that our relationship wasn’t one of love or affection like James and Gloria.
We were selected to join our families. Hers needed the Usher name and mine needed an heir.
The arrangement worked on both ends. I worked and provided and she lived in wealth, power and luxury.
She wanted for nothing, except maybe a husband who could love her.
It wasn’t me.
I respected her, absolutely.
I cared for her wellbeing and happiness.
Beyond that, she was a stranger even after nearly nine years of marriage.
I extract thoughts of Catherine from my mind and focus on the figure nestled in my arms now. The dark-haired beauty who has become barbed wire twisted around my heart. The one person everyone from God to man would tell me I have no business looking at.
She lies with her tiny body curved into the confines of mine. I have her tucked nearly beneath me with my arm a steel band around her middle and my cock still wedged inside her warm heat.
Memories of the previous night come flooding back with A flurry of colors and sounds that snatch the air from my lungs. I have to catch myself before I can make a sound that might wake her.
Hours.
Hours upon hours of holding her down and taking her. A relentless and unstoppable hunger I couldn’t satiate no matter how many times I took her. I can’t even be sure when I stopped.
Maybe I passed out.
Maybe the universe took pity on her and let her have peace because lord knows I would have kept going until my heart gave out or my dick fell off.
What had gotten into me? Never in all my life, in all the years that I have walked this earth have I ever been so overcome, so blindly riddled with such rabid desire that I would keep going after she’d fallen into an exhausted sleep. To keep using her until I couldn’t anymore.
Overwhelming panic sets in, clouding any joy this would have brought me normally. I scrub a hand sticky with her release and smelling of her over my face and remember putting the whole thing inside her to the wrist like some animal.
“Jesus,” I breathe, terror turning the sweat on my skin to ice.
Trembling, I reach up to brush the hair off her face. The sooty fan of lashes resting lightly across the high arches of her cheeks flutter once before sweeping open. Eyes soft and blurry from sleep lift and find my face.
I expect fear.
I expect hesitation, maybe even hatred.
I expect her to tear free of me and scream that I never touch her again. Rightfully. She has every right to think of me as a monster.
I don’t expect her sweet smile or the way she remains nestled against me.
“Linny,” I whisper, guilt an iron noose cutting my airway. “Pardonne-moi, mon amour.”
Her head cocks slightly as if trying to understand my plea of forgiveness.
“For what?”
Gingerly, careful not to catch her hair under my elbow or jostle her, I push up to peer better into her tender expression.
“What I did last night. I don’t know what got into me. I couldn’t stop.” I lick the dry state of my lips, fighting not to apologize again and again. “Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?”
I want with every panicked drop of my soul to touch her. To run my palm across her body and take inventory of my behavior.
To my relief and trauma, she considers my question a long moment. Maybe she’s assessing. Maybe she’s waiting for her body to reveal the true extent of her pain that I caused.
Christ, had I assaulted her?
I can’t remember if she asked me to stop. Had she? Had I not heard her? Had I ignored her?
“Lin?” I plead, desperation choking around the single utterance of her name.
“I’m not hurt,” she murmurs, hesitates and adds with an endearing wrinkle of her nose, “I’m a little sore, but last night was … lovely.”
I blink.
Lovely?
What did that even mean?
“You don’t have to protect me. I take full responsibility for my actions.”
To my dismay, she giggles. While the sound is so reminiscent of how she used to be, I am not amused.
“You are being silly. I enjoyed everything you did. I don’t think I’ve cum that hard or that often … ever. I can still feel it a little. The faint tremors.”
Even while her assurance calms some of the anxiousness in my chest, I’m not ready to let myself off the hook.
“I’m going to start you a bath, okay? You just stay here.”
With all the gentleness I can muster, I extract my dick from her slick, swollen sex. The loss of her warmth makes me want to crawl back beneath the sheets with her and resume where we left off snuggling, my solid, fully erect cock returned to its rightful place, corking all my hard work.
But I force myself off the ruined bed and pad in the direction of the bathroom. Quietly, I shut the door behind me and move to the tub. I plug the drain and start the process of filling it up. But that wasn’t my only reason for coming in here.
I face the wall of mirrors and meet my own reflection’s furious gaze.
“Where are you, you piece of shit? Show yourself.”
Thick, congealing smoke clouds across the glass.
It presses and spreads along the corners.
From its center, the familiar silhouette of the demon appears with his ridiculous wings and stupid smirk.
Smart of him to stay on the other side, though.
I can’t be wholly certain I wasn’t prepared to clock him.
“You summoned?” he taunts.
“What the fuck did you do to me last night?”
The vast, black pools of his eyes glint faintly with a humor that only intensifies my fury.
“Do you regret it?” he retorts with a raised eyebrow, like he’s challenging me.
“That isn’t the point, you fucker. I could have hurt her.
I could have seriously…” I break off when the very thought squeezes around my chest. “She is human and delicate. We are the only men she’s been with.
What’s more, before a few days ago, she was a virgin, which means she’s probably still tender from that. Last night—”
“I do not need you to lecture me on how to treat my woman.”
“She is not your woman,” I snap before I can stop myself.
All humor vanishes and the mirror across his face ripples like a rock dropping into a still lake. The ringlets spiral out in loops that extend the length. A second later, the asshole is stepping free straight into my bathroom.
“If it were not for her, human, you would already cease to exist, so do not speak to me like I would ever allow you or anyone to harm her.”
I ignore the flare of possessive jealousy that flares through my chest. A sudden urge to prove that Lenora didn’t need him. That I can just as easily solve her problems.
“She doesn’t need you,” I reply tightly through gritted teeth.
The fucker snickers. “I saw how bravely you tried to give her what she asked. That file was certainly fancy work.”
Heat washes up into my cheeks, but I refuse to break eye contact. “Not all of us are born in hell and possess powers to destroy people with our minds. Some of us have to actually get our hands dirty.”
“Yet, you have done nothing while I have given her, her four satisfying deaths. Perhaps, you should consider freeing her of yourself now before you embarrass yourself further.”
I loathe him.
I loathe his very existence in Lenora’s life.
I loathe that I know she will never listen to me if I ask her to banish this monster from our lives.
And I don’t blame her.
The human solution to this problem would have taken months of planning. Years of execution. I would have to guide and direct each disappearance carefully so the police and the Duval family never suspect me.
His way is faster.
It is cleaner.
At least with Sarai, her death would never be mistaken for murder. Yes, the authorities may suspect me, but there is no evidence of that. So, perhaps his method is better in these circumstances, but I would eat my own foot before admitting it to him.
“And leave her alone with you after what you did last night?” I say instead, grasping the only thread of defense I have.
“What did I do?” he counters. “She was never in any harm. If I sensed for even a second that she was no longer enjoying herself, I would have stopped you. It would have ended.”
The oddly human response irks me because he’s not human. He’s a monster who uses people and manipulates those in a vulnerable place.
“You’re a disease,” I tell him honestly. “You latch onto grieving people and manipulate them into giving you their soul … for what? What are you going to do with it?”
“What I do is give closure. I offer them peace. You’re upset because she came to you first and you couldn’t fix her problem.”
I open my mouth to tell him he was wrong when a soft knock echoes over the roar of the water running and my own blood slamming between my ears.
“Marcus?”
I shove Veyn in the direction of the mirror he’d come through. I don’t entirely know why. Maybe I don’t want Lenora to see us conversing without her, about her.
“One second, mon p’tit.”