Death (The Devil's Roses #5)

Aleks grabs my hand and pulls me into him, "What's going on?" He whispers.

I shake my head. I know he'll take me away. I can't let him. "Nothing. She just is asking a lot for payment."

"What is the payment, Aimee?" His voice is rough. I wonder if he's scared like I am, even though he doesn’t know the things I do. He doesn’t know what the payment is.

I look back at Momma Holt. Where her eyes are pressed shut, there a white light is fighting to break through her sealed lids. She shakes and chants softly.

She throws her arms into the air and screams and then slams them down on Ophelia's limp body. Ophelia shoots up screaming. Oliver grabs her instantly and is gone.

"Where is he going?" I ask panicked.

Dorian refuses to look at me. I can see it. He knows. "She's being taken to a cell she can't escape from. A place where the sisters will find her and release their magic to her." His words are dead and they break my heart. He won't look. He can't. I glance at Aleks. He kisses my head.

"Brother, go help him. He will need the help. I'll stay here and help cover the bill."

Aleks grabs me and looks at me intensely, "Hurry home. We need to talk."

I swallow hard and nod. I'm fighting the tears threatening me and taking my voice.

Aleks is gone, making the air in the cabin swirl with his warmth and her stink.

"Momma Holt, I have a better deal for you."

She shakes her head, "No. You no trick Momma Holt demon." She holds out her hand that shows where she spit into her old leathered brown palm. Where the burns are still.

He offers his hand to her, "I have taken more than her. I have more to give. She is new. Few souls."

Momma Holt grabs his hand and licks it. She tastes and spit on the floor nodding and muttering, "You go home demon."

My eyes widen. "No. Dorian, don’t do this." I don’t know why but the idea of him dying is worse than anything I can imagine. "No." The tears win over. My heart is breaking.

He looks back at me, "I'm glad you don’t remember the way I acted towards you. I'm glad this is the way you remember me. I just wish it could have been different. If I ever get the chance I will show you how much Aimee. How much this cost me."

"Why were you such an ass? Everyone tells me I hated you. I feel my disgust for you. It's old. Please tell me why?" I ask through the tears and sobs.

He shakes his head, "Because I couldn’t have you. I couldn’t do that to him. He is the only real brother I've ever had. He saw you first." His voice breaks and I heave slightly.

He grabs my face and presses his lips against mine. The salt from the tears makes its way into my mouth.

Our kiss tightens as I hear the stabs of the knife into his hand. I open one eye to see her put his black bloody hand up to her mouth. She sucks and pulls.

"I love you forever." He whispers into my mouth and then he jerks away from me and looks up at the ceiling. His jaw tightens, as his eyes turn white like hers had been. He drops to the floor and slowly becomes nothing more than a pile of black feathers. There is one white feather sitting at the top of the pile.

"His love for you. You take dat one. He leave it for you." She points at the white feather. I drop to my knees. My heart is broken. "I never knew." I whisper. With trembling hands I pick the single white feather from the pile. I hold it to my chest and rock back and forth.

Momma Holt shuffles towards me. She places her hands on my head and slowly, images of me fill my own mind. My smile, my eyes glowing molten steel, my laugh, me running and fighting, me sitting reading a book in the sunlight. There are more than I can count and I remember almost none of them. The final image is me, lying in the forest, sleeping on a bed of moss. His hand comes into sight and brushes my hair from my face. I recognize the ring and his leather jacket. His hand lingers as he brushes his thumb across my lips.

"How he see you." She pulls back her hands but the memories stay rolling around in my mind. I have no words.

I want to reach in and grab every feather. I want to hold them to me tightly. "I never knew." I cry out, shaking.

I wink and I'm in the yard at Lydia's, on my knees in a sobbing ball.

I'm grabbed and held.

"What happened? Where is he? WHERE IS HE AIMEE?" Lorri rips me from the arms encircling me. She shakes me. Her face changes slightly.

I shake. I have no answers. I hold up the single white feather. She drops me to the ground. Tears fly from her eyes.

She screams, looking up at the sky and then shakes with each sob and heave. She shakes her head, "No. No. Why would he do it?"

Oliver is there, beside her, holding her. His eyes meet mine and I know how he felt. I don’t feel better with Dorian saving me. I would trade places in a heartbeat. I am unworthy of the sacrifice that was made. Only he knows the pain I'm in.

I clutch the feather.

Lorri spins looking at me with hatred, "You never even loved him back. You never even cared for him."

Sam stands in front of me, "You know as well as I do, he did it the way he wanted to. He never would have seen her dead. How was she to know how he felt?"

Aleks walks out of the house. I feel sick when I see his face. He looks around, "Where's Dorian?"

Lorri cries harder, angrier. She's gone.

Sam looks at Aleks and shakes his head, "He didn’t make it."

Aleks stops, "He's fallen, he can't die. Not unless Aimee…" He looks at me accusingly.

Sam steps towards him, "No. She didn’t."

Oliver grabs his arm, "This is my fault. I made the deal trading her life for O's. Dorian saved Aimee and took her place."

Aleks looks confused, "Why? Oliver, why would you make that deal? Why would trade my girl for yours?"

"Aleks, it wasn’t my girl for yours. It was the one witch we need for the death dealer who could be replaced."

Aleks grabs his shirt and lifts him off the ground. His face and arms are trembling. "HE LOVED HER. HE WOULD SAVE HER!"

Oliver looks savage, "YOU LOVE HER TOO! YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR HER!"

Aleks drops him and looks back at me. Tears line his cheeks but his look doesn’t soften. I don’t blame him. They have been together for hundreds of years. He looks like he doesn’t know how to react.

I shake my head, "I never knew."

He nods, disconsolately, "I know."

Sam smiles softly, "No one knew, Aimes. He never told anyone. We all just guessed."

Aleks's face reveals the truth of it. He knew. He knew all along. He puts a hand up, "I can't do this right now." And he's gone too.

Oliver looks at me, "I'm sorry. It wasn’t personal."

Sam wraps himself around me again, "Fuck off Oliver." He mutters.

"Did you get Ari back?" I ask softly.

"No. Lost the trail." He leans into my hair and sniffs it, "What's that smell?"

"Old lady. We went to a cabin." I can't say anything else. Not without dying inside. I never want to remember the cabin again.

"No, it smells like something else."

Chapter Twenty

Hanna

I sit at the table and eat and can't help but feel like beauty and the beast. He hasn’t touched me again but he's holding me hostage. I am not allowed outside or any phone calls.

"I'm bored." I mutter.

He looks angry. He's looked angry all day. Something has happened and he's been a complete savage. He smashed some things and screamed his face off into the phone.

"Try painting something or try to learn to play on the instruments in the music room."

I frown, "Marcus, you do know it's not the renaissance right?"

He laughs bitterly. He always laughs bitterly.

He walks to my side of the table and grabs my hand. He drags me down the hall. The smell of him in the air and the way he makes my heart flutter, is extreme. He drags me to the room I sleep in and closes the door. He undoes the button on his dress shirt, leaving it open to his white undershirt.

I step back and try to ignore the heat being stirred up in my body. "What are you doing?" I ask nervously.

"I owe you, you're bored and I need to feel something. I need you." His voice cracks slightly.

I back up, not towards the bed. "I don’t want to do this again. I don’t even know you. Jimmy and I never really broke up. So, this is wrong."

He rolls his eyes and the air around me is stirred up. I feel his warmth against the back of me. I close my eyes and sigh when his warm lips press against my spine. He rubs himself into the back of me. He nudges me toward the bed with kisses and small shoves. I let him.

I let him slowly take my clothes off, with precision and intimacy that makes my skin lift and my body tremble. I stand there, nervously waiting for him to touch me. Instead his tongue drags up the back of my thigh. He plants a kiss on my butt cheek and continues up my back with licks and kisses. He turns me around and takes my nipple into his mouth. I cry out. My body is buzzing with the torture he's putting me through.

He pushes me back onto the bed. I fall into the thick down blankets. His mouth is instantly between my thighs, kissing high up. He licks once between my lips. I moan into the blankets. Pleasure is everywhere as his finger enters me. His tongue flicks and licks as his finger's lazily thrust in and out. I'm being driven out of my mind. I'm clutching the blankets. He speeds up, both his finger and tongue simultaneously. I can't sit still. I'm writhing in pleasure.

"That’s my girl. Let it go Hanna." He kisses the side of my thigh and slides a second finger inside of me. He moves expertly, like he's done it before. I lose the control I didn’t know I was holding onto. My whole body explodes in a series of climaxes.

My screams of ecstasy are loud. I finish and open my eyes slowly. Everything in the world has more color. I wet my lips and look up at him standing proudly over my parted thighs.