Fury and impotence raged through him, replacing the cold fear, and he looked down at her. Their eyes met and he felt the acceptance in her limbs as she relaxed into him, closing her eyes. Resting her smudged cheek on his arm. Preparing to die.
She knew it. She’d probably always known it.
No.There had to be some way.
He looked around again, seeking some break in the flames, some low rise he could jump over, carrying her. But there was nothing.
Bitterness, oh, such bitterness.
If he weren’t holding Maia, Dimitri would have raged and thrown himself into the flames, wild with fury and frustration. He didn’t care about dying. He’d been ready for decades. It was Maia…it was all Maia.
He gathered her up, felt her arms curling around him as she shuddered a cough, trying to speak but unable to because of the heavy smoke. Closing his eyes, he huddled around her, positioning his large body to protect her from the falling beams and dancing names.
Please.
The irony, the horror of the situation—that he’d obtained his deepest desire, that he’d finally freed himself from Lucifer but was now useless to save the woman he loved—brought harsh, stinging tears to his eyes. They fell into her hair, burning his dry eyes, salty as they trickled down his cheeks.
Damn you. Damn you.
Help me. Someone.
He thought of Wayren, her slight, elegant figure appearing in his mind, and her platitudes. Her meaningless platitudes that had come too late:But that’s why men are here. Tobebothered. To feel. To live. Tolove.And…to be loved. That is what makes you different from every other creature.
And that is what makes man ultimately more powerful than the Fiend.
Yes, he’d found love. He’d opened himself to it, just in time to lose it. Her. To lose life. The miracle had turned to a curse, and now she would die.
Maia would die, just as Meg would have.
If he had stayed immortal…kept the covenant…
The chill was back, the horrible knowledge that he had the choice. That he could save her, just as he’d saved Meg. It washed over him, dark and evil, even more potent than the fire raging against his mortal body.
He hadn’t known what it meant, before. When Lucifer came to him the first time. But now he knew. He fully knew the hell, the horror, the blackness of what that covenant meant.
He didn’t want to live it again. But he could.
Something snapped inside him, something widening into cold, then hot…and then deep, deep calm. An oasis, an island, in the fiery, terrible vortex of the fear and horror that battled within him, and without.
He could do it. He could save Maia.
“I take it back,” he shouted into the darkness, his voice rusty and barely audible. Tears streamed from his eyes as he made the decision. “Lucifer! Attend me!”
The flames roared and curled, heat surging in incessant waves. It was getting close. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to breathe. It was a miracle they hadn’t already been engulfed, for the fire seemed to lick and devour, but its speed had slowed. Something seemed to keep it at bay.
“Lucifer!”he bellowed again.
And then there he was, the Fiend, the Devil, there in his mind. “You have the temerity to call me back after breaking our contract?”
“You asked me once if I loved Meg enough to save her,” he said…or, more likely,thought,for this was a dream, just as the other had been. “I didn’t know, but now I understand. Once again, I give youmysoul, but this time, I donotgive you hers. You have me, but she is untouched. Do it now, you bastard. Do itnow.”
Luce smiled that warm, tempting smile and his eyes narrowed. “It is always gratifying when the most God-fearing turn to me. I’ll have you back, Dimitri. I’ll have you back.” He stretched out his hand to replace his Mark.
Searing pain, a shock of white light, blazed in the darkness.
Dimitri caught a glimpse of Wayren and thought,Too late…
And then he was falling.
