"I would have never wanted you to sacrifice yourself. That would have destroyed me, knowing I'm not worth it, knowing you're worth so much more than that. Because nothing has really changed. I can love you, do love you, but I'm no better than Alex."
"The very fact that you can love makes you better than him." Marley wiped her eyes on his T-shirt and drew in a breath. She could do this. Even though she felt cold and tired and sick, her heart splintering like dried wood. She would do this. "But you're right, nothing has changed in circumstance. I still have to leave. It's the right thing for both of us, I think. At least for now. I need some time to think."
Damien didn't say anything, but his arms tightened around her.
"Can I spend the night at your place on Esplanade? I can leave the keys with the manager or ship them back to you."
"Of course," he said, voice hoarse. "I'll drive you there."
"No, I can't… really. I need to be alone. Please. I'm afraid I've used up all my resistance tonight, and neither one of us needs to drag this out." What she really needed was a soft, safe bed, and the oblivion of a few hours' sleep. As it was, she wasn't sure how she was actually still standing. Her body felt numb, frozen from the inside out.
"Okay." Then he gave a muffled laugh into her hair. "God, I can't believe I'm just letting you walk away. I'm either a complete fool or I've actually grown up."
"I'm going with the latter."
"And it only took me two hundred and thirty years," he said. Then he pulled back and gave her a kiss, soft and devotional. "Au revoir, Marley. May you get everything you deserve."
"Good-bye, Damien." She touched his cheek, stroked that long, masculine cheekbone. "I'm proud of you."
For a minute, she thought he was going to say something else, but he just reached into his pocket, pulled a key from his key ring, and pressed it into her hand. He closed her fingers around it, his green eyes boring into her, then he nodded and left.
Marley turned and clicked her suitcase closed.
Chapter Twenty
Damien was walking across the yard, heading toward the road, and the river, wanting to get away, wanting silence, when he heard someone calling his name. He turned and saw Marissabelle striding toward him in jeans and a tank top. She wasn't the lush twenty-five-year-old Damien had known, but more like a woman of forty. Alex had obviously decided to show her mercy.
But gone was Anna. It was all Marissabelle, from the saucy sway of her hips to the triumph on her face. "I'm leaving," she said. "Just wanted to tell you that I hope you rot in hell."
The timbre of her voice was more like what he remembered, before age had ravaged it, and the sound raked through the stores of his memory, drew up unpleasant associations. Marissabelle had been part of his past, the violent decade when he'd been intent on driving himself to the grave, defiant and miserable. "Thanks. You too."
She laughed. "You can do whatever you want with the house. I'm heading to New Orleans. I'm not sure what I'll do, but maybe I'll get a job in a club or something. I might as well use this body again, though I should probably spend a month or two doing some Pilates. The last time I was forty, women were expected to be soft and curvy, not tight and bony like they all are now."
"Well, good luck." What the hell else was he supposed to say? And did she think she was going to make him jealous if she took up stripping? He had finally come to terms with the fact that he hadn't been responsible for her downfall—she had ordered Chat fate for herself. He had merely been witness.
"She wasn't right for you," Marissabelle said. "Come on, you know that. People like us, Damien, we never change. We'll always walk on the dark side, and a girl like Marley, she walks the straight and narrow."
He wasn't going to have this conversation with her. Damien started walking again, giving her a wave as he turned his back on her.
She called him an absolutely atrocious curse word, but he ignored her and walked to the road, crossing it in the dark, climbing the levee. He sat down on the grass and watched the Mississippi roll by, moonlight reflected off the water, the small waves lapping against the shore.
He wasn't sure where he'd go from there, if he had the ability to go on as he had before. Nothing had changed. He was still a Grigori servant, and they still had the power to destroy everything, everyone that mattered to him, to take his soul, if he refused to serve.
Yet everything felt different. He was different.
And whatever the consequence, he suddenly knew he could no longer serve as an accomplice to the demon. He was done even if it meant death.
He was the first Damien du Bourg, and the last.
And he was going to will his plantation, his town house in the French Quarter, everything he owned, to Marley. She would take care of his legacy, tend the houses, appreciate his history.
Lying on his back, he stared up at the sky, grateful for everything he'd been given, regretful that he'd wasted so much. Rosa floated in front of him, doing that hovering thing that he couldn't stand. She only did it when she wanted to remind him she was a demon-child. Like he ever forgot.
"You're blocking my view," he told her, too tired to play games with her.
She landed on the grass with a soft thump, sitting beside him. "You look so pitiful I actually feel sorry for you." Wrapping her arms around her knees, she nudged his leg with her foot. "You hate me, don't you?"
He sighed. "No, I don't hate you."
"But I gave you this, and it makes you miserable."
"I asked for it. You warned me you couldn't undo it. I take responsibility for my own actions."
"I wanted you to be sorry you'd asked, you know, and I wanted you to love me. But I didn't really understand what love is. I'm not sure I ever will. I think the demon in me overrules the human."
Damien glanced over at Rosa. She had her chin on her knees. "I don't know, Rosa. I wouldn't be surprised if you met a man and found yourself head over heels. Sometimes I think you're a pretty big softie for being a demon. Look at how many times you've watched my back or warned me about something."
"I set you up this time. I knew you'd fall for Marley."
He shrugged. "I don't regret that. Not at all. And you did what you had to do."
"Damien…"
"Yeah?" He plucked at the grass blades with his finger, waiting for her to continue.
"I was with Marie when she died," she said in a rush. "I tried… I tried to help her. I felt… guilty. I didn't know I could feel guilty, but I did, that night. But it was too late. The only way to save her was to change her, and she wouldn't accept that. I'm sorry. I truly am."