My Immortal (Seven Deadly Sins #1)(62)
Author: Erin McCarthy

He wanted out one way or another, once and for all.

She clearly hadn’t noticed the gun sitting behind him on the table until he lifted it up, because her eyes suddenly went wide with alarm. Damien settled it into his hand and spoke to her, hoping she could hear, could understand how earnest, how serious he was. "I just want you to know the truth, because I have fallen in love with you. I want you to understand that it is an honest feeling, even though I haven’t been honest with you. I hope you can forgive me, and understand why I couldn’t tell you about me before."

The color drained out of Marley’s face. "No," she whispered, fingers lifting up.

Damien smiled at her. She was amazingly beautiful, so vital and good and sweet. "See you in ten minutes, ma cherie."

And he put the gun to his chest and pulled the trigger.

Marley screamed and screamed, feeling it rise up and out of her throat and mouth, wrap around her head, echo on all sides of her, smother out everything except for the terror and the hideous sound of her own agony.

It had happened so fast. Suddenly he had a gun, and before she could process what he meant to do, think how she could stop him, he had shot himself, the sound deafening, his body falling backward on the table.

She ran over to him, her shriek trailing off as she forced herself into action. There had to be a phone, his cell phone somewhere, maybe in his pocket, and she had to call for help. Blinking back tears, she fought the urge to give in to hysteria and tried to think, tried to figure out what to do. He was on his back, his left shoulder slumping over the side of the table.

As she scanned from head to toe, she couldn’t see where he was injured, couldn’t see any blood. There was a blackish dust on his hands, but no other obvious wound. That wasn’t right. Didn’t make sense.

"Damien," she said in frustration and helplessness. What the hell had he done to himself? Patting his pocket, she found his cell phone, was trying to pry it out of his jeans, her damp hands slipping and sliding across the plastic.

His chest was moving, so he was breathing. He wasn’t dead and he wasn’t bleeding. Getting the phone out, she paused for a second, staring hard at his shirt. There was a hole, a small jagged tear, in the center. Marley grabbed the bottom of it, gently eased it up. His chest was covered in blood, the room having been too dim for her to see it soaking through his dark colored shirt. She could hear his labored breathing, see his chest rising up and down rapidly, like he was in pain. Yet she still didn’t see an obvious wound.

"Marley."

Marley snapped her head up, found herself looking into his green eyes, open and alert. "Damien? What the hell happened? I can’t see where you’re bleeding from… I saw you shoot yourself. God, you must be in so much pain."

Shaking his head, he pulled himself to a sitting position. "Listen to me. I’m fine. I cannot die, do you understand? I am immortal, servant to the Grigori demons."

"That’s not possible… you shot yourself. I saw it." Marley touched his chest, smoothed her hands over his unblemished flesh, ran her touch across tendons and muscles and paused to feel his heartbeat. She was losing her mind. She had seen and heard that gun go off. Yet there was absolutely no evidence of that.

His arms came around her, his warm lips pressed to her forehead. "I shot myself so you would believe me when I tell you this. I was born in New Orleans in the year 1765, the Creole son of Phillipe du Bourg, a wealthy indigo planter, and his equally wealthy wife, Serena Beaumont du Bourg, the daughter of a French landowner. In 1789 I married my wife Marie Bouvier in France and brought her here to Rosa de Montana after the death of my father. In 1790—"

"That’s enough!" Marley cut him off, yanking back out of his arms.

"Marley, it’s the truth. You need to know who and what I am."

Thoughts colliding, Marley pressed her eyes closed, picturing the gun going off, seeing in her mind him falling backward, remembering the hideous laugh of Anna on her porch, Rosa’s knowing, helpful smile… everyone knowing, knowing, while she knew nothing, while she stumbled around in the dark, falling in love with a man who was not, could not, be over two hundred years old.

But was. Backing up, she stared at him, knowing the truth, hearing it, feeling it, despising it. While her brain revolted, screamed that it was illogical, impossible, the core of her knew the truth. Believed. For if God existed, which she knew He did, so did demons. And for whatever reason, Damien had signed on to serve the side of evil, and his life was unnatural, without positive purpose.

"No, this isn’t happening. This isn’t real." She shook her head, stared again at his chest.

"It’s real. I’m real. Immortal."

Marley felt a hot, sick taste in her mouth. The truth was before her, no matter how much she didn’t want to believe it. And if he was immortal, if he had been the first, the only Damien du Bourg, those letters from Marie were real. All that pain, all that suffering had been endured.

And like Marie, Marley had fallen under the spell of the demon servant, had given her body, her heart to Damien, had let him strip her of her inhibitions and boost her up the ladder of sin one rung at a time.

He must have sensed her withdrawal, because he shook his head, reached out and grabbed her hand. "Don’t do this, don’t pull back from me. Let me explain. You know who I am now, know the man I try so hard to be. If I could give it all back, if I could redeem myself, make right all the wrongs I’ve done, I would. I’ve learned from my mistakes. I was young, I was foolish, selfish. That is not who I am anymore."

Marley stumbled backwards, the expensive new sandals he’d bought her sticking to the brick floor. She clutched his cell phone in one hand, turned and ran yet again, terrified of him, of her own feelings, of the sensation that her entire world was caving in upon her, heavy bricks of truths raining down, smacking and smarting.

"Where are you going? Marley, stop!"

But she couldn’t stop. She ran down the path away from the house, through the lane of oak trees, past the slave cabins, shadowed and ominous and hushed in their dilapidation. It was dark, but the moon was high, and she wanted to disappear. Just run on and on into the night, until it was all gone and she was back home, just Marley Turner, family martyr, where none of this existed, and she and her sister were safe.

Damien was chasing her. She could hear the pounding of his feet, but he was barefoot and slower than usual, maybe an after effect of shooting himself. The sugar cane fields loomed in front of her, and to the right, the swamp. She had the overwhelming urge to run straight into the murky water, to just splash in to her chest and to let oblivion take over, sinking under the cold, dark curtain, where sound and time and reality stood still. Nearly there, she was startled when Damien reached out, grabbed her arm, yanked her back.