Villain

His promise. His vow. He’d broken it.

“You love her. You’ve been waiting for her all along.” It wasn’t a question. Stella knew it, could somehow feel the wrenching pain she’d caused. It was her fault, of course. Her sudden, inexplicable neediness. Her lust. She’d damned him with it.

She might as well have shot him.

Oh, how utterly more despicable could she be?

Her voice trembled, a knot in her throat almost clogging her words. “Faith wanted to come back. I know she did, and…oh, God, what have I done?”

“Why do you tell me this now?” He shook his head, locks of raven black hair brushing over his forehead. “How can you know about her?”

Her body was shaking so hard she could barely stay upright. “She talks to me. I have dreams…I see things, her memories. I think she wants to come to you. I think she was asking for my help, and instead…”

“Stella,” he said in a low, hard voice. “It. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”

But she hardly paid attention to his words, because, of course, it was her fault. If she hadn’t been so wanton…“Yes, it is!”

“It’s not your fault, Stella,” he repeated, reaching out to her even as she stepped sideways to avoid him.

“I told you,” she began with a voice perilously close to breaking, “if you gave me your body, I’d give you mine.”

He was silent, his hand reaching out to her and again being avoided by her. Taking another step backward, she swallowed the lump in her throat and gathered the courage to meet his gaze. “Take it.”

His eyes widened. What?

“I said take it.”

He frowned angrily. Stop it.

“No,” she said flatly. “Summon her back. Use your magic, use my body, it’s yours. Use it and bring her back.”

Gabriel’s hands balled at his sides, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Shut up, Stella.

She felt her body start to shake. “You want to do it. Don’t pretend you don’t, and I want you to. I do!” She felt so lonely with Faith inside her, haunted by her horrible memories and her dreadful past. If Faith wasn’t happy, Stella never would be. She knew it now. She wasn’t giving her life to anyone when it had never even been her own in the first place. “I’m not doing this to be noble. I just can’t stand it.” She pines away for you in my mind, and I feel like I pine for you too, and you’ll never be mine, ever!

His face was twisted with rage, sparks burning in his eyes. “Stop this,” he said, that low hiss quivering with withheld power.

But she was deaf to him, to his words, and instead she spread her arms apart, tears stinging in her eyes. “Take me out of this body and call her in please.”

“Never.”

“Do it.”

“Shut the fuck up, Stella!”

“Do it, damn you!”

With an unearthly roar that filled her ears, he lunged at her, red-hot rage flashing in his eyes as he spread his palms open and covered her face with them. Words spilled out of his lips, dark and poetic, like a foreign chant brimming with magic, and then his spell took hold of her, flinging her into blackness.

Chapter Four

“You’re coming to, thank God!”

Stella stared up at the lines of worry on her mother’s face, and then quickly sat up on the bed, gazing around at her small, cozy bedroom.

“What am I doing here,” she asked, “in my room?” Damn you, Gabriel, you stupid, hotheaded man.

He’d damned well better hear that!