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Immortal Bride
Immortal Bride
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Immortal Bride

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Her fingers trembling, she plucked at the long, full skirt of the gown. “It’s not too much? I know we wanted to keep things simple.” Dark pink color flooded her pale skin. “And it’s not like we’ve never done it before….”

He reached out and pressed a finger across her lips. “Shhh…” He sought to settle her nerves even as ones of his own rushed up to squeeze his chest. “Tonight is our first time.”

Beneath his finger her lips curved into a smile of amusement. “Damien…”

“Tonight is our first time as man and wife.” He moved his finger back and forth across the silkiness of her full lips. “Tonight is the first time I sleep with my bride….”

“This bride,” she murmured, her eyes soft with vulnerability.

Since he’d met her, which had actually been a few short months ago, he had witnessed only her strength and confidence. He had never glimpsed her insecurity until that moment.

Did she have doubts or regrets about marrying him? “Olivia?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head so that her hair swirled around her shoulders. “I shouldn’t have mentioned her—”

But now that she had, the pressure that had weighed on Damien for years returned. He shoved a hand through his hair and said, “Maybe we shouldn’t have come here.”

“You didn’t want to,” she reminded him. “I talked you into it.”

And he should have followed his gut instinct and stayed away from the lake. Hell, maybe he should have sold the house and property. Unlike Nathan and Olivia, with their fascination with the past, Damien preferred to leave it behind and move on to the future. But he and Olivia had met here at the lake, and so he had allowed himself to be persuaded to return for their honeymoon.

Their honeymoon.

He was the one who needed to move on, to let the past go and focus on the future. His future with Olivia.

“I intend to give you everything you want, Olivia,” he promised.

She gazed up at him, her blue eyes soft, and insisted, “I only want you.”

He lifted his hand and ran his thumb over the gold band on his finger. “You have me.”

“I’m greedy,” she said, her lips lifting in a smile again, but one that was more wistful than amused. “I want all of you.”

He had worried that she would want more from him than he could give. But yet he had proposed. Maybe it was the gambler in him that had compelled him to risk his heart again. Or maybe it was her.

“You have all of me,” he assured her. “I’m here.”

Not at the chain of casinos that usually consumed all his time and energy but that had rewarded him for his hard work and dedication with more money than he would ever be able to spend.

“And I’m with you—only you.” Because of her, he was able to move on beyond the pain of his past.

He pushed his fingers into her soft hair, cupping her head and tipping up her face so she’d meet his gaze. “You are everything to me.”

Her breath shuddered out in a warm caress against his throat and chin. “I love you. I love you.”

Damien, as a gambler, was used to taking risks. But he didn’t like to drop his poker face and reveal his hand. Too many times the other person had proved to be bluffing. But this was Olivia, and even though he hadn’t known her long, he felt he knew her well, well enough to trust her. “And I love you….”

“Prove it to me,” she challenged, shrugging off the white silk robe to leave her creamy shoulders bare but for the narrow straps of the gown. Through the thin lace, he caught glimpses of her body—the swell of her breasts, the shadow of her navel and her rosy areolas. Under his intense stare, her nipples hardened and penetrated the flimsy material.

He groaned. “That’s some gown.”

“Negligee.”

“Whatever it is, I like it,” he said as he slid his finger under one of the straps. “But I’d like it even more off you.”

“You’re the one with too many clothes on,” she complained, reaching for his tie, unknotting and then sliding it free of his shirt. Next she attacked the buttons, undoing them to bare his chest to her soft hands and softer lips.

His heart pounded hard beneath her mouth. He tangled his fingers in the silken strands of her hair and tugged gently so that her face tipped up to his. Leaning forward, he pressed his mouth to hers. He nibbled first at her lips then deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into the sweet warmth of her mouth, as he couldn’t wait to bury himself inside her body.

His blood was rushing through his veins as he slid his mouth from hers, over her delicate jaw to her neck. Her pulse pounded with a passion nearly as fierce as his. He moved his hands over the silk and lace covering her body, tracing the dip of her waist, the curve of her hips…

Then he cupped her breasts and rubbed his thumbs across the nipples protruding through the gown. When he replaced one thumb with his mouth, suckling through the lace and tugging gently with his teeth, Olivia moaned and tangled her fingers in his hair, pressing his head against her breasts. “Damien, please….”

He lifted his gaze to meet hers. The pale blue irises nearly swallowed by her enlarged pupils, she stared down at him. “Please,” she repeated, “give me everything….”

“Oh, I intend to,” he promised as he pushed the straps of the gown from her shoulders. The white lace slithered down her body, puddling at her feet, leaving her pale skin bare but for the flush of passion. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed and vowed, “I’m going to give you everything, Wife, and not just tonight….”

But for the rest of their lives. He had intended to spend his life making her happy, not mourning her loss.

That night had marked the beginning of their marriage and was supposed to have been the beginning of their life together. But less than a week later, before the honeymoon had ended, Olivia was dead.

Rubbing a slightly shaking hand over his face, he stared out the window again. A storm had rolled in with his turbulent memories. Dark clouds hung over the fog-enshrouded lake while thunder rumbled in the distance. Then lightning broke the clouds, illuminating the sky, the lake, the rocky shore—and her.

Olivia, wearing that same silk-and-lace gown he’d taken off her on their wedding night, walked along the shore. The lightning caught in her hair, making the long blond strands as luminescent as moonlight.

He pounded his fist against the curved glass and screamed her name: “Olivia!”

Lightning flashed, cutting through the mist to illuminate the rocky shore and the house on the hill above it—and the man standing at the window of the bedroom in the second story of the turret. Thunder drowned out his voice, but from the way he moved his lips, she could tell he screamed her name.

She froze on the shore, unable to move, her gaze locked with his. Then the dark clouds dropped closer to the earth, blocking the house and him from her vision. But her tension did not ease; she was as restless as the weather. The crisp spring wind whipped around the lake, shaking the boughs of the ancient pines. Thunder boomed with such force that the rocks on the shore beneath her trembled, and above her, the windows of the house rattled.

Then lightning cracked again, illuminating the house. But no one stood at the upstairs window anymore. Because now he stood—just a couple of yards—in front of her, his handsome face stark with shock as the color drained from his usually dark skin. “Olivia…?”

He could see her.

This was what she’d wanted, she reminded herself, as panic choked her. She had wanted him to see her. She had needed him to see her to exact her revenge.

But when he lifted his arms and reached for her, the panic turned to fear. And she spun around, running along the shore.

“Olivia!”

The scrape of his shoes against the rocks warned her that he followed. And his ragged breath rising above the wind warned that he drew closer.

With dread she turned to the lake. Every time she went back in, she had to fight harder to reach the surface—to leave those icy depths. But while she’d wanted him to see her, she wasn’t ready yet. She wasn’t as strong as she needed to be to face him. She dove into the water, sinking fast as the lake, pulling at her gown and her hair, sucked her deep.

God, what had she done? Why had she run? It wasn’t as if he could kill her twice. She was already dead….

The water shifted around her, as another body fought against the power of the lake. But this one was alive, for now. Damien’s long legs and arms thrashed as he dove deep. Looking for her?

All these months of restless wandering, this was what she had wanted, for what she had waited. For him to see her. And for an opportunity for revenge. She would have no more perfect opportunity than now…than for him to experience the same fate she had.

Death.

Six months ago, on one night of their honeymoon, she had waited on the shore for him to return from checking in at the casino in Grayson. Wearing only her wedding-night negligee and moonlight, she had planned a special surprise for him. Anticipation had rushed through her as she’d heard the distinctive engine of his custom-made sports car pulling into the drive. But she hadn’t anticipated the attack moments later. She’d had only a momentary flash of foreboding before the blow—not enough warning to react. To save herself and…

She had been knocked over the head and dumped into the lake. The icy water had shocked her into consciousness, and she had fought hard against the hands holding her beneath the water. His hands. She had clawed and kicked, trying to free herself. But then the water had filled her lungs, and she had lost her strength and consciousness again. She’d sunk deep to the bottom of the lake that legend claimed was bottomless. Because no one had ever reached such depths…and lived.

And this time, neither would he…

She cut through the water until she found him. He had changed direction now, kicking toward the surface, unwilling to dive as deep as he had sent her, as he had consigned her for eternity. And she reached out, manacling her fingers around his ankle.

This was the revenge she had wanted, she reminded herself, as doubts assailed her. This was what he deserved for what he had done to her. An eye for an eye…

A life for a life…

But he hadn’t taken just one.

Lungs burning with oxygen deprivation, Damien fought his way toward the surface—toward air. But something caught his foot, wrapping around his ankle and pulling him down. Above him lightning flashed, illuminating the lake and those precious feet that separated him from the surface.

What the hell had he been thinking to leap into the Lake of Tears after an apparition? She couldn’t be real. God, he was losing his mind. And now maybe his life…

He kicked with one foot, the other still caught. Something cold, but which paradoxically heated his blood, wound tight around his ankle, trapping him beneath the water. Panic pressed against his chest, adding to the constriction from lack of oxygen. He had to stay calm if he intended to stay alive.

But hell, what was the point of fighting, of living, when he had nothing for which—for whom—to live?

But he was a Gray—a Gray Wolf, actually, before his ancestors had dropped their surname. And through history Grays had always been fierce warriors. Damien could not stop fighting because he didn’t know how; it was too much a part of his nature, the very essence of who and what he was.

Summoning the last of his energy, as unconsciousness threatened, his vision growing black, he turned in the water, diving down to see on what he was caught.

And he saw her. Pale—almost translucent—fingers wrapped around his ankle, trapping him under the water.

Why?

Her face lifted toward his, and their gazes met. Those pale blue eyes, which had once shone with love whenever she’d looked at him, were now hard and cold with hatred.

“Why?” he mouthed the word at her. And as he did, the last of his air left his lungs and his world went black, swallowing her ghostly image from his sight as the Lake of Tears swallowed his body.

The ancient ghost of an Indian shaman stood on the rocky slope, where he had died centuries ago, before a sorceress’s tears had filled the deep ravineand formed the lake. And he watched and waited, hoping that this time the Gray Wolf warrior would not rise from the depths of the abyss and live….

Chapter 2

Head pounding like the beat of an ancient war drum, Damien crept back to consciousness. His skin stung as the icy chill receded, chased away by the warmth of a blazing fire and a scratchy wool blanket. He knocked the blanket aside as he lifted his hand and pushed his shaking fingers through his still-damp hair.

“It was real,” he murmured, his throat raspy with shock and cold.

“It was stupid,” a deep voice grumbled as a man kicked shut the door of the small cabin and dropped chunks of wood onto the floor near the mammoth stone fireplace. “What the hell, man? What were you thinking?”

“Nathan…” Damien recognized the rough-hewn pine boards of the ceiling and the log walls of his cousin’s cabin. The structure in the woods was even older than the house sitting on the rocky edge of the Lake of Tears. “You pulled me out?”

“Again,” Nathan said.

He had been there last time—six months ago. He had dragged Damien, kicking and swinging, from the water and convinced him it was pointless to search for Olivia. He hadn’t even known for certain that she’d drowned.

But Damien had found her robe and her shoes on the rocky shore. And he had guessed where she’d been.

And tonight, he knew for certain. She hadn’t run off as Nathan had tried to convince him she had.

She was dead.

“You were there,” Damien said as he pushed himself up, bracing his elbow on the arm of the couch on which he lay. “Again…”

“Lucky for you,” Nathan said.

For a man who made his living gambling, Damien was actually remarkably unfortunate—in love. “Yeah, lucky for me…”

His cousin turned to him, his dark gaze penetrating. “Were you trying…to kill yourself?”

“God, no.” But Olivia had tried to kill him. Why? Had she only grown to hate him that much after her death, or had she hated him before? Had her love been a lie?

“Then what the hell were you doing out there, in the lake,” Nathan demanded to know with anger and concern, “in the middle of a storm?”

Head still pounding, Damien winced at the volume of his cousin’s voice, and the memory of what had compelled him to risk the storm and the icy water of the Lake of Tears.

Her…

Not willing yet to share what—who—he had seen, he asked instead, “What were you doing out in the storm?”

“My job. I’m the caretaker here,” Nathan reminded him. “Your caretaker.”

Damien suspected his cousin didn’t refer to the fact that Nathan worked for him but that he was worried about him, about how he’d been living, actually barely living, since Olivia had disappeared nearly six months ago.

“If you weren’t trying to kill yourself,” Nathan persisted, “what the hell were you doing? You know the lake is bottomless. Some of our ancestors believed it to be the portal to the other world.”

“Hell,” Damien uttered the word as more than a curse, as a destiny. He should have known better than to think he could ever find happiness. “Hell is where this place always sends me. I never should have brought her here—not after—”

“She wanted to come. You told me that,” Nathan remembered. The man never forgot anything, nothing from his lifetime or from the lifetimes of the ancestors who had lived before him and Damien. “You said she wanted to spend your honeymoon here in the house on the lake.”

And like a damn fool Damien had wanted to give her everything she wanted. “I should have told her no.”

“But it was where you met….”

The first time he’d seen her had been on the rocky shore of the Lake of Tears. For years he had hated coming to the Victorian house on the lake, and he had only visited when absolutely necessary to meet with Nathan. If not for his cousin, he would have sold the estate long ago. But Nathan had convinced him it was Damien’s legacy and that he was honor bound by their people to care for the lake and the property.

Damien had been cutting around the lake, heading to the woods and Nathan’s cabin, when he’d come upon her standing on the rocky shore. Even then he hadn’t believed that she was real; she was far too beautiful to be simply human.

The summer wind played with her hair, whipping platinum-blond locks across her face and around her shoulders. She wore a linen vest, sleeveless and low cut that revealed the shadow between her breasts, and pants in the same pale blue of her eyes. The wind molded the linen to her curves, revealing more than it covered.

“You are the most beautiful trespasser I’ve ever had,” Damien remarked with an appreciative whistle, drawing her from her contemplation of the lake.