“Yes. Essentially.”
“So you decided to jerk off to my sister!” Amelia stood and pointed at the wall as if Sky was there. Perhaps she was.
“It is not like that,” Damien explained. “I have methods of keeping certain emotions in check. I was imagining someone else, but there must’ve been a moment when Sky slipped into my thoughts.”
“I repeat! You killed my sister by jerking off to her?” Amelia narrowed her beautiful brown eyes, which reminded him of Sky.
Damien looked away. “Call it whatever you like, but you must leave now.”
Pet returned, holding a roll of plastic wrap. What was she doing with it? “Sky says you need to protect them. And she believes your curse isn’t what you think.”
Was that why she’d invited her sister and Miguel? She thought the curse was a joke? “I assure you, my curse is genuine and very dangerous. I have lived with it for a very long time.”
“She says you should open your eyes.”
What the hell did that mean?
Tell them about me. Do it, tailor. It is the only way to make them see.
His beast was right. There was much more to the situation, and if Damien wanted everyone gone, he had to inform them of the true danger.
“You do not understand, Sky.” Damien spoke to the ceiling, not knowing where else to look. “My curse is the least deadly thing about me.” He lowered his voice, finding it difficult to explain. “I am not alone in this body. It is shared with what is essentially my twin brother. He is a depraved animal, a heartless killer, and he has the darkest soul you will ever encounter. None of you are safe in my presence.”
The room fell quiet.
Finally. Damien had gotten their attention. He was no gentleman.
CHAPTER TWENTY
After his confession, Damien went upstairs to shower. He figured by the time he was done, they would all be gone.
Funny. He had never shared that information about his beast with anyone since Willamina.
Now that he had, Damien felt more in control. “You must live in the light, Damien, so that your brother will always remain in the dark,” his father used to say.
Was this what he had meant? Acknowledging the truth.
Because his father had never shied away from embracing his own twin. Neither had his grandfather. They had both wielded their dark beasts with absolute control while Damien always attempted to temper it, hide it, fight it.
Generations of Greystones, and he was the first to turn his back on what his family called a gift.
Frankly, he never saw it as such, but perhaps that had more to do with her…
They had agreed to meet around midnight in their usual spot. It was near the old barn just past the Millers’ farm. It was where they had spent the last three months kissing, fucking, and talking of a different life. One where they lived together.
A dream, of course.
Willamina was a duchess now, ten times more beautiful than when he’d met her as a girl before she went off to London. She had grown into a confident, intelligent woman with a defiant streak.
These past months, Damien had come to love her more than words could say, which was why it took everything he had to keep himself grounded. They had this moment and only this moment. No matter how much they spoke of it, they would never marry, have children, or share a proper bed. A world of wealth, rank, and tradition separated them.
Her path was set, as was his.
Now twenty-nine years old, he would soon take over the family business and likely marry one of the submissive, uneducated women his father was foisting on him. They’d tried for years to get him to wed, but he resisted. For good reason. His beast could turn him into the sort of man no woman deserved to live with.
“Damien?” Willa said, brushing her fingertips through the coarse hairs on his chest as they lay naked on a mound of hay.
“Yes, my love?” He stroked the creamy skin of her arm while staring up at the night sky. So many stars. Where did they all come from?
“I have to tell you something—a secret,” she said.
Ah. She meant to tell him that she loved him. “I am ready.” He smiled.
“I am a witch.”
He chuckled. “But of course you are, because, as you so plainly see, you have bewitched me.”
He lifted his head to kiss her hair.
“No, I am a witch in the truest sense.” She sat up, her bare breasts catching the light of the quarter moon.
He frowned. He had come to know Willa well these past few months. She had a way about her that was difficult to read. Sometimes she spoke from the heart, and it sounded like a farce. Other times, the opposite.
“All right, my witch.” He took a lock of her golden hair and slid it between his fingers, admiring the soft texture. “Tell me what spells you have for us on this fine evening.”
“I am going to kill my husband.”
He dropped her lock of hair. “That is a dark thing to joke of,” he said, displeased.
“I do not jest, Damien. I am a witch. Years ago, I used my gifts to lure him to me, to make me a grand duchess, and now I shall use my gifts to end his life and be with you. You shall inherit his title, land, and wealth—as I cannot by law—and you will become the father of my children—something he has been unable to give me.”
Damien instantly sensed that Willa was not jesting at all. “Willamina, stop this at once. You cannot make light of murder.”
“I am not making light. Do you not believe I am what I say?”
He sat up. “No.”
“Damien Greystone,” she objected, her tone harsh. “You are a descendant of the knights who survived the Battle of a Thousand Beheadings, of the men who sold their souls to the devil in exchange for sparing their people’s village against an onslaught of Vikings.”
That was folklore. Legend. Passed down from generation to generation. The truth was, no one in his family knew how they had evolved this way. Every male was born a twin.
One good. One bad.
One body to share.
It was always the task of the good twin to stay in command, only allowing the evil brother to assume control when it was required. Fight, survive, defend. The beast that resided within was a weapon.
What no one, not even his father, had cared to tell him was that the more fighting, surviving, and defending they did, the more difficult it became to contain the beast. His bloodlust only grew.
“How do you know about me?” he asked Willa. He had never shared this information with her.
“Because I am a witch. I can see your brother looking at me, just behind your eyes.”
He stood and began dressing. “Whatever the case, you cannot kill your husband.”
She stood, not bothering to put on her dress. “Do you not love me?”
He did. But her underhanded scheme went against everything he believed in. She had made a vow to that man. It was one thing to be an adulteress, but to kill him? For what crime? For taking her as his wife? For making her a duchess?
Additionally, there was the matter of his unwelcome passenger. She would never truly be safe around him. Children even less. If he married, it would be out of loyalty to his father. It would be to a woman who knew how to stay out of his way, out of his bed, and to not ask questions.
“Willa, I cannot marry you because you are already married, and I cannot be a part of your scheme to make you a widow. I live by a code. There are rules—”