Chapter 90: Cleaning up the past

Rose's mind was an incessant whirlwind as she made her way from the airport to Damien's sprawling gothic revival manor. Each plodding mile marker only stoked the blazing crucible of her fury into incandescent new heights.

How could he have done this? How did she ever love such a man with every immolating fiber of her being, why would he enmesh himself in the very same malign conspiracy responsible for Blake's ruination?

The thought caused a pulse of scintillant rage to detonate in the pit of her stomach. She could still so vividly recall the ardor of Damien's pursuit all those centuries ago - the smoldering promise sheathed behind each whispered endearment, every searing caress a vow to cherish and shelter her until the inexorable laws of entropy finally wrenched them asunder.