Everything seemed to be where it should. She was Ravenna Mal.
“Raven!”
She blinked, her heart leaping into her throat. Never had another man said that name.
“Raven, come on. Stop scaring these nice people and sit up.” He leaned down, close enough for her to feel his hot breath fanning through her hair, and her blood rushed. Men simply didn’t speak or act this way around women they hadn’t known in the manner left to the marriage bed. Who was he? How did he know her?
And where could she find Nicolai?
Perhaps Paimon meant to test her.
“Dexter,” the man said, tapping his chest. “Tell me you know who I am.”
Ravenna just blinked.
“For crying out loud, I knew we shouldn’t have come out tonight.”
“Dexter,” she repeated.
Worry washed away from his face, not completely but enough. There was, she supposed, some comfort in hearing one’s name in the midst of panic. “Okay,” he said, tugging at her arm. “Enough fooling around, Rave, get off the floor.”
“Good idea,” she agreed, crawling to her feet and dusting herself off. Her clothing was…well, interesting, but she decided not to linger. Chalk it up to being in a foreign time, surrounded by people she didn’t know. The man at her side might be anyone, but he knew her, and that seemed more than she could say for herself.
All that mattered was getting to Nicolai.
“All right,” Ravenna said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I have to go.”
Dexter’s panic came blazing back without warning. “Go? Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Well, I think it’s obvious,” Ravenna said firmly. “I’m going to find Nicolai.”
“Nicolai?”
“Yes. He’s why I’m here, and I’m going to find him now.”
Before Dexter could grab her wrist, Ravenna had turned on her heel and tore into the night.
She had a vampire to find.
Chapter 3
Nicholas wouldn’t to toss away a golden opportunity like this. The birthdays of the Few served as the perfect time for attack. According to myth, myth he’d hunted down and proven as fact, the hour between midnight and one in the morning served as the time when the Few stood most susceptible to the night’s ugly games. The transition phase went quickly, but he had a window of opportunity, especially since Octavia had indicated that Raven turned twenty-one at midnight, and twenty-one was an uncannily mystical number due to its relationship with seven and three.
Personally, Nicholas didn’t give a fuck how numbers worked. He just knew that the cosmos aligned a bit more perfectly on some nights than others, and tonight would shape up to be one of those nights.
Raven turning twenty-one meant her strength would fortify. Not many of the Few got to that age—even more died upon arriving—and Nicholas had good intention to make sure her luck ran the same. He’d hunt her down and snap her neck. He’d spice his liquor with her blood and make a trophy of her body. He’d been merciful with the Few in the past, but with Raven, any semblance of his favorable side would be nonexistent.
In order to obliterate her from his dreams, he needed to obliterate her.
Perhaps then he’d win back his nights.
Or perhaps he’d be haunted by her face forever.
Nicholas shuddered and snarled. The girl best not even consider wheedling her way any further into his psyche. The way he figured it, he’d have to send his brain through a shredder before Raven’s face faded to ambiguity. Too many things remained of his existence that he wanted to remember, and wouldn’t forfeit for the sake of banishing one troublesome warrior.
It was ridiculous how deeply one little girl could affect him. One girl whom he’d only twice encountered in the flesh. He’d seen her dance, had approached and felt heat rolling off her hot little body. Every glance he’d stolen of her since had been at a woeful distance.
Then there was that time they’d met while she patrolled one of the local cemeteries. He’d tried to kill her, she’d tried to kill him, the typical song and dance. Neither one of them had gotten very far, and he didn’t care to examine why.
Nicholas had already reconciled himself to the fact that he wasn’t one for master plans. He had a hard time staying away so necessary events could unfold. What he truly wanted was to storm up to her, provoke her into a fight, and rip her beautiful head off her shoulders. He didn’t want to be patient. He wanted this to end. Now.
He wanted to get her up close. He wanted to get his hands on that annoyingly perfect skin of hers.
He wanted…
To fuck her into the ground.
Nicholas snarled again and turned a sharp corner down an unfamiliar alleyway. And without warning—without anything at all—her scent filled his nostrils. Her potent, intoxicating scent. The musk of the girl, undeniable in its richness. The flavor of Raven Rayne, undeniably Raven Rayne.
Something significant shifted inside him. His cock took immediate notice as well.
And then he saw her. A fucking vision if one existed. She moved down a dark alleyway with nothing but confidence at her side. Her mahogany hair made her a true visage of his night angel. Her eyes were large and bright. She was lost, but unafraid. She moved like royalty, and she was looking for something.
He knew the moment she sensed him. He saw the shudder of realization grip her shoulders, heard the gasp that claimed the night air, watched as she raised her head and met his eyes. All at once, he felt thoroughly paralyzed, as though trapped in an odd moment of pure déjà vu. His mind scrambled to catch up with the fading memory of something long forgotten, but it raced too fast for him to catch. Somehow in the shadow of an instant everything had changed.
He needed to kill her quickly before he talked himself out of it, and preferably before the angel of his dreams turned into something of his nightmares.
As a vampire, he knew how particularly horrific nightmares could be.
“Nicolai,” she breathed, her eyes shining with tears.
Everything inside him collapsed. He hadn’t heard that name in years.
His true name.
Then she burst into tears, hard, body-consuming tears that could only be shed in the light of one’s greatest loss or one’s greatest triumph. She lurched over, holding her stomach as her whole being collapsed in sobs. Before he could stop himself, Nicholas rushed forward, a twist of fear and concern seizing his insides, shielded with an overpowering veil of confusion. The whispers in his brain commanding him to snap her neck faded to the hysterical screaming that suddenly demanded her safety. He didn’t understand it, and he moved too fast to allow second-guessing.
He didn’t even have time to shake off his fangs. Before he could even consider blinking back to the part of him that even vaguely resembled sanity, Raven choked a heartbreaking sob and lunged into his arms. Then she captured his face between her warm, warrior’s hands and touched her tear-stained lips to his.
Some inner dam broke. Reason shot far out the proverbial window. The salt of her tears collided with his taste buds, meshing everything he knew and everything yet-to-be-decided in a colorful frenzy of meaningless shapes. All he knew at that moment was that somehow redemption, purity, and light had manifested in Raven’s kiss, and he found himself aching for something he’d never thought to touch or desire. The part of him screaming in protest swiftly fell silent in defeat by the man yearning for the visage of perfection that haunted his dreams.
The warmth of her tongue invaded his mouth. Her tears doused his cheeks, and her kiss set his body aflame. He touched the sun, her taste consuming every nerve in his body. She ripped him apart and pieced him together. She caressed him like a lover, holding him to her as she explored every crevice of his mouth, as she touched him as no other woman had ever touched him. Her hands didn’t abandon his face, didn’t dip between them to rub his denim-clad erection. They didn’t do anything but hold him to her as she bathed him in sunlight.
“I
’m so sorry,” she sobbed against his mouth when their lips parted. “Nicolai, I’m so sorry.”
Nicholas blinked, bewildered.
“I had to do it. I had to. I had to find a way to bring you back. I couldn’t…God, I couldn’t…”
He stared at her broken face, the fragmented pieces of his mind clawing for some sense of understanding. None came forward. Instead, all he had was an armful of weeping woman. No, she definitely embodied a girl tonight, a girl whispering soft, tender kisses across his face, even kissing his fang when his jaw refused to snap upward.
“I’m so sorry,” she whimpered again, her small, perfect breasts pressed fully against his chest. “Nicolai, oh Nicolai…”
Nicholas’s gaze wandered covetously over her face before focusing on her round mouth again. He became painfully aware of her feminine softness. She burned him up through his clothing, and if he got any harder, he would burst through his zipper.
He needed to get her somewhere secluded, away from prying eyes.
Not that he cared a lick if the girl flaunted her goodies to the world. The fact that she currently looked at him as though he’d descended from the heavens was an entirely different matter. She’d wound up trapped under some wonky spell, and if he wasn’t careful she would entangle him in her web.
He moved her quickly through the nearest doorway he spotted, and found himself inside what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse and without the faintest clue how to proceed. His mind rapidly deteriorated. What had seemed so important just a few minutes ago had muddied into something beyond his understanding. Intellectually, Nicholas knew it’d be simple to off her now, to trap her gorgeous little head between his hands and give it a good twist until she was nothing more than a lifeless heap at his feet. It seemed easy—beyond easy—rendering her nothing more than a footnote in history, a name with an asterisk beside it in some old Guardian’s dusty volume.
But he couldn’t. God, he couldn’t. Fuck if he knew why, but he stood powerless against it, powerless against her.
She wove a spell around him, fogging his senses and dragging him into the murky place where dreams attempted to overpower reality.
God help him but he let her.
“Hush now,” he murmured, his voice resonating with tenderness he’d never used with anyone other than his sire. He placed her atop a crate, his hands sliding up her body, barely skimming her breasts, and cupping her face as she’d cupped his outside. “Look at me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
Her face began to crumble again, her tear-filled eyes taking in his face. “You changed your hair,” she said, running her fingers through his short chestnut locks.
“Did I?”
“It’s…shorter.”
“Been this way a while.” His hands slid down the length of her, careful not to cross any boundaries, if there were boundaries to cross. “Fancy it?”
Raven shook her head and glanced down again, her body going rigid under his hands as she battled another incursion of tears. “I…I…”
“Raven…” He watched her dissolve again, feeling more helpless than he had in the whole of his existence. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to shake her and wrap her in his arms. He wanted to beat her to death and kiss her blindly. He wanted so many things and none of them made sense. “What the hell is going on?”
The world swirled around him.
“I…I did…”
“Yeah?”
“A spell. I did a spell.” She glanced up again, her face a shield of contrition. “I did a spell. I summoned a demon.”
He blinked, a blur of rage coming over him. “You what?”
Well, at least that much made sense. Barmy woman had cast some magic over him. As was typical, the spell had gone wrong. Perhaps it was the reason his night angel suddenly wore her face, the reason he suddenly couldn’t stomach the idea of ripping out her throat, the reason he wanted to hold her to his chest and whisper that everything would be all right.
Bitch.
“I had to! I couldn’t…” Raven’s voice failed her, her soft lips quivering as tears consumed her once more. “You were gone. I watched you leave me. And I tried, Nicolai. I tried to…I didn’t know what to do. They tried to kill me a-and…”
Nicholas’s heart softened before he could help himself. He blamed it on the spell. “Who?” he asked gently. “Who tried to kill you?”
“The…they thought I was a witch.” She paused and searched his eyes. “Do you remember that?”
The fact that she’d fallen completely off her tree didn’t bother him, but he found himself immensely bothered that he wanted to tell her yes. He wanted to reassure her of anything which demanded reassurance.
He hated this.
“Kitten, I don’t—”
“I did it. I summoned him,” she continued. He could practically see her mind racing. “It was easy. It was so easy. I found one of Kenneth’s books. The sort he never let me near, you know?”
“Raven…”
The sound of her name brought everything to a still. She glanced up at him with wide eyes, swallowing him whole into an abyss he’d never before ventured.
To keep himself grounded, Nicholas tried not to focus on how wonderful her name felt on his tongue. Saying it in his head was problematic enough but giving it life in the real world, calling her something beyond her title hardened her in his head. It humanized her, and while such was never a problem for him—as a vampire—something about her name made his nerves tingle and his body sing. Humanizing her was dangerous. He’d always found it easier to land the killing blow if he didn’t give his victims time to talk or prove that they were, at the core, more than a quick meal.
“Are you real?” she asked him softly, her soft breaths doing things to his skin that he’d never known a breath could do. “Please tell me you’re real.”
This was something he knew. He was real. As real as anything.
He just didn’t know what sort of real she needed him to be.
And why the hell does it matter?
“I’m real,” he heard himself murmuring, his eyes falling shut as her hands took to exploring his face again. Fuck if her touch didn’t feel wonderful. “I’m real, Raven.”
“Then can we…can you just kiss me?” Her mouth brushed his. “Please? The rest—”
He smashed his lips to hers without allowing himself time to think. He didn’t want to think anymore. He just wanted to touch her. At the moment, nothing seemed more important. Her thighs parted, and he fell between them as though magnetized, the warm heat of her pussy doing more to set his skin aflame than any amount of sunlight could ever accomplish. Her taste had him thoroughly drunk. Nothing existed but her feel. The way her mouth moved against his. She held onto him as though trying to anchor herself, as though her existence in this world depended completely on how tightly he held her.
“Raven,” he moaned, sucking her tongue between his teeth. He wanted to draw her blood but didn’t dare. That would shove him across a threshold he hadn’t prepared to cross. “God…”
“Please,” she whimpered again, nipping at his lips. “Please.”
“What do you need, baby?” Nicholas heard himself asking. He lost himself farther down the rabbit hole and bugger if he cared. He released her just long enough to hike her skirt up her legs and bunch the fabric around her waist. “Need me to touch you?”
Raven sobbed and nodded hard, thrusting herself against his hand. “It’s been so long.”
“Lifetimes,” he found himself agreeing, not without a dose of irony.
“Please….”
Nicholas inhaled sharply, his lips brushing the corner of her mouth. He knew he should stop for both their sakes, but he didn’t dare. Something had a hold of her, and whatever it was, it had her believing he was someone else, someone beyond anything anyone had ever believed him to be. Not even Octavia had looked at him the way Raven looked at him now. He fell too quickly to grab hold of anything
but her, and with reality blurring around him, he couldn’t bring himself to give an honest damn.
“Please!” Raven gasped again. “Nicolai, please…”
He wheedled through what felt like yards of fabric, his body rejoicing when he finally touched skin. Christ, she burned so hot, and one touch would do rot to satisfy him. He ran his fingers over the soft curls of her mound, the heady aroma of her desire tickling his tongue and making every inch of him hunger for a taste. He wanted to experience everything. He wanted to feel her wet, warm pussy clench around his cock. He wanted to tease her sweet little clit and thrust his tongue deep inside her body. He wanted her to drench him—drown him—in her ambrosia and mark him as no woman had ever bothered to mark him.
He wanted to ruin her for all men. He wanted anyone who ever looked at her to know she was claimed.
Raven jerked against him with desperation he’d never before encountered. He’d never seen a woman so starved for him, and fuck if it wasn’t brilliant. “Nicolai!” she cried. “Please! Don’t tease me!”
“I live to tease,” Nicholas replied coyly, flicking a brow.
“It’s been too long. I need you!”
“Want me inside you, sweetness?” He ran his index finger between her pussy lips, dipping as far into her sweet liquid warmth. “Fuck, but you’re wet.”
“Oh my…ohhh…”
“This for me, kitten? All this juicy—”
“Nicolai!”
He’d never heard his name screamed that way before. He’d never known how hot it could be. He’d never even considered it.
A guy could get used to this in a big way.
Nicholas grinned as his thumb slipped over her clit, the symphonic moan tearing through her lips hardening every vessel in his body with lust.
He had to have her. He had to have her now…which made the arrival of her Guardian one tragic inconvenience.
Chapter 4
Colonial New Hampshire, 1701
Ripples Through Time Page 4
