And she knew him. She knew him completely.
He just didn’t know it.
His mouth neared her ear, and she found herself inexplicably lost. “What do you say you don’t kill me for thinking you’re the most gorgeous creature I’ve ever seen?” Nicholas murmured softly, his voice so low she could barely make out words from the breaths he took. “Besides, kitten, you came on to me.”
Raven nodded blindly and watched in astonishment as he raised his fingers to his mouth and licked her juices off each glistening digit.
“Decent yourself up,” he murmured, nodding to her state of undress. “I’ll buy you a few seconds, savvy?”
Her every inch trembled. She nodded again hurriedly, her hands immediately turning to her exposed pussy. She tugged her panties up her thighs and straightened her skirt with a noisy shuffle.
Dexter stared, mostly in disgust. She felt too shaken to care.
She was a woman without a time.
Nicholas cast her one more meaningful glance before turning around, remaining purposefully situated between her thighs.
“’Lo,” he said awkwardly. “You must be the Guardian. Don’t suppose you have ever heard of knocking?”
“Vampire,” Dexter growled, nostrils flaring. “Get away from her.”
Nicholas’s hands came up in some mock semblance of surrender. He tossed a wary look over his shoulder to size up the state of Raven’s recovery before continuing, “Some night, yeah?”
Dexter didn’t seem to be in the mood for small talk. “What the hell are you playing at?”
“Just making conversation.” He smirked. “By the way, it’s your girl’s birthday. Bit dangerous to let her wander the streets on her own, isn’t it?”
Dexter winced but didn’t respond. Instead, he took a step forward, shaking with what Raven identified as fear fortified in resolution. “You touch her—”
“Already did,” Nicholas replied, this time with a smirk. “She was begging for it.”
“Why you—”
The next thing anyone knew, Dexter had snarled something unintelligible and marched forward, murder in his eyes. He might have been successful in whatever he planned had Raven not jerked herself out of her stupor and leapt to her feet.
“Stop it,” she said shortly, leaping in front of Nicholas. “It’s fine. It’s…it’s fine.”
Dexter froze more out of astonishment than by command. “What the hell?”
An excellent question, or it would have been an hour ago.
Raven swallowed hard, her mind racing. She knew she should think of a witty, if not intelligent response, but all she could summon was a weak, “He didn’t do anything wrong.”
She immediately found herself in the awkward position of standing on the receiving-end of Dexter’s dubious glare.
“Are you high?” he demanded at last, gesturing emphatically. “He just had his hand in the cookie jar—and I mean that literally.”
“What a visual, mate,” Nicholas offered dryly.
“Shut up,” Dexter growled, turning his gaze again to Raven. “Look, I don’t know what you thought. You’re confused—”
“You got that right,” Raven agreed as she took a step forward, forcing him to step back. “But now’s not the time.”
Dexter’s eyes widened incredulously. “How is this not the time?”
“Just stop.”
“You’re gonna let him run?” the Guardian barked. “Raven, think about this. He isn’t one of the good guys. He isn’t even a good vamp. He’s a monster, and letting him go goes against everything we believe in.”
She didn’t comment. She could say nothing to appease him. No words offered clarity and nothing would make sense. God, it barely made sense to her. Reality had torn around them and the ground beneath her feet had cracked apart. Her memories raced alongside reason. Everything existed in duality.
Dexter couldn’t know that. He couldn’t know what she barely understood. Even if she tried to explain, he wouldn’t believe her.
She met Nicholas’s confused eyes and knew immediately that despite his lacking memory—despite everything—he stood in her corner. Perhaps not tomorrow, perhaps not in five minutes, but he did now. He was more lost than she could ever be. He didn’t know he existed solely due to a deal she’d brokered with the devil three centuries ago. He didn’t know anything beyond whatever ties had brought them together tonight.
She yearned for his arms but reason kept her grounded.
This remained a different life, and the rules had changed.
Everything had changed.
“That doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “I wasn’t in my head, Dex, and tonight’s not the night for this.”
“But—”
She held up a hand, eyes not wavering from Nicholas’s, and that ended the conversation.
Raven had no grasp on how much time actually passed in those endless seconds. She was lost in a sea of stormy blue and she didn’t care if she was ever found. Nicholas had to leave before the power of her word ran dry and Dexter took it upon himself to end her vampire’s life himself, and while she wanted more than anything to stay by his side, there remained truths yet to be revealed.
Nicholas inhaled sharply and nodded. “See you around, Raven.”
Then he turned and walked out, and she let him.
With nothing certain, with everything changed, she had to let him go.
It was the only way she’d ever be allowed to keep him.
* * * *
The world had gone bonkers.
Nicholas stormed out of the warehouse, a swarm of unidentifiable emotions darkening his every step and haunting his every thought. His hands still tingled from the feel of her skin, his mouth exploding with her flavor, the rich taste of her which he’d so foolishly licked off his fingers. He hadn’t the slightest idea what had just happened.
What he’d done with the warmth of a human girl beneath him.
What he’d done…
A growl tickled his throat, his hands gripping either side of his face as he rounded the nearest corner. He’d betrayed everything. He’d betrayed his oath to Octavia, the one he’d given her without her ever demanding it. He wasn’t the sort of guy to add notches to his bedpost. Octavia was the only woman he’d ever wanted. From the second she discovered him, he’d had nothing more to demand from life.
He’d never desired anyone else.
No one save his night angel.
But that was the bitch. His night angel shouldn’t actually exist, and should certainly never leak from dreams into reality. It had always remained confined to the subconscious in which she’d been born. She wasn’t meant for this.
She shouldn’t exist as One of the Few.
What the hell was wrong with him? What would Octavia…Christ, Octavia. She couldn’t know. He couldn’t let her find out what had happened or what he’d come so close to doing.
He didn’t want her to know how desperately he’d wanted another woman, no matter how often she wordlessly reminded him how much she wanted other men.
This wasn’t him. If he’d embodied any incarnation of himself, the girl would now rot and he’d be free of whatever spell she’d placed over him, the one making him think he knew her beyond the call of her blood. The one making him think she, in some twisted form, belonged to him.
More than anything, he wanted to regret what he’d done and what he’d failed to do. He wanted to regret something beyond the simple knowledge that he should.
It seemed easy knowing what he should feel. Feeling it was a different matter altogether.
Nicolai, she’d called him. Nicolai.
The answer seemed simple enough. Whatever spell she’d cast or deluded herself into thinking she’d cast had propelled her into some parallel universe in which she believed they meant something to each other. She’d clung to him, pleaded for his forgiveness, baptized him in the downpour of her tears and begged him to shag her delectable little body. She’d wanted him in every way a wo
man ever wanted a man.
Still, from the second he saw her in the alleyway to the haunting look she’d given him before his departure, she remained the warrior. She just, somehow, had managed to live inside two different people.
Dammit, he had a headache.
Nicholas sighed, propping himself against an alleyway wall.
He didn’t want to go home. He didn’t want the night to end like this.
He didn’t want the night to end at all. What he wanted—what he truly wanted—was to hunt down the girl and demand to know what the fuck had happened between them tonight.
Demand how she’d known him without knowing him at all.
Demand how she had the balls to muck up his life.
Demand how she could leave him confused and frustrated, and more in need than he’d felt in all his years.
His cock craved her pussy and his fangs yearned for her throat, but not for the kill.
Christ, how fucked was that?
How could she leave him like this?
How the hell had he let her?
Chapter 6
Colonial New Hampshire, 1700
He shouldn’t have come here.
Nicolai sighed, casting a wary glance to the ominous clouds brewing above. It would storm, but if the heavens thought a little rain would scare him off, they’d know disappointment. He wouldn’t go home until he saw her. He wouldn’t go anywhere until he knew she was all right. No amount of verbal confirmation would do it for him. He knew it was time to stop fooling himself and the only way to do that was swallow his damned pride and place his heart on the proverbial chopping block. Nicolai felt that he was in for a penny, in for a pound.
Three nights ago, he’d sought out Ravenna Mal with a mind to kill. Never had he thought he’d be so reluctant to harm anything. He’d been eluding death for a long time now, and he’d seen some remarkable things in his time: things he’d never imagined seeing when he first crawled from his grave. The world had become a larger place overnight. He was a born Englishman who now stood on American soil.
The years had certainly been good to him.
Very good.
And very lonely.
Nicolai propped himself against a tree, his eyes glued to Ravenna’s window. A light burned inside but he had yet to catch a glimpse of her. A silhouette would do. In all honesty, anything would do. He just needed to verify that she’d made it back safely. Not that she’d faced anything particularly dangerous tonight. There just seemed much more at stake.
Especially now that he knew he loved her.
Nicolai had long guessed that it was symptomatic of not knowing the one who’d made him. He’d clawed his way out of his grave and met the cool air of night, knowing what he was but not why he’d been turned. He didn’t even remember the face of his sire—only the fragrance of a woman’s perfume and a quick rush of pain before meeting darkness. He’d spent decades begrudging his maker for leaving him without guidance, without reason or explanation, but time had proven grudges a fruitless effort. Grudges wouldn’t right old wrongs; rather they would only make eternity even longer.
The years had seemed good to him overall. Good but empty.
Then he received word of a warrior in the Americas, and curiosity more than anything had prompted him to cross an ocean. Rarely did locations of the Few emerge in the underworld, not unless one knew where to look, and he’d felt pulled beyond himself to find her.
Now that he stood here, he never wanted to return.
Ravenna was magnificent.
Nicolai had heard many stories about many warriors, each more ludicrous than the last. For years, he’d brushed them off as nothing more than a celestial bogeyman to keep the demon community in line, concluding that those who died at the hand of the Few were more in awe of the calling than bested by talent. He’d formed presumptions based on aged ideals of the frailty of the human condition.
For years, he’d been wrong.
He knew, however, no matter the strength of any warrior, that he would not have fallen so hard for any woman but Ravenna. The girl defied convention. She fulfilled everything he’d ever wanted and everything he feared wanting.
She was so glorious, so radiant, so strong and courageous.
So alone.
Nicolai had thought his existence lonely, but he hadn’t known true loneliness until he met her. She walked through darkness with nothing at her side. She relied strictly on her own cunning to make it through the night. She often feared the road ahead but never revealed her weakness. She didn’t cry when she was owed her tears.
She shone with innocence he hadn’t thought existed anymore. She had a child’s laugh and a warrior’s will. She didn’t know how beautiful or alluring she was, and she certainly didn’t see the way the men in town looked at her. She didn’t notice anything that heightened the reality of her humanity. While the reason didn’t seem ambiguous, it darkened him with rage all the same.
Her wanker of a Guardian regarded her as less than human. To Kenneth Mal, Ravenna was a disposable weapon rather than a girl.
The knowledge blackened his veins with rage. Christ, nothing about Ravenna screamed disposable. He’d known it the second he saw her. She’d been fighting under the light of a full moon, drenched in sweat, her body contorting to kick the demon behind her as her hands thrust a stake through the heart of the vampire at her head. A third beast had lurked in the shadows, intent on surprising her, but he’d crumpled to the ground, courtesy of her aim, before being given the chance to lunge into her warpath. Ravenna had fought all with grace, not once betraying fear or alarm. Her impeccable senses made her flawless in her trade. She’d finished them off one-by-one, turned to face Nicolai even if she couldn’t see him for the trees between them, and waved.
She’d waved at him.
He’d fallen. Hard.
Granted, it took a long time to admit as much. Nicolai had fought loving her with everything he had. He might not be the world’s most conventional vampire, but he drew the line at going soft for humans. For One of the Few. The idea of the Few had never sent cold shivers down his spine, but he’d never envisioned himself going so far the other way as to fall over himself in love.
He’d occupied months fighting Ravenna and his growing feelings for her. He fought admiration with what he tried to call loathing. Even when he beat her within an inch of her life, she refused to beg for mercy. He’d gotten close to killing her so many times that he’d fooled himself into believing he wanted it. He made himself lash out at her in the hopes of eradicating her presence from his dreams. He’d wanted to beat the love in his heart into something twisted and dark, something he could truly call hate.
Three nights ago he’d had enough. Three nights ago he’d determined to end it. Either Ravenna had to go or he did.
Instead he’d tasted her blood and surrendered.
God, how could he help loving her? He might not be human, but he remained still a man, and being near Ravenna was as close as he had ever come to perfection. She had wit, humor, strength, and beauty. She was her own woman without trying. She didn’t fear fighting him, knowing him as she did. Nor did she fear the dance.
She didn’t fear anything, and he had grown sick of trying to fool himself.
He was in love. He’d known it since the first night he saw her. Nicolai had fallen for One of the Few, and anyone who tried to take her from him would find themselves on the wrong side of dead.
“What are you doing here?”
Nicolai blinked and turned, belatedly overwhelmed with the richness of her heavenly scent. He met her emerald eyes and felt surprised when a shiver commanded his body. There lived something so wondrously perfect about her, something that commanded adulation whenever in her presence.
Now that he’d ceased fighting his love for her, he’d spend the rest of her life and all of his worshipping the ground she walked on.
This was something Ravenna would realize in due time.
“How’d you do that?” he asked, pouting
.
She blinked innocently, then crossed her arms as though to hide her reaction to him. She couldn’t know it was impossible hiding from him now that he’d tasted every forbidden crevice of her soft, perfect body. He’d explored the paradise between her thighs. He knew how she whimpered when stroked, and how her tight pussy muscles squeezed him when she climaxed.
No, she couldn’t hide from him, if she ever could.
“How did I do what?” she asked, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.
“Sneak up on me.”
“I didn’t sneak. I was just—”
“Overly quiet?” He’d been too lost in his thoughts to notice her approach, but he didn’t want to tell her that, especially when caught lurking outside her cottage while drowning in longing for her. “You just arriving home?”
She nodded and licked her lips. He wished she’d let him do that for her. “Kenneth sent me to the Mill Lane House. Mr. Wells had a demon caught in his armoire.”
“Demon?” Nicolai took a step forward, determined to close the space between them but mindful not to move so fast that he’d startle her. “What sort of demon?”
She hesitated for a beat, and he knew why. They had parted the other night on uncertain terms with Ravenna limping slightly as a result of their passion, but quite adamant on managing home unaided. They hadn’t had time to talk about what had happened, or how things had changed. Perhaps she didn’t think things had changed.
Perhaps she thought they were going to resume the relationship they’d grown into prior to their lovemaking. Perhaps she thought he wanted her dead, as he’d claimed only nights before.
If that was the case, she certainly was a silly child. Didn’t she know he was crazy for her? Didn’t she know that had been the problem all along?
“Talk to me, Ravenna,” Nicolai murmured, seizing advantage of the distraction his voice provided and closing another space between them. “What sort of demon?”
Ripples Through Time Page 7
