“Something else Paimon hadn’t considered,” Dexter mused thoughtfully.
The implication in his words made the world stop spinning. Raven held her breath, hope seizing her tattered heart. “Do you think…” She closed her eyes. “Do you think that if Paimon didn’t plan on Nicolai—I mean Nicholas—remembering me, but a part of him does at least on some level, do you think it’s possible—”
“That Nicholas might one day remember you completely?”
She nodded hopefully, and he sighed in turn. “Even if he does,” Dexter said, “the rules haven’t changed. You’re still One of the Few and he’s still a vampire.”
“I don’t care.”
“Raven—”
“I. Don’t. Care.” Tears prickled at her eyes and she nodded, choking in a sob that desperately wanted freedom. “Dexter, he was…” She inhaled sharply. “He was everything. I was ready to walk away, do you get it? I loved him so much. And knowing he’s out there with someone who’s not me, not remembering me or what we had, it’s…”
“There’s a chance,” he said quickly, eager to calm her. “Raven…all things are possible.”
“Did I tell you he gave me that name? He’s the one who first called me Raven.”
Dexter blinked but didn’t ask. “All things are possible.” He glanced down, his gaze focusing on the page his fingers had landed on. “As it is, I believe your remembering might have opened a gate.”
She sniffed miserably and wiped at her eyes. “A what?”
“Unlocked doors of history. As long as no one knew what had happened, it was as though it hadn’t. Understand?”
“Uh…”
“But now that you remember, the history cannot be concealed. The missing history occurred.” He looked up again, an odd twist of astonishment and pride sweeping his eyes. “Ravenna Mal. Born 1679, died 1701. Warrior mentored by one Kenneth Mal.”
Everything stopped. Her blood ran cold.
“What?”
“It’s here. A page that wasn’t here before.” Dexter held up the thick, aged manuscript and turned it around for her viewing. “No drawing. Just a name.”
She saw it immediately. There was no way she could not.
Her name.
And beside her name was Nicolai’s.
Listed as her killer.
Chapter 10
Colonial New Hampshire, 1701
He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He’d made several futile attempts to look away from the goddess currently massaging his foot, but found himself irrevocably drawn to the curves of her gorgeous mouth and the light in her eyes. She positively glowed every time she glanced upward and those precious emeralds met his gaze.
He couldn’t drag his eyes away. At times he feared she’d disappear if he so much as blinked.
Ravenna’s creamy skin reddened with the provocative hint of awareness, and she ducked her head. Her hands moved over his foot with such attentive affection that he had to wonder, truly, if he’d been slain and somehow managed to sneak through the pearly gates. “You’re staring,” she said.
“Am I?” he replied.
“You know I don’t like it when you stare.”
“You should try to be a little less beautiful then.”
She wrinkled her nose at him, and he couldn’t help from grinning. “You needn’t say such things,” she said, lightly tickling the soft underside of his foot. Nicolai grinned and wiggled, not that it did any good. No one, living or dead, knew how ticklish he was except for Ravenna. He didn’t mind that she knew. The wealth of things he didn’t mind that she knew amazed him—things he believed made him vulnerable or weak, things he wished had died with his human self, things not befitting a demon.
Especially a demon with his reputation.
Nicolai truly had to wonder when he’d stopped caring so much, or if he’d truly ever cared. There had seemed a point in life where certain things had seemed so important, things he reflected upon now as a fool’s gamble or an all out waste of time. He remembered well how he’d felt upon first arriving in their village. He’d come to the Americas to hunt and kill her and as many of The Few as he could, and a part of him had known the first second he saw her that he was incredibly lost, no matter how he’d tried to hide the revelation from himself.
Not much of his pre-Ravenna life seemed to matter a damn anymore. He still hunted and fed, though he tried to leave his walking-meals alive. While Ravenna had never asked him to be anything other than what he was, he knew that the idea of him killing would eventually drive a wedge between them. He loved her too much to hurt her if an alternative existed.
Other things figured in, of course. Things like his reputation, which he’d once thought his most valuable asset but no longer cared to salvage. What did it matter what other vampires thought of him? He’d had that reputation for damn near two centuries—two long, lonely centuries.
A reputation seemed worth rot against the awesome power of love. He’d give it up. He’d give up anything and everything.
Ravenna felt precious. She felt worth any price, and no price would ever be enough. Any fool could see it.
He just happened to be the fool she’d chosen.
Somehow, this creature of light loved him. She’d let his fangs mark her throat and had whispered that she belonged to him. She’d let him claim her.
This woman belonged to him for an eternity.
It hadn’t been an easy transition, and they still had a journey ahead. Ravenna hadn’t yet mustered the courage to break the news to her wanker of a Guardian, and while Nicolai tried to remain sympathetic, his patience grew shorter as the days went by. He wasn’t irritated with his beloved at all. He was more irritated by the strain of control exacted on her by the bastard who had raised her.
Ravenna felt terrified of breaking away completely. Kenneth Mal remained all she knew of her former life. She’d grown up believing herself less than human, a weapon forged in flesh and blood, born with only one purpose: the Few. Nothing more, nothing less. She wasn’t made for love, rather to die.
It was a callous existence, but it was the only one she’d ever known. And hate it though she did, a part of her clung to it. Nicolai understood, truly he did. Her life was based in this understanding of herself. To grasp something else entirely and abandon the person she’d been before was a monstrously huge step. She wanted to do it. He felt how desperately she wanted to be free of Kenneth, but it remained hard for her.
Nicolai could do nothing about it other than caress her scalp lovingly and try to keep his manly giggles restrained to amused chuckles when her fingers manipulated his most ticklish nerves.
In the meantime, he had this, and this seemed so much more than he’d ever hoped to touch. They lay in a bed they shared with the sunrise she’d painted for him proudly on display. Ravenna—his little Raven—sat gloriously naked, massaging his tired muscles. She liked doing little things for him. She liked giving him pleasure in any way she could.
“Why?” he asked belatedly, trying unsuccessfully to bite back a moan when her fingers gently skimmed the arch of his foot. His cock had taken notice of her gentle touches a while ago, something he knew she’d noticed, as he was rather naked himself. He didn’t know whether or not she’d evaded touching him out of coyness or because her massage was intended to satisfy a need that wasn’t sexual. Not that it did any good. He always wanted her.
“Why what?” she repeated, playfully pinching his big toe.
“Why shouldn’t I say such things?” Nicolai perked a brow and shot her his best seductive look. “You’re gorgeous.”
“You have me. Flattery is unnecessary.”
“And the truth? I’d expect you’d still want the truth from me.”
Ravenna made another face at him, her hand skimming up the inside of his left leg, her big, gorgeous eyes at last landing on his aching cock. “Sometimes I think you say things just to get me to…”
Nicolai grinned and thrust his hips upward. “We both know I don’t hav
e to say a damn thing to get you to…”
“Nicolai!”
“You just take it when you’re hungry.”
He loved provoking her and watching her moonlit skin turn red. He loved knowing that the part of her innocence he adored remained untainted. He could be as vulgar as he pleased and she would never become jaded. A part of Raven would perpetually remain the fluttering virgin, and he absolutely adored it.
“You’re a bad man.”
“The baddest.” Nicolai offered a wink, wrapping his fingers around his erection and favoring his aching shaft with a long stroke. “Wanna kiss me and make it better?”
She slapped his chest and giggled. “You arse.”
“Well, if you’d rather kiss that—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Nicolai…”
He grinned devilishly and sat up, cupping her cheeks and seizing her lips in a hungry kiss. The world could end several times, and he wouldn’t care. The taste of her felt too rich to forfeit, and he didn’t deny himself. “Mmm,” he purred against her mouth. “You taste so sweet.”
She grinned against him, her palm skimming the underside of his erection before her fingers dipped to tease his testicles. “I know what you’re after,” she mused teasingly.
“Well, God gave you this mouth for a reason, woman.”
Ravenna’s eyes brightened with mirth. “I thought the reason was kissing you,” she replied.
“One of many reasons.”
“And talking? Or are you the sort who prefers his woman silent and submissive?”
Nicolai arched a sardonic brow. “Raven, sweetling, if that was what I wanted, why in the world would I be here?”
She giggled happily. “I love you.”
His heart lifted, and his demon rejoiced. “I love you more. Now suck me.”
She flashed him a look of pure defiance, a smirk stretching those utterly kissable lips of hers. However, rather than shoot him another barb, she dipped her head obediently and licked his erection from root to tip.
“Oh God…”
“Is that enough?” she asked cheekily, her mouth already descending again.
“I said suck me, not lick.”
“So no licking, then?”
He knew nothing good could come from elaboration or clarification, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Unfortunately, the most he could come up with was an ineloquent, “God, Raven.”
Ravenna grinned, her sinful lips welcoming his swollen, velvety head into her wet mouth, her tongue immediately crashing against him to explore his sensitive slit. She knew what she did to him. Christ, did she know what she did. He’d set out to teach her just how to drive him wild, and she shone as the best student a man could wish for.
“Deeper,” Nicolai pleaded, thrusting his hips off the bed. “Take me in deeper.”
She rolled her eyes and did the opposite. He groaned in frustration the second his wet cock smacked the cool, unforgiving air. “You’re rather bossy tonight,” she observed.
“And you’re a tease.”
“So says the man who…” She broke off and flushed deeply, and despite the heated rage of his need, Nicolai couldn’t help but crack a grin. Heaven help the day she ever tried to verbally describe a sexual act. Thankfully, he knew exactly to what she referred: the way he’d bury his face between her divine thighs and lick her juicy quim until she trembled hard and bucked off the mattress. So close to fruition…
Then he’d pull away, lick his lips, and leave her aching for him until he decided to take pity on her and give her what she so desperately needed.
He maintained that this didn’t seem the ideal way to get back at him. Still, a part of him couldn’t help but beam with pride.
She certainly had learned from watching him.
“Oh stop,” Ravenna grumbled, albeit good-naturedly. Her warm hand encircled his erection, pumping him tenderly in the absence of her mouth.
Nicolai blinked. “Stop what?”
“That look on your face. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
“I have to think it. If you’d ever finish a thought…” He grinned. “Sometime I wanna hear you say it. Try and say it. Say anything, really, as long as it’s nasty. It’d be adorable.”
“You’re swine.”
“You love me.”
Ravenna heaved a long-suffering sigh. “It’s my burden to bear, I suppose.”
“You love bearing it.” His grin stretched wider as his hands wove through her hair, fingers gently massaging her scalp. “Please, sweetheart. I need to feel your mouth.”
Her eyes danced, and her head began to dip again. “Here?” she asked, brushing a hot, wet kiss against his belled head, followed by a sultry lick. “You need my mouth here?”
“Raven!”
A sinful smile stretched her gorgeous lips as she slowly welcomed his cock into the pleasure-dome she called a mouth. Nicolai gasped so hard he could have sworn his heart leapt within his chest, his head flying back to the mattress, his hips thrusting upward in a needful frenzy. Nothing about her wasn’t perfect. He loved it all: the strokes of her tongue along the underside of his erection, the way her teeth gently skimmed his length as he slid farther her heavenly wetness, the light which sparked her eyes at his every whimper. She closed her lips around him and sucked hard, pulling on his flesh and tugging him so close to paradise he could have sworn the walls around them didn’t exist.
“Oh God, Raven.”
“Mmm…”
God. The way she whimpered and mewled around him. He unwound completely.
“So hot. So hot, you are.” He bit down on his lower lip, his grip on her hair tightening. “I love you so much.”
“Luff yew,” she replied, winking.
Then the head of his cock brushed the soft, warm back of her throat, and she contracted her muscles around him, squeezing him so right. Nicolai howled and bucked, the hand at her head defying reason and dragging her upwards until he wrangled free of her exquisite torture and sat up again so he could kiss her perfect mouth.
“I wasn’t finished,” she complained when their lips parted.
It took a few embarrassing seconds to remember he didn’t need the breaths he gulped. “I was gonna—”
“I know.”
“You don’t like the taste.”
Ravenna winked and kissed him again. “I suppose I’m growing accustomed to it,” she replied, her hands gently shoving him backward until he lay pressed against the mattress again. By some divine mercy, her tongue returned to his length, licking him like a treat. As much as he loved the feel of her mouth on his cock, he much preferred it when her wet sheath surrounded him, when her breasts were pressed against his chest and her lips were his for the taking.
“Raven, I need to be inside.”
She glanced upward with a pointedly arched brow, but didn’t argue. Instead, she released him completely and began a slow prowl up his body, looking positively catlike, her lips stealing kisses of his body with every move she made. She sampled his stomach and his abs before biting lovingly at his nipples. She drove him out of his mind, and she did it with such tenderness that he wanted to weep.
“God, you feel so perfect,” Nicolai murmured. The head of his cock rubbed against the fleshy wetness at her center. She felt drenched with lust for him.
“I bet you say that to all the Few,” she retorted, nipping his mouth.
“Raven…” He gripped her hips, holding her above him. “I need…”
One thing he could say about the Few: they didn’t take to direction very well. At least this one didn’t, and he couldn’t be more grateful. She silenced him with a kiss and sank down, infusing his body in the warmest homecoming it had or would ever know.
“Nicolai,” she whimpered, her body beginning a slow dance against his without any need for direction. She’d transformed into a sex goddess overnight, a sex goddess who blushed through her innuendos and couldn’t verbalize anything overly seedy. “You feel…”
; “So good,” he finished for her, his hands sliding up over her perfect skin until he had a breast cradled in each palm. “So hot. I love—”
Just as quickly, something shattered the sanctuary they’d constructed—a small, nearly indiscernible disruption, but a tangible one nonetheless. Nicolai froze immediately, grasping her hips again to cease their lovemaking. When she fired him a questioning look, he merely raised his index finger to his lips to indicate a need for silence.
Just like that, the mood shattered. Reality had settled in. With Ravenna perched on his lap, her pussy wrapped around him, the fog of their fantasy melted into the real world again— a world where she remained One of the Few, he remained the vampire, and this thing between them remained forbidden.
He hated the way her heart thundered. He felt it, just as he felt the aching rush of her pulse and the way the passion in her eyes faded into fear.
Perhaps he was wrong, but he doubted it.
“Nicolai?” she asked sharply, her voice a harsh whisper.
He waited another beat. And another. And another.
Then the sound came again. Louder this time. More definite.
It was a quick decision, really, a call he made instinctively without bias, without weighing the factors and giving into temptation. It was a decision he made entirely with his Raven in mind, forfeiting everything his true nature demanded. Now didn’t seem the time to start another argument about confronting her Guardian. Now didn’t the time to make a rash decision. Now seemed the time to get up and get her downstairs, down to the cellar where he spent his days, to the hiding place only they knew about.
“Nicolai, what—”
Nicolai shot up, his arms clamping around her middle, his cock slipping out of her. Her legs impulsively wound around his waist, her arms locking around his neck, and then he moved, too quickly to be walking, but silently enough not to betray their presence. He refused to let her go, not even when he bent over to move the rug which concealed the trapdoor aside, or when he hurried them downstairs. Only when his feet touched the ground did he feel safe enough to lower her to the floor.
Ripples Through Time Page 11
