Nothing she could touch.
Yet Raven couldn’t help herself.
“Nicolai,” she breathed again, if only to relish in the feel of his name on her tongue. It felt beyond strange having the sensation of missing something she, so recently, hadn’t known to miss. An essential piece of herself—her history—wrapped in a collection of restored memories, all encompassed in the whisper of her lover’s name.
She stood before the man she loved, a woman thoroughly divided. A woman who knew him yet remained a stranger. The eyes boring into hers seemed devoid of anything one could attribute to love. The strain of recognition that had thrived the last time she’d been with him had vanished, as had the man who had caressed her mouth with his and stood in front of her to protect her virtue as she straightened her clothing. Instead, there seemed nothing but a conflicted veil of loathing and a sheen of cold self-disgust.
He looked almost sickened.
It served as all she needed to remember exactly who she was. With the sting of Paimon’s hellish kiss burning through her skin, she needed to remember herself.
They would have no reunion of lovers. The woman who had sold herself to find him again might live once more, but the Nicolai she loved was buried in someone who loved someone else. Nicolai had died and Nicholas stood in his place. Nicholas, who did not know her.
It was a point he emphasized the next second, a low growl rumbling in the back of his throat. Before she could even muster a gasp, the biting smack of his backhand rocking against her jaw had the ground shaking beneath her, her back smashing against the rocky cemetery ground.
“Don’t,” Nicholas snarled, rapidly seizing her shoulders and jerking her back to her feet, only to knock her down again, “call me that.”
Raven’s lungs clamored for oxygen, pain blistering her skin. So here they were. Tears blinked behind her eyes and her chest ached with a pain too deep to be merely physical. She felt utterly alone.
“Sorry,” Raven said, inhaling sharply. A dark shudder ran through her body, but she did her best to shove her emotional reaction to the far side of her psyche. She couldn’t let him see how easy she was to manipulate when the right cards were on the table. Paimon had played on that once and it had cost her more than she could have fathomed; if the incarnation of the man she loved discovered her weakness, she wouldn’t recover.
Raven had to be true to herself. She had to pull her mind out of the eighteenth century and clamor back to the girl she’d been before the walls around her mind were demolished. The life of the woman she’d once lived and the life of the woman she lived now could not be confused. While no part of her wasn’t Ravenna Mal, she couldn’t revert to form. She had to embody Ravenna and Raven. She had to be both.
Just because she remembered her life as Ravenna didn’t mean she had to forgo herself as Raven.
Raven embraced her present. She had to be Raven.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?”
“Actually, no,” she replied honestly. “Want to tell me?”
“You. Everywhere. Everywhere I look, everything I touch. All I see is you.”
She frowned. “Sounds like a job for your therapist, not me.”
“You know something.”
“Many somethings, I’d hope.”
Nicholas spat, his steps heavy as he trekked around her again. “You conniving little bitch, you—”
As he leaned over her, Raven’s leg smacked hard into his brow. Nicholas howled and flew back, giving her the opportunity to roll to her feet. Then she faced him, her hands poised upward, her chest heaving, her mind racing.
“What have I done?” she repeated, her voice coated with indifference she didn’t feel. She wanted desperately to seize the attitude that had once dominated her persona and wear it with confidence. While it lingered in spirit, her insides remained hollow and barren. “Oh, you mean give you a hell of a concussion?”
“Had time to think,” he responded icily. “Loads of it.”
“About…”
“Don’t play games with me. You know about what. And I’ve decided I’m pissed.”
Raven’s brows perked. “About rounding the bases with yours truly?”
“About all of it. Your lips. Your face. Your pussy. You played me.”
“I played you?”
He nodded furiously. “Haven’t figured it out yet, but that’s the only thing that makes a lick of sense. I was all ripe for the kill, see. Then you came alone and make with the fucking head games.” He swung carelessly for her again to little avail. “And I gotta tell you, sweetheart. Vamps? They don’t like to be played.”
“I’m not playing you!”
Nicholas just growled and lunged at her again but it came slowly, so slowly. She saw everything unfolding as though captured on a reel of film, rolling out before her eyes frame-by-frame. She knew at once what his next move would be, and the next, and the next. In an instant, she saw a blueprint of the battle laid out before her with Nicholas’s moves beautifully choreographed. She saw it all.
She knew every move he would make because they had done this a thousand times.
He just didn’t know it.
“Not playing me?” Nicholas snarled. “You come to me, crying, and call me, and I don’t snap your neck.”
“It’s a nice neck.”
“You’re One of the Few. This doesn’t work, and you played me.”
“Oh, come on, Nicholas,” Raven drawled. A fresh rush of adrenalin pumped her veins as she side-stepped his attack. Her hand shot up so his swinging fist met nothing but a forceful block. “Don’t hold back on me now.”
“Shut your mouth!” He made a move to knock her off her feet, but she’d jumped to avoid the blow by the time his leg took the swipe at hers.
“I don’t know what your problem is,” she retorted, ignoring the pangs each word shot against her heart. “And here I thought we were getting along.”
“’Cause I didn’t kill you when you were begging me to fuck you raw? You’re nutty.” He snorted and dove for her again. Again, Raven shot into the air, flipping over his head and landing behind him.
She sucked in a breath and did her best to ignore the rush that raced down her spine. “How is that?”
“You wanted it, didn’t you?” Nicholas insisted, rage flaring behind his eyes when she deflected yet another blow. “You wanted me to plunge my dick inside that hot cunt of yours.”
Shamed heat flooded her cheeks.
“I don’t fuck my food.” He growled again, then grunted in frustration when she blocked his next attack. Every failed assault only seemed to strengthen his outrage. “Sure, you tasted sweet, but—”
“Aw, are you saying I’m not the most gorgeous creature you’ve ever seen?”
“What idiot put that idea in your head?”
Raven rolled her eyes, catching his leg when he attempted to kick her again. “You, you dummy.”
“You’re nutty.”
“You just have a lousy memory. And you said that already.”
Nicholas roared again, then again when his fists swung for her head and missed. “Rot,” he retorted. “I remember just fine. I remember Octavia waiting for me at home. The way she feels and tastes…” He closed his eyes with an overtly theatrical moan of pleasure. “God, just lovely, that is.”
Something squeezed her stomach. She did her best to shake it off. “Didn’t stop you from copping a feel,” she countered weakly. Her voice shook even as she applauded herself for not backing down. “I don’t seem to recall you putting up a struggle.”
“Girl throws herself in any man’s arms and he goes off upstairs.” Nicholas shrugged, but she didn’t miss the way his eyes glazed over, or the shudder that commanded his shoulders. “Doesn’t mean anything, sweetheart.”
“Well, if that’s all,” Raven continued, kicking him back when he began to advance, “I don’t see what the big deal is.”
Ignorance seemed a deadly sin. “You’ve ruined everything!”
<
br /> She shrugged. “You’re not dead, and you got a hand in the cookie jar, as Dexter said. If it meant so little—”
“You say that like it’s some prize,” he retorted, swinging at her again. Again, she blocked him with ease which had his eyes blazing with rage. “I’ve been trying to wash your nasty scent off since we parted ways. Doesn’t work.”
She couldn’t walk away from this unscathed. Hurt swelled her insides, and her eyes threatened to leak with tears. “Sorry to be an inconvenience. It’s not my fault my senses were overtaken.”
“It was your birthday.”
Raven’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. And I have so much control over that.”
“What sort of Few goes out on their birthday?”
“Hey,” she retorted. “I’m not a nun. I wanted to make with the merry. I didn’t ask what happened.”
“Don’t seem to recall you complaining.”
“Funny. Neither were you.”
He growled and swung again, eyes blazing when she easily ducked his advance and rolled a safe distance away. “How the fuck are you doing that?”
“Doing what?”
He didn’t answer. He shook his head and redirected his anger. “Just stop wiggling so I can kill you properly.”
Raven blinked, a rush of dark humor seizing her insides. A laugh erupted between her lips. “Sorry, sweetie,” she replied, shaking her head. “I didn’t realize this was ‘Shoot Raven in a Barrel’ night at the O.K. Corral.”
Nicholas ignored her and busied himself with another quickly-deflected attack. “How are you doing this?” he asked again, brushing himself off. “How are you—”
“Anticipating your every move?” Raven shrugged and did her best to ignore the warm rush of cool nostalgia which raced up her spine. The many times she and Nicolai had fought had schooled her well. She could script out his attack plan and hand it to him if so asked. As it was, even with the hurtful words spilling from his lips, a part of her relished this. The thrill of being with him again in any form, a feeling so familiar, so known, she couldn’t help but soak him in.
He didn’t remember her, but he knew her.
Even if he didn’t remember her, even if he loved someone else, she had him back. If watching her Nicolai pine after another woman served as her punishment for getting him killed, she would suffer but live through it. She would have to.
Presuming Paimon didn’t kill her first.
“Now that you mention it, yeah, I would like to know how you’re anticipating my every move,” Nicholas muttered, stalking forward yet again. His wouldn’t attack this time—the tell in his eyes always gave him away. It was a small nearly indiscernible flicker, seemingly hard to catch but impossible to miss once identified. Not once had it failed to betray a truer intent. Once she saw the tell, she saw that he meant something other than the words he spoke. Always. She decided, however, not to let him know.
Not when he asked the question. The important one.
“I know you,” Raven said simply, emotion welling inside. The words were tired on her lips, she’d spoken them so many times now.
Nicholas’s brows perked. “You mean the bit about you and me being lovers from days past? Don’t tell me you actually buy into that.”
Raven balked, cold consuming her thoroughly. That rang a bit more on the nose than she’d anticipated. “How?” she asked.
“Can’t keep much from vamps. We lurk. We eavesdrop. We stalk. I’ve been overhearing some damn funny things recently.”
She swallowed hard. “Oh yeah?”
“Some ridiculously funny things,” he agreed with a nod. “And I do mean ridiculous.”
The weight of her solitude came crashing down without preamble.
She was alone. Dexter believed her now, but he couldn’t do anything to help. He couldn’t orchestrate some miracle solution to prevent the demon from claiming his debt. He couldn’t do anything to make Nicholas remember his former life. Dexter might believe her, but belief only got her so far.
“I’m going home,” Raven said numbly, turning slowly. She didn’t worry about showing Nicholas her back. Somehow she knew he wouldn’t assault her again, just as she knew his eyes would narrow in confusion and his weight would shift impatiently from one foot to the other before he gave up the pretense of indecision and raced after her.
She knew him well, no matter what he remembered or believed.
“Raven.” Nicholas barreled forward just as she’d predicted, the fight in his eyes vanishing completely. The next second he stood in front of her, his hands clamped around her shoulders, confusion barring the way for the conflicted anger which had lived there only seconds before. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Go home?”
“I need to know.”
She smiled sadly and shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe me. God, you already don’t.”
Nicholas shook his head and tightened his grip on her shoulders. “Try me.”
The words smacked her hard. Nicolai had always been a walking contradiction.
“Let go.”
“If this is about the whole ‘I’m here to kill you’ thing, you should know it was just a cover.”
“I know. And it was very convincing.”
The lie was there to placate his ego, should he need it.
“I’m going outta my mind,” he said.
Raven licked her lips. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“It’s one thing or the other, isn’t it? I can’t kill you and I can’t let you just do this to me. Every time I close my eyes, I see…” As though in need of whatever he saw, Nicholas closed his eyes and he fortified himself with a deep breath. “I see you. And I don’t know why. You’re everywhere. God, you have been for so damn long.”
“If you’ll just let me go—”
“It’s crazy. You know it’s crazy, right?”
Raven’s humorless smile only grew wider. “I haven’t really ever thrived on sane.”
Nicholas didn’t laugh. She didn’t expect him to. She was just dodging a bullet, and they both knew it. “You called me Nicolai,” he murmured instead. “You called me Nicolai tonight. Before, too, when we got all up close and personal.”
“And you asked me to stop. Stop I shall.”
“No one’s ever called me Nicolai.”
Raven inhaled a trembling breath, every inch of her threatening to crumble. A few minutes ago she wouldn’t have hesitated, she would have started babbling a thousand explanations. She would have divulged everything. But Nicholas knew enough thanks to his snooping. He already knew what she thought, and what had inspired her to leap into his arms just a couple days back. Explaining herself seemed a wasted effort, as she had no answer, nothing to say that would satisfy him. The truth would lapse belief, and his reaction had already proven as much. Thus Raven felt rendered in a Catch-22. The truth wouldn’t be believed and there seemed no lie to give him. Nothing at all.
So she stood mute, desiring nothing more than to throw herself upon the mercy of his incredulity and confess everything—desiring it, but knowing better than to forsake herself completely.
A sin she would only commit once. She wouldn’t curse herself to repeat her fate.
“Go home, Nicholas,” Raven said with intent, the name her lips formed sounding so out of place. She ignored the inner screams begging for Nicolai, ignoring how the scattered pieces of her heart shattered into something lost beyond recognition. To save herself, she had to ignore it.
“I’ve no longer got a home.”
The confession froze her feet and her heart along with them. “You…” She broke off, shuddering. “I thought…your girlfriend…”
Nicholas snorted. “In the world according to Octavia, she’s history. No longer a factor. She’s made it clear she wants nothing to do with me.” He met her eyes, trembling, his body wrought with vulnerability that made her ache. “Octavia booted me to the curb after, well, after you.”
Raven inhaled sharply. “Me?”
“S
he smelled you all over me. Drove her crazy.” He released a short laugh which held no humor. “It’s a riot when you think about it. The bitch never could keep her hands to herself, but the second I wander…”
The words, when said over and over, finally began to form a sensible pattern in her head. “Octavia kicked you out?”
“Made quite a scene about it, too,” Nicholas agreed. “Surprised this is the first you’re hearing of it.”
“I don’t exactly read Vamp Weekly,” she retorted with a small smile. “Octavia really kicked you out because of me?”
He nodded, a dark shudder racking his shoulders. “Didn’t like it that I got a taste of someone else. I don’t, either.”
“I didn’t ask you to kiss me.”
“No, you grabbed me before you could ask.”
Her cheeks warmed, and for the millionth time, she considered how far gone she felt. How deep into the labyrinth she’d allowed Paimon to drag her without stopping to consider the consequences he laid at her feet. How it must have been for Nicholas to encounter her, a sniveling girl composed of tears and heartfelt confessions, lunging into his arms and assaulting his mouth with her own. How he must have felt then, how everything in his mind could have shut down from logic and gone strictly to primal instinct. Perhaps a bit of their shared claim leaked through in the revelation. The reason he hadn’t been able to thrust her aside as though she meant nothing was due to the fact that they would always share a blood link.
Perhaps the claim had saved her life that night, just as it had saved the hope of regaining herself. Paimon couldn’t erase from her what had been ingrained in her blood, nor could he thoroughly eradicate the memory of her from Nicholas’s subconscious. Somewhere inside her vampire lived the man she loved, beating against plate glass doors and screaming for freedom. Memories pushed at the corners of the inner walls Nicholas had constructed, walls fortified beyond reason. There seemed every chance those memories would be lost forever. The important thing, however, was the fact that they existed.
As long as they existed, so did hope.
Ripples Through Time Page 14
