Raven had watched her run away with a frustrated groan. He felt his partner come all around his engorged cock, but he lost his will to feed and to fuck, even though he was on the brink of his own orgasm.
That had never happened before. As he felt himself wilt inside the other girl, he knew that even imagining Abi impaled on him to force him to come wasn’t want he wanted. He wanted to follow her -- even though he knew by doing so he was giving himself to a human in a way he never before had.
As if he watched from outside himself, he disengaged from his quivering delirious fuck partner as politely as possible. Thankfully for him, vampires weren’t known for their chivalry.
He rushed for the door to follow Abi.
As she moved away from the club Abigail felt more in control. It was a good feeling, one she had begun to appreciate in the last half-dozen years.
She was starting to gain her confidence when a shadowy figure swooped from overhead. A scream locked in her throat as she covered herself. She glanced down both ways of the isolated alley. There was nothing but her shadow.
“Who’s there?” she asked, summoning her strongest voice.
Her question was met with a peal of cackling laughter. She ducked down again as the figure returned, flying down on her like a demented bird.
She dropped her purse and her notepad as she broke out into a run down the alley, chased by the wind and maniacal laughter.
She tripped and fell face first on the ground. She felt a powerful force hoist her up and flatten her against the wall. She stared into the demonic face of a vampire who had lost all of its humanity. It was a creature made of fangs, bone, paper-thin skin, and pure, unrestrained evil.
She tried to scream but the creature’s hand grabbed her by the throat. Its laugh bounced across walls as its clawed hand snatched the front of her shirt and tore the material away, exposing her breasts. His long, forked tongue licked what was left of its lips and she began to fight against him with everything she had. She kicked, she screamed, she flailed. But the creature was too strong.
Just as she started to black out she saw a figure fly towards her captor. In a blur, she dropped to the ground and she watched as the two dark figures clashed together. The two combatants came into view and she could clearly see Raven battling on her behalf, even though the other creature was much more powerful.
“Raven!” she cried before she threw herself into the mix. The Creature flung her backward against the wall, which enraged Raven. He sent all his power through his hands and projected the Creature backward, a good fifty feet away.
The Creature laughed as it crawled to a standing position. “You think it’s over,” it growled in a crackled voice as old as the ages. “It’ll never be over.”
And with that, the large imposing figure flew at both of them, and right as reached where they were, vanished into a puff of black smoke.
Raven knelt to where Abi lay on the ground, pulling her shirt closed. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, but it was evident she wasn’t. “You saved me,” she stated unnecessarily. She hadn’t quite expected that.
“Come on,” he said as he tucked her into his arms and led her to safety.
And though he was of the same species of the Creature who had just assaulted her, somehow she felt safer knowing he was there.
Though it made no logical sense, she knew it was in her best interest to follow where Raven walked.
Chapter Seven: Sebastian
Raven watched the candlelight dance across Abigail’s sleeping face. She hadn’t wanted to return to the coven with him, but rather put as much distance as possible between herself and the horrible creature that attacked her. But as was his nature, Raven did not take no for an answer.
Somehow, she knew she could trust him. She’d been short on heroes or saviors for quite a long while now, but somehow she sensed that if he hadn’t hurt her by now, he wouldn’t. And that, really, was the scariest revelation of all. Abigail had a long history of taking men that wouldn’t hurt her and turning them into men who did. She had created monsters before.
The real question now was could she trust herself not to do it again?
To put her mind at ease he hadn’t made another advance on her. Instead he lulled her to sleep with his words and his thoughts. Finally her emerald eyes closed and the tension drained from her face.
He wanted to reach out and touch her, but had resisted.
He didn’t know why he resisted. He just knew it would be better if he did.
He sat in the chair beside the door, keeping watch. If her attacker returned to find her, Raven would be prepared.
He rested his head against the wall. Who had attacked Abigail? That was the real question. There was no mystery as to why. Vampires were predators in the truest sense of the word. They were the top of the food chain. Chasing down a scared human in an alley wasn’t unlike a cheetah stalking a gazelle. It was just the natural order of things, in any way the vampire life could be natural.
But modern vampires tended to feast upon the blood of the willing. There were covens such as this one where they found shelter, havens for those who wished to be fed upon matched only by those who wanted to feed. It was a time in history Raven was glad to he had survived long enough to see.
He remembered the not so distant past when vampires roamed as serial killers of the worst sort: with ravenous appetites that were never sated, no matter how many lives were extinguished in their wake. There was no sex back then. The act of feeding was the act of sex. Sharp, lengthened fangs would penetrate soft, virgin skin; bodily fluids were exchanged in an orgasmic flurry of blood and death.
Now sex rode shotgun to that appetite, and the need to suck a victim dry had abated over the last century. He liked to think he himself was a big reason for that change. He was the one who resisted the label “murderer,” and instead used his heart-stopping charisma to satisfy a hunger of a different kind.
But the Creature tonight had been angry, not lustful. His, or her, intent had been to destroy rather than just consume. Such motives seemed foreign to Raven, and quite frankly scared him.
He could only imagine the terror a vulnerable human like Abi would experience, face to face with someone who was determined to do her that much harm. Had Raven not come along…
He shuddered. He didn’t want to think about it.
A knock interrupted his reverie. He quickly answered so that Abi would not rouse from her peaceful slumber. The door opened to a tall man whose skin was the shade of mocha and whose eyes were the color of amber. It was Sebastian Crane.
Sebastian looked beyond him to where Abi lay. “How is she?” he asked in a low voice.
Raven inched out of the door and into the hallway. “She is resting.” He didn’t need to ask how Sebastian would know about the Creature in the alley. Sebastian was the most powerful psychic vampire he knew, having wandered this Earth for nearly four hundred years. He’d been sent to the Americas courtesy of a slave ship, where he proceeded to fight his own civil war throughout the 1800s with the evilest, meanest slave owners across the South. He willed them to come to him, to buy him, to try and torture him – and then punish them with all the power and menace of a vampire’s wrath.
He knew what evil lay inside the hearts of monsters, both human and immortal.
It frightened Raven immediately that Sebastian looked as troubled as he felt. He placed a hand on Raven’s shoulder. “Which is more than I could say for you, my friend.”
Raven rubbed his eyes. It was true, between all the events of the last few days Raven felt as though he hadn’t slept in about a hundred years. He was weary with worry. “It’s been a rough couple of days,” he stated unnecessarily as they began to pace the hall together. “Have you heard anything else about Sonja?”
Sebastian shook his head. “The last person who saw her was Constantine.”
Raven smirked. “And therein lies the problem.”
Again, Sebastian shook his head. “If Constantine turn
ed her, he’d wear it like a badge of honor. He’s a greedy son of a bitch, but he’s also vain. That’s one thing you can count on.”
Raven agreed with a reluctant nod. It was just easier to blame Constantine than to contemplate there was someone else out there – someone worse.
Sebastian knew what his friend was feeling. “It’s just better not to get involved,” he finally said, his amber eyes leveled on Raven.
Raven met his gaze. “Meaning?”
“You know what I mean. Humans are not our equal. They’re our prey. To grow attached to them while we walk the constant tightrope of lover and killer isn’t fair to anybody.” Raven looked away. He knew what he was saying was true. He just didn’t really want to hear it right now. “Deep down,” Sebastian told him in a low voice, “We are all that Creature in the alley.”
Raven stepped back. He refused to believe that. “I’ve got to get back,” he told Sebastian as he quickly turned away.
“Remember what I said,” the older vampire called to his departing back. “To save her life, you must set her free.”
Raven slammed the door behind him as he went into the room where he’d hidden Abigail. She barely stirred. The sleep he put her under was deep. He was thankful for that. Maybe she could awaken and forget everything. Forget the incident in the alley, forget the way he’d taken Tracy Lynn – maybe even forget him.
It would be better, Raven thought to himself as he came to sit beside her on the bed. This time he didn’t resist touching her face. He ran a fingertip along the line of her jaw, the smooth silk of her cheek. Her body responded to his touch. Her mouth parted and a soft sigh escaped.
He traced a finger across her virgin neck and then across the creamy exposed skin of her chest. He watched her breasts pucker up to him as the blush rose up her neck and across her face. This time she moaned, and his body responded to the soft, sensual sound.
His finger continued its journey in between her supple breasts and across the curve of her stomach. Her legs opened slightly. He knew he could have her right then and there if he wanted.
“To save her life, you must set her free.”
He growled with frustration as he yanked his hand away. Damn it to hell, why did he care? Why did it matter? She was merely prey, subject to his hunger and his desire.
Then he remembered the fire in her eyes and her righteous indignation as she interrogated him about Tracy Lynn. She was defiant as she challenged him, letting him know that she would be no easy conquest. It was though she was desperate to prove that to him, and to herself.
He’d felt more alive in those moments than he had in nearly two hundred years of feasting and fucking without restraint or regret.
A small knock at the door preceded Constantine poking his head into the room. “How is she?” he asked, and truly seemed genuine in his concern.
But Raven was unimpressed. He glared at the younger vampire. “How do you think she is? Probably regretting the moment she ever walked into this place.” He looked down on her again. “I can’t blame her.”
Constantine approached. His master’s anger was irrelevant to him. “I’ll take her home. She won’t want to wake up here.”
Raven stood to face him. “How do I know that you’re not the one who wants to murder her?”
Constantine looked him straight in the eye. “Because you know.”
Raven studied him for a moment. Finally, “I’ll let you take her if you promise one thing.”
“I don’t make promises,” Constantine was quick to point out. But Raven simply waited. With great reluctance, Constantine bit out, “What?”
“Never bring her back here. You take her home, you vanish from her life, leaving her the same way you found her. Let her free.”
Constantine glared at his master for a moment as he contemplated his options. “Why do you care, Raven?”
Raven only wished he knew. He said nothing.
Constantine walked around Raven to perch on the edge of the bed next to Abi. “You know, this reminds me of a time when I left the woman I loved in your care. Entrusted you, even. Remind me again, Raven. How did that work out?”
“I’m not going to apologize again,” Raven told him. “It’ll never be enough for you.”
“You got that right.” Constantine looked down at Abigail, and his anger seemed to evaporate somewhat. “She reminds me of Nina in a lot of ways. She’s strong, she’s stubborn.” He looked back at Raven. “Even if I tell her not to return, she will.”
Raven thought back to the Creature. “I doubt that.”
Constantine turned back to Abi and brushed her copper hair from her face. “You could have taken her, you know.”
Raven felt the desire bubble up inside of him as he glanced down at Abigail, still flushed from his hands on her body. Physically he wrenched away. “I’m not like you,” the older vampire retorted as he walked to the door. “I have respect for the living.”
Constantine watched Raven depart. “I haven’t promised you anything yet, you know!”
Raven turned to glare at him from the door. “You wouldn’t want to disappoint your master, now, would you?”
The door slammed and Constantine growled with his own frustration. He gathered Abigail into his arms and took off into the night.
In his own quarters, Sebastian drank wine from a pewter goblet. He gazed out of his window at the moon riding high across the dark summer night. A lone tear hovered at the corner of his eye as he thought about the loves he’d lost over the past hundreds of years. The advice he’d given Raven was solid. It was just a shame it was advice he himself had never learned how to heed.
He could still name them off one by one. Alana. Josephine. Elizabeth. Rayn.
Sonja.
His eyes closed and he recalled that dark winter night she had first sneaked into the club, a mere teenager at best. She had been a child of the streets. She was hungry. She was cold. But she was not afraid. It was that last part that had him hooked the moment he looked into her wide eyes, the same shade of topaz as his own. He had been unable to turn her away, even though he knew that would have been best.
For years he looked over her like a daughter. He nurtured her and protected her. And he had loved her. God, how he had loved her. Much more than she could have ever known.
Now she was gone. A victim to his lineage. He sat the goblet down with a slam. He should have turned her himself, he thought. It was the only way to protect her, he understood that now. If he couldn’t stay away, and only the gods knew how he couldn’t, then he could have turned her and trained her to be as powerful as he.
But that chance was long gone now. He grasped the goblet and hurled it across the room, smashing the stained glass window. After a moment of luxuriating in his impulsive action, he gathered his senses and walked over to the window, to pull the heavy drapes closed.
And that’s when he saw her, standing under a broken street light.
Like a flash he flew from his window and landed on the ground behind her. Her short dark hair glistened in moonlight. That familiar tribal tattoo crawled across her lower back. She hadn’t turned to face him, even though he knew she could feel his presence.
“Sonja,” he spoke softly.
He approached cautiously. Something was not right. Her energy was not the same; and he should know because he fed from her many times. Her aura was small and dim. It was like she was in another spiritual realm.
“Sonja,” he said again, louder, with more command. He reached out and touched her shoulder and she jumped from the contact. He gently turned her around and then gasped when he saw her pale eyes and her tiny fangs.
She had just awoken, and had yet to feed.
He effortlessly lifted the small woman in his arms and then sprang back to his quarters. He had to protect her now. She was most vulnerable then. He couldn’t protect her as a human, but now she was one of his own. He knew exactly what she needed.
The drapes closed behind them, he carried her to his velvet draped
bed. She was gasping for air as she trembled, almost like a seizure. He touched the hair that framed her face, stuck to her skin in a cold sweat. Her dead eyes looked right through him.
“Don’t worry, my love,” he whispered. “You’ll be better soon.”
He tossed aside his cape and unbuttoned his shirt. Gently he lay down beside her. He touched her hair, her face and her neck. As his fingers lit upon the wounds there, they began to sputter and breathe. She coughed before she leaned over and wretched. But her stomach was empty.
Her body was empty.
He pulled her back to him. Her body burned hot beneath him as their disease ran through her veins. Tenderly he lifted away the tiny shirt she wore. He couldn’t help his groan as he stared at her naked breasts for the first time. He felt his body harden. Lightly he ran his hands over her hardened nipples, and despite her pain she gasped in pleasure at the contact. He bent down to capture a tiny pink bud in his mouth.
Her hand slid up his back and into his short, tightly curled hair. He groaned against her. She was returning to him. Encouraged, he sucked from one nipple to the other, feeling her gyrate under him.
His hands grasped either side of the denim short skirt she wore and pulled it down as he kissed his way down her body. Her legs spread easily for him, but he was going to enjoy what he had waited so long to savor. He blew cool air against her painfully engorged clit, making her cry out. Her thighs clamped down on his ears as she shoved her hungry pussy into his face.
Still, he took his time. His tongue danced around over her clit, then along the shiny wet folds of her pussy. The more he teased, the more responsive she became. He wouldn’t take her until she finally understood where she was, what she was, and who she was with.
Finally she uttered, “Sebastian...”
With a guttural moan of his own he dove into her hot cunt. He latched his mouth over her clit and sucked while his fingers knit together and entered her pussy and her ass in a double penetration. She bucked her hips against him, lost in a spiral of passion as he claimed her with his mouth and with his hands.
Raven Walks Page 6
