by Nina Croft
What the hell?
For a moment, she just stared. Her cheeks flushed. He was…stunning, and the heat sank to her belly, settling low down.
Well, what did she expect? She was repressed, that was all. Hardly unexpected when she’d spent the last seven years in a cell, with absolutely no release for her rampaging teenage hormones.
He was so big. Her eyes were drawn to the vast expanse of honey-gold skin. His arms and shoulders were satin-smooth, his chest lightly furred, his stomach flat and ridged with muscle. She waited, her breath locked in her throat. But he didn’t undress further, just crouched down in front of her. He dipped the T-shirt in the bucket of water, squeezed it out then reached toward her.
Er—what the fuck is happening here?
At the first stroke of the cool material against her face, Raven flinched, then held herself immobile. He gently wiped away the blood, and when her face was clean, he rinsed the shirt and started on the rest of her. He hesitated at the point where her tank top skimmed her breasts, revealing the marks—deep, red crescents where Sorien’s claws had broken the skin.
“Did you really have a vision of Sorien’s death?” he asked.
For a second, she didn’t understand the question. Her brain was hardly functioning to its full capacity. Then she remembered her words in the great hall. He must have been watching. She shook her head.
“Pity,” he murmured.
He carried on with his cleaning. Raven closed her eyes. She didn’t know why he didn’t kill her straightaway. Maybe he was a vision after all, but the stroke of the soft material against her bruised skin seemed real. It had been nearly seven years since anyone had touched her with anything approaching tenderness.
She felt a little…strange. And Raven couldn’t understand the need to cry welling up from somewhere deep within her. She swallowed it down. She’d never cried—it was one of the rules of her existence—and she wasn’t going to start now.
He finally went still, and Raven opened her eyes. He was still crouched in front of her, the pity back in his eyes making her steel herself against him.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Doing what?”
“This—” she nodded at the T-shirt in his hand. “Being…nice? Why don’t you do what you came to do and get it over with?”
“And what would that be?”
He was playing with her. She rolled her eyes. “Kill me.”
He shook his head. “I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to get you out.”
The words made no sense to her. Unless the Council had decided to sacrifice her themselves. She studied him, head cocked to one side as though she could somehow see into his mind. She didn’t believe him. And anyhow, there was no way out. They were deep underground, surrounded by fire demons. She still had no clue how he had gotten in. “Who are you?” she asked.
“My name’s Kael Hunter. Your father, Darius, sent me.”
Her father? That wasn’t possible. This was cruel.
Her father had been her whole world. He’d brought Raven up alone; her mother having abandoned her at birth—she had no clue why. It had just been Raven and her father for as long as she could remember.
Pain flashed through her as an image swept through her mind. His final moments, his body soaked in blood from the many wounds. He’d died trying to protect her from the fire-demons. “My father’s dead. I saw him die.”
Kael shrugged. “Things are not always as they seem.’
Could her father have survived? She had been so sure he was dead, killed in the attack when the fire-demons had taken her. Sorien had told her he was dead. Could he have lied? Of course he could. “You’ve got a phone. If my father’s still alive, then let me talk to him.”
“We can’t risk using the phone again, in case they pick up the signal. But he’s alive, believe me. Next time, I’ll bring you proof.”
She didn’t want to hope. Hope was dangerous and led to despair, but all the same a little flame burst into life, and a first flicker of real interest. “So where has he been? What did he do?” she asked.
“He came to the Council for help.”
Now she knew he was lying. She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.” She didn’t try to hide her scorn. “My father would never have gone to the Council. They betrayed him. They were the reason we were on the run. The reason the fire-demons found us.”
He shrugged again. “Maybe he knew we were the only ones who could help.”
She gritted her teeth at that. “We?” she asked. “Who are you?”
“I told you, my name’s Kael. I’m a friend of your father’s.” He paused briefly. “And the head of the Council.”
She stared at him, her hands clenching into fists at her side. This man was responsible for everything that had happened. Her father had told her, warned her to beware the Council and especially its leader.
“So you’re the one who demanded my death,” she mused. “Yet now you expect me to believe that you’ve changed your mind and that you actually want to save me?”
“I made a mistake.” His tone was harsh.
“What?”
“I was furious with your father, but you were an innocent. It’s the Council’s place to protect, not to kill. But by the time I cooled down, your father was gone.”
She didn’t believe him. It was some trick. She shrugged. “So rescue me then.”
“Not yet.” She gave him a scornful look, and he continued. “It’s too great a risk to try and move you in daylight, and besides, we can’t escape the castle without help. The place is too well-protected. The Council has an army under our command. As soon as they are in place, they’ll attack and provide a distraction. First, I needed to check the layout and ensure you were really here. We had no proof.”
She still wasn’t sure she believed him. “Why didn’t my father come?”
“There are other...” He paused as if unsure of how to go on. Maybe there were other considerations, but if so, he clearly wasn’t ready to share them with her yet. Instead, he stretched out a hand and ran it gently over her lower lip. “You should be healing faster than this. When did you last feed?”
Her eyes flickered to his face. So he knew what she was. But of course he did. He knew her father, after all
“Last night.” She swallowed down her revulsion at the memory, but he must have seen something in her expression. He looked at her closely, comprehension dawning in his eyes.
“The man in the hall?”
She nodded reluctantly. “Once a month they take me from here to the hall, and I feed.” A shudder ran through her, and she had an overwhelming urge to explain herself. “I have no choice. I’m weak and the blood-thirst is too strong. I never drink much, just enough to stop the craving.” She took a deep breath. “Once they brought a child. I couldn’t, I refused then. They killed her anyway.” She closed her eyes briefly at the memory of that death. “I tried to end my life, but they stopped me and ever since I’ve been kept like this.” She raised her arm, rattling the heavy chain. “The next time they took me, I fed.” She finished. She didn’t want to look at him and see the revulsion that must be in his face.
“Jesus,” he muttered. He closed his eyes, seemingly lost in thought. When he opened them, he appeared to have come to a decision. He reached behind him and drew a blade.
Was he going to kill her after all? “What are you doing?”
“You need more blood; you have to feed.”
He drew the knife across his wrist. Raven watched in fascination, breathing in the rich scent of fresh blood, sweet and heavy. Her own blood quickened in response, thundering through her veins, the pulse throbbing at her throat. She licked her lips and saw him follow the movement. Then he slowly extended his arm toward her.
She ran her tongue across her sharp canines, felt the prickle in her gums as her fangs elongated. This couldn’t be happening. That he should offer his blood to her.
Don’t do it.
She had to
keep her wits about her. This was some sort of trick. But she couldn’t resist.
Slowly she lowered her head, holding her breath, expecting his arm to be snatched away at any moment. But he held it steady in front of her. She stroked her tongue along the line of blood and almost swooned. The taste was richer than anything she had ever experienced. Magic coursed through his blood. Whatever he was, he wasn’t human. With that thought, she sank her fangs deep into his vein and she fed. The warm blood heated her cold flesh, filled the emptiness inside her. Strength flowed through her, and she sighed against his skin.
Chapter Three
Kael gazed down at the dark head locked against his arm and experienced the same twist in his guts as when he had first seen her. He hadn’t meant to do this; his kind had always found the vampires’ kiss too seductive. That first lick of her small, catlike tongue had sent shivers spiraling down his spine. The mouth at his wrist tugged at places deep within his body. Heat coiled low in his belly, and his cock hardened inside his jeans. He shifted, and she glanced up from her concentration and caught him in the gaze of those strange eyes. She continued to feed as she watched him, and she was healing as she fed. The bruises fading from her skin, leaving it white and flawless. His head fell back, and he knew he needed to stop her.
But for a moment longer he allowed himself to enjoy the sensations coursing through his body. Allowed himself to think, at last, of what he had come here to do. His body hardened further at the thought, and he closed his eyes and savored the feeling.
Would she cooperate? It had to be done, and he would prefer it to be by her consent. Rape was inconceivable to him, and, if he were truthful, he didn’t want to add further to her suffering. But he had thought it through carefully, considered every option. This was the only way he could be sure that once she was out of here the Council would not call for her sacrifice.
Now he realized something he hadn’t expected. He wanted her quite desperately, and the notion seemed somehow wrong, as though he should have no thought of taking pleasure from such an act.
He was no celibate. He took human women when the need was on him, but he never formed relationships, never allowed himself to get close. He suspected, where Raven was concerned, it was already too late. He stared down at her, studying her.
What made her different?
She was beautiful, strange and exotic, but there was more. She stirred something inside him that he’d believed had died long ago with his people.
He swayed, lightheaded from the lack of blood. Just as he thought he would have to pull her off, she released him. She stroked her velvet tongue once over the already-healing cut, then she sighed. Her head fell back, and he could see the rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath the thin cotton as she dragged the air into her lungs. She no longer appeared gaunt, and her pale skin shone. The claw marks were gone from her breast and the nipples stood out hard and swollen. When he breathed in, the scent of her arousal filled his nostrils, seeping into his mind, and his body responded to that scent, so he had to force himself to stand up and back away.
***
Holy shit.
She was going to explode with the power coursing through her blood. It throbbed in her veins as though she had the force to overcome anything. The meager amounts of human blood she had taken in the past had never tasted this good, had never made her feel like this. What was he?
She felt heavy, languorous, her nipples tight, her sex soft and swollen, her skin so sensitive that the minutest movements of the chill air sent frissons of sensation rippling through her.
She glanced up. Kael was leaning against the wall, arms folded across his body. He was watching her closely. There was a sleepy, almost sated expression on his face as though it was he who had fed, not her. His eyes moved leisurely over her body and she glanced down. The scars and bruising had vanished, leaving her skin clear, smooth.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Her eyes flew back to his face and she nodded. “Your blood tastes different, feels different.”
He smiled. “I am different. You’ve only ever drunk human blood.” He looked at her sharply. “Unless you fed from the fire-demons?”
Raven shuddered in revulsion. “At first, they tried to make me. But I threw up all over them and they stopped trying.” The last years would have been far easier if she had been able to feed from them. It would have saved her so much heartache and guilt. “That was when they started to bring the humans.”
Everything seemed different, and she realized it was the absence of pain and hunger. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself a few moments to savor the feeling. When she opened them again, he was still watching her.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It was my pleasure.”
She stared at him, wanting to ask a question but scared of the answer. He appeared so big, so strong-looking, that she found it hard to believe that she could cause him pain, but she needed to know. “Did I hurt you?”
He smiled then. “It felt good.”
“Good?”
“My people have always avoided the kiss of the vampire. We find it addictive. Now I know why.”
She studied him, trying to see what he was. But he looked human. “Your people? What are you? Your blood tastes of magic.”
Kael shrugged. “My people are gone. I am all that’s left. I am a shape-shifter.”
“Like a werewolf?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Werewolves start out as human, they’re infected by the bite of another wolf. We are one of the immortal races and are born into our powers.”
“But you can change?”
“Into any living organism.”
“Before you came, I heard the sound of wings.”
“I entered the cell as a moth.”
Raven stared at him, trying to imagine something so huge turning into something so small. It seemed impossible, and she smiled. The smile felt strange, like some long-forgotten skill. She raised her hand and pushed her hair behind her ear. The chains clanked, and she remembered she was still a prisoner. She didn’t really know this man, what he wanted from her. He said he was here to release her, but she was still in chains. She looked at him.
“Can you release me?”
“Yes.”
Then something flickered behind his eyes, and desolation swamped her. She had lived through enough of Sorien’s games to learn that hope invariably led to despair. Whatever this man spoke of freeing her, aiding her, there would be a price to pay, and suddenly anger rose up inside her. It felt good.
“And will you release me?” she asked.
“Not just yet.”
Chapter Four
“Why?” Raven whispered.
He didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he pushed himself from the wall and paced the confines of the cell like a caged animal. Finally, he came to a halt in front of her, hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans, and answered her question with one of his own. “What do you know of the prophecy, Raven?”
“Everything.” He raised an eyebrow, and she shrugged. “My father told me that my mother’s sister brought me to the Council when I was a baby. She told them that a prophecy had been made at the time of my birth. A prophecy foretelling the future. They said that if either the Council, or the fire-demons, were to sacrifice me on my twenty-first birthday, then that side would win a great victory over their enemies.”
“Do you know the actual words?”
“Yes, my father taught me.” She closed her eyes and began to recite. “‘That whosoever shall sacrifice the virgin...’” She paused. Opened her eyes and stared at him. “Oh.”
She’d never really thought about the significance of that word before, except to be thankful that she would at least be saved the horror of rape at Sorien’s hands. Now it suddenly occurred to her where Kael was going with this.
He took a step closer. “Raven, you don’t have to die. There is another way.”
She was scrambling to get her head around the im
plications.
Why had she never thought about this before?
Because there was no point. There was hardly a whole load of willing and eager men at her disposal. None, actually.
He stroked one finger down her cheek, and her skin tingled where he touched. She swallowed, forcing herself not to flinch. “What way is that?” she asked. She was pretty sure she knew the answer but wanted to be absolutely sure before she made a complete fool of herself.
A faint flicker of amusement flashed across his features, but he answered the question. “Once you have lain with a man, the prophecy cannot come to pass.”
Lain? That was an…old-fashioned way to put it.
“Once I’ve fucked a man, you mean?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”
Well, there it was. She really couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She wanted to object. Or did she? She forced her eyes to linger on the long length of him and felt a queer twist in her insides. She couldn’t deny that he held a strange, unexpected attraction for her, something she had never expected to feel.
She remembered her first vision of Kael. Apparently, her mother had the sight, and her father had warned her that it might pass to her, and she’d known she was seeing her future. She’d been fourteen at the time and only hours from being taken by the fire-demons. Less than a year later, the blood-thirst had come upon her and she had been locked in the darkness. After that, Kael had come to her often in dreams and visions, reminding her of the sun and the summer skies she would never see again.
She’d been drawn to him from the first, but as she had grown, matured, those feeling had changed until she’d come to want him as a woman.
Yeah, it was official; she was repressed, but she’d needed something to keep her going in the darkness.
Now, she could still feel the pull of erotic heat from the feeding. But she also couldn’t forget that he was from the Council. She had no reason to trust anyone from the Council. And every reason not to.
“You have to understand,” Kael said when she remained silent. “There are still those among us who believe we are fools not to take advantage of the prophecy, not to make the sacrifice ourselves. This is the only way to guarantee your safety once you’re out of here. If you want to live, you cannot leave this castle a virgin.”
