Authors: Michele Hauf
“I will.”
“Then I shall step down. No questions. No challenges. I give you my word. You sure you don’t want to share dessert? There are two of them. And my net is large.”
“I’m fine. Thanks for the meal.”
“Sure.” Truvin stood and detoured for the men’s room.
So Nikolaus headed out to the gift shop. He sinuously gained the first woman, sliding his persuasion into her mind before she could even realize he stood too close to be put off by her strong perfume.
Go home. You are tired.
And he left as quickly as he’d entered.
Nikolaus stood at the curb, taking in the night air. He hadn’t stopped at the valet stand so Truvin guessed he walked. He knew Drake lived somewhere in the area, but Nikolaus was cleverly cautious to keep his address private.
When he’d emerged from the men’s room, Truvin had been disappointed, but a little suspicious, seeing the women no longer lingered. Had to have been Drake’s doing.
Truvin snapped open his cell phone and contacted Zak, one of the newer Kila recruits. “Follow Drake home. Report back to me.”
Now Truvin dialed his backup man, whom he’d positioned without Zak’s knowledge. “Follow the new guy. He’s on Drake. I’m sure he’ll be discovered. Don’t let Drake see you.”
H
e hadn’t expected Truvin to put a man on him, but when Nikolaus sighted the tail, he immediately changed his direction. Instead of walking home and having Jake drive him to Ravin’s place, he detoured for the river. From there, he followed the river’s edge a few miles north.
He had no intention of spending the night alone.
He needed to feel Ravin’s warmth, the safety of her arms, to renew and strengthen—for his greatest challenge yet.
Ravin strode out of the bathroom, still moist from the shower, and dug through her dresser drawer. She pulled up a pair of panties and tugged a sheer pink camisole over her head. Granted, pink was not one of her colors, but she grabbed it for some inexplicable reason. It was…girlie. And that felt all right.
Since Himself had left she’d been doing a good bit of muddling. And muttering. And cursing. And sighing.
What a ridiculous obligation. It wasn’t even an obligation. More like a sacrifice. She shuddered to imagine what the devil could do with a newborn. Why even consider when the decision was already made? She wasn’t mother material. Having a baby was out of the question.
One soul—lost forever.
And yet, while she’d stood under the hot shower stream, she’d begun to imagine a couple, the mother holding a baby in her arms, while the father looked on proudly. She and Nikolaus. And baby makes three.
It was crazy. “Not as crazy as it should be,” she muttered, pacing out to the living room.
It was late. No lights were on in her apartment, so she didn’t balk to stand before the window and look down over the city. There wasn’t much to see on this end of Washington Avenue. She lived on the edge of all the downtown action, though the pink neon facade of the strip joint Déjà Vu did flash at the edge of her periphery.
A baby?
Ravin knew she could get pregnant. She had never taken the pill. She’d learned a contraceptive spell centuries ago, and when invoked once a month, it kept a witch from becoming pregnant. It had worked every month she had used it—but sometimes she forgot.
She wanted her soul back. Balance could never be achieved otherwise.
And what of it? Could she have a baby and give it up? She’d meant it when she’d said she wasn’t mother material. For as long she’d lived—alone and focused as a slayer—she had never once stopped to consider making room for a baby, both physically and emotionally.
Emotions. They took so much out of a person. It was difficult enough dealing with a vampire who loved her. It was as if she had to…love him back. And that took work. It didn’t come naturally.
Maybe.
If it hadn’t come naturally she certainly would not be returning the love to a vampire, Ravin instinctually knew that.
“So are you in love, then, you crazy witch?”
Stretching up an arm along the sill, Ravin turned her side to the window and closed her eyes.
Yeah, it felt good. Being loved by a man. And it didn’t matter what he was, only how he treated her. Nikolaus was not your average vampire. And Ravin was thankful for that.
So she had fallen. And she couldn’t set aside the idea of spending more time with Nikolaus, maybe enough time to have a child.
But a child born of love was not something she could even conceive of handing over to Himself. And she could imagine Nikolaus’s reaction should he learn the future of his child. “Hey, honey, I’m pregnant.” “Oh, sweetness, I love you.” “Great. We’ll be sending it to hell instead of baptizing it. You cool with that?”
“Can’t do it with him. Just…can’t hurt him that way.”
But it needed to be done. Unless…She had wondered about the miscarriage. Officially, that pregnancy could be counted as her firstborn.
“Gotta think on this. There must be some way…”
“Some way to what?”
Ravin spun around to find Nikolaus standing ten feet from her. He looked positively vogue, having exchanged his leathers for stylish black trousers, with pristine white shirt lapels peeking out above the buttoned suit coat.
“How do you do that? You always enter my house without a sound, and without alerting my wards.”
“You want me to go back and knock? Do the whole ‘permission to enter’ thing?”
“No. Come here.”
It felt so good wrapped against Nikolaus’s hard frame. Loved. Safe.
Family
. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. It would be so good.
“Why the suit?”
“I had a meeting with Truvin. It was at a nice restaurant, and I didn’t want to attract attention. So what were you thinking about just now?” he whispered. “It looked like you were daydreaming. You know you shouldn’t stand in the window like that. I don’t like rivals.”
“They can’t see in.”
“I could see perfectly fine as I approached from the end of the block.”
“You’re kidding me. Oh, now I am embarrassed.”
“I didn’t think you could be embarrassed.”
“I think I’m—” she touched his jaw, tracing the smooth skin he must have shaved to go along with the not-drawing-attention costume “—softening. Does that sound strange?”
“Miss Vampire Slayer in pink panties soft? Nah. I wager you’ve an arsenal of blood bullets prepared for your next patrol.”
“I do not. I couldn’t go out last time. I didn’t want to. Nikolaus, you’ve changed me.”
“I didn’t try to.”
“I know. And that’s the strange thing. It just happened. I keep thinking about what you said about me making the entire vampire nation suffer for my parents’ deaths. I don’t want to be hard anymore. I want to step back and start thinking. I want to return to the light.”
“Sounds good to me, sweetness.” He led her into the bedroom and tugged off his suit coat. Sitting on the bed, he swept an arm around her waist, tugging her onto him. “Ravin, these past days have been all good. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I know when I say I love you that I mean it.”
She began to work on the pearl buttons at his neck. “Even beyond the spell?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes, I can. I feel it in my heart.” Clasping her hand, he stopped her halfway down the shirt. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever known before.”
“Even when you had a fiancée?”
“Even then.”
“But I thought you said the brain is tricky? Don’t abandon logic on me now, Nikolaus. You’re not supposed to like my kind.”
“That’s spin bullshit manufactured by a bunch of ancient witches and vampires.”
“Yeah, well…you
are
a vampire.”
“You hate us that much?”
“Nikolaus.” She crawled onto his lap and kissed him. “Truth?”
Something devastating glimmered in her eyes. So obvious, Nikolaus felt the prick to his own heart. “Go ahead.”
“I hate the vampire that is you.” Another kiss bruised his mouth the way he liked it. Hard and urgent. “But…” Her eyes swept back up to his. “I admire the man that you are. You’re kind and generous. You seek peace. It confuses me. Twists my morals and makes me want to punch something.”
He lifted her fist. Yes, it was tight and ready to punch. “Did you just say, in some roundabout way, that you love me?”
She shook her head, defeated and yet glowing with honesty. “I—don’t push, Nikolaus. It’s just me and you right now. And I plan on taking all the kisses, sex and love I can get from you before you burn me at the stake.”
“I will never hurt you, Ravin, I promise you.”
“Nikolaus Drake can make that promise. But the vampire, the man who desires to once again lead Kila, won’t honor that promise. It is the way of the world, and I accept that.”
She snuggled against his chest, drawing up her knees and gliding a palm through his dark hair. “I’ve always known I’d die at the hands of those who destroyed my family. I just never thought it would be my lover who delivered the killing spark.”
“Don’t say things like that. I mean it. Ravin, I could spend the rest of my days with you.”
And have children?
Closing her eyes, Ravin rolled off Nikolaus and spread her arms across the bed. “You’re talking as if you’re whipped.”
“Completely.”
“That’s not a good thing.”
“Shut up and kiss me, witch.”
“You think so, eh?”
She knelt over him, placing a knee to either side of his hips, and glided a palm up her stomach. Drawing up the pink camisole exposed the underside of her breasts. She liked the way he looked at her. Worshipful. Hungry. As if she were the only woman on the earth, and not a witch, at that.
In fact, the whole scenario was just so alien that it turned her on. When had she ever sat upon the lap of a man in a suit, looking so rich and business-like? He appeared the furthest thing from a vampire. The closest thing to a normal life of domesticity she’d ever touched.
“Higher,” Nikolaus said. “Let me see it all.”
The glide of silk over her hard nipples curled a wicked grin onto her face. Displaying herself, she reveled in the way such teasing exposure made her feel. Sexy. Free of her darkest worries. She’d seduced men before, but always with an ulterior motive in mind—getting her own pleasure.
This time she’d change the goal a bit.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Don’t touch, Nikolaus.”
“You playing hard-to-get tonight?” He leaned back on his elbows. A tilt of his head signaled he was ready for this play. “Then give me a show, sweetness. Make not touching worth it.”
“You’re on.”
She licked her fingertips then swirled them over a nipple. Her nerve endings reacted with a shiver that shimmied all the way down to her groin. Tossing back her head, Ravin slid her hand down her stomach and under the lacy band of her panties. She could satisfy herself anytime, but turning on her lover was all she was about right now.
Grinding her hips over Nikolaus’s erection filled the room with his tight but appreciative moan.
“Don’t know if I can
not
touch,” he murmured.
“I thought you liked control? Show me just how in control you can be, lover.”
“A challenge, eh? All right, then. Let me see you touch yourself. Pull down your panties.”
She took directions, slowly guiding the pink silk lower.
“Yes, nice and slow, that’s how I like it.”
“I thought you liked it rough?”
“That’s good, too.”
Shifting her hips forward, she pressed her mons against her fingers. Already wet and hot, she slid a finger up and down over the exquisite core of her being. The back of her hand rubbed Nikolaus’s cock through the trousers. She liked the tease.
She liked the power that held her lover captivated, his eyes half lidded as he focused on her journey to release.
“Slower, sweetness. Make it last.”
“Too late,” she murmured.
It didn’t take long to reach orgasm with a sexy man staring her down. Throwing back her head, she clutched at his trousers, wishing they would just tear off. She sprawled upon him, kissing his neck and tracing her finger across his lips so he could taste her.
“Now I get to watch you,” she whispered.
“Deal.”
“Since I did get dressed for the occasion,” Nikolaus said as he retrieved his shirt from the floor, “maybe you’d dress up for me?”
“You didn’t dress for me tonight, you said it was for some other vampire.”
“Yeah, but it’s not often I do the suit thing. You got a pretty dress? Maybe we could go dancing.”
“You’re not serious.”
“You don’t dance?”
“Not in front of people. Besides, it’s too late. All the bars are closed.”
“I’d never bring you into a dark, smoky bar.” He slid an arm through the dress shirt sleeve. “How about we make it something special. You got roof access?”
Intrigued, Ravin curled forward to distract him from buttoning the shirt. “I do.”
“I’ll give you an hour while I run out for some champagne. Meet you up top for a dance, then?”
The idea, silly as it sounded, was the best offer Ravin had had…ever.
“An hour,” she said. “I’ll be waiting, lover.”
Gabriel stood between two new members of tribe Kila. They looked deliberately tough, with punked-out attitudes and nose rings, along with studded leather gloves and biker boots.
Before him, and leaning against a black granite office desk, which contained records and files for the tribes’ possessions, Truvin Stone stood, arms crossed over his chest. The man had instilled a certain fear in the tribe members.
He must know. About her.
“You wanted to see me?” Gabriel asked. He couldn’t help but feel the hairs on the back of his neck poke out. Something wasn’t right. Why the two on either side of him?
“I need you to take a message to Nikolaus Drake.”
Maybe he doesn’t know.
“Didn’t you see him tonight?”