Authors: Michele Hauf
“I did. A few hours ago. The wine was exquisite and the women were—well, that’s of no import. But I’ve received some disturbing news about our former leader. News that will not allow me to accept him back into the fold with open arms.”
“He’s good for Kila,” Gabriel insisted. “He’s a sense of decency that—”
You don’t have
was not spoken.
And why not? Was he so afraid of this bastard that he feared his backlash?
“That decent vampire,” Truvin said slowly and succinctly, “has lied to you and to all of us.”
“He doesn’t lie.”
“I know differently. You will return to him with this message.” Truvin took a step forward.
Gabriel sensed the danger, could feel it in his veins and smell it stalking closer. He fisted his hands, but the men to his sides clasped his arms. He struggled. They held firm.
Truvin lifted a cross before him. The solid gold piece was six inches long and about four inches wide. Before Gabriel could beg mercy he felt the burn of the holy object eat through his flesh as Truvin pressed it high on his chest.
“Go with blessings, and whatever the rest of that holy crap is.” Truvin grinned widely.
Gabriel dropped to the floor and passed out.
He would return soon.
Ravin dug to the back of her closet. She knew she owned a dress. It had been a long time since she’d worn it, and it hadn’t been taken out since she’d moved to Minneapolis.
Half buried in her closet, and surrounded by the musty scent of leather—she really did own too much leather—she groped toward the back. Something soft shivered across her wrist. She grabbed the fabric and it fell off the hanger. Pulling it out, she stroked the red silk across her cheek.
A giddy giggle escaped.
Ravin twirled and landed on the bed, kicking up her feet and landing with the red silk dress splayed across her belly.
He made her feel beautiful. And tonight she wanted to be beautiful for him. It was so silly, she laughed again.
A
gentle mist glittered black diamonds across the tar rooftop. It was well into early morning, and the streets below were quiet. A police siren wailed in the distance, but here, time had stopped.
Red silk drifted across Ravin’s body, clinging at her breasts and floating near her knees. This feeling of utter femininity lightened her, made her forget to worry about the darkness in her life.
All she wanted to do was revel in the feel of the soft silk as it shimmered across her flesh. And to bask in the admiration coming from her lover’s eyes.
Nikolaus had found a red rosebud for his suit lapel. Swoon-worthy, his look. And Ravin had swooned right into his arms.
Now they stood at the center of the rooftop, swaying to music they heard only in their heads. A naive dance of testing one against the other. Did he wish to move? She couldn’t resist the sway. So long as he held her it didn’t matter if they moved or stood still until the sun rose.
Scratch that. She’d be sure to get her lover inside before the first ray of light burst across the horizon. This phoenix had survived much, but it was questionable whether or not sunlight was still his enemy.
Could he survive her?
Once already Nikolaus had risen from the wake of her destruction. And while Ravin believed him when he declared his love toward her, she knew that was false.
It had to be
. He was fighting another of her cruel tricks. Which is why she’d chosen not to tell him about the third obligation.
Have Nikolaus’s baby? She could go there.
But, she must not.
Maybe?
Never.
And yet, it was the only thing that would set her soul free.
So what to do?
Count on the loophole. Said loophole being that her miscarriage was actually her firstborn.
And, not give it another thought, at least for tonight. Tonight she wanted to concentrate exclusively on her and Nikolaus.
“Can you fly?” he suddenly whispered. Breaking the tight hold, Nikolaus led her to the roof edge by one hand. There the cinder blocks built up to shin level formed a half-foot-high precipice around the rooftop. “I’ve never known if witches can fly on their own, or if they need a broomstick.”
“We do not do broomsticks.” Ravin hugged him from behind. The breeze listed Nikolaus’s mist-tipped hair across her lips. “But with the proper training we can fly. One has to master the element of air first. Unfortunately, I’ve only mastered earth and water.”
“Difficult studies?”
“Yes. Earth magic took me almost a century to master. But it’s the most valuable and necessary. A witch will never starve if she masters the earth and all the riches it gives up from a few seeds pressed into soil.”
“So you control the earth? Can you make an earthquake?”
“That’s wizard stuff. I can feed a village from a single field with a touch of magic. I can move the earth to dig a foundation or rescue a child from a deep well. But nothing so spectacular as earthquakes.”
“And water?”
“Water was easy, and another valuable skill, for a witch who masters water need never fear a drowning chair.”
She caught his wince.
“Obviously some of the craft has been around for ages. Though there are still witch finders out there, and they do use a more diabolical form of the chair.”
“Can you make the rain fall?”
She splayed out her palm to catch the tickling mist. “I can redirect it.” And with a swish of her hand she sent the mist to the edge of the roof, leaving them surrounded by a shimmery fall of rain—yet not on them.
“Nice trick. But I still want to see you fly.”
“Air is a tricky skill. Flying isn’t necessary for survival, and I have only ever focused on the necessities.”
“I wish I could fly you to the moon.” Nikolaus stepped up onto the cinder-block ledge. Four stories below car headlights rushed by en route to Saturday night haunts. A precarious balance swayed him unevenly until he found his center and dropped his arms, for he didn’t need to thrust them out. “I would, you know.”
“I believe it.”
Ravin crossed her arms and looked up to the vampire backlit by the moonlight. Long black hair rippled in the breeze. He sniffed the air. Always smelling, taking in the scent of the world. He was cerebral, feral and exquisite. A god of some mythical legend, his imposing frame and build could send mere mortals screaming. All
without
a single flash of fang. If fang were revealed, she felt sure chaos would ensue.
She rubbed a palm along her neck. Painful and pleasurable, his kiss.
I could spend forever with this man. And yes, I could have his child.
Stepping up beside her lover, Ravin stretched out her arms and closed her eyes. “I want to fly,” she murmured. “It must be incredible, soaring through the clouds.”
“Clouds are cold,” he said. “But probably a real kick to dart in and out of.”
Eyes still closed, Ravin turned to face the street, arms wavering as she tilted side to side.
“Hold my hand,” he said.
She did, and began to walk along the brick ledge. Daring to tilt outward, she trusted that he would not let her go. It was innate, the trust. He wouldn’t allow her to be hurt. Damn her soul.
It was already damned.
The air breezed over her face and slithered inside her dress where it tickled between her breasts and set her nipples to a tight ruche. The silk skirt rippled out from her legs, giving her a brief death thrill, to stand so boldly defiant of gravity.
“Hold my other hand.”
An unspoken dare rang in the clap of their palms.
You want to do this?
Oh, yeah.
Stepping down onto the roof, Nikolaus leaned backward and used his weight to counterbalance Ravin’s tilt. She hung over the street, her hair and clothing listing freely, as if she were a medieval banner declaring one’s fealty to a cause. Her cause was bold red love.
From above, the moon beamed a cold caress upon her face. “This is incredible. Do you think the moon will tell?”
“If she does, I’ll take a bite out of her.”
Ravin laughed and thrust back her head. If she tilted farther, she could see the building across the street once used to sell architectural antiques. The wall of rain just misted her forehead.
The stretch of her limbs felt exhilarating. The utter freedom made her want to begin her air studies. To fly would be awesome, not so unnatural as she’d once thought.
“If you mastered air,” Nikolaus said, “and I keep having sex with you, I’d take that air magic into me. I could fly, as well.”
“Then I’ll start my studies tomorrow,” Ravin declared. “So we can fly to the moon together. Nikolaus!”
“What?”
And she did it—she simply reacted. “I love you.”
A pulse moved through her system. It was deep and basso and ominous. The feeling of love? Of finally letting go and accepting, come what may?
She’d snatch it, let no one attempt to destroy this moment of happiness.
Once again a pulse quickened her heartbeat, but it felt…bigger, not a simple part of her. In fact, it didn’t feel like something she owned at all.
A vibration shuddered through the buildings and street below. It radiated a clear wave across the landscape, moving everything by a fraction, as if the world were suddenly displaced a quarter of an inch.
“What is that?” Still clutching his hands, Ravin looked up and into the eyes of her lover.
Nikolaus stood upon the ledge, his feet to either side of hers. He held her with ease. His eyes had changed.
“Nikolaus?”
“Witch,” he growled.
And in the next second, Ravin knew the spell had been broken.
Nikolaus’s hands opened up, his fingers sliding free of hers.
Arms flailing out and behind her, Ravin groped for a way to stop the imminent collision of bone to hard sidewalk. Instead, her fingers snagged on Nikolaus’s pocket.
And as she screamed silently, her body rushed away from the vampire who crouched above, snarling at her.
“S
often,” Ravin chanted furiously as she felt the gush of chill air beat at her shoulders and hips and thighs. She couldn’t see where she was headed. Not a bad thing at a time like this.
“Goddess, protect me.”
For a witch without air skills she could not slow her speed or make the air caress her fall. So she’d have to concentrate on the earth, the hard, cement sidewalk.
The earth was ancient, the giver of life, and capable of destruction. It took so many forms….
Cement was formed of powdered limestone and clay and small pebbles before being mixed with water and allowed to harden. She just had to focus on its initial state…and make it deep enough….
Above her the vampire glared down, a dark demon whose eyes captured the moonlight and flashed silver. A vampire who had been forced to play love slave to a witch for weeks. He waited for the crash. Fragile witch splattered into a mass of blood and guts. Quite a feast for a hungry vampire.
“Dissolve!” she invoked forcefully.
Impact stretched out so long, Ravin wondered if her soul hadn’t leapt from her body to stand beside the accident, watching it all.
No, her soul was out on loan.
She could hear the eulogy now.
She was not a perceptive person; could never see the good in people until it was too late. She betrayed the craft by loving a vampire. Bury her deep. Welcome to hell.
She may be soulless, but she was immortal and it was going to take nothing less than fire to do her in.
Impact flashed a brilliant white aura behind her closed eyelids. She felt every spiking stab of pain. Cartilage crunched. Her brain jumped inside her skull. Lungs compressed. Extremities flailed.
Yet, even as she tallied her injuries, she knew the softening spell had worked. She had hit at full impact, but cement dust spumed about her.
She choked on a throat full of blood. Didn’t hurt overmuch to move her arm. A monster of a headache buzzed her brain. Her fingers clasped something like fabric.
Soft Italian wool. His pocket. She’d claimed a piece of her lover.
And her heart ached for his loss more than broken bones ever would.
Above, the vampire leapt. Like a predator descending upon its prey, Nikolaus landed on the pavement with the grace of a cat, and the snarl of a caged lion set free. His long hair streamed out like a death flag, whipping in the wind. Fingers clenched before him. He beat the air and roared.
Gorgeous long fingers. Stroke me gently, lover. Please…
He slapped her face. Impact loosened a stream of copper blood down the back of her throat. But Ravin wasn’t about to argue after having survived the fall.
Now, she just had to survive the vampire.
“What have you done to me?” he growled. “Witch! You cursed me to…to…”
He couldn’t speak the word—
love
. Oh, she knew his revenge would be horrendous.
Ravin wanted to scream at him.
Yes, kill me now. The fall didn’t do it, but you certainly can.
She could but swallow back her own blood. Lungs wheezed and she choked on her breaths.
He gripped her chin roughly. “You will pay for this, witch.”
A gnash of his fangs preceded a toothy snarl. Never had she seen Nikolaus so animalistic. Her lover, the man who had whispered softly in her ear as he’d made her come over and over between the sheets.
She loved this man—this vampire!
His shoe stomped the dusty ground near her ear. “You had better hide, witch, because I will come for you. And it won’t be with flowers in hand or kisses for your foul lips. Do you understand?”
She tried to nod, but a weary darkness toyed with her conscious.
He dropped her head and stepped over her. Ravin lay there on the sidewalk, arms spread out and legs crooked one over the other.
And the vampire strode away. Her lover.
Her destroyer.
Ripping the red rosebud from his lapel, Nikolaus crushed it and flung it aside.
He stalked down the street, away from the sprawled body of the witch—
a witch!
Just moments ago he’d been standing on the rooftop
dancing
with her.
It hurt him in the chest to consider he’d been romancing her. His breath, it was difficult to find. She’d taken it away. The very witch who had once tried to kill him.
How had she…?
Nikolaus gasped, summoning his breath. It gushed up in a wave, exploding in a choking spasm. She’d bespelled him!
A spell she had claimed not to have purposefully put upon him, but Nikolaus suspected differently. What a way to rub the salt into his already deep wounds.
Sliding a palm along his jacket, he felt the torn fabric. What had she taken away from him? His respect, his integrity. A piece of his soul?
He spat to the side and glanced back over his shoulder. Already, he’d put four blocks distance between them. The witch struggled to sit up.
The urge to race back to her side and break her neck had him clenching his fingers into fists. Easy and quick. The nightmare would be vanquished.
Nikolaus whipped his head back around and focused on the street. The bar crowds had all gone home and no one walked the street.
No, he’d let her suffer. She had to have sustained incredible injuries hitting the rock-hard cement like that. Though, he’d only noticed the thin trickle of blood from between her thick, red lips—
Nikolaus bellowed out a brute wail as his thoughts revisited their dangerous association.
He shivered and sloughed his palm down his opposite arm, pushing off her taint but knowing he could not completely remove her scent. Picking up his pace, he headed home.
The witch must be shucked from his skin, or he would go mad with the tingling remainder of her essence.
She must have lain on the sidewalk behind the apartment building for an hour. The mist had not stopped, and it stirred the cement dust into a foul gray mud.
Not a soul walked by. This alley was quiet, rarely used except by a lost driver who used it to turn around and head back in the right direction. Residents parked in an underground lot—where she kept the chopper—or across the street on a ramp.
As the second hour began to tick by, Ravin rolled to her stomach, wincing at the lingering pain. She did not cry out, for her injuries were slight. Nothing broken, she knew that intuitively. The real damage had been to her heart.
Crunching the wool pocket square into her fist, she drew herself to her knees in the pebble-riddled slush of cement dust and rain, and then stood. Wobbling a bit, she stabilized with a balance of her hands out from her body. The red silk dress was coated with gray mud. Thick wodges ran down her thighs and fell in clods to the ground.
A glance to the rooftop did not spy a gorgeous vampire perched like a stone deity.
An angry warrior
, she thought,
just released from captivity
.
Wistful, she then made her way inside and up to her apartment.
Relief over arriving in her own home, a place that had once provided sanctity, loosened Ravin’s tension. A tension she’d not realized tightened her muscles, until her body decided to let go. As her neck relaxed, her head dropped. Knees shaking, she rushed forward, aiming for the bedroom to collapse on the bed.
But when she reached the bedroom, her stomach pushed up its contents, and she veered into the bathroom.
Settling against the bathtub and slinking down to rest her head against the outer edge of it, she began to cry. Hell, a fall like that would make anyone sick.
But Ravin suspected something far more dreadful to be the cause of her nausea.
Streams of water poured over his head and shoulders. The water bit into him, so hot the temperature, but Nikolaus wanted to ensure no trace of Ravin Crosse remained on his flesh.
Manic with his own rage and struggling against the fact he’d allowed himself to fall to the witch’s bidding—when rationally he knew what she was to him—he snarled and intermittently beat a fist against the slick black glass-tile walls.
“What kind of leader falls to such idiocy?” he muttered, and then twisted off the water.
His flesh was red and sensitive to the cool air in the loft. He walked from the shower, dripping across the marble-tiled floor, and stepped onto the hardwood floor in his bedroom, not bothering to dry off with a towel.
Stalking the room from bed to windows, Nikolaus struggled with the imminent resolution of his crimes.
He could not allow the tribe to discover his indiscretions. The evidence threatened—that he was a witch lover—and it was false. It must not be used against him, because he’d been out of his head. Bespelled!
His own brain had tricked him into believing a lie. Pity he’d not been able to excise the spell as if it were a tumor.
He must slay the witch and put this nasty business behind him before returning to Kila. Which meant he had to go after her today. Sunrise neared. Tonight he would act, after the sun had set.
But why not test his indestructibility? Should not a phoenix survive the sun? He had no intention of waiting around when action was required.
Damn the witch. Those dark evil eyes had once focused on him and fired a blood bullet. Soulless brown eyes. He couldn’t imagine looking into them again. Peering deep into the centers and feeling the plunge as his heart slipped a little and succumbed to—
“It was a spell!” He cursed his thoughts, and the need to return to that one pesky little word he’d not muttered to a woman for decades.
Love
. “False and premeditated. I was not in control of my senses.”
Nikolaus paused over the pile of clothing he’d stripped off upon arriving home. Clothes the witch had touched. He’d have to burn them, for he wanted no evidence of her presence, anywhere.
Squatting, he gathered the pants and shirt and—a scruff of torn fabric slid across his palm. The pocket from the front of his suit trousers was missing.
I save them. They are fond memories of those I have loved.
“She took something from me.”
Beyond his pride, beyond his humility and the outer layer of sanity that had been shredded and scuffed decades earlier, rose a vicious, boiling anger.
With a piece of his clothing a witch could stir up a spell, cast an awful curse, or do all number of crazy things to him.
“I have to get that back. I must cleanse her home of my scent and all I have left there. With fire,” he said, remembering. “Yes. And then…I will burn the witch at the stake.”
So much for the peace-loving Nikolaus Drake. This vampire had been pushed too far and he would not stand for it.