Authors: Michele Hauf
But what he’d just said. It could not be true. Her soul. Gone. Forever?
“No, you’re—” He always spoke the truth. The man’s integrity had never been questionable.
Her knees felt like noodles. Breaths came quickly. Ravin reached out—and fell into Nikolaus’s arms.
Quickly he set her down and stepped aside, their contact brief, but everywhere he had touched her, Ravin’s skin flamed, crying out for a more lengthy connection.
“It’s true,” he said, pacing from the end of the counter to the couch and back. “I’ve spoken to another who was given three obligations, for which, he believed, was merely a loan of his soul.”
“But he promised,” Ravin managed to say. And then it all made so much sense. Of course the devil had lied, he was the great tempter, the master of deception. “So when I complete the third…?”
One she wasn’t keen on in the first place, but when she’d thought to get Himself off her back, well then…And there was the plan that maybe she could slide by on a technicality because of the miscarriage.
“You become his familiar. Enslaved for eternity. I assume the three obligations are more an admissions test than loan repayment.” Nikolaus hiked a foot up onto the couch arm and leaned over to look down where she sat sprawled against the counter. “Not that I give a crap what happens to a witch, you understand.”
“Of course not.” Or did he? He’d called her—No, it had been a slip. “This friend of yours is so important to you that you’d ransom your soul?”
“Yes.”
He stood tall, drawing his neck straight and thrusting back his shoulders. A warrior for the battlefield. Fit him with black armor and a broadsword and he would command denizens, taking down all who would dare approach with challenge.
A warrior who had mastered her heart. Damn him.
Damn Himself for breaking the spell.
Damn herself for allowing the mistake to happen in the first place. She was completely responsible for this mess she found herself in. And nothing she said could ever change the vampire’s hatred for her now.
But she knew his anger, and wouldn’t allow him to slip farther into the darkness that he’d so deftly avoided for decades.
“No.” Ravin pushed up against the counter. “I won’t do it.”
The vampire’s fingers coiled into fists, gearing up for the attack.
“I have principles,” Ravin rushed out. “I won’t allow you to sink to such depths.”
“Principles?” he spat.
Bounding backward, he spun and rushed to the arsenal. He ripped the door off the hinges and slammed it to the floor. Reaching inside, he drew out knives and tossed them to the floor. Guns were slammed down without concern for the danger.
He pulled out a glass-tipped knife. “This is what you call principles?”
“Be careful, Nikolaus! It’s tipped with holy water.”
“Bah!” He flung it toward her. It landed on the floor, but inches from her feet, the glass breaking to leak out the inert water that would have smoked and sizzled upon contact with the flesh of a baptized vampire.
“Who are you to claim principles?” He stalked up to her and bent down to get in her face. “You have murdered so many.”
She winced at his declaration of her ugly, awful truths. He knew she wanted to change.
Could
he remember how close they had become?
“You kill gleefully,” he continued, “without regard for family, home or alliance. You have even murdered innocent mortals, and you toss out that word is if you’ve a right to own it?”
She wanted to sink into a sniveling ball, to cast him away with a simple deportation spell—if only she was up on such a spell—but Ravin knew Nikolaus would only listen to one who could match him fire for fire. And where had hers gone?
You gave it to him. Each time you had sex with him, you fed him your fire
. And she didn’t want it back.
Splaying out a hand to encompass the scattered weapons, she said, “It’s not right, I know that now. I won’t harm another soul, I promise. If only you will…”
“I will what, witch?”
Hold me. Kiss me. Love me.
Her body now shaking, Ravin could not fight back the relentless tears that took their leave with repulsive precision.
“You cannot make me summon Himself,” she murmured, lowering her head to avoid his vicious gaze. “I won’t. Besides, he does not come to anyone’s bidding but his own.”
The stroke of his hand across her hair momentarily stopped the world. Sound ceased. Ravin’s tears suspended at the corners of her eyes. Her heartbeats slowed to a drowsy pace.
He touched her. It was not a hard or pinching grip. Nikolaus stroked his palm over her hair, softly, sensuously. A lover’s regard, a lazy summation.
And then he gripped a shank of her hair and the world revved back to the manic horror of reality.
“Time is of the essence,” he hissed into her face. “You will not refuse me, witch, because you do not want me to haunt you daily should my friend die. It will be a painful, atrocious haunting that will see you raw and bleeding. And yet I will not kill you, because that would prove a mercy I don’t have for witches.”
He had not an ounce of love for her remaining.
And yet, to imagine Nikolaus Drake haunting her ever after—no matter the pain—could only staunch Ravin’s determination. “So be it, vampire.”
“Fool!” He pushed away from her.
“Did someone call my name?”
“Oh, hell,” she muttered.
“That’s me!”
Standing in the doorway, the exact duplicate of Nikolaus Drake held out his arms in grand display. The devil had arrived.
Now the chaos would begin.
T
aken aback, Nikolaus looked over the woman standing on the fallen front door. Raven-haired and clad in black leathers; at her waist and thighs silver weapons glinted. Biker boots laced up her ankles. Looked as though she’d just stepped off the rumbling street chopper.
He switched his gaze to the witch in the kitchen. Same face, same hair, killer curves and determined expression.
Back to the door. They were both…Ravin Crosse.
Impossible.
“What sort of witchcraft are you working now?” Nikolaus flashed a look to the Ravin in the kitchen. “I’ve had enough of your black magic!”
“I didn’t do a thing,” Ravin answered.
The other Ravin stepped forward in a weird jaunty trot. Not the real Ravin’s sensual, confident stride. She shimmied over to Nikolaus and traced her fingers up his chest, summoning an unwanted flush of desire to the surface.
He recalled the witch once telling him the devil appeared to others in the guise of their greatest…
No
.
Nikolaus shoved her away.
“Now, now,” the new Ravin chided, “that’s no way to treat a lady. Or so I assume. Ah! I must see about this one.” She traipsed over to the mirror by the doorway and preened before it. “Now,
this
is delicious.”
“You are Himself?” Nikolaus asked.
The second Ravin turned and performed a curtsy. “In the flesh of your greatest desire.”
“You lie and trick,” Nikolaus spat.
“That is my trade,” the smirking creature agreed. “But I’ve no control over my appearance, unless I wish to take on my usual form.”
“Then do so!” Nikolaus demanded.
The newest Ravin marched up to him and gripped him by the collar. “Do not order me, boy. I can strip your soul from your body if I choose and toss the husk to my minions to peel out the veins, all while you live to suffer the agony. Shall we give it a go?”
“I’ve no time right now,” Nikolaus replied. “Maybe later?”
Himself turned to the real Ravin. “Oh, I like him.”
“He’s a vampire,” Ravin said. “You should regard anything he says with prudence.”
“Silence,” Nikolaus hissed at the witch—the real witch.
He turned back to Himself, who batted long dark lashes at him in a distressing come-on. The fact he saw the witch disturbed him, but he hadn’t the luxury of time to question the meaning of it.
“I need a holy wound reversed,” he said to Himself. “Can you do that?”
“I can do anything for a price,” Himself answered. She perused Nikolaus from head to toe and paused for an uncomfortable age at his crotch. “Wanna get laid, big boy?”
Gnashing his teeth, Nikolaus fought against his rising rage. He would not touch the hideous being that taunted him. No boon was worth lying with the devil.
“Not much on screwing the dark lord, eh?” Himself shrugged. “Always so difficult to convince you earthly souls of the exquisite ride. Ah well. Your friend is almost dead. You’ve not seen him this past hour. The wound burrows deep into his internal organs to chew away his life.”
He should not be here…wasting time. Gabriel needed him. “But you can fix that?”
Another shrug. The fake Ravin tugged out a glass-tipped blade from her thigh belt and made a show of tossing it up and catching it. “I can stop the desiccation at this moment. But if that’s what you desire…”
“Save him now.”
Himself tipped the blade against her plump lips. “For three obligations?”
“Yes—”
“No!” Ravin dashed into the room and gripped Himself by the arm. “Take me instead. Use it as my final obligation.”
Himself shook Ravin off. “I already have you, witch.”
Watching the two Ravins right next to each other was a confusing thing. But knowing Gabriel lay dying was vital. Did he have the right to save him, knowing he would be preserved in such a damaged state?
Nikolaus had faced this decision many a time in his career as a surgeon. Yes, we can operate on your child, Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So, but she’ll never open her eyes again and will depend on a respirator to breathe for the rest of her life. It was always similar. An operation to relieve pain, but it could never help to restore lifestyle. Nikolaus had relied on the decisions of the family, sometimes regretting he hadn’t encouraged them to simply pull the plug. But it hadn’t been his choice.
Was it now his choice?
“You lied to me!” Ravin shouted at Himself’s matching feminine face. “You told me I would be free after three obligations.”
“I never said that. Three strikes and your debt is paid is how it goes. But that doesn’t mean you’re free. Your soul is mine, sweetness.”
“Don’t—” she put up a hand before her twin “—call me that.” Casting a fleeting glance over Nikolaus, she paced away from them and squared her shoulders. “So even if I do complete the third…” Her brown eyes pleaded woefully.
Nikolaus felt his heart lunge in a gulp. He understood her pain, and wanted to…
Take it away.
Because she wasn’t what she should be. A vicious, vampire-hating witch. She was—damn it—he cared for her in a manner he didn’t want to label, but could not put off from his thoughts.
Seeing Himself in Ravin’s form meant only that he was still attracted to her, it did not mean he loved her.
It had not been real.
Part of it was. That part that still clings to your soul.
A soul you can bargain with.
“Her freedom for my soul,” Nikolaus said quickly.
Himself lifted a brow, perusing the offer.
“No!”
Nikolaus pushed back the real Ravin from her double. “This is not for you to decide, sweetness.”
She settled, whispering the endearment as she looked up at him, her eyes wide and glossy with tears.
He’d called her sweetness. Something he’d called her when he’d…loved her.
Nikolaus fell into Ravin’s soft, watery gaze.
Did
he still love this woman? This witch?
That was impossible. She had killed him. She had bespelled him to love her. He couldn’t have possibly…fallen—
A spell can influence the brain, but logic is always your own. You acted of your own volition after being given a shove. You know that is true!
Christ. He did care. And right now, he wanted to take away her pain, and Gabriel’s, and make the world right.
“One obligation is all I require to wipe the witch’s slate clean and return her soul intact,” Himself stated.
“What of Gabriel?”
“Eh. I’ll toss that in as a freebie. Can you do one thing for me, vampire?”
“Of course I can,” Nikolaus answered.
Ravin didn’t deserve to lose her soul. She was changing. Had changed. And Nikolaus knew the feeling. It made a person have hope. And she should have that after two centuries of bleakness and the kill. He would give her that freedom as his last act of compassion toward her.
“You want my soul?” he asked Himself.
“Mmm, something a bit more valuable.”
“Than my soul? Save Gabriel, and take away Ravin’s debt, and you can chose your boon. What do you want from me?”
“Your firstborn.”
“No!” Ravin shouted.
But a glance from Himself set her back against the wall, hands spreading for support.
“My…?”
A ridiculous notion. Nikolaus would never—Well, he had once dreamed to be a father. It couldn’t happen now. Vampires did not PTA-attending daddies make.
Will you help me?
Ravin had asked him to help with her final obligation. And he had promised he would.
“Done,” Nikolaus said, knowing one more wasted moment would only see Gabriel further deranged from the wound.
“Excellent.” Himself cast Ravin a wink, and then he was gone.
Nikolaus shoved his hands in his pockets. He’d gotten Gabriel’s life. He had secured Ravin’s soul. And if he was lucky, it would be a long time coming before he had to contend with the devil’s due.
Not that he’d shirk a bargain, but he had no intention of ever marrying and starting a family. What kind of bizarre circus freak would he father? And if the kid were lucky enough to be born normal, look at the old man. Not a good example for any kid.
“No.” Ravin sank to her knees. “He knows!”
“Knows what?” Stalking across the room, Nikolaus picked up the front door and propped it against the wall.
For some reason he felt…empty. Empty of anger, of the heady violence that had charged him to a rage earlier. Empty of vengeance.
And open to whatever might come his way.
Had making a deal with the devil brought him to such a place? A feeling of peace, for now his most pressing worries had been solved.
He looked over at the witch, kneeling on the floor, swaying back and forth.
You called her sweetness. You know you meant it.
So many times he’d held her gently, taking from her, giving to her, bringing her to orgasm, quietly sharing their pain.
And yet he had never shown her his hopes. He did have them. Did she?
He knelt before her and stroked the glossy hair spilling over her shoulder. Hate had emptied from him, as well. He wasn’t sure what he felt toward the witch right now, but negative violent feelings no longer resided in his heart.
“Knows what, Ravin? What does Himself know?”
Ravin curled forward, shaping her body into a ball, and pressed her forehead to the floor. “Nikolaus, I think I’m pregnant.”