Authors: Michele Hauf
“Y
ou have to go,” Ravin said, still coiled forward onto the floor.
After her confession she did not want to look into the vampire’s eyes. She sensed she had guessed right—that she was pregnant—but she hadn’t proof. Instinctually, she knew. And while she used the birth control spell religiously, it was certainly only as effective as an over-the-counter product. Wasn’t there like a two-percent failure rate?
“Gabriel will need you,” she said. “Please, just go to him.”
Nikolaus wrenched up her head by a shank of her hair. It didn’t hurt and he supported her now by the back of the head. Squatting, he lowered his gaze to hers. The sapphire irises pierced Ravin with reluctant wonder.
“Why did you say you are pregnant? Do you think to win me back? Why would you…?”
Want me back?
were the words Ravin sensed he couldn’t put to voice.
“We’ll talk about this later.” She clasped a hand over his wrist, which caused him to pull away. Rejection. Utter indifference. “It’s just an intuition. I tried to stop you from making a deal with Himself.”
“That was my choice. When he would not take my soul, I jumped at the option that I knew might never have to be repaid—at least not in this century.”
“Nothing in this world is free. I thought to fool Himself when he asked for my firstborn as the final obligation. If you do not pay, then Gabriel should die.”
He turned a sneer down upon her. “It’s not as if I do not intend to make good on the bargain, it’ll just be a cold day in hell before it ever happens.”
“I think…” Ravin murmured, “Himself knows. Oh, damn—he
does
know. He must have orchestrated this from the start. The love spell—oh!”
Suddenly racked with pain, Ravin felt her muscles tighten and she strained against the razor ice that ate across her chest. Slow, precise, the slash marks felt as though an invisible hand were peeling them from her body, lifting up flesh and muscle to do so.
She slapped a palm over her chest; the sting of that act ended the immediate pain. Beneath her fingers she felt smooth flesh.
And her body arched, bending upward. Pinpricks stung her from head to toe. Something entered her through those pricks of pain. And Ravin collapsed, gasping but smiling.
It was back. Her soul.
“What the hell was that all about?”
Smiling, she closed her eyes and lifted her fingers to reveal her rib cage to Nikolaus.
“I’m pleased for you,” he said.
She was about to ask “Are you really?” but the vampire stalked toward the door and lifted it to set it aside. “Gabriel needs me.”
Ravin turned her cheek against her knee to watch as he pressed his palm against the frame. He stood there for a moment, looking over the door, and when she saw him turn his head, she tucked hers facedown into her lap.
“Yes, we will discuss this. Later,” he said in a husky growl. “Goodbye…sweetness.”
And that single word struck Ravin in her heart and dredged up a soulful sobbing. He’d said it again, purposefully. He’d wanted her to have that.
Could he still love her?
He had expected to find Gabriel lying in bed, alive. Instead, Nikolaus charged through his front door to find the decimated form of his best friend standing in the center of the living room, the shades open to the rosy warning of twilight.
The stench of Gabriel’s wound assaulted Nikolaus, but it was nothing he had not experienced before. He did not waver as he approached his friend. Only when he saw the silver stake in the man’s trembling hand did he stop, but a stride away.
“I feel…” Gabriel said. “…as if the wound has stopped eating at me.” His voice had been reduced to a slithery whisper, racked with pain. “Isn’t that odd?”
A curious smile traced Gabriel’s lips, but they were thin, stretched in pain. He’d suffered greatly. It appeared a monumental task merely to stand upright.
“You will not die now,” Nikolaus offered. Jaw tight, he swallowed. What had he done? This was no life for any man! “I’ve…seen to your survival.”
“Have you,” Gabriel muttered, a reluctant acceptance.
“Please, my friend, hand me the stake?”
Gabriel clutched the weapon tighter and wobbled. When Nikolaus reached to steady him, he stumbled backward and put up his free hand, the shaking fingers coated in blood from his wound. And there, though he had pulled a clean brown T-shirt on, the shape of a distorted cross soaked through. It was so large.
Would he walk endlessly after with the seeping wound to remind him of the death he had cheated? A death Nikolaus had
decided
Gabriel must cheat.
Had he the opportunity to ask Gabriel before if it was what he wanted, would he have chosen as Nikolaus wished?
“You must…kill me,” Gabriel said.
“No.”
“Do you wish me to live like this?”
He lifted up the shirt to reveal agonizing havoc. His heart had been exposed and pulsed at the corner of one of the cross armatures. Other organs Nikolaus felt sure he could identify if he were in the cold confines of a lab doing an autopsy, showed as well.
“I…” What could he do to rescue his friend? It was he who had wasted the time in getting the wound stopped. He, who had sentenced Gabriel to this undying hell—with no means to change it.
Could he perform surgery to close up the wound? Skin grafts?
Ridiculous. The man needed organs and body fat and muscle and…sanity.
“I am so sorry” was all Nikolaus could offer. “This is all my fault. Had I not led you to believe I had killed the witch…”
Pregnant? With his child?
Yet another blow. One that should lift him to rejoice, and yet…if she was pregnant, he’d just sold his unborn child to the devil.
This was not as he’d intended his life to go. Everything was wrong. How to make it as right as it had been but days earlier?
“My God.” Nikolaus bowed his head.
It had been right with her.
“I blame you for nothing…but kindness,” Gabriel wheezed. He waved the silver stake between them. “You have been good to me…for years. So much you have taught me. Restraint. Pride. Compassion.”
Nikolaus winced.
“Now. Continue that kindness.”
The stake wobbled in his trembling grasp, but it was directed toward Nikolaus.
Put me from misery
.
To kill. To purposely take a life, and not because of some medical mistake, or because he had tried for hours to clamp off an intracerebral hemorrhage to no avail.
Since he’d become a vampire, Nikolaus had killed twice. Both times, an accident. When first he’d been transformed he had not known how much blood to take, that if he stole too much from his victims they would arrest and die in his arms. A harsh lesson to learn, but learn it he had.
Not since then had he killed.
But you did consider it weeks ago.
Yes, the witch. A revenge killing. A means to cleanse his soul of the anger that had brewed within him for the months following her attack.
And what had his assassin done to him? She’d opened Nikolaus’s wanting heart and thrust in her hand, caressing, massaging, making him soften and gentling him.
And he had—
did
—love her for that.
I love the witch. I love Ravin Crosse.
And that love would destroy him.
Does she truly carry my child?
“Nikolaus, please.”
Brought back to the moment, Nikolaus straightened his focus on the vampire standing before him.
Gabriel had suffered for his indiscretions. Perhaps the devil would be served his due by taking his child, as punishment for what he must now do for all the wrongs he had committed against others.
Stepping forward, Nikolaus grasped the cool silver stake. Heavy, it weighed a good pound or two. Designed for maximum thrust and pointed to glide easily through flesh and blood. Why did Gabriel, a vampire, possess such a thing?
It was too late to ask. Macabre wonders must be set aside. The longer he stood, indecisive, the longer Gabriel would be made to suffer.
“You must know,” Nikolaus began, swallowing regret and forcing himself to be true, for that is what Gabriel deserved. “She is still alive. I could not kill the witch.”
Gabriel nodded, the weight of his head hanging heavily.
“I believe I may…love her.”
A thin smile cracked Gabriel’s face. “She’s been good for you, then. You are bewitched, Nikolaus. And a phoenix. You are probably one of the most powerful vampires to walk the earth now.”
“I have not told you. I…can walk in the sunlight.”
Briefly, a joyous smile stretched Gabriel’s mouth and his eyes closed. “The sun. So warm. You are truly blessed, my friend.”
“It means nothing without my friends at my side.”
Gabriel smirked and shrugged away the joy. “We are creatures. Not meant for this world in the first place. You must know I welcome death. And it is deserved.”
“No, Gabriel. No man deserves death.” Or witch, for that matter. “Ever.”
“A man cannot prevent who his heart will grow attached to. I…fell in love with Rebecca, Truvin’s girl. I killed her in a fit of jealousy. I didn’t tell you, because you’ve been so busy with your own woman. A witch.” He snickered. “Only you, Nikolaus, have the capacity to see beyond your enemy’s darkness and offer love. Only you.”
“I am not so magnanimous.”
“We are, none of us, stellar citizens. You should…fight for her.”
As he had not fought quicker and harder for Gabriel? A tear escaped his eyes. Nikolaus grabbed his friend by the shoulders.
“I have loved you, my friend,” Nikolaus said. “You have been the one to share kindness with me, and in turn, teach me things that the darkness might have fouled.”
“I love you, Nikolaus. Now, do this quickly. The pain has become so great, I am numb.”
Endorphins, thank God for that.
“Go in peace, Gabriel Rossum. May the heavens forgive you the dark that was never your choice.”
And he stabbed the stake through Gabriel’s chest. The doomed vampire spread back his arms and called out to the fickle heavens.
For a moment, a luminous aura surrounded Gabriel, pale and silver and twinkling with the midnight stars. And then his form cracked and dispersed to fine dust that fell from the air, but did not touch mortal objects, for it did not land before disintegrating. No speck of him remained.
Nikolaus dropped the stake and fell to his knees. He had not sobbed for decades. Now the tears came easily.
Was he right to allow the tribe to choose a leader?
Truvin Stone tapped his beringed thumb on the black granite desktop. He’d been spending a ridiculous amount of time here at the warehouse, where centuries of collected treasures watched silently from their dusty perches as he worked out ideas, plans, and struggled with expectations.
He expected Kila would pick him to continue to lead, but he could not be confident that would be the case.
Daily, he heard the whispers from his men. Their desire to see Drake return, to look upon the all-powerful phoenix, was imminent. Wouldn’t that be something? To be led by one rumored to now be indestructible? To follow a man who had
not
been defeated by a witch?
Yet, what would they whisper if they knew the truth of Nikolaus Drake? Did he wish to expose him, the one person who had only offered him kindness over the years?
Truvin despised the no-kill policy, but he had survived it, nonetheless. And he could continue to do so should Nikolaus reign.
But he did not care to be told what to do, or how to live his life. Did he not deserve some respect for his wisdom, for having walked this earth ten times longer than Drake?
True, he wasn’t keen on leading and the responsibility that came with it, but he was serious about forming a crew of vampires who would not back away from a witch. Strong, fearless vampires who could stand defiantly before any who would think to slay their kind.
He was ready. He’d developed a method, a tactical process—as well as outfitting his crew with safety armor. But to do so, he must make an example of his former colleague. For Nikolaus had broken the one unwritten rule that no vampire would ever dare break.
He had allied himself with a witch.
T
he alley was dark. A streetlight on the corner had been busted days earlier. Surprisingly it hadn’t been replaced. The city was usually quite careful about things like that.
Didn’t matter, Ravin could see vamps on a moonless dark night thanks to her deal with Himself.
Your soul will never be yours.
Fool, that she had thought for even the flicker of a moment that she could deal with the devil and emerge unscathed.
And now her soul
was
hers. And yet…“I will never have the balance I seek.”
Her debt was paid.
Ravin closed her eyes. Nikolaus could not have known Himself had asked the same of her—for her firstborn.
Himself knew.
“Who was it really for?” she muttered now, thinking of that damned love spell. She hadn’t asked, hadn’t thought it her place to ask, nor had she wanted to know. When preparing the spell, she’d even considered that Himself had wanted to play one enemy against the other.
It made such twisted sense. A child born of a phoenix—who was also a bewitched vampire—and a witch could become a very powerful being. Himself had orchestrated this masterfully.
“What a fool I have been.”
It was time to get out of this city. Head south for a while. Hell, Europe sounded good. Sure, there were a lot fewer vamps across the Atlantic, even fewer that ran in tribes, for the tribes were an American thing. But that was all good. Because she’d abandoned the slayer costume. Maybe.
Ravin wasn’t going to start philosophizing on her changing morals. They were there. Somewhere. And those morals no longer wanted to see vamps turn to ash.
It was time to stand aside from the carnage and begin to view the future through new eyes. The vampire nation had suffered enough for her parents’ deaths. Truly, the debt had been paid. She would move on, if only to honor Nikolaus for his sacrifice for her.
And to make a better life for the child.
The scent of blood carried through the evening air. Curious. Ravin had expected Kila to gather in the upper warehouse as they usually did on Sundays. But they never risked taking a victim when their numbers were so large.
She did a scan up and down the alley. Maybe some mongrel alley cat, fresh from a claw match, shuddered behind a pile of refuse licking its wounds.
Tonight was Solstice. She wasn’t sure if Nikolaus would show, or perhaps he already had. Had he retaken his position as leader?
She had to see him. Just to know that his friend had been saved. To know his sacrifice had not been futile.
His sacrifice is yours.
But was she really pregnant?
Ravin ran her palm across her flat belly. She had survived for centuries, had taken many lovers without becoming pregnant. Save the one time, which proved the birth control spell wasn’t entirely fail-safe.
A child conceived of a faery and a witch. The match seemed no crazier than that of a vampire and a witch. But she’d miscarried in her third month. She had been slightly relieved at the time, but her sadness had been equal, for then she had allowed herself to indulge in the fantasy of family, even knowing full well Dominique had loved his dead wife and his absinthe, and might have never been able to love a child. The miscarriage had been for the best.
Still she tried to convince her empty soul of that.
Now, when she had committed the gravest betrayal to her kind—and Nikolaus to his kind—would she be punished?
Was it a punishment to bring a child into this world, fathered by a man she loved? It didn’t sound so awful. But knowing that a child could never be hers was.
What have I done?
Pounding her forehead against the brick wall gave her a brisk slap. Now was no time to go soft. Nikolaus hated her. He’d as easily hand over their child as biting a mortal for lunch. She meant nothing to him. A child created by a witch could mean less than nothing.
He called you sweetness.
Habit, nothing more.
She had looked into his eyes and felt his anger radiate from his pores and into her newly returned soul.
She heard footsteps and swung to look down the alley. A wide hand slapped over her mouth, the other hand going for the dagger she’d tucked at the back of her waist. Pinned effectively against the wall, Ravin didn’t struggle, because she saw her attacker’s face.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, witch?”
Nikolaus’s hand was clamped over her mouth so tightly, did he actually expect she could answer?
“Is this tipped with your blood, witch?”
She nodded.
“I thought you wanted to stop?”
Still couldn’t speak. But what did he care if she carried it now out of self-defense instead of anger?
“Go home. Better yet, get out of town. You’re not wanted here.”
She scissored her legs but couldn’t summon enough leverage for a good kick. Nikolaus pressed his weight solidly against her frame, forcing air from her lungs with the action.
“I’m giving you a free one this time,” he said. Pressing his nose against her ear, he breathed. Or did he sniff? “I’m going to take my hand from your mouth. If you scream, the entire tribe will be upon you. And I won’t be taking a witch’s side, not on the night of my return, I promise you that.”
He took his hand away and Ravin stretched her jaw. Remembrance of his gentle touch felt so distant. “I’m here to see you.”
“You’ve seen me. Now go. Quickly.”
“Not until I know about Gabriel. How is he?”
Nikolaus sucked in a breath, his body bending against hers. For a moment he pressed his lips to her forehead. A stroke of his thumb glided along her cheek. Was he…?
Ravin felt he distinctly showed her gentleness. But…
He hated her
.
He pushed from her body and turned his shoulder to her, looking out over the alleyway. “Gabriel is dead.”
“But—”
“He was alive when I returned home, Himself kept the bargain. But he was in no condition to thrive. The wound had taken too much from him, changed him. It was a mercy killing.”
Ravin sucked in a breath. It made perfect sense that Gabriel would be so wounded life would not be worth it. And that Nikolaus had had to take his friend’s life? “I’m so sorry.”
“Think on it no more. I will not.”
And he looked at her, face-to-face, not a blink, and no anger in his eyes. It penetrated deeply. Now she had a soul inside her, Ravin felt it sigh, and wanted to grab out for it all. Anything he would give to her, she would take.
“What was that?” she dared. “Just now. You…touched me. Nikolaus?”
“Go,” he rasped. He shoved the dagger against her stomach until she took it. “Just…go.”
“No. Look at me again. Deep into my soul, like you just did. Nikolaus—”
“Please! Do not say my name. It—” he kicked the base of the brick wall “—hurts my heart. I can’t handle more pain today. I just…”
She hung suspended in an instant. Nikolaus held her with one hand, under the neck, her shoulders to the wall, feet dangling. She would not draw the blade.
“Are you sure?” he asked. Raspy and deep. The tone of it calmed her.
“Sure of what? That I love you? Yes.”
“No, you cannot—I…you said you were…” He set her down gently, and his long fingers stroked her stomach.
Ravin placed a hand over his, wishing the contact to never stop. A part of him did not completely despise her, she felt it. And there, in her belly, she felt the swirl of awakening, her body responding to his touch she so desperately desired.
“No, I’m not sure. Like I said before, it’s a feeling. I’ve been sick a few times. Didn’t think anything of it. Just intuition. But I could be wrong.”
“You should see a doctor.”
“I know of a witch doctor in St. Paul.”
“A—” he nodded, understanding “—doctor for witches. Yes. Do it quickly. I need to know if—”
If he had consigned their child to hell.
Oh, Nikolaus, I will love you even for our horrible decisions and desperate acts of love.
“Now, get out of here before we’re seen together.”
“I’ll go,” she said.
She wobbled forward, and it took some balancing to avoid touching him. Though she wanted to. Desperately.
Just kiss me
, she wanted to cry.
Make me feel the way I did a few days ago. Bring me into you and push away the world.
And then she did ask. “I’ll go if you kiss me.”
“Have you lost your marbles, witch?” He lowered his voice and leaned in again, so close, their noses nudged. “I’m no longer under some idiot love spell. I despise you. I hate the smell of you. I—”
He was lying. She felt it. Intuition again; it was never wrong.
So she would see for herself. Ravin went up on tiptoes and planted a kiss to Nikolaus’s mouth. He shoved at her; she held on. And for five seconds, he kissed her back. It was all she needed.
Breaking the kiss, Ravin stepped back immediately to avoid his anger. But it did not come. Turning, she strode down the alley to the parked chopper.
She had felt it. He’d kissed her back.
Fingers pressed to the brick wall, Nikolaus kept his eyes closed tight. She shuffled away, her boots clodding down the street. He kept them closed even when he heard her fire up the street chopper and rumble off.
Only then did he dare open his eyes—to the truth.
He’d kissed her. He hadn’t shoved her away at the offense. He had taken the kiss from her and given back.
“What the hell?”
Heartbeat pounding, he gasped, trying for breath, as if he’d run a few laps, pre-vamp condition. His entire system raced, frenzied by her touch.
The smell of her. Cherries, cloves and musk.
The feel of her mouth upon his. He traced his lower lip with his tongue. The taste of her—dark and lush.
“No!” Nikolaus slammed the wall with his fist. “I can’t be. It was a spell. Is it still there, affecting me?”
He knew better. He knew that night the spell had been broken, as he’d stood on the rooftop watching her plummet to the dusty cement sidewalk, that he’d felt instant hate for the witch.
And now? It was different. He hated her for what she’d done, enslaving him.
But for who she was as a person?
I hate the vampire, but I love the man.
Did he really feel something for Ravin Crosse?
He searched the street for a trace of her, but the chopper had turned and rumbled off. “Come back to me, Ravin.”
The moon crept out from behind the clouds as Ravin parked her chopper in the garage below the apartment building.
She was in quite the mood since leaving Nikolaus in the alleyway.
“He doesn’t hate me,” she whispered. “He kissed me back.”
Hooking a hand behind her waist to tug out the dagger that was beginning to rub against her spine, she suddenly paused.
Oil and gas fumes misted the air. A row of silent cars parked along the north wall. To her right, an ominous black van sat. No one in this building owned a van.
Swinging to her right, Ravin instinctively dodged as the rope lariat sailed over her head, missing its target. A dark figure wearing a full-head black mask with goggles reeled back the rope.
She heard motion behind her and swung, wielding the dagger, but the glass tip did not cut through flesh, instead slipped over the black fabric. Kevlar, she guessed.
And there was another figure, making three, surrounding her. Clad in Kevlar, and wearing goggles that lit their eyes with a soft amber light, not an inch of flesh or hair showed. Looked like ninjas, but she knew differently.
Their auras were crimson, shadowed with dark ashy speckles.
Vampires.
Biting her lip, Ravin spat, and one of them dodged.
Struck from behind, Ravin went down, landing on her elbows and moving into a roll. She blocked a punch, but felt her legs being pulled straight. The attacker sat on her knees so she could not kick, and began to wrap the rope about her ankles.
Groping over the Kevlar, she managed to hook her fingers over the rim of the goggles. Spitting directly in the man’s now-exposed eyes scored her one point.
A blood-curdling yowl exploded above her. He clutched his eyes and staggered off her.
A thick block of leather was shoved into her mouth. A leather strap was secured over and around her head.
Beside her, the vampire she’d spat on dispersed to ash.
Her arms yet free, Ravin punched, but to no avail. As she was slammed forward on the tarmac, her arms were wrenched behind her and secured with more rope.
“Time to roast a witch,” one of the attackers announced.