Authors: Michele Hauf
S
he swayed before him, on her knees, her head tilted way back to reveal the havoc he’d done to her neck. Nikolaus held his arms out to catch her, but she shook her head and mumbled that she’d rather die than have a vampire touch her.
The statement sliced him like a surgical blade to the heart. He felt relegated to a realm of monsters and creatures. He’d struggled for years to overcome that kind of thinking after his transformation. Now he accepted that he was one of
the dark
.
But I will never become a monster.
And yet, a monster had harmed this woman.
Why he’d bitten her—so sloppily, as if he had intended harm—was beyond him.
No, it’s not. You knew. The left side of your brain—that logical thinking part—knows you intented to murder the witch.
Yes. Because she had killed his men, and had attempted to kill him. This awful, selfish, petite…defiant,
gorgeous
woman.
What the hell? He didn’t want to hurt Ravin. He wanted to hold her close and fall into her arms. Which was a strange thought in itself, because Nikolaus was the furthest thing from romantic. He didn’t have relationships. He had sex with women to relieve a need that always accompanied the hunger. He didn’t trust women. He didn’t trust himself with mortal women. He…
…was in love with this witch.
If his tribe ever got wind of this they’d flail him alive. And he’d remain alive after the beating, because a little flailing wasn’t going to kill any vampire, most especially a phoenix.
How could he return to Kila now? Would they smell the witch on him?
What of her blood? It coursed through his veins. Along with…a love spell?
“What’s happening to you?” He knelt before Ravin. Her fingers clasped into his, but she withdrew as if touched by a flame.
Finally she settled into him, her stained forehead falling to rest on his shoulder. She smelled good. Like blood and sweat and some sweetness that could only be woman.
“Is it from me? Are you still weak from blood loss? I didn’t take that much before I—”
Fell in love
.
Was that it? He’d fallen. Tumbling. Arms spread and completely unprepared for such a fall—into love.
Huh. This condition could prove a bitch when he finally shook it off.
Ravin pushed away from him and landed her back against the brown leather couch. A long-leafed plant shivered on the round table just behind her shoulder. Tugging up her T-shirt, the witch revealed three dark horizontal scars just below her breasts, each about eight inches long. Two of them had slashes through them. The second looked fresh.
She grinned and muttered, “Two strikes. Ha! One left, and the old soul is mine again. And it can’t happen soon enough.”
“What does that mean?” It confounded him that she was in pain and he hadn’t a clue how to help her. And yet, she seemed quite pleased with whatever had just transpired. “Talk to me, sweetness.”
“All right, vampire.”
“Don’t call me that,” he muttered.
“You insist on calling me sweetness, I’m going to have to call you vampire.”
“What’s wrong with sweetness?”
“It’s a term of endearment! You are not endearing to me, nor should I be to you.”
Fist raised, he bent before her, but a strange whisper in his brain made him soften the fist to a splay of fingers, and then he gently stroked across her brow to swish aside her hair. “Sorry, sweetness, but I can’t change the way I feel about you. I insist you call me Nikolaus.”
“Not a possibility. Too personal.”
“Then Drake, please?”
The struggle in her eyes fascinated him. Not muddy as he’d originally decided. The dark irises resembled burnt wine with glints of gold flaking.
“Sit down, Drake,” she commanded, pulling her gaze abruptly away. She stood and, still rubbing her ribs, pointed to the couch.
“I prefer to stand.”
“If you have such free will then—fine. I know you’re not responsible for the part of your brain that makes you feel love right now.”
“You know about the ventral tegmental area of the brain?”
“The what?”
“Located in the brain stem. It’s the command center for emotions such as joy, sadness and love.”
Huffing out a sigh, she again pointed to the couch. “Please. Just…do whatever you want.”
Nikolaus decided sitting was acceptable. He settled onto the couch and rested his wrists upon his knees.
She stood over him, an angel with wavy black hair and a cherub face that had never seen a bow and arrow, and if she had, most certainly had never shot the weapon out of love.
Nikolaus’s gaze followed the curves of her body. She wasn’t long or lithe; in fact, her curves were healthy and luscious.
He liked a woman with meat on her. Both for biting and for holding while having sex.
Her T-shirt was still rucked up. Nikolaus had never before seen the like. Long slashes streaked across her flesh as if some taloned beast had dragged its claws over her. But she seemed not to be in pain.
“It’s a debt I owe,” she said, tugging the shirt down to cover the incredibly toned abs that screamed for Nikolaus’s attention. “Three strikes and I’m out. I’ve only one more obligation to complete.”
“Whom do you owe the debt to?” he wondered.
She had a manner of narrowing down her brows. It was a look that might make some take a step back. Especially if it was another vampire, and she held up a wrist dripping with her own blood. Yet, Nikolaus found her self-assurance fascinating, so commanding. There was nothing about the person standing before him he did not admire.
“It’s more of a loan than a debt. I loaned out my soul for something only another witch would find valuable,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand, and I’m not going to explain.”
“Your soul? Have you—?”
“That’s all you’re getting from me, Drake. Now, let’s get you briefed and out of my hair, shall we?”
“Briefed on what?”
“On this ridiculous nightmare we’ve both been dragged into since your abrupt entrance into my home last night.”
“There’s nothing ridiculous about it.”
He stood and Ravin stepped back, putting up her hands, first as fists, but quickly spreading out her fingers merely to placate.
“All right, don’t get your dander up,” he offered patiently. “I won’t touch you,” he added, but felt chastised for having to say it. “Not for a few minutes, anyway.”
“Take your chances, vamp—er, Drake. I can defend myself until the end days.”
“I’ve never thought it necessary to defend oneself from a kiss. You’ve an interesting set of values, sweetness.”
“You kiss me again, I bite you back.”
He whistled. “You do tempt me.”
And if her fiery sense of defiance didn’t do it, then the underlying scent of her being was there for backup. Nikolaus sniffed, a habit he’d developed with his vampirism, for his senses had become so heightened there were times he could smell a person before they stepped out from a car, or even days after they had been in his home.
Ravin Crosse’s scent was a heady variety of strange and wondrous fragrances. Salt. Honey. Musk. Acrid anger. A trace of something fruity, probably from her shampoo or soap. The metallic, meaty aroma of dried blood. And the erotic vibrance of warm flesh.
But most prominent? The vampire in him demanded further sustenance, because he wasn’t feeling at all sated after the first draw. His canine teeth descended, for normally they remained in line with the rest of his teeth until the blood hunger demanded.
“Oh! You,” she started, completely unaware of the struggle going on inside his brain, and in his mouth. Squeezing her fist before him, she closed her eyes and let out a frustrated noise.
His teeth tingling in their sockets, Nikolaus hungrily observed her rub at the wound on her neck. The dried blood attracted him. He’d spent the past two months drinking from donors Gabriel had captured and brought to him as if he were a caged rat. Tonight he’d gone out into the world and had taken nourishment himself. And he was feeling it in his bones. Normally he’d be flat on his back now, exhausted merely from the intense healing his body was engaged in.
Now he felt invigorated. In fact, a deep breath did not draw a wheezy wind through his left lung. And yet, he needed more.
“Are you listening, vampire?”
“Huh?”
“Back off, bloodsucker. Get those teeth out of sight.”
“Make me.”
“I’ll—” The fire in her held her fist high, but Nikolaus watched as the flames dimmed and she realized there was nothing she was capable of doing. “This is not you. Trust me.”
“I don’t require an artificial means to know I love you, Ravin.”
“If you say you love me one more time, I’m going to get out the stakes. They’re sharp and have break-away glass tips loaded with my blood—oh, hell.” Running her hands back through her hair, she paced the floor away from him. “Like that’s going to help.”
“You are defenseless against me now. But I won’t use that against you, I promise.”
“Listen, I know my blood won’t do it for you anymore, but I’m pretty damn sure a stake to the heart will take you out.”
Doubtful. His heart had already been partially reduced to ash thanks to the witch’s blood that had burned deep into his body. It had stopped beating. Then restarted. Nikolaus felt sure it was now tougher than ever. Should he test the stake to prove it?
Nikolaus shook his head. “What did I do to make you so angry with me?”
“That’s it.” She walked off, her arms pumping furiously. “Time for the stake!”
“Wait! I don’t know what kind of lover’s spat we’re having, but—very well, maybe I
am
under a spell.”
Nikolaus slid around behind the couch and blocked her path from the stakes, wherever she kept those.
Hands shoved to her hips and bare feet tapping, she always wore a sneer. Did the woman not have a smile to her arsenal?
“Did you put a spell on me to make me love you because we had an argument?”
“Please. I would never bespell a vampire to love me. I despise your kind. Always have, always will, got that? Always. Will.”
“But—”
“I hunt your kind! I was hunting the night I thought I’d killed you.”
This was all fact. He knew it as he knew he loved her. He knew the brain was processing the information, sorting and responding logically, and yet the right half of his brain was winning on the emotional front.
Was he deceiving himself? It was not out of the realm of possibility. And that was the troubling part. “But we’ve overcome our differences?”
“Aggh! No, we still hate each other.” She lifted her shirt and drew her finger under the second horizontal line that had a slash through it. “I finished obligation number two. Now you’re love struck. Not because you want to be, but because of a spell. A
spell
.”
“Huh.”
It made sense. Ridiculous sense. Maybe.
Why would he need a spell to love this woman? She was perfect and gorgeous, and he wanted to kiss her. To settle her ire and calm her.
Thinking was for dummies. Real men took action.
Gripping her shoulders, Nikolaus leaned in to kiss his sweet, angry witch. He was accustomed to the struggle. Often, he’d seduce his victims, have sex with them, then, when he flashed his fangs before the bite, they’d scream and shove and kick. But not for long. The vampire’s bite was only initially painful to mortals. Soon enough, the swoon of orgasm would cease all struggle.
But he wasn’t biting now. And little Miss Witch remained intent on making a simple kiss as difficult as possible. Damn, she tasted fiery and urgent and all those things that turned him on for reasons he’d never sort out.
A kick to his knee brought him down.
Ravin backed into the kitchen. “Keep your filthy mouth away from mine!”
She sorted through a drawer, drawing out a huge silver cross. Wielding it at the end of her outstretched arm, she defied him to act.
So Nikolaus stepped forward, arms spread, and pressed his chest to the cold silver object.
“Shit.” She gave the cross a shake, as if to jolt it into vampire-killing mode.
“Sorry. My parents were scientists,” Nikolaus offered. “They believed in the theory of evolution and space travel and the power of reasoning over faith. I’m not baptized.”
Ravin drew back the cross, twisting it in her grip to hold as a dagger. Nikolaus noted the end was pointed, a worthy stake.
“Fine.” He put up placating hands. “I keep my distance. No stakes. Agreed?”
She looked him up and down. That sneer of hers pushed him close to an edge. It was so sexy. If only he could taste it, master it, and ultimately wrangle it into a wanting, cooing sigh.
“Fine. For now,” she agreed. An expert twirl of the cross showed her prowess with weapons. Setting it on the counter with a slam, she then crossed her arms over her chest. “Though why I’m even agreeing will surely see me in hell faster than any devil’s bargain. I’ll give you ten seconds to leave. If you’re here during second number eleven, you’re ash.”