Downs, Jana - Ravyn's Destiny [Ravyn Warriors 3] (Siren Publishing Allure ManLove)

Ravyn Warriors 3

JANA DOWNS

Copyright © 2012

Chapter One

Salvatore thrust his hips into the companion under him, working his thick cock deep into her willing pussy. It felt good. It always did. He looked down and saw her true form, blonde hair that hung to her shoulders and a tight little body to die for. Large aqua eyes regarded him with sparkling pleasure as she neared her third peak of the evening. She cried out, and her nails dug into his shoulders, delivering a pleasant sting to his back.

“My lord,” the changeling panted. “What do you need to achieve your pleasure?”

He felt ashamed for a moment that he couldn’t do it with just her lovely body under him. He couldn’t attain orgasm from any of his concubines lately. It was a depressing thought. His plunging cock faltered.

“My lord,” his concubine reminded, milking him to keep him hard. “Your pleasure. Tell me what you need?”

“You know what I need,” Salvatore whispered. His voice held a note of shame, but he couldn’t help it. He needed it now. Needed it to find bliss.

Her features shifted before his eyes, elongating and becoming more masculine with each passing second. He blinked and found himself staring into the dark-brown eyes of the bartender at Daylight whose name he didn’t even know. His arousal jerked inside the tight confines of his concubine’s body. A groan escaped his lips as he stared into her eyes, her legs wrapped around his hips. Her breasts disappeared a second later, and he was confronted with tight, muscled pectorals.

“Yessss…” he hissed as those legs tightened around his waist. His hands grabbed the headboard of the bed and he slammed his hips forward in desperation. Salvatore was almost instantly at his peak. His body was thrumming with stimulation.

Another groan left his throat as he thrust once, twice, three times. His body erupted into the hot milking depths of his lover, shuddering at the final completion. He released the headboard slowly and rolled to the side of his companion. Her illusion melted as he caught his breath from his place on his back, returning to her very beautiful, very female form.

“My lord, we need to talk,” she stated. She wasn’t cross with him, but it was her duty to please him, and his state of mind lately concerned her. All of his concubines had mentioned it to him at one time or another. Prince Salvatore may not be the legendary lover his Ravyn warrior Allasandro had been before his mating to the vampire Damian, but he was still considered a consummate lover and collector of beauty.

“I’d rather not.” Salvatore evaded the conversation that would no doubt call into question why he’d been having fucked-up sexual needs of late. He rolled to his side. She poked his ribs, and he flinched. “Hey!” he grumbled, rubbing the place she’d poked her surprisingly sharp finger into. He rolled back over and looked into her unearthly, beautiful face. He used to feel pride looking into the eyes of his concubines, knowing that they were his and his alone. Now, he looked and felt sadness. Which was ridiculous considering he was nursing a crush on another man.

Maybe Judgment, the guardian statue of a raven that was gifted to him by his father, had been more right than he’d imagined when he predicted that the Ravyns’ preferences were changing. Since Salvatore was so intimately connected with the Ravyns, it would make sense that his preferences were changing, too. Which wouldn’t bother him if he’d found a male companion to satisfy that ache inside of him. Except he had to go and fall head over ass in love with a breathtakingly beautiful, absolutely aloof man whose name he didn’t even know and who wouldn’t give him the time of day. He could command his elite warriors, his Ravyns, to jump off a cliff at his discretion, but he couldn’t convince one puny human to tell him his name.

“You, sir, are having a major problem,” she said in clear Earth slang. “Denial doesn’t suit you, my Prince. You’re in love with that man, and the rest of us can do nothing to alter that, nor would we want to. You need to confront him once and for all so that you can move on or live happily ever after.”

“This isn’t a fairy tale,” Salvatore denied.

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t trap yourself in limbo and us along with you. We’ve been your concubines for over a hundred years. We’ve been your companions and your friends but never your love. So it comes as little surprise that you’ve fallen in love with someone else.” She paused. “Besides, even the illusions we create for you of his face aren’t exactly right. You’ve memorized him in your mind, and because of that, you find the flaws and never achieve true completion.”

“I came,” he reminded her, tucking his hand between her legs and finding the evidence of it on the vee of her thighs. He didn’t want to admit that she was right. The illusions, while excellent, were still not perfect. The piercings and the tattoos weren’t there. Who would’ve thought he would be interested in those? He was raised in a royal palace away from such common forms of expression. He’d never been particularly fascinated once he’d been exposed, either. He preferred natural. Didn’t he? Gods, he was going crazy. Even that impossible-to-place accent, that no other human he’d met possessed, drove him crazy. That slow drawl made his cock hard like nothing else.

“You were determined to reach orgasm from the minute you summoned me. You stubbornly refused to let me take his form initially, and we’ve been trying to attain your completion for hours now. While this is satisfying to me, you would have never come that way. I didn’t even make the suggestion until you were desperate, and by then, you knew what I knew from the start. You needed it to get there.”

He sighed. “Amelia. I am sorry.” He pulled her to him, taking comfort from the warmth of her body. “I don’t understand this. It’s so confusing.”

“Why not try it out?” Amelia suggested softly, stroking his bloodred hair.

“I need an heir, Amelia. To solidify my position once I regain my throne, I need an heir.”

“In all the years we’ve been with you, we’ve never conceived. There may be a reason, Salvatore. What if you’re meant to sire children with this human man of yours?” she wondered.

Salvatore gave her a look that questioned her intelligence. “As you well know, two men cannot have a baby, Amelia.”

“There are ways to still have an heir and be with your love. We’ve seen healers. We know that we can bear children and that you are fertile. There is something that keeps your seed from releasing when you have sex with us. It is destiny.” Amelia kissed his cheek gently before pulling out of his embrace and reaching for the sheer silken shift that lay on the floor. “The gods work in mysterious ways, Salvatore. They may have plans for you other than the ones that you have made.” She crossed to the small mirrored dresser that he’d put there for his concubines’ use when they were entertaining him. She opened a drawer and drew out a silver hairbrush and began to tame her pale hair.

“Would I stop getting these lectures from the six of you if I approach the human for a date?” he asked, throwing his arm over his eyes. He knew he had to do something. This yearning was becoming too much even for him.

She favored him with a full, bright smile that displayed her pearly white teeth. “If you will pursue the human and try to be happy with something other than your habitual hiding places, yes, we will stop the lectures every time you summon us.” He laughed at her audacity. His women had been with him longer than even his current Ravyns had been. They knew him so well. To be honest, they mothered him more than a little bit.

“Fine, woman.” He growled in mock annoyance. “I’ll ask the human out on a date.” She smiled again and stood.

“Good. I hope that you will keep your end of the bargain, and we shall keep ours. I’ll let the others know.” Amelia gave him another kiss before heading toward the door.

“Deal, but if I get heartbroken, I’m blaming you,” he called after her, half joking. The other half was absolutely terrified of the prospect. He hadn’t really dated since his father had been alive. She stilled her forward movement and turned back to him.

“Salvatore, our service is almost at an end. You must find someone to make you happy between now and then. I pray to the gods that your human is he. If not, you must pick up and try again. I couldn’t bear you being so alone. You’re already more lonely than even, you know, my sweet Prince. Not even your Ravyns can fill that emptiness.”

“I was just joking, Amelia,” Salvatore said, oddly touched. “I promise to try and find someone to love.”

She nodded. “Have a good evening, my Prince. Have fun at the club.”

“Always do, doll,” he lied. “Always do.”

As soon as the door shut behind her, he rolled to his feet and padded toward the bathroom just as his Ravyns came through the door. One of the jaguar shifters of the Entertainer house, Michel, was with them. Salvatore waved a hand in greeting, flashing his bare ass to the lot of them as he continued on his way. Druas whistled at his retreating back, making him smile. He loved his Ravyns. He truly did. But he really needed a minute alone.

He locked the door behind him and stared at himself in the full-length mirror that hung between the sinks. The demon didn’t understand why the human at the bar rebuffed him. He knew he looked good by human standards. He was bred for it. He was tall and lean with defined muscles that came more from good breeding than from any real exercise, though he had started doing some cardio and sparring with his Ravyns upon occasion after one attack that nearly got them all killed. His hair was the shade of a perfect garnet, the deepest red imaginable. Humans often mistook it as a wig or else a tremendously well-done dye job because even his eyebrows matched. His eyes were a perfect parallel of his hair, another lighter shade of red, more ruby than garnet. His mouth was a perfect cupid’s bow and his jaw square but not overly masculine.

He knew he looked good enough to be a conjuring out of a magician’s amusement because numerous women had told him so. Maybe men saw other men differently. Maybe they didn’t like what he looked like. Insecurity struck him for the first time in a thousand years. Gods, was he really considering this? He didn’t know what he would do if the human laughed at him.

With a curse, he looked away from the mirror and jerked the shower door open before furiously twisting the knob so that water shot out of the rain showerhead in an instant, cold downpour. With another twist, he added the heat, setting the temperature at a perfect one hundred five degrees. He liked his showers a little cooler than most of his Ravyns.

Salvatore stepped into the spray, the water acting like a balm to his anger. He loved the water. Always had. When he was younger, his family used to go to the summer house in the west lands that was right on the coast of the most perfect turquoise ocean that stayed lukewarm year round. He sighed and closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cold tile as the water sliced down his back and thighs. Too bad Desmond had burned that house to the ground years ago. He hadn’t seen the ocean since. It was too dangerous, according to his Ravyns.

He was so sick of hiding, so sick of running, so sick of fighting the endless multitudes of people Desmond sent to end his life so that he would be forever uncontested on the throne. How many times had his Ravyns, his best friends and his bodyguards, died to save him? Hundreds, maybe thousands. And instead of rest, his Ravyns were reincarnated over and over again to serve his needs and serve as his protectors. They never were able to love, never able to settle down, never able to live their own separate lives. He felt horrible about it.

Every few generations he would make the offer for the Ravyns to step down from their positions as his guardians and live their own lives and finally find peace. Each time they had denied him. They were men of honor whose oaths meant everything and whose loyalty was unquestionable even when they faltered or failed. He was so very grateful for their sacrifices, but times were changing and things that had never been before had come to pass.

First he’d left his homeland of Demontia and traveled with his Ravyns to one of the outer universes known as Earth. His reason to come had been simple. He wanted a little more freedom, and his favorite entertainment group was stationed in this universe. Ironically,
La Petite Morte
’s theater troupe had become a second family to him and to his Ravyns. One of his Ravyns was actually a former lover of one of the main line’s vampires, Alexander. They had reunited and created a bridge between the vampires who owned the theater and the Ravyns who protected the Prince. Allasandro, another of his Ravyns, had recently gotten engaged to another of the troupe’s vampires, Damian. It seemed his Ravyns were finding happiness of their own at long last. Salvatore was happy for them and couldn’t help but wonder if this meant that the end of the war was at hand.