Raven Walks (15 page)

When her moist, warm mouth opened over his
own sensitive neck he felt his cock jump in response. Her cool
teeth brushed against the satiny skin kept alive by stolen blood
rushing just under the surface. He wanted to feel her pierce his
skin and drink from him, even though he knew that was the very last
thing he ever could ever allow her to do.

That would make her just like him, a cursed
soul meant to walk this world with an insatiable appetite.

But that also meant she’d be with him
forever; and for the first time in a long time, that idea didn’t
seem so bad.

Before he could ask her to taste of him, her
mouth moved lower over his ripped chest and sensitive stomach. His
hand automatically wound in her hair as she deftly slid the zipper
of his pants down with her teeth. His hard cock jumped from the
restrictive material and bumped right against her sweet mouth.

They both moaned in response, and she was
quick to engulf him with her mouth, as hungry for him as he had
been for her.

He threw his head back in open-mouthed
ecstasy as she slowly worked him in and out of her warm mouth,
savoring the taste of his cock on her tongue that slid around him
like a snake. He glanced down to watch himself fucking her face and
his heart nearly stopped when her gaze met his. There were few
things sexier than a woman who truly loved sucking a man’s dick,
and her intent prowess was taking him right to the brink.

“I want to fuck you,” he muttered, then the
more rarely uttered, “please.”

Just as she crawled up his body he thought
his heart would thunder right out of his chest. But before she
could straddle his painful erection they both realized the pounding
that they heard was a knocking on her bedroom’s balcony doors.

He clutched at her as she pulled away. “No,”
he growled.

But the knocking was incessant. She wrapped
herself in a sheet and headed for the door. Raven was incoherent
with anger and frustration when he recognized the tall man in the
white suit that stood just outside the door. He didn’t even bother
to cover himself. “What the fuck are you doing here,
Constantine?”

Constantine took note of the state Raven was
in, but it didn’t even seem to amuse him like it would have
normally. That scared Raven more than the blunt “Lillith needs
you,” Constantine uttered.

***

A half an hour later the three of them stood
in Lillith’s club, fully clothed and sex the farthest thing from
their minds.

Raven stroked Lillith’s hair as she clung to
him and cried. She hadn’t stopped from the moment he walked in the
door and she had run to him with unapologetic abandon. “What
happened?” he finally asked her.

“Henri,” she sobbed against his soaked shirt.
Raven searched his memory to finally recall the bartender he met
the very first night he’d come to the club. “I left him in control
of the club to spend a rare night at my own home. I had been so
disturbed by what has been happening at Sebastian’s coven.”

Both Abi and Raven nodded. Abi, especially,
could empathize given she’d almost been raped by the vile creature
in a darkened club very much like this one.

Constantine remained tight-lipped and grim –
which was very uncharacteristic for him. “So what happened?” Raven
repeated to the hysterical redhead at his side.

Lillith said nothing as she led them all to
the back room that, under normal circumstances, would have been
full of ograsmic revelers fucking in a hedonistic orgy. Instead the
candles were burned out and the beds were all empty except for
one.

The big king-sized mattress up on a platform
reserved normally for Lillith, the vampire queen of her lair, was
dripping with blood and the remains of a male body that had been
torn apart almost from the inside out.

“When I came in today I found him like this,”
she managed – unable to look at what remained of Henri without
breaking down into uncontrollable sobs again. Abi came to her and
took her into her arms, then led her out of the room.

Constantine and Raven stared down on the bed
and both of them knew two things. The Creature who killed Sonja was
responsible, and that Henri had not been its intended target.

The Creature had wanted Lillith. Henri had,
more than likely, simply gotten in its way. Now he served as a very
disturbing calling card that clearly indicated the Creature could
and most likely would get to Lillith if it wanted.

And with a tightening of his gut, Raven knew
why it would want to.

The Creature was after the women that Raven
had desired. Abi... Sonja... now Lillith – there was definitely a
pattern none of them could deny.

He glanced over at Abi who stroked Lillith’s
hair and tried to comfort the vampire who suddenly realized her own
tenuous mortality.

Despite how close they’d come, he knew he
could never be with Abi. Even if he turned her, even if she begged,
she would never be safe from this mysterious Creature. She could
never return to the covens or the vampires who inhabited them.

Sebastian had been right. Raven had to send
her away. It was for her own good.

No one, either vampire or human, said much as
they escorted Lillith back to her private home, an old Southern
plantation secluded by the long arms of sad, ancient trees in
marshy country outside of the city.

Constantine kept Abigail company as Raven saw
the distraught vampire mistress to her private quarters. Her
grounds were protected by dedicated servants, all strong men who
hovered somewhere between mortal and immortal.

Not that it mattered. The Creature didn’t
seem to care what type of life it took to get what it wanted, and
though nobody spoke the words aloud, everyone already knew the next
person on its agenda to exterminate.

That was why, though she begged him to stay,
Raven told Lillith that it would be best if he go.

He’d seriously begun to think that was the
solution for everything – to leave them all and draw the Creature
away from them.

As Raven caressed Lillith’s soft ivory
features while she drifted off to sleep, that idea had more and
more merit.

He nodded to the strong, muscular man with
long blond hair who stood watch by her chamber door and then made
his way to the parlor where Constantine and Abi waited.

“She’s asleep,” he told them. “Let’s go.”

They followed him without question, something
neither of them thought they would do. But the game had definitely
changed. None present could erase the visual of a young man torn
apart on a blood-soaked mattress.

The Creature was determined to show them
their immortality was a joke.

Abi still felt its claws upon her skin, its
hot breath against her face. Had she been barely spared the same
fate as Henri?

She shuddered in spite of herself, something
both vampires noticed. Constantine and Raven shared a knowing look.
Though certainly not their first natural instinct, both felt the
sudden need to protect her.

But as she looked into Raven’s eyes, he knew
that a simple goodbye would not suffice. Well-reasoned logic why
she should stay far away from him and from the covens certainly
hadn’t convinced her. Her draw to him and to his very lifestyle –
such that it was – was entirely too strong. He had not turned her,
but she was as much a night walker as any of them. It was in her
spirit, if not yet in her blood.

This was his one last chance to set her free,
to appeal to that side of her that was human. He couldn’t afford to
blow it.

As they reached her block he hung back,
wanting to make their split as public as possible.

If the Creature was watching him and scoping
out his companions for prey – something he had begun to suspect
from the eerie sensations he felt within the limits of the city –
Raven was ready to put on the act of his life.

As expected, Abi quickly realized he no
longer followed and turned to face him. “Raven?”

Constantine also turned, and recognized the
look on Raven’s face immediately. This was not going to be pretty,
and he didn’t want to be a party to any of it.

Yet somehow he knew he had to – if Raven was
going to crush Abi’s heart he suddenly felt the need to pick up the
pieces. It was the least he could do after introducing her to this
life in the first place. Such compassion was a foreign thing to him
– and part of him immediately wanted to run far, far away.

Yet he stayed rooted to the spot anyway.

Raven still hadn’t answered her or closed the
distance between them, so Abi took it upon herself to do so. She
was quite shaken up, and all she wanted to do was go back to her
marigold room and have Raven hold her once more. As crazy as it
sounded, it was the only time she felt safe. “What’s wrong?” she
finally asked.

The hard look on his face was unwavering. “It
occurs to me that all of this unpleasantness began around the time
you started coming to the coven,” he announced. “And now I think I
know why.” He advanced on her until he was merely a breath away.
“It’s because of you.”

Her eyes widened. “What are you talking
about?”

He laughed. “You with your human desire and
your petty little sexual games. You are a disease that is turning
us all into monsters. A poison that ultimately ends in our death.
You really think that your arrival to the coven was a coincidence?
That you simply wanted ‘research’?” He sneered down his nose at
her. “You are inferior in every way. Therefore you must destroy us
for your own pathetic survival.”

She fought the tears. Why was he being so
cruel after he had held her so tenderly? “Raven.”

“Don’t waste your tears on me,” he warned.
“I’m not human. I do not care.”

She squared her chin. “I don’t believe
that.”

“No?” he asked as he pulled her to him
roughly. His eyes darkened to near black as his mouth crushed down
on hers in an angry, possessive kiss. Just as she started to
succumb to his raw passion, she felt the skin of is lips erode away
to paper, and his teeth elongated to a skeletal state while his
bony fingers dug into her soft, supple skin. Abi stifled a scream
as she attempted to pull away, but he held her in a vice grip.

“You see what you make me?” he growled
through hundreds of years old skin stretched across long dead bones
of his face. “I’m a monster! Do you really want to fuck a
monster?”

The remains of his mouth descended towards
hers again but she wrenched away. Constantine watched helplessly
from the sidelines. As much as he glorified in the god-like power
of turning humans into immortals, he never felt the need to show
the uglier, scarier side of his nature to a helpless human. He
wanted their adoration, their lust and their obedience, but not
their terror, even when he fed.

And Raven was horrifying, even to him.

“How close do you want to come to death,
Abigail?” Raven demanded as he advanced on her, fangs bared, and
she dropped to her knees with a cry, covering her neck with both
hands.

He knelt down to her, his long dark hair now
stark white, the paper-thin skin translucent against the old,
yellowed bones – nothing remained of the Raven she desired. Instead
he was not far different from the Creature from the coven. And Abi
was truly terrified.

“You come back to that club or to me, and
I’ll assume death is what you want,” he warned her, as his claw
like hands scraped against her tender flesh drawing blood. His
long, snake-like tongue slithered over his abnormally long
fingernail and his eyes darkened with orgasmic glee at the taste of
her blood.

Constantine finally made his move. Now that
Raven had given himself over to his darker side, instinct might
force him to go through with what Constantine had suspected a
hollow threat. Raven merely mocked his uncharacteristically heroic
attempt.

“Sloppy seconds, Constantine?” he laughed.
“Hardly your style. Especially since you wanted to turn her more
than anyone else.” Raven reached out and touched Constantine’s
face, and it turned almost to ash where he touched. Angry,
Constantine knocked his hand away. Of all the things Abigail didn’t
need, it was two monsters to deal with.

Raven glared at Constantine. “It appears
you’ve chosen your side.”

“As you have chosen yours,” Constantine told
him, taking note that Raven had not yet morphed back into his human
form.

“Enjoy her,” Raven sneered. “I found her a
bit banal for my taste.”

“Fuck you!” Abi screamed from behind
Constantine’s protective arm.

Raven gave her a pointed stare. “Never.” With
that he flew up into the night like a shot, and disappeared from
their sight.

Only when he had gone did Abi collapse to her
knees in frustrated, angry tears. Constantine bent to console her
but she pushed him away. “Don’t pretend you’re not like him,” she
hissed.

He couldn’t necessarily argue. But he didn’t
move away either. “Come on. Let’s get you inside. It’s too
dangerous out here.”

She gave him a glare fit to kill. Where had
he been five minutes ago?

He said nothing as he offered his hand. She
hesitated only momentarily before she accepted is help and stood to
her feet. He took her into his arms and flew up to her second story
balcony, into the same room he had interrupted them before.

Just one look at the mussed sheets was enough
to make her heart sink to her feet as tears ran freely down her
cheeks. When, exactly, had she fallen for Raven Crowe?

***

Raven sailed through the night back to the
coven, in as much pain as Abigail. It wrenched him apart to see the
look of pure terror in her face as she saw him for what he truly
was.

And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? How
could she love him any more than he could love anyone else? As much
as he had exaggerated it for effect, the fact was he was truly a
monster. No mortal woman would ever truly understand that.