Raven Walks (7 page)

Who knew
, he thought to himself as he
caressed the silken rose petals. Perhaps she was the one. Quiet,
unassuming, yet a woman of indeterminable strength and grace. He
found himself wanting to see her again, to touch her blacker than
black hair and stare into those cat-like eyes. He throbbed with the
memory of her all around him. He had never really gone back for
seconds with a human before, but she certainly had been worth the
attempt.

He actually could thank Constantine for that.
That was the biggest shocker of all. He’d intervened to spare her
life. In the end, she might have saved his.

He wore a rare smile as he entered the club
and headed purposefully toward the bar. He was surprised to find
another bartender there, a male, with spiked blue/black hair, a
pierced ear and dark Gothic makeup.

“Hey, man,” the new bartender said. “What’s
your pleasure?”

“Where’s Sonja?” Raven asked immediately.

He just shrugged as he cleaned out a glass.
“Dunno. She never came back to work last night. Didn’t call in
tonight either. Surprised the hell outta me. You could set your
watch by that girl.”

“She never came back?”

“Yep. Abandoned her shift. We figured
something must have come up but she never called. Sebastian finally
broke down and called the police this evening when she didn’t show
up for her next shift.”

“The police?” he echoed again. Raven was
shocked. Sebastian Crane, owner of their little hangout and a
vampire even older than himself, was not one to rely on the aid of
humans.

The new bartender nodded. “Normally he
wouldn’t have. You know how it is around here. People come, people
go. It comes with the territory, especially with the help. But
she’d been here a long time. Sebastian thought for sure she’d never
get lost. Add to that some guy looking for his wife. Some woman
named Tracy, I think.”

Raven sank on the bar stool. Married? She’d
been married? He felt sick.

“Tracy Lynn Macer,” a female voice confirmed.
Raven turned to see Abigail standing next to him, dressed normally,
complete with a notepad. “Disappeared two days ago, leaving behind
a husband and three small children.”

“Kids?” It came out as a hoarse whisper.

“Three,” she confirmed as she leveled her
green eyes on him. “And if I remember correctly, you were last seen
fucking her in the hallway.”

His jaw clenched, but he remained silent. She
indicated to his flowers. “Nice roses.” Again he did not respond.
Finally, “Is there somewhere we can go and talk?”

He placed the flowers on the bar and stood.
He motioned with his hand and led her back into the back part of
the bar.

“Can I trust you to take me back here?” she
asked as she raced to keep up. “Seems like when girls come back
here with you they don’t come back.”

“You tell me,” he bit out. “You know what I
am. You know what I want. Yet you’re still here.”

“I’m not afraid,” she told him with all the
confidence she could muster, but Raven knew it was complete
bullshit.

He just smiled as he pushed open a door to a
darkened room. “Famous last words,” he said in a soft, low
voice.

She gulped but kept her head high. He lit a
huge candelabra. He motioned to the big bed. “Make yourself at
home.”

She darted a look his direction. “No,
thanks.”

He smirked. “Suit yourself.”

He took off his coat and loosened his shirt
before plopping down on the middle of the bed. She stood off to the
side, and opened her notepad. “What do you remember about the last
time you saw Sonja?”

“Let me think. Oh yes. I was making her come
all over my cock.” With smug satisfaction he watched her eyes
widen. “Try putting that in print.”

“I’m being serious.”

“You’re being nosy. That’s a dangerous
vocation around a place like this.”

“So they keep telling me.”

Raven leaned back with his hands behind his
head. “And yet you keep coming back. What does that say about
you?”

Her eyebrow arched. “That I don’t intimidate
easily.”

He chuckled. “Or that you’re easy to tempt,”
he countered. His eyes locked in with hers and instantly she could
feel his mouth on hers, slow open-mouthed kisses to tantalize, to
drive her crazy. She cleared her throat and shook the images
away.

“Not as easy as you might think,” she
managed, but her voice cracked. Yet another lie.

“No?” he asked, and then sent her penetrative
mental images of his hand on her breast as he thrust his tongue
into her mouth in a deep, passionate kiss that managed to make him
as weak-kneed as it did her.

She crossed her arms across her chest and
backed up. “Where would you be without all your mystical powers, I
wonder.”

“In a grave,” he answered as he sprang to his
feet. “I prefer this.”

He came to stand next to her, keeping her
rooted to the spot with his eyes.

“Is that why you murdered Tracy Lynn and
Sonja?”

“I murdered no one,” he told her firmly, but
softly.

“Isn’t that part of your mystique? To turn
mere mortals into vampires like yourself?”

He invaded her thoughts easily. She was the
moth drawn to the flame, even if she wouldn’t admit that to
herself. He reached up to touch her hair. “What answer would reward
me a kiss?”

“There’s nothing you could say,” she told
him, but even as she said it sounded like a bluff.

“No?” he asked softly as he stepped closer.
His head tilted toward hers and his hot breath danced along her
slightly parted lips. She saw his desire to kiss her in his dark
and clouded eyes, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, the
thought excited her.

“No,” she told him firmly, willing herself to
be strong.

He moved away. “That’s a shame.”

“Sex is your weapon, isn’t it?” she queried,
both relieved and frustrated he walked away. “How you bait victims
into your lair?”

He laughed out loud. “A lair? You give me far
too much credit.” He turned back to face her. “I’m the wind,
Abigail. Nothing can contain me. I take what is freely given and I
move on to the next donor. It’s really quite harmless.”

“You call sucking someone’s blood
harmless?”

“It can be,” he replied. “You just have to
know where to stop.”

It was her turn to laugh. “You’re the
ultimate hedonist. Like you would know when to stop.”

His eyes turned cold. “I know exactly when to
stop,” he told her. He grabbed his coat and headed toward the door.
She wanted to call out to him but she fought it. He wanted her to
follow, and she knew if she did she no longer had any power.

She could imagine nothing worse.
Almost
nothing
, she amended as she watched him disappear down the
hallway.

She waited for a long time before she
reemerged from the mysterious back rooms back into the club. Her
eyes scanned the crowd, desperate to see him again. Finally she
spotted him, sharing a close dance with a young Gothic girl, whose
jet black hair was striped with bright red. She wore a leather and
chained halter top, short skirt, fish net stockings and leather
boots, and was plastered against him like a second skin.

Abigail tipped her head in defiance as she
leaned against the bar. Raven responded by sliding his hands down
his dance partner’s back and over the soft curve of her ass,
lifting her up to grind against him to the thundering, erotic beat
of the music. His eyes remained on Abigail as he began to kiss his
way along the young girl’s neck, his fangs noticeably growing.

He then kissed his new date, making sure
Abigail saw the exchange of their tongues and the prowess of his
kiss. Abigail’s heart began to race, and she was sure that he could
hear her heart beat thunder from across the room, because she was
sure she heard his moan in her ear.

She was tempted to grab a nearby man to dance
with as erotically as possible to punish him in the same way he was
punishing her. But that came with even more complications, such as
finding herself in the arms of another vampire who could be far
more dangerous.

She’d barely fended of Constantine as it
was.

So she opted to stand off to the side, head
held high, making him wish it were her instead.

Even though he knew that was her game, want
her he did. He felt the other girl in his arms, her body responding
to his, everything she had his to possess at his will, but it was
Abigail he wanted. She, who had denied him her kiss. She, who had
insulted him and doubted him.

It was a game to her, he knew that now.
Merely a dance around the flames, to see how close she could get
before she got burned. If he were a different person, her consent
would not have been necessary. He’d make her pay for her curiosity
much like Tracy Lynn before her. But because he wanted something
from her he could never take by force, he would wait.

She’d be in control. For now.

But there was no sense wasting a perfectly
good erection.

Walking backward he pulled the young girl
into a dark booth. Abigail watched as he pulled his date across his
lap. She ground against him and Abigail could tell that their sex
act was no longer simulated. His passion was too raw on his face,
her cries were too authentic. Abi knew he had penetrated her.

Her own pussy responded to the thought of him
being buried deep inside. It was a hunger foreign to her.
Especially when he bared his fangs and she wondered what it would
feel like to have them sink into the soft hollow of her neck.

The girl on his lap didn’t have to wonder.
She jumped as he bit into her, and then slumped against him as he
drank. Abi was so thrown by her body’s response to the erotic
nature of his feeding off of another human that she had to wrench
herself from his gaze and bolt for the door.

Outside Abi gulped big mouthfuls of fresh
air. What was happening to her? It was a story, one she hadn’t even
wanted when it was first presented. She had no real interest in
dangerous individuals and the deadly fascination from human
groupies. But the minutes she walked into the club she understood
the appeal – the intoxicating, dangerous appeal. She hadn’t been
able to stop her feet when they propelled her to darken the coven’s
doors once more. It was a bittersweet longing that as compelling as
Raven Crowe was, she knew she had to resist him no matter what.
She’d made the mistake of forbidden fruit before and it had cost
her dearly.

She didn’t want to make that mistake
again.

When she felt a little steadier she began to
make her way down the dark alley. Her shoes clattered against the
cobblestone. The moon filtered through the buildings while the wind
whistled through the trees.

Raven had watched her run away with a
frustrated groan. He felt his partner come all around his engorged
cock, but he lost his will to feed and to fuck, even though he was
on the brink of his own orgasm.

That had never happened before. As he felt
himself wilt inside the other girl, he knew that even imagining Abi
impaled on him to force him to come wasn’t want he wanted. He
wanted to follow her -- even though he knew by doing so he was
giving himself to a human in a way he never before had.

As if he watched from outside himself, he
disengaged from his quivering delirious fuck partner as politely as
possible. Thankfully for him, vampires weren’t known for their
chivalry.

He rushed for the door to follow Abi.

As she moved away from the club Abigail felt
more in control. It was a good feeling, one she had begun to
appreciate in the last half-dozen years.

She was starting to gain her confidence when
a shadowy figure swooped from overhead. A scream locked in her
throat as she covered herself. She glanced down both ways of the
isolated alley. There was nothing but her shadow.

“Who’s there?” she asked, summoning her
strongest voice.

Her question was met with a peal of cackling
laughter. She ducked down again as the figure returned, flying down
on her like a demented bird.

She dropped her purse and her notepad as she
broke out into a run down the alley, chased by the wind and
maniacal laughter.

She tripped and fell face first on the
ground. She felt a powerful force hoist her up and flatten her
against the wall. She stared into the demonic face of a vampire who
had lost all of its humanity. It was a creature made of fangs,
bone, paper-thin skin, and pure, unrestrained evil.

She tried to scream but the creature’s hand
grabbed her by the throat. Its laugh bounced across walls as its
clawed hand snatched the front of her shirt and tore the material
away, exposing her breasts. His long, forked tongue licked what was
left of its lips and she began to fight against him with everything
she had. She kicked, she screamed, she flailed. But the creature
was too strong.

Just as she started to black out she saw a
figure fly towards her captor. In a blur, she dropped to the ground
and she watched as the two dark figures clashed together. The two
combatants came into view and she could clearly see Raven battling
on her behalf, even though the other creature was much more
powerful.

“Raven!” she cried before she threw herself
into the mix. The Creature flung her backward against the wall,
which enraged Raven. He sent all his power through his hands and
projected the Creature backward, a good fifty feet away.

The Creature laughed as it crawled to a
standing position. “You think it’s over,” it growled in a crackled
voice as old as the ages. “It’ll never be over.”

And with that, the large imposing figure flew
at both of them, and right as reached where they were, vanished
into a puff of black smoke.

Raven knelt to where Abi lay on the ground,
pulling her shirt closed. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, but it was evident she wasn’t.
“You saved me,” she stated unnecessarily. She hadn’t quite expected
that.