Downs, Jana - Ravyn's Heart [Ravyn Warriors 2] (Siren Publishing Allure ManLove) (21 page)

“Will I, naughty boy? Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to dare a gypsy?” Damian gave one hard thrust that had Ally crying out in pleasure.
Yes
! He wanted it harder. Just like that.

“I’m sorry!” Ally shouted as Damian slowed down again. His thrusts were shallow and soft. “Please fuck me harder. Please, Damian…” Their minds were now so deeply entwined that Ally really wasn’t sure where he left off and Damian began.

“Promise to be mine forever. Promise to honor and cherish me. Wed me in the Roma way.”

“Yes. Yes. Please. Just go faster,” Ally whined. Damian growled and then began to move.

The sound of flesh smacking flesh filled the room, the force of Damian’s lunges hard enough to take Ally’s breath away.

“Just like that. Just like that. Love it when you do that. Love being fucked by you. Gods, I love you, Damian. Love when you do this. Love you forever.” The words bubbled up out of Ally’s throat before he could process them. They seemed to incite Damian more. The rhythm became erratic. It was no longer measured and sure but needy and desperate.

One last hard thrust sent them both over the edge of the cliff, and they tumbled together, crying out in ecstasy as they fell.

* * * *

Long, long minutes later, after they’d regained their breath, Damian worked up the energy to roll off his lover. Ally sighed in contentment into the pillow he was resting on.

“Wow,” he said, extending his arms over his head and rolling to his back. “That was intense.” Damian nodded his agreement. Ally spent the next few seconds stretching his now-liquid muscles but winced when it tugged on the wound on his chest. Wait…wound? He glanced down at the faint angry red mark that still maintained the shape of claws. Memory flooded back to him and he sat up.

“Oh shit,” he cursed. He turned to Damian. “What the hell was that all about? Gods. Are my brothers okay? Dammit, Damian.” He rolled off the bed to his feet only to sway in dizziness once he got there. Damian was instantly there, steadying him.

“Easy, darling. You’re still a bit weak.” Damian’s voice was uncharacteristically soft. “The other Ravyns are fine. They’re at Alex’s home and are awaiting your arrival as we speak.”

Ally relaxed a fraction of an inch. “So they’re okay?” Damian nodded again indulgently. Ally sighed. “Gods, I can’t believe I did that. What was wrong? Dageus knew something was up, but he wouldn’t tell me. Am I sick or something? Allergic to vampire bites maybe?” He pondered his own question. “Is it possible to be allergic to a vampire bite?”

Damian couldn’t help but chuckle. “I suppose it is possible.” He paused. “But that is not why you felt weak.” He seemed to be searching for the right words. They must’ve eluded him because he remained silent.

“So you know why, too?” Ally asked. He frowned. “It’s a vampire thing, right? Dageus acted weak and couldn’t fight well when Alex claimed him as a…” He trailed off. A possibility chased itself through his mind that he didn’t want to utter. It would change everything. “Damian, tell me you didn’t,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Damian replied. He reached out and took Allasandro’s hands in his own, but the Ravyn pulled back.

“Tell me you didn’t do that without my permission. Tell me you didn’t bind us in a really permanent way.” Ally trembled at the implications.

“It wasn’t intentional…not at first. I thought, well, you said you loved me a minute ago. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“A sentiment of ‘I love you’ in the middle of an orgasm does not constitute or excuse you doing what you did,” Ally snapped. He wanted clothes. Naked, he felt too vulnerable to the giant vampire who he’d been calling his boyfriend for the past few weeks now.

“Say it,” the vampire encouraged softly. An edge of bitterness was creeping into his tone. The rejection the Ravyn could offer would make them both miserable. “Say it. Say what I did.”

“You made me your friggin’ Bride!” Ally turned his back to Damian, trying to gather his thoughts. “Dammit, Damian, I trusted you.”

“So trust me now. I can make you happy, Allasandro. I promise. I will do whatever I can within my power to do so. I can’t undo what I’ve done. I’m sorry, but I want to make this work between us. It’s special, and I know that if you give us a chance—”

“Where are my clothes?”

“Allasandro, be reasonable.”

“Where are my fucking clothes?”

Damian sighed in exasperation and motioned to the small wardrobe on the opposite wall from the bed. The Ravyn stalked over and yanked it open.

“I never expected to care as much as I do about you, Allasandro.”

“Ally,” the Ravyn growled. Damian blinked.

“What?”

“My name. I shorten it. Allasandro is a ridiculous name to say because it’s antiqued as shit. It’s Ally or Ally-cat or any variation thereof. Not Allasandro.”

“But I like Allasandro,” Damian murmured. “What is the big deal about using your full name?”

“The only one who calls me Allasandro is my Prince upon occasion, and I indulge him because he could be my daddy seventy times over. To you and everyone else who I’m officially not sleeping with, it’s Ally,” Ally demanded, yanking his orange shirt over his head and grabbing his blue jeans which hung beside the empty hanger that had held his shirt.

“So that’s it? We’re breaking up?” Damian’s heart fell into his stomach. The organ seemed to be doing somersaults in his gut. Ally slammed the wardrobe door shut.

“We can’t exactly break up, can we? Because now I’m freaking mated to you for the rest of your life.
Fuck!
We had a good thing going, and you went and fucked it up!” He turned around finally, and his golden eyes glowed with resentment.

“Why does it have to be fucked-up? It’s just moving a little faster than we’d originally planned. I mean, we were getting serious, weren’t we? Where the hell did you think it would eventually lead to?” Damian was getting annoyed now. Allasandro loved him, and he was being stubborn.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was winging it!” Ally snapped. “I at least expected a little time. A year or two. Some more dates. A proposal. Anything! Instead, I get fucked awake and a bomb dropped on my head. What the hell, Damian? Is that your idea of breaking it to me gently? And exactly when were you planning on telling me, anyways? I’d been feeling the weakness for weeks. So don’t tell me that you didn’t know beforehand.”

“I didn’t want to ruin us,” Damian said. He looked away. Anywhere but Allasandro. He didn’t want him to see the tears that were threatening to fall. He hated to cry. Hadn’t cried since Kalel had been taken away from them. Well…with the exception of the other night with Alex.
Shit
. He was turning into a real head case. “We were happy. And you’d just started talking to me again. And I wanted to get a little more stable in us before I told you what I’d done.”

“More stable? Are you kidding me? And when would that be? A year? Ten years? A hundred years?”

“I didn’t want—”

“You didn’t want what? What the hell didn’t you want? Huh? Tell me!”

“I didn’t want you to leave me!” Damian shouted. Allasandro fell silent.

Damian rolled to his feet, not bothering to cover his body, and stalked toward the bathroom. He put his hand on the doorframe and half turned toward the Ravyn. “Everything I’ve ever cared about has been taken from me in one form or another. My family. My first love. My best friend. My son. Everything. I just…I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you, too. So I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry I did it without asking. And I’m sorry that you had to find out the way you did.” His voice cracked, but he cleared his throat and motioned toward the nightstand. “The keys to my car are there. Car is in the garage to the left of the house. We’re a little ways outside Haven. Use the GPS to get you back to Alex’s. It should already be programmed. I’ll come to you when you need my blood and give it to you. Don’t worry about the charity performance tomorrow. I’m not going.” He sucked in a breath, stood up straight, and walked through the bathroom door. “Take care of yourself, Ravyn.” He didn’t give Ally a chance to reply. He shut the door and turned the lock.

He managed to take two steps before he slid to the tiled floor, clutching his stomach with one hand and smothering his sobs with the other. He’d fucked up. And there was no going back.

Chapter Twenty

A mood of melancholy and silence fell over the Ravyns and their Prince like a death shroud at a funeral. Weeks dredged on with no end in sight. The joy and good-natured laughter they’d all come to rely on in Allasandro had faded as soon as he’d stepped back into the house after his final night with Damian. It seemed like the entire house was infected with his bad mood. Tempers were short. Fights broke out regularly. The reunification of the bond they’d shared was a pale echo of what it had been. And there was nothing Salvatore could do to fix it.

“What a mess,” the Demon Prince murmured, staring down at his ledger which held the proposal for the new jewelry and fine gem emporium that Alex’s friend had proposed to him weeks ago. Salvatore hadn’t managed to get past page one.

He glanced around his study and saw all the objects of his contentment. Volumes of books lined the built-in cherry oak shelves that covered subjects on everything from biology to dime-store romance. It was his biggest indulgence since coming to Earth. In Demontia, he’d never been able to get a hold of so many books because they never had the room nor the ability to store them.

In Alex’s house, the Ravyns had made a home and each of them was able to carve out a little space just for themselves. Tony found his contentment by turning his room into a Zen paradise, complete with a small water feature and candles of every scent imaginable. Druas had made his room into a jungle of ferns, small palms, orchids, and all sorts of other tropical plants. Germany had turned his space into a techie’s paradise, converting his poetry and diaries into digital formats in his spare time. Even Dageus made Alex’s bedroom into a personal haven of sorts by filling it with family pictures and soothing white décor. They had their comforts. Salvatore had his books. He looked for the answers to be written on their lovely spines.

The boys were out training. More like beating each other up in frustration, but Salvatore allowed it. They needed a little release. His eyes lit on the statue of Judgment, the sort of spirit guide of the Ravyns which was housed in a statue of a raven perched on a large uncut hunk of marble.

“I’m not sure what to do, old friend,” he addressed the raven.

They are very discontent again. Ruffled. Their humor has fled
, Judgment spoke to his mind. He was unsurprised at the Prince’s address.

“It’s more than that. It’s their happiness as well.”

This is an in-between time for them. Allasandro is fighting his destiny and, as such, is trapped in limbo. They are trapped with him in this unhappy place,
the statue said sagely.

Salvatore sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know what to do to change it.” He paused and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I never thought we’d have this problem with Ally. I always expected he’d settle with a woman eventually.”

Dageus has changed them all
, Judgment cautioned.
The habits of centuries are changing with Dageus’s choice and preference.

“Are you saying my Ravyns are now attracted to men?” Salvatore asked incredulously.

I’m saying their destinies are not so clear-cut and determinable anymore. It was not their original preference to enjoy women to begin with. That habit they picked up from you somewhere along the way. Because they are your Ravyns, they changed to suit your tastes. They will not be content with just being your Ravyns forever. The time for their rest is coming
.

Salvatore considered the words. If that were true, then the conflict with his cousin was nearing its conclusion for good or ill. They would be seeking their own separate happinesses when that time came. They would need a purpose after their current one was served.