Kiss Me Deadly (14 page)

R
ock music blasted from the living room where Gabriel sat watching music videos. The sun had set. Nikolaus had risen hours earlier. After a session of weight lifting, he’d showered and slipped on some casual jersey pants and padded out barefoot to see what held his friend’s interest. They were really making some salacious videos these days.

“Haven’t seen much of you lately,” Gabriel said. “Not that I’m your keeper, but, ah—I thought so.”

Nikolaus straightened his lips from an irrepressible smile. “What?”

“You’ve been smiling a lot lately. You don’t do that, man. So I figure you must have found yourself a girl. Am I right?”

Nikolaus shrugged, but the smile leapt to the fore and no amount of trying would push it back.

“Well, it’s about time the old man got his game on.” Gabriel jumped up and followed Nikolaus into the kitchen. “All it took was ridding your life of that witch, and now you’re back to your old self. What does she look like? Gorgeous is a given, but is she sexy?”

Nikolaus wondered about sexy. Ravin was the epitome of all that attracted him, but she was more rough and tough than soft and slinky. He decided less description would serve her better, and made a motion before him with his hands to outline her curvy shape.

“Nice.” Gabriel flicked on the tap and bent over it to slurp up some water. He emerged, water drooling down his mouth and hair pulled back with one hand. “Must be a pleaser, ’cause you’re gone all the time.”

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

“What? Like me?”

Gabriel did like to give details. Hair color, breast size and how many times she came. The man always kept a count.

Nikolaus had lost count of how many times Ravin had come. But each time, it was all good.

“You know it’s not wise for any vampire to get too attached,” Nikolaus said. And he wasn’t, was he? Not when it was a spell. “I’m just having fun, man.”

“I understand. So, I never asked, how did it go with the witch?”

Turning his face away from his friend, Nikolaus tightened his jaw. Still discussing the same woman, one he logically knew he had no right going near, let alone making love to. Maybe that forbidden element was what turned him on?

“Er…”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t toasted her yet? You’ve waited so long for this. All you’ve been able to think about these past few months was either getting better or burning the witch. Do you need help? ’Cause I’m your man. Just say the word.”

“I’ve staked her out. Got an eye on her. But I need to wait for the opportune moment.”

“Oh. Sure.”

Gabriel was right. Those first weeks during the healing process, as he watched the flesh grow back over his ribs to conceal his organs, Nikolaus had thought of nothing more than burning the witch and listening to her screams in the process.

What had happened to change that?

The spell. And how powerful it was to completely change his thought process. He should be hungry for the smell of Ravin’s burning flesh.

Why couldn’t he be that monster?

You’ve never been a monster.

“So you got sidetracked?” Gabriel delved. “I can understand. It’s been a long time since you’ve had a woman.”

“Gabriel.”

“I’m cool. But don’t let the witch run loose much longer. You want to have her taken care of before returning to Kila.”

“I will. I…will.”

“You feeling all right, old man? How’s the burns? Still tight?”

“Actually, they’re getting better every day. I can swing my arm.” He did so and noted Gabriel’s surprise.

“Whatever that chick is doing to you, let her continue, man. That is incredible.”

A row of empty bullets sat on the counter. Glass shell tips glistened under the overhead lights. A syringe sat next to them, waiting for blood to be injected into the gel slugs fitted into the glass tip.

Ravin swallowed and spun around on the bar stool, putting her back to the preparation assortment. She’d told Nikolaus she didn’t want to do this anymore.

So why had she gone through the motions to get the equipment out in the first place?

You’ve become a mindless machine. You kill without thought or remorse.

No, she kept mortals and witches safe from the vampire threat. If she did not, who would?

How could Nikolaus love someone like her?

“Stupid witch. You know that’s not the real Nikolaus who holds you in his arms and makes you believe you are loved. And who’s the one who is really bewitched?”

If she would have just staked him that first night…

“And then what?”

Continued on with life as she always had? Blindly staking vamps and returning home as if nothing ever happened, and filling bullets for her next murderous rampage?

How long are you going to make the entire vampire nation suffer for something three bad vampires did two centuries ago?

That a vampire was now making her question her entire history made the hair on Ravin’s arms prickle. Had the past two centuries truly been so coldhearted and intent on murder?

She killed vampires because they had killed her parents. An eye for an eye.

Yet, she had lost only two people. And in turn, she had taken hundreds of vampires from this world.

Not a bad thing, when all things were considered. Vampires were the scum of the world. One less vampire stalking the streets meant one less mortal victim. Or two, or dozens of mortal victims, now she thought on it.

Not all vamps were as conscientious as Nikolaus, leaving their victims with a healing wound and taking the memory of the bite from their minds. Most were left half dead, possible vampires themselves, or completely dead with a broken neck or drained so close to death that their feeble mortal hearts burst.

What was so wrong with cleaning up a mortal plague?

What was wrong was one of those vampires had grabbed her by the heart and forced her to look at reality. And there, in Nikolaus’s dark, soul-filled eyes she saw the man behind the creature. A neurosurgeon, for cripe’s sake. Someone who had once saved peoples’ lives. A man capable of loving and caring.

Because you bespelled him.

Right. But beyond the forced love, Ravin had to consider that the physical gentleness and concern really were Nikolaus. He had the capacity for kindness; that was all that truly mattered.

“I wonder if there’s a spell to make spells last forever? Oh!”

Spinning around, she swiped her forearm across the waiting bullets, sending them scattering. A man stood in her kitchen. He always entered with no sound, and without disturbing her wards.

“I wish I knew how you can invade my wards,” Ravin muttered.

“Don’t ask me, I just open the door and walk in. So you want the spell to last forever?”

Nikolaus had been standing there long enough to hear Ravin’s confession. It should feel wonderful—to know she wanted him to love her forever—but instead, it stabbed him deep inside.

Because he’d never been naive of the truth.

She wanted to keep him bespelled and under her control forever? Isn’t that just like a woman, to want to be in control. And after he’d given her so much?

Now Nikolaus swept his gaze over the scattered glass bullets. A syringe teetered on the edge of the granite counter. The clear body of the thing glinted red under the hanging kitchen lights. She’d been preparing death cocktail bullets. To kill vampires.

She’d promised him last night she wanted to stop. Empty words, obviously.

And he loved this woman?

Why couldn’t he think beyond the spell and simply turn and walk away from his enemy? He would just begin to think how cruel she was and wish her dead for her actions, and then the thought was quickly replaced by the need to wrap her in his arms.

Which Nikolaus did.

“I just meant,” she said as she nuzzled her face into the crook of his elbow, “that…I don’t know. I want you here as much as you wish to be.”

“Forever?” he rasped, finding he meant it more than it being a question about her words. He kissed her forehead. She smelled like cloves and cherries and musk.

She slid off the stool to fit herself to his body. “I wish you hadn’t heard me say that. I was babbling.”

“I came here out of anger, I’ll have you know.”

“You did?”

“I was speaking to Gabriel earlier.”

“Gabriel is your vampire friend, yes?”

“He’s my right-hand man. I’ve told you about him. He lives with me.”

“That explains why you never take me home with you.”

“You want me to? Ravin, you’re confusing the hell out of me. I thought you wanted to put a bullet in my brain.”

“As if that would have an effect.” Her smile was too brief. “I’ve changed my mind about a few things since meeting you.”

She bowed her head, fitting it to his arm, and absently bit into the muscle, following with a long press of her lips. Considering? Forming words that wouldn’t offend him? Brewing a clever chant to bewitch him even further?

“What if you
can
make the spell last forever?”

She shook her head effusively. “No. I’m torn as it is over what I’ve done to you. I’ve no right to dabble with your very soul as I have. Maybe it’s because mine is not my own any more.”

“Out on loan.” And then it occurred to him. “That’s why your blood didn’t satisfy me.”

“What?”

“After I first bit you, the hunger remained. I was still empty. But it’s because I’d drank soulless blood.”

“You need it to have a soul?”

“Hell, yes, you can’t feed off the dead or get fulfilled with stuff from the blood bank. Just doesn’t work that way. It is the vampires’ curse that we must touch our warm, thinking victims and struggle with them to gain nourishment.”

“Makes—”

The kiss was so sudden and desperate, Ravin didn’t protest its intense desire to argue against her words. A physical denial that sucked away her defenses and reduced her to someone who wanted only to be taken, and to receive.

Nikolaus drew in a breath and smiled against her mouth.

“You take the breath from me, Nikolaus. Draw it right out and make me feel as if I’m drowning in your life.”

“Better than your blood. Should I stop?”

“No. Take it all. Kiss me breathless.”

“Love you,” he murmured into her mouth, and kissed her hard.

Don’t want to love you, she thought. Hate myself. Tired of running away from it, though. Want it.

Need it.

“Oh, Nikolaus, why can’t you hate me?” She bowed her head onto his mouth. He kissed her forehead. “Why can’t you set the building ablaze and be done with it? I—” She bracketed his face with her hands. “I need you to be the vampire and to see me as a witch.”

“I know what we are to each other. Don’t you think I struggle?”

“I think you can’t struggle as much as you wish because of the spell. If you had control of your emotions, you’d push me away.”

She got up and paced the floor, wandering near the scattered glass bullets. “I was preparing bullets to kill your fellow tribe members,” she said. The lie would never be discovered. “Doesn’t that make you angry?”

“Makes me want to rage.”

“Oh? You rage so sweetly, lover. Care for some posies with your anger?”

He gripped her by the arm and spun her about and into his arms. Rage did flare, briefly. His fangs descended. Sharp as pins and perfect white. Ravin lowered her hand before she could reach up to touch.

He leaned in and licked her bottom lip. “You want me to hurt you? Then I’ll hurt you.”

He dove to her neck and bit into her. She didn’t cry out, but instead pulled herself against his body and wrapped her arms around him.

“Yes, hurt me,” she cried as the intrusion of his teeth sparked pain up and down her neck. Muscles tore and any movement made it ache all the more.

Supporting her head with both hands, Nikolaus drew out his teeth and began to feed upon her. Ravin felt the blood flow out of her veins. As if summoned from her heart, she could feel it gush upward toward her neck, racing for release.

She clawed into Nikolaus’s back, not to injure, but to keep herself firmly affixed to her lover. This beautiful man who took not only her breath, but her very life into him. A communion of blood and desire.

Gasping at the rush of fire her blood had become, Ravin closed her eyes, sinking into his embrace. He held her. He would not let her fall.

“I trust you, Nikolaus. I…”

The swoon scurried through her veins and dizzied her thoughts. So powerful, the vampire’s bite, and capable of summoning orgasm.

And she was there, climaxing, convulsing in his arms, releasing her breath, her blood, her bliss into the one man she trusted beyond all reason.

The hands gripping her head and shoulders suddenly let go. Slowly aware that he had slipped into his own swoon, Ravin melted down her lover’s torso, her head sliding across his hips and then catching herself to kneel before him.