He’d always thought she wanted nothing more than to marry him. But he also worried. How would the clan of shape shifters feel about their coupling? Would Raven question his ability to cope when the wild blood that surged through his veins called out for him and he disappeared, again without a word? Not to mention that Bethany would still be in the pack.
As they entered her house, their urgency grew. Only their desire existed in the dark. In one long stride, Bo moved toward her, his arms outstretched, but Raven backed away.
She tossed her jacket onto the chair nearby, walking backward toward the bedroom. He followed, flicking one button of his shirt after the other. Raven followed suit, taking off her blouse just before releasing her breasts from the lacey bra. Bo watched as she dropped it to the floor. Her breasts shone like polished ivory in the moonlight which glided through the windows.
She seductively bit her full lower lip, wiped the drop of blood that dripped onto her finger and offered it to Bo. He seized her wrist and pulled her close to him. His mouth covered hers and he tasted her blood, causing his craving to overtake them both.
Finally separating, she unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them off. She guided him to the edge of the bed and sat him down as she slowly removed the rest of his clothes. Then she proceeded, methodically, to strip for his eyes only.
She slithered out of her navy pencil skirt, kicking it over to where he sat. She ran her hands up to her breasts and cupped them, offering a taste. As he leaned forward, she pulled back.
“I’m not finished yet,” she whispered, her voice husky.
Her finger trailed around her nipple, and he gasped as her slender digit slid down to her red lace panty. She took the elastic and ran her hand around her waist, sliding one side down, then the other. Bo’s breath was ragged, his body taut with anticipation.
Bit by bit, she wiggled out and caught the red garment on the edge of her painted toe before flicking it into his face. He smiled and breathed in her essence, moaning with delight. She stood before him in only her open-toed pumps, an ivory goddess.
His sex was hard, and she knelt before him, taking a taste.
“Lose the shoes, my love,” he whispered, moaning with the pleasure she provided between her lips. She kicked them off as she held his penis, kissing the tip then traveling up his chest with hungry lips. She nicked a spot and sucked out a bit of his blood. His hands worked their way from her bottom to her breasts, finally taking one at a time inside his mouth, playfully teasing and tasting. He felt her go limp and grabbed her. With one swift move, Bo had her on her back in bed.
He leaned, poised, ready to enter her. “What do you want from me, my love? Tell me and I’ll do it—whatever it is.”
“Love me, always, meu dragoste,” she panted, holding him as close as she possibly could.
“You never called me that before. I do love you. I want you to be mine, always. Marry me, bear my children, be my mate.”
A smile reached across Raven’s face. “I’ve always been yours. Take me. Don’t ever leave me,” she murmured, pushing him deep inside her, pushing herself upward to meet him in rapture and delight. Despite the fact she was half Lamai, he felt her warmth as he joined with her. He couldn’t imagine his life without her in it.
They tussled between the blankets of Raven’s bed, trying desperately to merge with each other completely.
“I want us to work this time, cante skuye. Promise me we’ll make it work,” he murmured in her ear as he plunged deeper inside her. Her eyes were taking on the silver hue that indicated she was near orgasm.
“You know I’m yours,” she moaned.
She licked at the spot on his chest where she’d extracted some of his blood. His hunger for Raven surpassed all other feelings.
He took her head gently between his hands and delved into the seat of her soul with his spirit. Their gazes locked onto each other, soul to soul, they united.
“Why did you want to be with that other man, then? At Blood Pool, I felt your emotions.” His heart went cold as he thought about the way she’d acted.
“You felt only my hunger, meu dragoste,” she confessed.
“Hunger for me and only me,” he said, half-pleading, half-demanding, and then he kissed her. He covered every part of her with his energy possessing her. His lips traveled across her neck and down to her breasts. As his tongue flicked at her hardened nipples, she arched backward, her fangs extended onto his exposed neck.
“Do it,” he commanded.
“I’m afraid.” She ground her hips feverishly into his. A tear escaped her eye. Her lips were swollen from the force of passion that raced between them as they nibbled and kissed.
“Now, Raven,” he pleaded.
She bit down into his neck. His body spasmed and his life force poured into her.
“You’ve always been my love, since the beginning,” Bo crooned. “Marry me.”
Raven merged with him so that there could be no doubt. Her soul entered his heart. At the point of climax, there was only love.
The phone rang, breaking the silence of the early morning.
“I hate to bother you again, Doc. We have another body. Looks to be the same situation as yesterday. No outward sign of trauma, but he is dead. Davis picked him up early this morning,” Bianca reported as Raven wiped the sleep from her eyes.
She propped her head in her hand as she lay on her side. “Are you certain he’s dead?”
“Well, Davis pronounced him at the site. By the way, it was at The Bed and Brew this time.”
Shock coursed through her. Someone was trying desperately to send her a message. It had to be—first Blood Pool, and then The Bed and Brew. Both were places where Raven and Bo had been earlier in the evening.
Raven sat up in bed as Bo’s arm encircled her waist, pulling her toward him. She felt his erection hard and ready for her.
“I’ll be right there.” Raven hung up the phone.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he murmured, grasping her bottom.
She grabbed the edge of the bed with one hand and held herself steady with the other as he entered her from behind. His hair tickled her back while he nipped at her neck. The urgency of his lovemaking showed her how he wanted to claim her.
She abandoned all thought, hurtling down the road to ecstasy once more with him.
Davis put the final few stitches into the John Doe as Raven typed up the autopsy report. John had lost approximately four liters of blood. How? Well, that question wouldn’t be so easy to answer. Raven noticed a puncture mark by the femoral artery and noted it in the autopsy report. Whatever happened, whoever did it went right for a main artery. It was a single puncture mark, not a bite mark.
Detective Joe Menendez witnessed the autopsy.
“Let’s get an I.D.,” Raven said. “Fingerprints and dental records, please.”
Tracy ordered a full tox screen, and Raven and Davis reviewed the x-rays numerous times. No trauma caused this death—at least, no visible external or internal trauma. It had taken five hours to perform the routine autopsy. Raven had supervised Davis.
“Good night, all,” Raven said as she made her way out into the late afternoon sun. She wanted to stop at the farm stand before heading home. She craved a caramel apple pie, and Nigella’s Herbary and Farm Stand made the best. Nigella was a dear childhood friend who knew all of Raven’s secrets. Nigella also happened to be Bianca’s sister.
Raven started her car, a cherry-red Nissan Altima, and adjusted the rearview mirror after quickly applying a coat of mascara. Something was off. Making her alterations to seat positioning and mirror placement, Raven suddenly noticed she had company, and he was hungry.
Blue eyes stared her down. “Drive, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice was scratchy and unsteady.
She chuckled. “Me? You’re not going to hurt me?” Her incisors were sharp and long at this point, the adrenaline rush causing them to extend. H
er eyes turned platinum. Raven looked back at him. She realized the identity of the man hunched over in her back seat. Adonis.
“Oh, gods! Derrick! What happened to you?”
“I was hoping you could explain it to me.” He wiped his palms on his pants, but he kept perspiring. “I don’t know. We have to go somewhere safe so I can talk to you. Not your place—your boyfriend will be there.” His eyes darted back and forth, and he kept looking behind himself, as if expecting to see someone following. The handsome man from the other night had disappeared, replaced with this pale and anxious one.
She thought of Bo’s schedule for the coming week. “Bo’s working tonight,” she said, gazing back at him through the mirror. He looked awful. His skin was pasty and discolored. The whites of his eyes were yellowed and bloodshot.
“No, he’s supposed to be at work, but he’s not… That little psychic talent I had has improved vastly since we last saw each other,” Derrick said, rubbing his red-rimmed eyes.
Raven drove to the water’s edge by Three Maidens Marina and parked at the end of the lot. She shut off the engine and turned. His aura was blotchy and grey. “Okay, here we are. Talk.”
He became suddenly still. “Am I…like you now? I thought I was dead. I don’t remember much of anything.”
Her heart went out to him. She’d witnessed only a few humans transform into Lamai. It did not appear to be a pleasant change.
“What does your spidey sense tell you?” she asked.
He looked at Raven with an odd expression. She’d aimed for humor and missed by a long shot.
“My psychic sense is telling me I’m in deep shit. Evil shit. You’re somehow involved, but I don’t know any more than that. I wanted to talk to you the other night. I had a dream about you, and it wasn’t good. You were in trouble, big trouble, life-and-death trouble,” Derrick rambled on. “Now, I can’t remember much of anything.”
“Me? Life-and-death? That’s kinda hard. You see I—I can’t die.” Raven pursed her lips and shook her head, hoping to convince him she was an immortal.
Shrugging, he said, “You’re only half-vampire. I thought you were still vulnerable.”
“True, but my father is one of the most powerful vampires around and, although he looks perpetually forty, he’s old—hundreds of years old, maybe even older. He won’t tell me. You could say I have all the benefits of being human, without the pesky threat of death.”
Of course, Raven could die, but not many people knew under which circumstances, and she preferred it that way. Most Lamai guarded that secret diligently. They held a great deal of contempt for those night creatures that gave interviews revealing Lamai vulnerabilities to mortals.
Derrick ran his hand across his sweat-soaked brow. “Where is your father?” he asked, his voice strained.
Raven huffed. “I don’t know. It’s better that way. Better for him, and better for me.”
“And your mother? Is she any part vampire, too?”
“No, she’s dead,” she said bluntly.
“Oh. Mine is, too. Sorry.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, wincing from the pain She knew the transformation was ravaging his insides. “How did your mother and father—h-how were you…?”
Raven was slightly amused. It was a common question, and she’d had it asked of her more times than she could remember.
“I was conceived like any other human. I carry my father’s DNA. Like all species, ours is designed for survival. Usually, the mitochondrial DNA comes from the maternal side, but when a vampire male mates with a human female, the father’s DNA is passed automatically to the child. It’s the opposite of humans. Why all the questions?”
He coughed violently before catching his breath once more. “Courtier de Sang is hell-bent on figuring a way to fi— He—blames…” A sudden shortness of breath stopped Derrick from speaking. The mottling on his face turned an intense magenta. He grabbed at his neck as if trying to pry a pair of hands off of his throat. Raven jumped out of the car and joined him in the back, clearing his airway, feeling for a pulse. It was thready and irregular. The changes were well under way within him. Somehow, someone had infected him with vampire blood.
She knew all the resident Lamai on the island, and each had this or her own method of quenching the immortal thirst. A few traveled to the mainland and helped to clean up the neighborhoods, so to speak. Others were past the phase of needing to feed, and still others had concocted a brew that came from animals due for slaughter. Then there was talk of a synthetic blood soon to become available. Raven had Bo, or Tracy’s supply from the blood bank.
Raven tried comforting him. “I’m going to get you to the hospital, Derrick.” She hopped back into the driver’s seat and peeled out of the parking lot, heading straight for Seacrest Memorial Hospital.
“I think I need blood,” he whispered.
“Try to relax.”
“This feels so weird…”
“I know. Once we get you to the hospital, I can see about getting you some blood,” she promised.
“How? How can you get me blood?”
“Harvesting blood has become part of the ritual at our Halloween feast. It’s a sacred act that’s taken place on the local farms for hundreds of years. Have you ever attended the ritual?” she asked, trying to keep his mind off the pain.
“N-no. This was going to be my first time.”
“The ritual also insures a plentiful harvest. All the farmers participate—Lamai, fae, shifters, witches and humans. The surplus of blood is stored at the hospital for local Lamai. Don’t worry.”
His face relaxed a bit.
“None of the Lamai I know drinks from islanders. Besides, the counsel forbids the Lamai to transform humans without express permission and miles of blood red tape.”
Derrick’s face tensed once more. “He’ll…k-kill…me…he knows,” he croaked, still grasping at his throat. “He’s very powerful… I—I…”
“Why would he kill you? You know what, let’s save this talk for later. It’s normal to feel the way you do. You’re not dying. Not in any mortal way.” How comforting, she thought.
Derrick gagged. “H-how do you know? What’s going on?”
“You’re changing. This Sang guy won’t be able to get to you, don’t worry,” she falsely promised. Raven knew the workings of magick, and there was always a way around things, but she had to keep Derrick calm. She made it to the hospital in record time.
“You still with me, Derrick?”
She heard him grunt an answer as she pulled in front of the ER. The ER doors slid open. Raven’s gaze darted around the room, searching for someone familiar, but there was no one she recognized. She called out for immediate assistance. A young female resident dropped the chart she was working on, grabbed a wheelchair and followed her outside.
“Dr. Strigoi, what’s wrong?” The woman trailed behind Raven to the back passenger door.
“The patient’s name is Derrick. I don’t have a last name. Pulse is irregular, breathing shallow.” Raven opened the door to allow her access to Derrick.
But he was gone.
Again.
Chapter Four
Nightmares interrupted Raven’s sleep that night.
If at all possible, his face appeared whiter than the down feathers of a swan. He possessed all the grace of one, too. That’s where the similarities ended, though. Raven had never encountered such power, with a single exception.
Her father.
One would have to know her father to appreciate the significance of what she was thinking. To Raven and her mother, he’d been gentle and kind, but to others, he could be—and often was—ruthless. He was powerful and used to getting his own way, but he had an old world charm about him that enabled him to win many disputes easily. When Raven’s father wanted to, he could be the most charismatic man on earth.
Of course, he could kill his adversaries, but there was no sense of accomplishment then. He savored the hunt, as did all Lamai worth their salt. It was pa
rt of being born a Lamai, whether by choice or not. But time had worn away some of the rough edges of Raven’s sire’s personality.
The man in her dream, however, was not her father.
“Soon I will get you, ma beauté. I am close, very close. The time has come…”
Raven writhed in bed, moaning from the nightmares that had been beleaguering her all night.
“I have someone I wish for you to meet. You will be so surprised,” the monster in her dream continued in a singsong voice.
Then this foreign figure diminished and familiar ones immediately replaced him: her mother, Bo, her father, Frank and Solaris. All were telling her something, but the voices sounded like electronic voice phenomena or static on a television set. The images faded, and only the voices remained.
Before she knew it, she was squinting into the morning sun that blazed through her windows. She’d had her worst night’s rest in a while, and it promised to be a grueling day, beginning at the hospital and ending with a meeting at Town Hall.
After an exhausting day at the lab spent going over reams of paperwork, Raven arrived at Frank’s office. The sun settled where low clouds met the horizon. She walked straight in and began recounting the meeting with Julianna at The Bed and Brew.
“Frank, I met with Jules the other night and she advised me to speak with you. I need to know what’s going on.” This time, she took the cognac he offered and settled into the wingback chair opposite him.
He looked uncomfortable and resigned, though she couldn’t discern why.
“You know my threshold for weird is quite vast, but there are things happening that push the boundaries even for me. The man in my autopsy room, Derrick, showed up in my car. My car. And he was going through the transformation.” Raven took a deep breath, watching Frank’s reaction.
Frank emptied his glass, poured another drink for himself and sighed.
Raven continued, hoping to get Frank to open up. “The guy was freaked out and asking a lot of questions, said I’m in trouble. Warned me about some evil that’s around and mentioned a Courtier de Sang. He wanted to know about my father. If you know anything, Frank, you’ve got to fill me in. Why would he want to know about my father?”