Raven's Blood

by Cassandra Lawson

Chapter Forty-Three

  Connor stood facing a man he’d believed dead for years, unable to figure out how the man still looked like he was in his twenties. It was obvious he was trying to look older, but that was probably for appearances among his human followers. It seemed unlikely Graham would have willingly become a vampire, and he didn’t think it would have been possible for Graham to hide his need for blood for so long. While there were cosmetic treatments made using vampire blood that could temporarily restore the appearance of youth, none could extend life.

  “Where is she, blood whore?” Graham demanded angrily.

  Connor gave a nonchalant shrug. “She was killed by turned vampires shortly after we killed your father.”

  Graham looked like he was about to explode. “She was part of the deal!” he snapped and actually stomped his foot like a spoiled child. “I want her.”

  “I don’t see Raven,” Connor remarked casually. He’d known the bastard wasn’t really going to bring her, not that it mattered. Connor had no intention of handing himself or any of his followers over to this asshole. The only way to get Raven back was to kill Graham and attack the human settlement.

  “Why would I turn my dear friend, Raven, over to you?” Graham asked with a pleasant smile. “She’s the one who came up with the plan to trap and kill you.”

  There were murmurs among his people, and some probably believed the lie. Connor knew Raven wouldn’t betray them, but not everyone trusted her. Those who thought Simon or Ian should lead them didn’t trust her, and this rift could mean their defeat.

  Simon snorted. “Raven would never betray us.”

  Graham’s eyes lit with recognition. “I know you,” he said with a sinister smile. “You always were the prettiest little blood whore.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Connor snapped.

  Simon put a hand on his shoulder and spoke quietly. “Stay calm. He’s trying to upset us.”

  Connor nodded. “Here’s the deal, you produce Raven and you can take me. When you’re prepared to do that, we’ll meet you but not until then.” That was a lie. Connor planned to track Raven down as soon as they parted ways, if Graham let them leave. If Graham reacted as he suspected, by attacking, Connor planned to kill him and his guards before rescuing Raven.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Graham began with a smile. At least twenty turned vampires moved out of the woods to surround them. “I’ll have my creations kill you, and then we’ll take over your research labs so I can finish up the work on our new vampire control system. I’m afraid I’ll have to keep Raven since her blood is essential to my research. From what I can tell, she already wishes she was dead.”

  “If you touch her,” Connor ground out, “I’ll kill you.”

  “Brave words from a dead man,” Graham mocked as he motioned the turned vampires forward. “I do want you to have a nice image of Raven in your mind when you die. I’m pretty sure I broke bones on her face. She is a fragile creature, but she heals quickly, which means I get to break her over and over again. She’ll not only provide me with her precious blood, but I’ll also get years of entertainment from her. That gives me a fantastic idea!” Then he spoke to the turned vampires. “Do your best to keep him alive. I want him to watch me with Raven for a few days before I kill him.”

  Connor drew his knife and prepared for the fight. The howls of the wolf pack caught his attention, but he seemed to be the only one who heard them. He could see them about a hundred yards away, but it was obvious they were in an area only he could see. The last few times he’d been out there with Fang, the wolf had gotten along well with the local pack, and they’d warmed up to Connor quickly. If he had to guess, he’d say they sensed the danger to him and wanted to help.

  “Call them off, Graham.” The sound of Raven’s commanding voice startled Connor. She wasn’t alone. If he wasn’t mistaken, she had the humans who’d been with her when he’d initially captured her, along with a several others.

  Graham raised a gun and pointed it at Connor’s head. “I’m pretty sure a bullet to the brain will be enough to kill him, so I suggest you all drop your weapons.”

  Connor looked to his side and saw the wolves move closer. He knew they couldn’t move into the part of the woods visible by humans without help, which made him wish he’d talked to Raven about this before. “Trust me,” he told Raven before leaping to the side.

  Raven’s mouth dropped open as she watched Connor slip into the part of the woods only visible to her. She’d been eying it and trying to figure out how to get there. While Connor’s move had come as a surprise, it certainly explained a lot, including his bond with Fang.

  Graham looked panicked. “Where did he go?” he shouted as he looked around.

  “Attack!” Raven shouted, and her friends converged on the humans who had come with Graham. The born vampires attacked the turned vampires. Rand stayed with the humans, giving them an unfair advantage against the human guards. They’d decided his return from the dead might be too big of a distraction, and when Raven saw Norah with the born vampires, she was glad they’d decided to keep the hood covering Rand’s face.

  Graham lunged toward her. “Bitch!” he hissed. “If I didn’t need your blood so much, I’d kill you.”

  She dropped and kicked out, knocking Graham’s legs out from under him. He quickly regained his feet, but before Raven could make a move, Layla, hit him in the back with one of her eskrima sticks. She raised it to stab him in the heart, but he raised the gun and fired. Raven wasn’t sure when Simon had moved to their side, but he shoved Layla out of the line of fire just in time. The bullet slammed into his chest, and Raven hoped he had his Kevlar on.

  The growls startled Graham, and he spun around. Raven followed his gaze and smiled at Connor as he stood in front of the wolf pack. While not the one they’d met up with before, they obviously responded to him.

  “Was there something you wanted to tell me, Connor?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. Despite the battle going on around them, she was thrilled with Connor’s new talent, even if she was a little annoyed he hadn’t mentioned it before. Raven wasn’t sure how to react when she noticed Connor had brought back more than the wolves.

  “I like your mate, Raven,” cooed Narissa, a wood nymph Raven remembered from her childhood. She’d never been anything but rude to Raven. Another one of her less than favorite nymphs, Cyrene, was with her. Both were naked as they seemed to just appear before the others, stunning almost everyone into inactivity.

  “He is very nice to look at,” Cyrene added before smiling at Simon who was now standing and apparently uninjured. “That one is pretty, too. Are they both yours?”

  “Can we try them?” Narissa asked.

  “Now really isn’t the time for this,” Raven grumbled. While she’d grown up in a world where most men were used by multiple women, she would rip their blonde hair out of their heads and scratch out their green eyes before she let them touch Connor.

  The remaining turned vampires looked dazed and were edging closer to the nymphs. “Wood nymphs,” one of them murmured as he inhaled deeply.

  Graham took advantage of the distraction and grabbed Layla. He jerked her in front of him and put his arm around her neck, holding the gun to the side of her head.

  “Enough games,” Graham growled. “I’m in charge!”

  “Oooh!” cooed Cyrene. “He’s quite the alpha male.”

  “Seriously,” Raven said in a frustrated voice. “Now is not the time to think about sex.”

  Nariassa looked confused. “You’ve spent too much time with humans. It’s always the time think about, and have, sex.”

  “Just kill everyone except for the nymphs,” Graham ordered the turned vampires.

  While they were more in control than most turned vampires, they were still vicious predators with no real conscience or loyalties. Raven could already see they were only interested in getting their fangs into the wood nymphs. When it was just Raven, they didn’t seem to smell the blood, but it seemed wi
th more than one wood nymph around, they could scent it, and it was breaking Graham’s hold on them some.

  One of them allowed his lips to curl up into an open-mouthed smile. Saliva dripped from his fangs. “We intend to kill everyone except the nymphs,” he growled, and something in his nature reminded her a little of Mitchell. He obviously remembered he didn’t like taking orders.

  The other humans with Graham were edging into the woods. Raven noticed Roger and Miles making a break for it, obviously having caught the turned vampire’s meaning. Graham seemed to finally realize the danger he was in, and he started to back away with his arm still around Layla’s neck. When the turned vampires attacked, Graham took off with Layla in front of him. He was no longer holding her neck, but he still had the gun pointed at her head. Ian, Simon, and Shelby took off after them. Raven wanted to follow, but she was surrounded.

  Connor was amazed by how well the wood nymphs fought, especially naked. Narissa punched one of the turned vampires in the throat and then kicked him in the chest. When he went down, one of the wolves attacked. Raven tossed one of her sticks to Cyrene who deftly shoved it into the chest cavity of a turned vampire while Raven fended off one with her remaining stick. The vampire was a better fighter, and she wasn’t able to shove the stick into his heart. Connor finished off the vampire in front of him and then plunged his knife into the back of the one Raven was fighting.

  Norah was managing to hold off two vampires when she lost her footing, and Connor raced toward her with Raven by his side, not sure they’d make it in time. The large human with the hood let out a roar of rage and grabbed one of the vampire’s heads, giving it a twist until his neck snapped. That gave Norah time to bring one of her sticks up into the heart of the other vampire. When her eyes locked on the man who’d just saved her, she fainted.

  Raven took off in the direction Layla had been dragged, and Connor was torn on where to go. “Norah is fine,” Raven shouted over her shoulder. “That’s Rand.”

  “Holy fuck!” Connor said, and then he took off after Raven with the wolves following them.

  They found Layla crumpled on the ground with Shelby by her side.

  “Layla!” Raven screamed.

  “She’ll be fine,” Shelby assured her. “The bastard shoved her when he realized she was slowing him down. She stumbled and hit her head. Simon and Ian are still following him.”

  “Find him,” Connor told the wolves, and they took off running. He followed them with Raven by his side, amazed by how fast his nymph moved. They found Simon and Graham by the edge of a cliff. Connor had no idea how steep the drop off was, and Ian was nowhere in sight. Graham had the gun out, and he was waving it around, looking frantic while Simon looked calm, almost bored.

  “I hardly recognized you at first, blood whore,” Graham sneered. “I usually saw you on your knees.”

  “Won’t work, asshole,” Simon replied. “I’m going to kill you, but it has nothing to do with our past.”

  “Brave words, blood whore,” Graham taunted as he raised the gun.

  “No!” Raven screamed.

  Graham’s gun went off, and Connor watched in horror as the impact from the bullet sent Simon over the edge and into the canyon below. Raven raced forward and rammed her sharpened eskrima stick into Graham’s black heart.

  Connor looked down, trying to figure out a way to get to the bottom, but it was so overgrown he couldn’t see much of anything.

  “I don’t see him,” Raven said in a panicked voice.

  “Do you know how far down it goes?” Connor asked.

  “Not too far,” Ian answered from behind them.

  “Where were you?” Connor demanded, beyond pissed at Ian for abandoning Simon; even knowing Ian probably couldn’t have done anything.

  “I went to get rope from your jeep,” Ian explained, holding it up for them to see. “We were pretty sure Simon was going to get shot again, and I wanted to have a way to drag his ass out of there. We figured you’d be here to back him up soon.”

  Ian looped the rope around his waist, and Connor held the end while Ian made his way down. Raven was relieved when he came back up with an unconscious but breathing Simon.

  She was even more relieved to discover none of her friends, human or vampire, had died. While there were some nasty injuries, they would all heal.

  “I was wrong,” Ian admitted to Connor.

  “What else is new?” Carla asked as she applied pressure to the gash on her arm.

  Ian gave her a nasty look before returning his attention to Connor. “I thought the humans who lived among us were only loyal because they had no choice. I couldn’t picture any humans fighting with us or really helping us, but Raven’s friends had no reason to come out here and fight for us. If they only wanted to rescue Raven, they could have taken off with her. Instead, they risked their lives for us. They even brought Rand back to us.”

  Danny cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, we were all a little uneasy about it, but we trust Raven, and she said you were all worth saving.”

  The others mumbled their agreement.

  Narissa and Cyrene picked that moment to join the conversation.

  “It’s good to see you again, Raven,” Narissa told her. “It’s been too many years.”

  “Will you come back with us?” Cyrene asked.

  Raven snorted. “You didn’t like me much when I lived there, why would I want to go back?”

  Cyrene’s cheeks were tinged green. “We were selfish children. You have a mate now. You should come home with us, so our children can play together.”

  “We’ve all grown up and we miss you,” Narissa added.

  “Maybe to visit,” Raven agreed. “Someday, that is.” She took Connor’s hand in hers. “For now, my home is with Connor.”

  He pulled her into his arms and rested his chin on the top of her head.

  Norah slammed into them both. “I can’t believe you rescued Rand! I can’t believe Rand is alive.” Then she looked over her shoulder and burst into tears.

  Rand came over and lifted his wife into his arms, looking close to tears himself.

  Connor looked at the humans. “You’re all welcome in our settlement.”

  “That’s good since we have nowhere to go,” Danny replied.

  “I’m sorry you lost your homes,” Raven told her friends.

  “No biggie,” Mark said with a chuckle. “I’m dying to see how Muriel’s vampire baby eats.”

  Raven gave a shudder. “Trust me. It’s something to be avoided.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want to have my babies, little nymph?” Connor murmured close to her ear.

  She gave him and impish grin. “Wood nymph babies, and my fertile time just passed so ask me again in six months.”

  Connor pulled her close and smiled. “I think we should practice a lot over the next six months.”

  Epilogue

  Fifteen Months Later

  Connor was a mess. How long could the birth possibly take? He paced back and forth nervously until Cyrene approached him. “Is she doing okay?” he asked anxiously before glancing at Fang who was even more anxious than he was.

  Cyrene gave him a reassuring smile. “Things are going well. Are you sure you don’t want to be there for the birth?”

  Connor felt himself turning green. “Hell no! You, Fang?”

  The wolf looked horrified by the suggestion.

  It seemed like hours before Raven finally came walking toward him. They were in the woods, close to the wood nymph community, so she was naked, her beautiful skin flushed green with excitement. “Congratulations Fang!” she said happily. “You have four healthy cubs. I’m not sure of the genders. Luna was cleaning them and getting them to suckle when I left.”

  Connor looked over at his close friend and knew how relieved Fang felt. Connor had sensed his fear of the impending birth for days. Luna was a young female, and Fang hadn’t wanted to be away from her since he’d taken her as his mate.

  “Still want to
try for your own cubs?” Raven teased when Connor pulled her against his side and sighed.

  “I’m thinking you were right,” he said. “Maybe we should hold off for a few more years.”

  “But continue practicing?” she asked, stroking him through his shorts.

  “Definitely,” he agreed. “We need lots of practice, so we’ll be ready when the time comes.”

  “Speaking of coming,” she cooed.

  Connor laughed and scooped her up in his arms. “Have I told you I love you yet today?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, “but I never get tired of hearing it.”

  “I love you, little nymph,” he murmured, giving in to the temptation he always felt to kiss her.

  Embrace the Heat (Moon Virus Book 2)

  On Layla’s seventh birthday, her mother mysteriously disappeared. Raised by a wood nymph in one of the few remaining human settlements, Layla learned to fight from an early age. She also learned to distrust the vampires who rule most of the land. When a vampire saves her life, Layla finds herself more than a little drawn to him, even knowing he could never give his heart to a human.

  The trauma of his childhood left Simon weary and distrustful of all humans until the day he saved Layla’s life. After seeing the spirited human fight like a seasoned warrior, Simon finds it hard to stay away from her. Despite the depths of his feelings, Simon knows there can be no future for them.

  Simon and Layla’s worlds are turned upside down as Layla nears her twenty-seventh birthday. Suddenly the male vampires are inexplicably aroused by her, and Simon is no exception. As they unravel the mystery of Layla’s heritage, an enemy from their past resurfaces and threatens to destroy Simon and all he cares for.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for taking the time to read Raven’s Blood. If you enjoyed this book, please take a moment to leave a review. Even leaving a star rating on Goodreads is greatly appreciated. The next installment in the Moon virus series, Embrace the Heat, is available now.

  About The Author

  Cassandra Lawson lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and her two youngest children. When she is not writing, she enjoys spending time with her family, listening to music, or curling up with a good book.