Now he had to straighten the upstairs’ appearance as best he could.
Ravenna usually situated the rug over the door. Ravenna had never hidden with him down here. There had never been reason.
They didn’t have the time to make things look perfect. He heard voices and heavy footsteps outside and made the final duck downwards with only seconds to spare.
When he turned again and took her in—his beautiful, courageous warrior—and saw the fear in her eyes, a part of him broke.
This was killing her. Perhaps so slowly she hadn’t even noticed yet. Perhaps she ignored it for the sake of her denial. Perhaps a thousand things. He just knew it killed her.
Not being with him. That wasn’t it.
She feared her Guardian, which she probably didn’t recognize. She likely brushed her fear off as something overly insignificant.
Nicolai reached for her and she flew into his arms the next second, her face buried in his shoulder, her trembling body pressed so tightly against his that her tremors became his own. It tore him apart, watching someone so strong cower. Yet he couldn’t help but understand, no matter how much he hated it. Monsters were one thing; facing someone she regarded as a father was something she’d never encountered, and the fear of the unknown could render anyone helpless. Even a warrior. Even One of the Few.
He’d never seen Ravenna helpless. He prayed he never would again.
“Shh…” he murmured into her hair, kissing her temple.
And then, from above, came voices.
“Not in here,” one said gruffly. “Though the bed’s all in a tangle.”
“They were here recently,” came another voice. A colder one, one that had Ravenna freezing against him.
That had to be Kenneth Mal.
“’Spect they got tipped off?”
“No,” Mal replied softly. “I think, once again, you and your men were too bloody loud.”
“We was quiet!”
“Look here,” a new voice said, inspiring a parade of thunderous footsteps as men shuffled toward the attraction. “Pretty. How you figure it got here?”
“No, it’s not pretty,” Mal snapped. “And I told you one of Ravenna’s pastimes is painting, didn’t I?”
“Oh, right.” A pause. “What is it?”
Nicolai couldn’t help it. He rolled his eyes. Honestly…
“She painted the sunrise for her lover. How…sickening.” Another pause. “Search the premises and the grounds. I doubt they got far.”
“And if we find the girl first?”
“Ravenna is my concern, not yours. You’re to bring her to me.” Mal stood quiet for another long, dramatic beat. Then, “The vampire…you may do whatever you want.”
Nicolai tightened his grip on Ravenna to keep her from gasping. She didn’t. She didn’t do anything. She just held onto him.
Trembling.
Cold.
Crying.
But not making a sound.
Chapter 11
Present Day
Nicolai was her killer. Had she not sold herself to a Hell King, she would have been immortalized as Ravenna Mal, victim to Nicolai. History would have recorded the only man who had ever loved her as her killer. History would have branded him something he was not.
Raven inhaled sharply and shivered as she made a sharp left turn through the gate guarding one of the local cemeteries. She didn’t feel in the right mind for her normal beat, but she’d be better off out here than at home. Home offered nothing but silence, and silence paved an unwanted path through self-reflection and other dangerous musings. She didn’t want to offer her brain the chance to taunt her with knowledge.
Dexter had found something else, something that almost hurt more than seeing her lover’s name listed as her killer. According to reports and historical records her Guardian had uncovered, both through books and the High Council’s online library, Nicholas had a very good reason for not remembering her. He had a lover, a woman he’d been with since the commencement of his second life.
He had someone else. What had happened on her birthday had truly been a fluke, an accident of opportunity. Nicholas had reacted to her, but he had no reason to seek her out. The place to which he retreated when the sun began to rise wasn’t empty. His life hadn’t been lonely. He didn’t need her now.
Raven had never known heartache. Something had grabbed hold of her chest, squeezing and tightening, twisting and pulling until the air she inhaled felt in short supply and she had to remind her lungs to fight for life. So here she was, forcing herself to behave normally all because she didn’t want to go home and allow the quiet to remind her of what Nicholas had in his bed, at his side, and why he wouldn’t come after her now.
She didn’t want to think about her Nicolai touching, kissing, and loving another woman. She couldn’t stomach it.
In her world, Nicolai hadn’t had anyone before her. No grand woman in his past had filled in the decades of silence with pleasure, which stood to reason why he’d seemed so resistant to falling in love in the first place. He hadn’t known what love felt like, and when he put a name to it, the knowledge that he loved the enemy had nearly torn him apart. He’d responded violently and in haste, not that it had done any good. Their last fight had indeed been their last, but they had walked away united instead of broken apart.
Would Nicolai have loved her if he’d had a woman before her? One he’d loved as Nicholas loved Octavia? Or would Raven not be here at all? If Nicolai had loved before her, would her fate have been sealed three hundred years ago, leaving a different ward under Dexter’s care?
God, she felt so foolish. She hadn’t asked for enough and she’d still managed to take too much. Perhaps this was the unspoken price Paimon had collected. The cost of living in a world with Nicolai came at the expense of knowing he didn’t love her here, and the looming certainty that he never would.
It amazed her what a little knowledge could do and how far it could go. Raven heaved a sigh and turned her eyes heavenward, taking in the stars. While she hadn’t lived any longer in this life than she had in the last, she felt wiser. The unlocked gates of her mind provided knowledge she would never have possessed in this life. There were things she looked upon now with shame, particularly arguments with Dexter and how she took her support system for granted.
Without Dexter, she would only be half alive. In some way, simply by existing, he had saved her from the fate she’d been cursed to live as Ravenna Mal. She didn’t fear Dexter in any sense of the word. If anything, Dexter embodied the perfect mentor and the brother she wished she’d had. She trusted him. He wouldn’t look upon her unfavorably for her decisions.
Dexter knew and understood that being One of the Few didn’t make one any less human. He didn’t expect her to fork over her life. He just wanted her to respect her duties.
Strange how a simple set of different circumstances could change her world view so drastically. As the warrior under Kenneth Mal, her strength, her calling, had been something she resented above all things. At the end, she’d wanted nothing to do with it. After all, her strength had compromised her as One of the Few and labeled her as a devil-worshipper in the eyes of the villagers. Her strength had ultimately cost Nicolai his life.
Though similarly, her strength had brought them together.
The world burned with irony.
Likewise, Raven couldn’t say that her attitude this time around resembled a beacon of sunshine at all. There were times when she resented her sacred responsibility so potently that she could spit nails. However, whether he knew it or not, Dexter had taught her appreciation and respect she’d never had before. Now, she felt she finally knew how important her duty was to the world.
So here she stood: One of the Few reborn, a woman with two histories, who had gambled everything away for the man who didn’t remember her.
Chills spread down her arms and planted her butt on a gravestone. She didn’t feel like walking anymore.
It was foolish to think she
’d be safer from her thoughts here than at home. She didn’t feel safe anywhere. Not from herself.
“I believe the words you’re looking for are be careful what you wish for.”
Raven froze and the world froze with her. Her blood stilled. Her heart stopped. The wind fell silent around her. All shadows hardened into stone. She would know that cool timbre anywhere. Hearing it once had a way of leaving a permanent mark. Even if her birthday hadn’t opened her eyes to her true past, the voice of the Hell King would have thrown her from her self-constructed abyss and plucked her back into a form of reality no one could deny.
The first time she’d seen Paimon, he’d stood well over seven feet in height, his head adorned with a jeweled crown. That much had not changed. He still seemed unreasonably tall, prancing around on proud display like royalty. She didn’t remember much else of him aside from his pale and strikingly effeminate face, and the black robes his body had then been wrapped inside. There were no robes now. He wore a finely tailored Armani suit. He struck her as a very tall and very deadly David Bowie, and had she not found herself paralyzed with terror, she might have laughed her ass off.
“I admit it a tad cliché,” Paimon continued conversationally. He stepped fully out of darkness and under the pale moonlight, which made him appear more than ethereal. He formed from shadows—they composed his limbs, sculpted his face, and blended seamlessly into his skin. Perhaps he always lurked in the night, perpetually caught between worlds. The thought made her shudder.
“Cliché?” Raven repeated. “You take everything from me and call it a cliché?”
“All I took was your life.”
“And Nicolai.”
“Semantics. He was already gone.”
She took a heated step forward. “But we had a bargain and you—”
“I gave you exactly what you wanted.”
“I never wanted this.”
“No? I beg to differ.” A lecherous smile stretched his inhuman lips, his long, gangly legs sweeping a grand step to her left. “You were determined when we first met. Do you remember? You gave all away without demanding the price. You were quite adamant about that. Before I could even speak, you forfeited yourself. As long as I did not possess your soul, you seemed more than content to provide the cost of what you asked. And even so, I believe you would have gambled that as well—your mortal soul, your life. Anything and everything you could summon to get your precious Nicolai back.”
“Nicolai doesn’t remember me,” Raven barked, fear giving way to rage. “He doesn’t remember me at all.”
“Ah. Sweet Ravenna. Lies do not become us.”
“It’s Raven now.”
Paimon inclined his head politely. “Raven,” he agreed. “Did you like that bit? I thought you might appreciate his name for you becoming the name by which you are known in this life. Call it a gift.”
“Your generosity overwhelms me.”
“I aim to please.”
“He doesn’t remember me,” she snapped, unwanted tears stinging her eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was give this unholy creature her tears. He had everything else. Blood, her bargain, Nicolai’s love—God kill her before she gave him her tears as well. “He doesn’t—”
“Ah, ah. You said it earlier, did you not? You said dear Nicolai recognized you.”
“Recognizing me and remembering me are hardly the same thing, and you damn well know it.”
Paimon didn’t attempt to argue the point. Rather, he offered another apathetic shrug. “You did not ask that he remember you.”
The simplicity and contradiction of this statement had her seething in a blink. Raven jumped to her feet, seizing the blade she kept tucked between the waistband of her sweats and the small of her back. It was a feeble weapon against such power, she knew, but she had nothing else. She had determined to prove that she didn’t fear him, even if all of her trembled in dread.
“Wrong answer,” she nearly growled. “Wanna try again?”
The Hell King offered another indifferent shrug, not even blinking at the appearance of a blade in her hands. “You did not ask that he remember you. Nor did you ask that you remember him. All you wanted was Nicolai back, and I gave him to you.”
“Nicolai was in love with me.”
Paimon’s malicious eyes sparkled with merriment. “And are you saying it is impossible for Nicolai…oh no…I’m sorry, Nicholas, to love you? He simply doesn’t know you. I’m sure, given time…”
“He—”
The demon held up a hand. “Enough.”
“You lying—”
The creature laughed. He looked at her and roared with laughter, and the sound was as chilling as anything she’d ever heard. It consumed her, filling the air with the emptiness of sorrow and the sting of loss. It sent shivers of absolute hopelessness down her spine. He mocked her without shame—without a need for shame. He mocked her with openness that left her insides bleeding.
“Imagine that,” he sniggered, rubbing his jaw with pale, near-skeletal fingers. “A thing of Hell, lying to One of the Few. I simply can’t imagine what I was thinking. My apologies, dear Raven. I assure you, it won’t happen again.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“Sorry. Forgive me. That was a lie.” He shrugged, laughing still. “I can’t seem to help myself.”
“How would you feel about me ripping out your rib cage?”
“A little disconcerted, seeing as I don’t have one.” Paimon smirked, but the mirth in his eyes was fading rapidly. She refused to blink. She refused to betray anything that could rightfully be construed as fear. He already knew she was terrified, and there was no reason to validate what he already knew. “You were a foolish child, Raven. Perhaps if you had listened to your dear Guardian, you would have learned the value of not making bargains with the Devil.”
“You’re not the Devil,” Raven spat, the grip on her knife tightening.
He shrugged again. “Close enough,” he replied. “And truly, dear, I would love to spend my evening catching up, but I have business to tend to. You know, souls to capture, havoc to wreak, the virtuous to corrupt. You were an unexpected stop, I admit, but a necessary one. Since you remember everything now—and much sooner than I would have preferred—I have concluded that it is time to collect.”
Everything stopped again.
“What?” she asked, her voice suddenly raspy.
“Your debt,” Paimon said simply. “Within one week’s time, I will be collecting your debt.”
Raven drew in a sharp breath, every corner of her body paralyzed. “You can’t.”
“That’s funny. Your signature on an unbreakable stone begs to differ.”
“You didn’t do what I asked. Nicolai is—”
“Here, as are you. What you mean, dear, is that you didn’t ask for all you should have, and you know it. You have admitted as much to yourself and your precious Dexter. Do not lie to me. I am many things, admittedly, and I confess as much with pride. But I always uphold a bargain. You simply didn’t ask for what you truly wanted which, sorry as I am, is not a problem of mine.” Paimon’s head tilted, the slits of his eyes drinking her in. “You threw me off, see. And while the timing is rotten, there’s little more I can do. You know too much now.”
“I know too much?”
“You know yourself. You know Nicholas. You know the true past rather than the one I forged in your favor.”
A fresh wave of anger rolled within her, and she grasped onto it. Anger felt good. She liked anger. Anger trumped fear in any scenario. “The past wherein you listed Nicolai as my killer, you mean? Big shocker, that. Demons fudge over the details.”
Paimon blinked. “But he was.”
“Um, maybe your memory isn’t that fresh, but mine is clear in the crystal sense.”
“Yes, and had it not been for Nicolai you wouldn’t have died.” He shrugged again. “Nicolai died, and you sold yourself. His death led to yours. It was the inevitable conclusion. Were it not for Nicolai, yo
u would not be here. He killed you. I just hadn’t anticipated the claim. Not as I should have, at the very least.”
At the slightest hint of their blood-link, Raven felt her veins surge with life. The connection they had shared had been so potent, so amazingly powerful. She’d felt everything, save for what he didn’t want her to feel. He hadn’t wanted her to feel his death. He hadn’t wanted her to break any more than she had already broken.
He’d denied letting her feel him die.
Raven didn’t know whether his decision made him an angel or a devil. She didn’t care. All she cared about right now was Nicholas, and making him remember. Doing whatever she could to make him know her again.
And the claim—God, the claim. The claim would help. Dexter had given her that much hope—hope that the claim had survived death, even when they had not, and had managed to keep them united over generations of nonexistence. It was a hope now reiterated by the devil she would have to outrun.
“Damn,” Paimon breathed, rolling his eyes. “Did I say too much?”
“Just enough, but that’s just me talking.”
“Doesn’t really matter either way, I suppose. These are things you would have eventually discovered on your own.” He paused theatrically. “Were it not for the claim, you wouldn’t have remembered a thing…not even with your little birthday jaunt. Claims are especially powerful, you see. More so than demons such as I remember when, oh say, making bargains with a grief-stricken girl. Then again, they are so wretchedly rare that the specifics can’t help but escape us every few millennia. Blood never changes. Death cannot eradicate spells, oaths, bargains…or claims.”
“He doesn’t remember me.”
“Oh, he does somewhere, buried deep down inside. He recognized you as you recognized him. He just didn’t have special birthday to reconcile the past with the present.” Paimon stepped forward. “But all of that doesn’t matter. As I said, I’m here to collect the outstanding debt at your doorstep.”
Raven shook her head hard, her feet seizing a step backward before her head could catch up with her. “You can’t have me.”
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