In fact, if Raven were to get any kind of instant gratification at that moment it would have had to have been feeding on the psychic energy of the people around him. So he focused all his energy to lead him toward the liveliest person in the vicinity.
When he heard the contagious peal of laughter from a nearby table, he knew he’d found his target.
The exuberant woman with dark, wavy hair and ready smile sat at a blackjack table, having won her very first hand. She didn’t even notice as he approached. As he drew closer he instantly recognized her innately conservative nature. She voted based on family values and no doubt went to church faithfully, if the cross around her neck was any indication – something Raven disregarded with a sneer. She probably only sat at that table to appease her friends. Every other person at the table nursed various mixed drinks or beer, but she drank from a water bottle with the righteous air of self-deprivation.
He had to smile as he sat across the table from her. He looked away when her dark blue eyes danced his direction. From the long black hair to his black lined brown eyes, he was an enchanting stranger that could attract even the likes of her, despite her better judgment, and he knew it. “Are you going to bring me luck?” she asked with a slight southern drawl.
“I don’t believe in luck,” he replied as he tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table.
She laughed and continued to beam with southern charm. “And what do you believe in?”
“Fate,” he said as he looked directly at her for the first time. A smile tugged at his mouth when he watched her physically gasp. Her hands shook as she placed her bet.
He watched her own bubbly aura shrink as he drank from her energy. The people in between the two could feel the sexual charge taking place, and from the expression on her face it was clear that he had successfully invaded her consciousness and was tempting her from the inside out.
In his mind he was holding her close in a dance to music with an erotic, heavy beat; he was swaying his hips against her and she responded by grinding closer. Without any encouragement, she bared her neck to the phantom lover in her mind in compliance to a demand that was never made.
The more he drank from her, the more he wanted. And even though the other players at the table, and even the dealer, could feel their sexual foreplay, he knew that to get the ultimate satisfaction he wanted they would have to eventually leave the table. To do that, he knew he’d have to gain her trust.
“I detect an accent. Where are you from?”
“Tennessee,” she answered automatically. “And yourself?”
“All over,” he replied with a noncommittal shrug. “But I do favor the south. Especially the women.” He tipped his bottle of water her direction. She seemingly approved of his beverage of choice, and he felt her resolve loosen just a bit.
“My name is Raven,” he offered.
“Raven? That’s an unusual name.”
He just smiled. “I am an unusual man.”
“I can tell,” she said with a smile of her own. He looked at her expectantly and she found herself saying, “My name is Nadine.”
“Nadine,” he said, rolling her name over his tongue. “That’s lovely.” He noticed her blush. “So tell me, Nadine, is this your first trip to the City of Sin?”
She didn’t seem to approve of the famed nickname of Las Vegas. “I’ve been here a time or two. I’m not usually a gambler or a drinker or a partier, so there usually is no appeal.”
He leaned forward, his eyes boring into hers. “And now?”
She stammered, unable to find a suitable reply.
He kept her off her game until her stack of chips disappeared. She offered a nervous laugh. “I guess you didn’t bring me luck after all.”
He pocketed his chips, which he had managed to double. “Allow me to make it up to you. Let me buy you dinner.”
“I should,” she retorted in good humor. “Considering I lost all my money once you sat down at the table.”
He knew she was joking, but he acted on the suggestion anyway as he got up to follow her. When he was right behind her and she could feel his breath on her exposed back, he said ever so softly, “So where shall we eat dinner, Nadine?”
She tried to swallow her audible gasp. “I’m... I’m not really very hungry.”
“That’s a shame,” he said, his eyes on her mouth. “Because I’m famished.”
She licked her lips, which caused him to shudder himself. “A rain check,” she offered an empty promise as they headed outside.
Where it was raining.
He chuckled as his arm slipped around her waist. She trembled from the power of his touch and offered no further reluctance to follow where he led.
They ended up in a secluded booth in a dark restaurant where she regaled to him her many experiences as a television executive. It was as though she knew the minute she stopped talking he would whisk her away and force her to come face to face with her own deteriorating resolve.
In her mind she had no intention of going very far with this enigmatic stranger, but the longer she stayed in his company the more it felt like a lie.
With every word she spoke, Raven drew nearer, his aura overtaking her and effectively throwing off her moral barometer. Finally he was flush up against her, his arm against the back of the booth where she sat, his breath rippling goosebumps across her skin. “So Nadine,” he said, repeating her name to draw her further into his web. “You don’t drink or smoke or gamble. What exactly do you do for pleasure?”
She wrenched her eyes away from his intense gaze. “I’m very active. I ski, sail, go dancing...”
“Then we should dance,” he said softly.
Immediately her mind went to that initial vision she had of them locked together. She shook her head. “I really have to get back. My friends will wonder where I’ve been.”
Her words trailed off as she glanced up at him again. His eyes were dark and potent and decisive. There was no saying no.
The next thing she knew they were at a club, on a dance floor, the familiar erotic beat thundering through her senses. Different colored lights danced on his face as he once again invaded her consciousness with thoughts of how it would be if she were to lay under him, submitting to the passion she so clearly felt.
He watched her physically react to the sex they had in her mind, her body responding to touches and caresses he hadn’t even made yet. She began to moan as her hips writhed against him. She felt him as he penetrated her, though they were both still fully clothed.
He was relentless as he assaulted her senses. In her mind he was fucking her, raw and wild, until she shuddered and literally came on the spot. Her eyes snapped open to look at him in surprise, and could not pull away when his lips descended on hers. Once his mouth opened and possessed her own she felt her knees give out and she collapsed against him in complete sexual bliss.
He dragged his mouth across her check to whisper in her ear. “Where is your room, Nadine?”
She shook her head, holding on her virtue with a death grip. “I’m sorry... I can’t.”
His arms locked around her and she had to look into his eyes, those deep penetrative eyes that reminded her of the foreign but complete ecstasy awaited in his embrace. His mental seduction hadn’t stopped, not in the least. Every time she closed her eyes she was right back in his arms, his hard body encased in her own, as she begged him for more. Just as she teetered on the brink of another orgasm he released her suddenly.
“I understand,” he told her. “If you can’t, you can’t.”
He turned and left her cold on the dance floor. She stared after him incredulously.
He walked without ever looking back, all the way out of the club, through the casino and finally out on the street washed clean by the random desert rain storm.
He didn’t stop until he reached the dancing fountains in front of his own hotel. He stood and he waited.
Sure enough, within a few minutes she was standing right behind him, breathing har
d from her marathon to catch up to him. He turned around to face her but said nothing. That’s when he smiled and she finally saw his fangs.
She drew in a breath but did not leave. So he extended his hand to her. She looked at it long and hard, debating her choices, then finally placed her hand in his.
No words were exchanged all the way through the hotel, up the elevator and into room. Though it was silent in the room, she could hear the music from their mental lovemaking. She did not resist as he pulled her into a dance.
Her hips ground against his as his hands trailed down her back to cup her hips. She watched his face as his fangs grew, also feeling his cock grow in unison. They both equally scared her. “You can leave any time,” he told her. “Go back to Tennessee, go back to your home, your church and your life.” His hand trailed lightly back up to her neck and his fingers wound their way into her hair.
“Or?” she whispered.
“You could give yourself to me, and for one night experience immortality.”
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked, fear wide in her eyes.
He chuckled softly as he traced her lovely face with one finger. “I don’t kill,” he assured her. “And I never take.”
She nodded. He had made her sin her own choice.
He pulled away and proceeded to wait, sitting in a chair while he watched her debate with herself. He could almost see the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other.
She wrestled with her choice. “Will I be the same?”
“No,” he told her honestly. “You will never be the same.”
“Will I be evil?” she asked, and he could sense that was what scared her most.
“Is it evil to go after what you want?” he answered just as softly. “To hold and be held, to touch and be touched? To feel your lover deep inside, pulsating with his desire for you?”
His words seduced her. She wanted to be held, to be touched, to be filled. She just didn’t want to be damaged. “Is that all it is, then? Sex? You won’t... feed?”
His eyes darkened. “I will do whatever you want me to do. I am not your master, Nadine. Say the word and I will be your slave.”
Like a pendulum, the power shifted back over to her, which seemed to appease her. She allowed herself to sink back into his eyes. He called her to him without saying one word.
Aside from some cheap wine when she was sixteen, Nadine had never succumbed to any kind of intoxication. But she was completely drunk on his power as she approached him, slipping off her top in the process. Then she unhooked her bra and allowed her breasts to spring free just as she reached where he sat. His mouth captured a tiny, hard nub, causing her to cry out. His hands cupped her hips as he drew her closer. With his encouragement she straddled him where he sat as he worked his mouth from one nipple to the other. Though he wanted to draw blood, he did not. She needed to feel she was in control.
She ground herself down against him as she arched her back, her hand in his hair to guide his urgency. She bent her head to kiss him, winding her tongue around his. He made no move to undress her, and finally out of her own frustration she pulled away to do the job herself. She stood before him, totally naked, confused he had made no move to undress himself.
So she dropped to her knees before him. She unfastened his pants and slid them from his hips. His hard cock jumped free and she gasped when she saw it. She wrapped her tiny hand around it before reaching out a tongue to trace the sensitive head.
Raven’s head fell back as he groaned. Her hot breath was making him crazy. Her whole mouth enveloped him and made him cry out loud as he disappeared into her throat. He immediately grabbed a handful of her hair and guided him up and down his massive erection, a primal growl locked deep in his throat.
His unrestrained passion was too much for her to handle. She abandoned the blow job to mount him, needing to feel him inside of her. She lost herself in his eyes as she slid down on him, taking him all the way inside her tight, waiting pussy until he was buried completely inside of her.
Again he used his hands on her hips to guide her up and down on him, crying out to her as she fucked him wildly, like an animal. Her eyes closed, but that wasn’t enough for Raven. He grasped her neck in his hand and forced her to look at him. “Look at me, Nadine,” he commanded softly. “Look at the man who is fucking you.”
She shuddered again as she complied, losing herself in those dark eyes. When his finger brushed against her clit as she bounced on top of him, she shot right into space like a rocket. She screamed as she came more than once on top of him. He felt her clench against him, sucking her deeper inside of herself.
As he drew closer to his own orgasm his fangs grew frighteningly long. Her whole body was singing with pleasure unlike anything she’d ever known, but something inside her wanted more. In her mind she could see those fangs pierce her delicate flesh. Much to her amazement, the thought had her coming again. Hard. “Do it,” she whimpered.
He leaned up and brushed away the hair from her neck. She writhed on top of him, lost in her own pleasure, made crazy by the proximity of his teeth against her neck. Yet he waited. The anticipation was more than she could bear. “Please!”
He sunk his teeth into the satiny smooth flesh of her neck, piercing her and feeling her blood rush into his mouth. It was all it took and he shoved her hips down on top of him while he shot his massive load into her quivering pussy.
His fangs retracted as she slumped toward him, weak and drained.
Dawn would find them in the same chair, in the same position. She was weak from his relentless feeding, but felt rejuvenated from the energy his passion had restored to her.
He laid her on the bed, touching the soft halo of blond hair. She was fading into a sleep he knew would last quite a while. When she came to she would think of these events as some sort of hallucination.
With one final peck on the puncture wounds from her neck, he disappeared from the room and from her life. He would never reappear unless it was in her dreams.
Because when it was all said and done, that is where Raven walks.
Chapter Three: Lillith
Las Vegas had been a nice diversion, but Raven was relieved to return home to New Orleans. It felt like home, as much as any place could feel like home to a vampire. He was a true vagabond, and reveled in his ability to adapt to new surroundings. But NOLA was just as much his mistress as the playmates that shared his relentless sexual appetite.
Besides, he thought with a slight rush, it was at his favorite club he had seen her: that redheaded temptress he’d lost to the night.
Raven was no fool. He understood her appeal was largely dependent upon the fact he hadn’t had her yet. He was certain that once he claimed her and made her his, his fascination with her would dim just like all the others who came before her.
Until then she would linger in his mind like an apparition, and it was that ghostly image that drove him to return to the bar once more.
The heavy metal beat assaulted him before he even opened the door. It was a stormy Saturday night and a full moon; like the very first night he saw her. Perhaps this was fate guiding his path right to her, rewarding his patience.
A patient man he had never pretended to be.
He suspected she would pay the price for his having to wait; he just hoped it would not be her life.
Raven was a lot of things, but a murderer was not one of them. He had only turned one other person and that was at the victim’s request. Instead he had always managed to find those to feed off of, people; those he could return to if need be, even though thus far the need had never materialized.
But to condemn them to an eternity of blood lust? He decided long ago that was left to vampires with stronger constitutions than he. Instead, his appetite for blood rode shotgun with his libido. And the long line of satisfied lovers left in his wake validated his decision.
That he wasn’t traditionally dangerous attracted lovers to him like flies. Perhaps that was the reason for his
recent jag of dissatisfaction.
Sonja greeted him at the bar with a bottle of water, just as he liked it. A prior donor, she had always given him the space he required after their encounter together. Seeing as how she worked at a “haven” for others such as him, he knew she’d use the utmost discretion. Otherwise he never would have relented to feeding on one so familiar.
It was an intimacy he couldn’t afford.
Because she had so dutifully followed his unspoken code, he knew he could trust her, which was why he decided to ask her about the redheaded mystery woman.
“I know of a redhead, but I’m pretty sure she’s not the one you’re talking about.”
Raven didn’t care. If there was even the slightest chance it could be the same woman, he had to know. “Where can I find her?”
Sonja glanced around before leaning in towards him. She provided a name and a location, both were unfamiliar. But he nodded, tipped her well and was on his way.
The coven Sonja had directed him to was unfamiliar to him, which was odd. He thought he’d seen them all. But this one was pretty far underground, and if you weren’t aware it was there you’d have probably missed it all together. Unlike his normal haunt, this place was secretive and selective.
The music was darker, the lights were dimmer. From the moment he walked into the place he knew he was on someone else’s turf. Just who that was he wasn’t sure.
Intense eyes followed him as he crossed through the sparse crowd – the stranger they’d never before seen. Fortunately Raven was used to that sort of scrutiny. He headed toward the bar where a young man only clad in silk trousers poured drinks. His eyes sparkled as he inspected this new patron.
“Can I help you?” he asked hopefully.
Raven simply smiled. “I’m here to see Lillith.”
Lillith Winter, the name provided by Sonja. He couldn’t imagine his dream lover with such a cold sounding name, but he was willing to take the shot. And what better way than to assume this Ice Queen would agree to see him even though they’d never before met? It was a risky move in their secretive community.
Raven Walks Page 2