And Raven was horrifying, even to him.
“How close do you want to come to death, Abigail?” Raven demanded as he advanced on her, fangs bared, and she dropped to her knees with a cry, covering her neck with both hands.
He knelt down to her, his long dark hair now stark white, the paper-thin skin translucent against the old, yellowed bones – nothing remained of the Raven she desired. Instead he was not far different from the Creature from the coven. And Abi was truly terrified.
“You come back to that club or to me, and I’ll assume death is what you want,” he warned her, as his claw like hands scraped against her tender flesh drawing blood. His long, snake-like tongue slithered over his abnormally long fingernail and his eyes darkened with orgasmic glee at the taste of her blood.
Constantine finally made his move. Now that Raven had given himself over to his darker side, instinct might force him to go through with what Constantine had suspected a hollow threat. Raven merely mocked his uncharacteristically heroic attempt.
“Sloppy seconds, Constantine?” he laughed. “Hardly your style. Especially since you wanted to turn her more than anyone else.” Raven reached out and touched Constantine’s face, and it turned almost to ash where he touched. Angry, Constantine knocked his hand away. Of all the things Abigail didn’t need, it was two monsters to deal with.
Raven glared at Constantine. “It appears you’ve chosen your side.”
“As you have chosen yours,” Constantine told him, taking note that Raven had not yet morphed back into his human form.
“Enjoy her,” Raven sneered. “I found her a bit banal for my taste.”
“Fuck you!” Abi screamed from behind Constantine’s protective arm.
Raven gave her a pointed stare. “Never.” With that he flew up into the night like a shot, and disappeared from their sight.
Only when he had gone did Abi collapse to her knees in frustrated, angry tears. Constantine bent to console her but she pushed him away. “Don’t pretend you’re not like him,” she hissed.
He couldn’t necessarily argue. But he didn’t move away either. “Come on. Let’s get you inside. It’s too dangerous out here.”
She gave him a glare fit to kill. Where had he been five minutes ago?
He said nothing as he offered his hand. She hesitated only momentarily before she accepted is help and stood to her feet. He took her into his arms and flew up to her second story balcony, into the same room he had interrupted them before.
Just one look at the mussed sheets was enough to make her heart sink to her feet as tears ran freely down her cheeks. When, exactly, had she fallen for Raven Crowe?
***
Raven sailed through the night back to the coven, in as much pain as Abigail. It wrenched him apart to see the look of pure terror in her face as she saw him for what he truly was.
And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? How could she love him any more than he could love anyone else? As much as he had exaggerated it for effect, the fact was he was truly a monster. No mortal woman would ever truly understand that.
When he landed at Sebastian’s club he hadn’t bothered to transform – and was pleased to see people run from him as he entered the sparsely filled club. Only the die-hard vampire fans had the stomach to visit the club after Sonja’s murder, but even those silly humans didn’t have the stomach to face the monsters all vampires were just one sunrise away from being.
Raven saw Gina tending bar, her back to him, he advanced purposely. He figured he’d kill two birds with one stone, figuratively speaking. And when she jumped as she turned to face him, he had to admit he found her fear rewarding.
The problem was it was far too brief. He realized he had merely taken her off guard – not truly frightened her. And she made sure he knew it.
“Interesting look,” she said as she fetched his bottle of water. “I think I prefer the 80s hair metal band motif, though.”
That she had recognized him in his exaggerated state surprised him more than he had been able to surprise her.
She remained nonchalant as she watched as his skin slowly filled out with muscle and fat, and his white hair darken from the root. His red, glassy eyes lightened as his pupils went down to their normal size.
“Not the usual response from a human,” he murmured as he touched the bottle of water to his now full lips. “Been around vampires before?”
“You could say that,” she offered noncommittally.
“Then you should tell your sister to stay far away from us.”
She laughed. “You tell my sister that.” Then she caught the ravaged look on his face. “Let me guess. You already did.”
He took another sip. “More than that.”
She nodded. That explained the creepfest appearance from before. She wondered how long it would work on someone as head-strong – and self-destructive – as her sister. Gina leaned against the bar. “So where is she now?”
Raven’s eyes met hers. From the jealous depth of those dark brown eyes, Gina knew that not only was Abi with another man – but she was with another vampire.
It wasn’t over.
“Here,” she said as she handed him a second bottle of water. “Have a double.”
***
Across town Constantine stood in the balcony doorway and watched as Abi straightened the sheets. Then, in a fit of frustration, she tore them right off the bed and into a heap on the floor with a choked cry.
He walked over to where she stood, her shoulders shaking from the force of her sobs. Silently he took both of her shoulders in his hands. She turned around on him with a swing. “Get the fuck away from me!” she screamed as she wailed on him. All she could see was the face of the Creature and Raven’s skeletal face morphed into one. She knew just under the surface, Constantine was like that too – and the last thing she wanted to feel were more claws against her body, an old body forcing its way into hers.
Or was it, something deep inside her whispered in her ear. It had been six years since Hunter left her to chase after her sister, the woman he truly loved. Ever since then, she had tried every form of kink to figure out how to fill the void in her soul. She had come close in Raven’s arms, closer than she had ever been. If he was the man, the creature, she was meant to love – who was meant to love her in return – he had no right to take it away from her. Not after she had waited so long to feel whole, to feel complete… to be filled. It only made her madder, and punch Constantine even more, to punish someone for her lascivious thoughts.
He took her blows. As tall and broad as he was, her tiny fists flailed against him like mosquitoes. He allowed her to exhaust herself until she collapsed against him in uncontrollable sobs that wracked her entire body.
He kissed the top of her head as he rubbed her arms with both of his large, warm hands. Her fingers pressed against his strong chest, tickled by some of the course, sparse hair that grew there. With hiccupping breaths she glanced up into his warm, dark eyes – so similar to Raven’s.
She shook her head to rid herself the image of what Raven had revealed himself to be. Instead she looked back into Constantine’s intense, brown-eyed stare. His hands slid up her arms to either side of her neck as he bent to kiss her.
His full mouth covered hers, warm and moist, and his tongue probed gently between her lips. She melted against him. After the night she’d had, his tenderness was just what she needed. She didn’t want to think about Henri or Lillith, the Creature or Raven or the very fact that Constantine was no different from any of them. She didn’t want to think, period.
She wanted to feel.
And just like before, with Gina and with Hunter, she wanted to punish the world the only way she knew how.
If she couldn’t have Hunter… and she couldn’t have Raven… then she’d the last man standing who wanted her.
Maybe, just maybe, it’d be enough this time.
She ran her fingers over his hard, warm flesh. So decidedly male underneath her feminine touch. He groaned
slightly as his head bent back, and his long brown hair reached down his back in gentle waves. She opened each button of his white shirt, revealing his cool skin taunt under her fingers. His eyes locked with hers as she pushed his shirt from his shoulders.
“Abi,” he started but she silenced him with a kiss. She didn’t want to hear any more admonishments about sleeping with vampires. She just wanted to feel this man in her arms in her bed and in her body. She didn’t want to think about death – she wanted to enjoy life by fucking this hot guy’s brains out.
She could tell by his hardness pressing against her he would be open to the possibility.
And if it punished Raven for the cruel way he had treated her, even better. She sensed that fucking Constantine was just the thing to tear him apart as completely as he his rejection had done her.
Her tongue drove into his mouth as she pushed him toward the bare bed. He needed no further encouragement as he lifted her up effortlessly into his arms and deposited her on the mattress. His hair fell over his shoulders and she felt herself disappear into his eyes as he followed her down on the bed.
She planted kisses along his bare chest as he pulled her shirt up to cup her full breasts through her lacy bra. His tongue trailed along her lips and across her neck up toward her ear while each thumb circled each of her hardening nipples. She ground against him as her fingernails trailed up his back and into the skin of his shoulders as his mouth lowered to dance across her full chest. She tossed her shirt away impatiently and guided him down to each breast.
Deftly he unhooked her bra and slipped it from her shoulders, then tossed it across the room. He pulled her into his arms, bare chest to bare chest, soft to hard, cool to warm. His eyes nearly swallowed her whole as he stared into her face while easing down her underwear.
She groaned as cupped his hard erection through his pants. He responded by kissing his way down her body, across her quivering stomach and lower between her legs. When his mouth found its target she gasped and grabbed a handful of his hair.
His tongue teased her gentle but firm and fast and within minutes she was bucking against his masterful mouth. He took her from orgasm to orgasm with nothing more than his mouth, his breath and his tongue – and once he took her over the edge he kept her dangled there until she thought she might pass out from sheer, pure pleasure.
It was more than she could stand, and though she wanted to beg him to finally fuck her she was incapable of speech. He himself had to pull away because he could feel his fangs begin to protrude and he didn’t think she wanted any reminder he was a vampire. So he lifted her up and turned her around on her knees.
She grabbed hold of the headboard as he slid his pants down from his hips and brushed his stiff cock against the curve of her ass. “Yes,” she finally managed, and Constantine’s eyes glowed amber as his long fangs pressed into his cheeks as he obliged her.
His thick dick slid easily inside of her slippery pussy, still quivering from the massive, multiple orgasms his mouth had wrought. She sucked him in, tight inside of her – a place that he couldn’t ignore that Raven had never been. And here he was fucking her, making her scream, making her his own.
There was only one thing left to do.
He stared down at her naked body underneath him, and almost through her skin he could see the veins pump precious blood in a rhythm that thundered in his ears like the incessant beat of a drum.
He fucked her harder, lost in a blood-red haze of desire, wanting to taste her – truly taste her – as he rode her to his explosive orgasm. He could brand her, he thought, and she’d truly be his.
He bent down over her, his breath hot against her neck. He drank her essence in through his nostrils, feeling her explode around him in another massive climax as she screamed out into the night. Then, though she never thought she’d do so, she was begging him to suck her blood. She just knew that it would take her over the edge in a way that she’d never experienced before.
This was the raw lust of it – to have him be close enough to kill her in the moment she felt his truest, most primal desire. To have the ultimate life and the ultimate death in the very same exquisite moment. She wanted to feel his sharp teeth pierce her soft skin the way his dick impaled her tight pussy. “Do it!” she demanded – though she might not have if she could see the look on his face.
His fangs grew long and sharp from his mouth and his eyes glowed as he pinpointed the spot on her neck where he could taste her blood. Everything that had made her desire him was now secondary to the very monster Raven tried to warn her against.
His tongue snaked out to circle the flesh of her neck, and it sent her over the edge yet again until she was writhing against him. But he knew if she was going to give herself to him, truly, he wanted her to know exactly what she was getting into. So he flipped her around until he was holding her up in his arms against the headboard. She finally saw him for what he really was and she screamed again – this time from fear.
But it was too late to stop – Constantine continued to ride her, harder and deeper with each and every scream. And despite herself she felt herself cum again, her eyes transfixed on his fangs as he leaned closer toward her neck. He grunted as he fucked her, his glowing eyes nearly rolling back into his head.
When she stared into those amber eyes she finally quit screaming from fear. Suddenly she felt none. All she felt was the overwhelming desire to have him claim her completely. His fangs no longer scared her, instead she felt her pussy respond to how it would feel if those same teeth sank into her virgin skin.
Slowly but deliberately she bared her neck.
With a growl he dove in. A hundred years ago he’d tear into her flesh and drink from her until she was limp and dead in his arms.
But today it made him harder and more excited to lick the area until she begged for his teeth the way she begged for his cock. His breath warmed her skin but his teeth merely grazed over her until she thought she might die from the anticipation. “Do it,” she whimpered finally, limp from her many orgasms.
“Say my name,” he demanded softly against her skin. “Name your master.”
“Constantine,” she managed, and her soft voice sent a chill through his entire body. His eyes rolled back into his head as his teeth pierced her sweet-smelling skin and dove into the soft rivers of red ecstasy that pumped through her veins.
She cried out with the initial pain of his penetration, a virgin in the truest sense. But soon his sucking against her neck, feeling her blood flow into his mouth, sent her off into outer space with the most pure pleasure she’d ever experienced.
With a final thrust Constantine alternately filled her and emptied her. She lay under him, barely conscious when he dragged his mouth away from her neck.
She glanced up at him with sleepy eyes as he laid her down on the bed. “Am I going to die?”
He shook his head, his fangs now sated and retracted, his eyes back to the deep, gentle brown. “Not tonight,” he assured her, but with a fair warning that might not be the case in the future.
It was his nature after all.
She nodded and accepted the covers he retrieved from the floor and slid over her body, each nerve ending electric and aware. As close as she’d come to death, she’d never felt more alive. Had this been everything she had been searching for?
She fell asleep not knowing that across town Raven saw it all and felt it all in his mind’s eye, since Constantine had been one of his own. She’d never know how deeply it had cut him.
He’d done everything he knew to do – but she was too far gone to save now. She could never go back to humans now – they’d never be able to fill that yearning from which she’d now burn.
It was only inevitable that, for however long the Creature let her live, was damned to walk the same path of death and destruction he walked.
Chapter Fourteen: Felicia
He watched her sleep from the balcony doors. He’d never meant for things to go so far. Constantine knew better than anyone
the reason Raven had turned her away so ruthlessly – it was for her own good. Their world was not safe for humans anymore, and it certainly wasn’t safe for vampires.
And yet there she lay somewhere between the two realms. A deep primal hunger had been awakened and he knew instinctively that she would not be complete, not be satisfied until she’d finally crossed over to their side.
He could have easily mastered her, and a mere month ago he likely would have. That she longed for Raven would have been icing on the cake – an additional feather in his cap. He’d turned far more people than Raven, and with each one his powers grew stronger – his immortality more secure.
But even he knew that didn’t matter anymore. He understood that the Creature was far more powerful than he could ever hope to be as he still clung to the last remnants of his humanity.
Constantine turned to face the night sky. That was what tortured him most. He knew that was where his blood lust would take him.
Like any other type of junkie, his addiction to human blood would ultimately lead to his destruction. Eventually his good looks would give way to the desolation of his skin and bones, his hair would thin and gray, his lips would disappear against fangs that would never stop growing. His muscle would deteriorate and even his treasured manhood would erode away.
Then there would be no erections, no sex, no orgasms – and worse than that, no seduction.
He’d be a monster always searching for his next meal in the form of helpless humans who, while willing to be seduced by a sexy vampire, would fight against and learn to destroy the animal they all threatened to become.
That’s when the hunters would come. And merciless they would, and should, be.
He sighed as he stepped out into the night air. The days of pitchforks and mobs of angry villagers had long since given way to seedy parlors and willing donors who usually were content to get their rocks off even if it meant spilling some blood along the way. The need for hunters eventually ceased, and vampires were able to live a somewhat peaceful existence in every city and every town in the world.
Raven Walks Page 12