Constantine entered the room, buttoning his shirt as he did so. “Good morning,” he quipped with a good-humored smirk.
She just smiled and couldn’t manage a reply. He took notice but said nothing as he went over to the bar to pour a drink. “So where are the rest of the day dwellers?”
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. It seemed like so much had happened in such a short time, she wasn’t even sure how to make sense of it all. Finally she said, “Gone.”
“Gone?”
She turned to see Raven as he entered the room. He was shirtless, wearing leather pants, and Abi immediately wanted to turn away. She felt something inside of her drew to him like a magnet, or more like a moth to a flame.
She knew that he was no good for her, but yet just looking at him made her want to surrender to him in a way she’d never surrendered to anyone.
With her life.
“Gone,” she repeated.
Raven fetched a bottle of water from the bar where Constantine stood. They both looked at her expectantly, waiting on her to explain why.
She just wrung her hands and looked away.
“Dammit, Abi,” Raven said with a growl. She knew he had read her thoughts and knew the gory details of what she had done. “Weren’t we enough for you?”
She touched her throbbing neck. “Too much.”
Constantine tossed back his drink. “Fine. Let them fend for themselves. I never felt comfortable with those hunters here anyway.”
But Raven was angry. “We all agreed to stick together.”
“You agreed,” Constantine pointed out.
“Safety in numbers, remember? These are hunters. Their whole reason for existence is to track and kill monsters like this Creature.”
“Like you and I,” Constantine added.
“Like all of us,” Raven replied as he turned his gaze back on Abi. “Once wasn’t enough?” he asked as he approached, referring to her affair with Hunter. “Tell me. What more do you have to prove?”
She squared her jaw as she looked at him. “It’s not like that,” she insisted. “I love Hunter. I always have.”
“Good luck with that,” he said as he toasted her with his bottle. “Or has it escaped your notice who he went chasing after? How many times is this now?”
She looked away.
“Leave her alone,” Constantine said as he went around the bar and went over to where she stood. “It’s not like you ever had to live up to a sibling.”
Raven just laughed. “This again, Constantine? First Nina. Now Demetri? How else have I wronged you? Let us count the ways.”
“What’s he talking about?” Abi asked Constantine, who glared at his master, trying to subdue his anger.
“Our sordid history,” Constantine told her. “I had a perfect sibling too. Demetri was strong and powerful and everything his sickly brother could never be. But I didn’t need to be either to win the heart of Demetri’s wife, did I?”
Abi’s eyes widened, and Constantine just laughed. “We have a lot in common, my love. Wanting that which we cannot have. Only I had to depend on Raven to give me what I needed to win her heart forever. Power. And immortality.”
Raven glared at Constantine. “Well go ahead. Finish the story. Tell her how Nina never saw the new and improved you because they’d burned her at the stake, believing her a witch because she tried to raise you from the dead. And how that’s all my fault.”
“You should have protected her!” Constantine bellowed and hurled the crystal glass against the wall.
Raven didn’t back down. “I protected you! I got you out of that village before anyone knew the truth. Or do you forget that your brother was a hunter himself, and bound by law to kill the likes of both of us.” Raven had to laugh as he advanced on Constantine. “You always forget that part of the story. Convenient.”
“My brother was never part of the equation,” Constantine hissed.
“The hell he wasn’t!” Raven exploded. “Admit it! He’s the only reason you wanted Nina to begin with.”
Constantine stood toe to toe with Raven, but Raven just turned on Abi. “And now you’ve done the same thing to your sister.” He sneered at both of them. “Forgive me for trying to get in between this perfect love affair. It’s quite evident that you were both made for each other.” He grabbed a leather jacket from the back of the sofa and then tossed an evil grin over his shoulder to where Constantine stood sheltering Abigail.
“I apologize I couldn’t give you Nina wrapped up in a pretty little bow,” he said with fake sincerity as he motioned to Abi. “But please accept this condolence prize, won’t you?”
And for the second time that day, a man left Abi to go chase after her sister.
It was more than Abi could take. She broke down into tears that were not lost on the vampire who stood near her.
He said nothing as he took her into his arms and rocked her against his strong chest. “He’s an asshole,” Constantine said against her hair.
“But he’s an asshole who is right,” she said, her voice hitching on sobs. “I did this to Gina not once but twice. I’m a horrible person.”
He had to smile. “You say to the guy who sucks blood to survive and gleefully kills for pleasure.” Her tearful eyes met his. “I win.”
Since he brought it up... “Why didn’t you kill me, Constantine?”
He had to pull away then. “Because you didn’t ask me,” he offered casually, but she didn’t believe him.
She watched him go over to the sofa and sprawl over the red silk upholstery. “So if I asked you right now, you’d do it?”
He leveled those intense eyes on her. “Is that a dare, Miss Mandrake? Because if it is you should know those are very dangerous words you can’t take back.”
“And still you hesitate,” she mused. “Am I just not good enough to join your little club?”
“You’re plenty good enough,” he remarked, but didn’t move. “Or should I say bad enough? Let me ask you... did you even hesitate to jump on Hunter’s jock after you fucked Raven and I?”
She blushed at the accusation she couldn’t exactly argue. “I guess I was still looking for a real man,” she said instead.
He just laughed. “What can I say? There are no men here. Just beasts.”
She thought about Hunter and how he had not returned for her even though night had fallen. He probably found Gina and was making love to her so that she would forgive him again, once again forgetting all about the sister that was good enough to fuck on a bathroom floor, but not good enough to come back and protect from dangerous creatures of the night.
“You’re all beasts.” She turned her back on him and went over to the doors overlooking the veranda.
A moment later she felt a hand slide up her arm. “Is that what you want, Abi? To be a beast?”
A tear slid down her face as she remembered the agonized look in Gina’s eyes when she found Hunter and Abi together. “I already am,” she said quietly.
Constantine took her into his arms then, sad for her because he had been where she was many, many times. He remembered what it had felt like when his blood had spilled into Raven’s throat and exploded with the disease he felt he deserved for the kisses he shared with Nina while his brother slept in the other room.
If he was a monster for loving his brother’s wife, the least he could do is enjoy the fruits of the disease by feeling a power and immortality his sickly body had never allowed him to feel.
He wanted to live forever, and he had.
But with that forever came the knowledge every day that even immortal he didn’t deserve the love of Nina for more than just a passing fancy while they were both still stricken with human vulnerability.
Now here he stood with another vulnerable human that a horrible, soul-less creature wanted to kill, immortal or not. Their time together was no more guaranteed than his time with Nina those brief mortal moments that didn’t last long enough for an eternity of memories.
He w
asn’t sure he could go through it again.
His eyes softened as he looked at her, and her hand touched his face. In his eyes she saw a reflection of herself... of her pain, of her regret, of all the missed opportunities.
Maybe he really was the only one to understand her.
He certainly was the only one who had chosen to stay.
So she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him softly on the lips.
He groaned as his fingers touched her face and then tangled in her long hair. “Abi,” he whispered against her lips, and it touched her soul. She pulled away, took his hand in hers and led him back to the bedroom they had shared.
She undressed him as she led him toward the bed. His eyes never left hers and she never wavered as she pushed him down on the mattress and straddled him as she followed him down. They kissed each other slowly, tasting each other on the tips of their tongues, and as she ground against his growing erection he buried his face in the crook of her neck.
When his breath danced over her wounds she felt her whole body shudder. Gone was the human lovemaking of the morning, sweet and gentle and safe. Death was at her neck, all she needed to do was ask for it.
Why did she want to ask for it?
As he slid up inside of her, filling her and stretching her wide, she whispered, “Are you going to do it?”
She felt his cock jump as he fucked her slowly, the idea of what she was offering making him impossibly hard inside of her. His fingers closed over her full breasts and he kissed his way back up to her mouth, taking his time, making her tremble.
“Are you asking?” he asked her in a deep, commanding, but soft voice, his dark eyes sparkling in the low light.
The words hovered somewhere in her throat. “I... I....”
Gently he turned her around and laid her on the bed under him. “Shh,” he whispered. “When you’re ready,” he instructed before he kissed his way down her body, over each hard nipple, over the quivering swell of her tummy, and down in between her legs.
When his breath hit her painfully hard clitoris, she shuddered and her thighs spread wider. Her hand went into his hair as she guided his mouth closer to where she needed it to be. His tongue reached out to her and flicked over her lightly. She cried out as she moved her hips up to meet his mouth. He responded in kind, and flattened his tongue over her clit with luxurious laps across the sensitive skin.
“Please,” she begged in a breathless whisper, and he complied by sucking that tiny, sensitive nub into his mouth. The warmth of his mouth sent a volt of electricity throughout her body while his tongue snaked around to make her tremble from its touch.
She begged him for more, urged him with her hips, but he took his time as he teased her. He would speed up to get her to the brink of orgasm, then slow down or stop altogether while she gathered her wits about her again.
Her fingers circled her own nipples as she writhed under him. He was making her crazy and the more he manipulated her under his mouth the more she wanted to give herself to him totally and completely. This must be how they do it, was her fuzzy thought. They use their seductive prowess to take humans to the brink of the temptation that they can bear.
And she was there. God help her, she was there.
“Do it,” she begged. “Please... Constantine....”
His mouth fastened over her clit and he sucked her to her first of many multiple explosions that she rode out under his tongue. As she thrashed under him, his two fingers knit together and slid up inside of her, causing her to cry out.
Then she felt his mouth kiss its way up her groin and his fangs drug along her skin. This was the point of no return she thought. As his fingers slid easily in and out of her, reaching high up inside to touch that spot that sent her off on another amazing climax, a tear squeezed out of the corner of her eye.
“Ask,” he commanded low against her skin.
His fangs hovered over her skin, their sharp points digging in but not yet breaking the skin. She reached herself up to his mouth but he kept himself just out of reach.
“Ask!” he said again, this time with a power that scared her.
Her head spun from the pleasure he gave her with his mouth and his tongue, his touch and his voice. “Do it,” she barely heard herself whisper.
His fangs sank into her skin and she felt her blood splash into his mouth as she came all around his fingers.
The next time she asked to die, she was screaming.
Raven flew through the night, trying to rid his thoughts of what was happening between Abi and Constantine back at Bella. He was an unwilling observer as skin touched skin, mouth explored mouth and ultimately blood was shed.
He could taste it in his mouth, and he had to force his body not to respond.
He tried instead to get into Gina’s mind, to find her. Their kiss had connected them in a way that surprised Raven. There was some ancient part of her that had reached out to him and had stitched itself under his skin like a tattoo, and he knew that was true by the way he woke up with a heavy heart full of betrayal and heartache.
It had been hers. When he read Abi’s mind he saw it from Gina’s point of view and felt her pain, which was why he grew so angry at Abigail.
Somehow or another, probably because he could not possess her, Gina had earned a spot in his heart that he never knew anyone could occupy. He couldn’t have her so he felt compelled to save her; she the first one out of so many that had been able to resist him and stand her ground as his equal.
It was too precious to destroy.
He knew he had to stop her from doing something stupid like what Nina had done all those years ago. She had risked it all for Constantine, risked her life and her very soul to retrieve the man she loved and punish the man who had taken him away...only Constantine never knew the full story.
Raven had spared him from that – because he knew that if Constantine had known it would have caused a war that no one would have won. Hunters weren’t the only ones who were able to destroy vampires; and Nina was a lot closer to the title of “witch” than Constantine ever knew.
But Raven couldn’t think of that now. That was ancient history. He had to find Gina.
He just hoped it wasn’t too late.
Chapter Twenty: Argos
When Damien opened his eyes that evening he found her sitting in the bay window seat, staring out into the night, and sharpening a wooden stake.
Despite his alarm, he sat up from his bed slowly. “Rambo,” he quipped. “We meet again.”
She simply kept whittling away the sharpened tip of the stake. “I’m not here to hurt you,” she assured him quietly. “And the name is Gina.”
He swung his legs over the side of his satin covered bed. “Well then, Gina, welcome to my home. Might I ask why you’re here?”
“Because it’s a place no one will look for me,” she informed without even looking his directly. “I needed a vampire older and stronger than Raven to throw off his radar, but one who wasn’t anywhere close to the club.” She turned her green eyes on him then. “You’re the only candidate that fit.”
“Ah,” he said as he nodded. He slid out of bed and came to join her at the window. “And why don’t you want Raven to know where you are?”
She blew the dust from the stake. “Because he’ll try to convince me not to go after the Creature by myself.”
She sleeved the stake and then stood to face Damien, who studied her with a thoughtful gaze. “And you think that little piece of wood is going to kill that thing?”
She shrugged. “It might slow him down at least.”
She turned to walk away but his voice stopped her. “You are Abigail’s sister.”
Without turning around she whispered, “Not anymore,” and left the room.
***
At Sebastian’s club, Hunter faced off with the older, wiser vampire with an angry stare. “Don’t lie to me, you filthy blood sucker. I know she’s here!”
Sebastian just smiled. “For your information
I do not suck blood. So that’s two counts where you’re wrong.”
Raven entered the club behind Hunter just as he advanced on Sebastian. “Enough,” Raven warned. “Sebastian doesn’t know where Gina is any more than you do.”
Hunter swirled around. “And how do you know that?”
“Because I know why she left,” Raven pointed out. “And she’d never hide anywhere that you could find her.”
Raven brushed past both of them to head toward the bar. Hunter followed. “You know she’s not safe out there,” he said – but Raven appeared nonplussed.
“That begs the assumption that they are safe anywhere.”
“Who are they?” Sebastian asked as he walked around the bar. “What’s going on?”
“The Creature,” Raven explained. “It’s after those I possess. To punish me.”
“The only thing it does right,” Hunter growled as he grabbed a glass of whiskey from the bar.
“Is that what you think?” Raven asked him. “At least I leave them alive.”
“Alive but damaged. Like Abigail.”
“Ah, yes. Abigail. And you did your part to save her, didn’t you?”
Hunter glared at him. “For your information, I love Abigail.”
“As much as Gina?” Raven wanted to know. “Is that why she ran off to face this Creature on her own? Curious as how you didn’t see fit to save her.”
Hunter was off the bar stool in a second, grabbing Raven’s jacket and bringing them nose to nose. “I already saved her from the likes of you before.”
Raven just smiled as he remembered Gina’s vampire lover whom she reminisced about just the night before. “Or maybe you didn’t save her at all,” he mused, “Maybe you just postponed the inevitable. And that’s why you’re so scared she left.”
Hunter released him in impotent anger. Deep down he knew that Raven spoke the truth.
Raven straightened his jacket and then drank from the bottle of water Sebastian had provided. “Maybe if you calm down and stop treating me like the enemy, we can actually save her now.”
“What’s in it for you?” asked Hunter suspiciously.
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