Raven Walks Read online

  He spiraled her through the air in death-defying barrel rolls, the rain and hail assaulting her from all angles as thunder exploded in her ears. Then just as quickly as he ascended, he plunged toward the earth.

  The only thing that scared her was when their ultimate destination came into view.

  It was Sebastian’s club.

  He tore through the roof like paper and she fell out of his arms as they hit the floor, bruised and cut from the damage caused by their entry. Walter stood behind the bar, drinking his bottled water, but when he saw Gina laying in a heap on the ground he rushed toward her. “Gina!”

  Without even touching him Argos sent him flying back over the bar and into the shelf of liquor bottles.

  Gina crawled to her feet. “No!” she screamed at Argos.

  He had to smile. So this human did have a weakness.

  “No?” he asked. He snapped his fingers and Tracy Lynn slunk from her sleeping chamber in the back almost in a trance. She walked to him obediently and then knelt on her knees in front of him. He ran a bony finger along her jaw line that was parallel with his almost non-existent groin.

  She bared her neck and he dove in, nearly taking a chunk of her skin with him as he fed. Gina backed up as she watched Argos regenerate right before her eyes. She scooted back toward the bar where Walter lay on the ground, cut from the glass and groaning in pain.

  “Walter,” she said. “I told you to go!”

  “Never leaving you,” he muttered and tried to struggle to his feet. “Where are the others?”

  From right behind her she heard Argos, his voice deep, his vocal cords restored. “Detained,” he whispered against her skin, which made her shiver.

  He spun her around to face him, fully young again, all the muscle and skin and hair restored as he stood shirtless and powerful before her.

  “You get away from her!” Walter tried to charge him but Gina stood in between.

  Argos just smiled and once again using a powerful psychic force flung Walter backward and back into the wall, this time knocking him unconscious.

  Gina advanced on Argos. “Are you going to waste your time being a bully? Or are you going to fuck me?”

  He grabbed her in his arms again and kissed her hard. This time she didn’t feel the spongy sensation of a tongue hundreds of years dead. It was strong and firm and decisive as it shoved through her lips, and because of the new tissue the sparks sizzled between them. He grabbed her breast, which tingled but didn’t manage to burn like the inside of her mouth.

  He refused to break the kiss, despite the pain it caused him.

  She ran her hands up his bare flesh leaving a trail of electricity where she touched. When she reached for his pants she thought she was home free, but a force hit them so hard it knocked her almost completely unconscious.

  She glanced up to see Raven standing toe to toe with Argos.

  “I’m sorry, Argos,” a plaintive voice said from behind where Gina lay. Tracy Lynn slunk over to her master. “I just wanted to taste him... like you promised.”

  His lip curled as he backhanded her, sending her sailing across the dance floor. “You insipid fool!”

  Raven rushed him swinging, but Argos quickly recovered with an effective swing of his own. Raven went down and Gina couldn’t help herself as she ran to him. The minute she touched his arm sparks flew from his skin. Raven’s brow knit with confusion and Gina suddenly realized what a mistake she made. The only leverage she had to get Argos where she needed him was the hedonistic display from the night before – which would work Argos’s pride and make him best the likes of Raven and Constantine no matter the pain it caused or the danger it posed.

  If he figured out that they too could not touch her, he’d just tear her in half and be done with it.

  Her eyes tried to convey her thoughts to Raven as she reached forward and kissed him, whispering, “Take it, please,” against his lips.

  His skin burned and his lips felt like they were going to peel from his face, and when she probed her tongue into his mouth he felt like he was swallowing a hot dagger. But, somehow he trusted she did not mean to hurt him – and so he took it like she asked.

  He did not have to suffer too long as she was wrenched backward by her waist and carried off into one of the back rooms. Raven tried to scramble up to run to her, but he was in incredible agony feeling like his skin was going to fall from his skull and so he slumped back down.

  He just had to will her the strength he knew she would need to carry out the task at hand.

  She prayed for the same strength as Argos threw her down on a bed, where Constantine lay just as he had that morning, except now he was unconscious from a blow to the head.

  She glared at Argos. “So is this how you prove you’re better than they are? By attacking them when they haven’t even woken yet?”

  Argos snarled as he tore away his pants. “No, you silly cunt. This is how I prove I’m better than they are!”

  He pinned her against the bed with his body as his knee roughly spread her legs apart. He pawed at the slit in her skirt until it was torn apart and displaying her nakedness to satisfy his angry lust. He ripped her corset right down the middle and roughly shoved all material was in shreds around her naked body.

  It hurt to touch her, and the more pain she caused him the angrier he got. “They took my Nina from me. So I must take everyone from them,” he told her as he grabbed her breast in his hand and squeezed it hard. She felt him grow hard in between them as he bent down to capture the nipple in his mouth and bite it in between merciless teeth.

  “I corrupt everyone and everything they touch. Just like they’ve done to me.” He ran his tongue over his fangs that glinted off of the low light in the room.

  “I’m simply taking back what they’ve stolen,” he told her before he shoved his thick meat up inside her, impaling her on him with anger and vengeance.

  The minute he was completely enclosed inside of her, he gasped in an almost pleasurable pain. She grabbed at his cock with her muscles, and it felt like there were a hundred little needles stabbing into his hard shaft.

  He started to withdraw but her legs scissored back. “How can you steal anything?” she whispered with an evil gleam in her eye, “when you can’t even fuck a human they both used all night long.”

  He glared down into her face with a grimace as he tried to tolerate the pain. “Their incredible dicks stayed hard,” she told him as she felt him start to soften inside of her. “They could fuck me for hours. Everywhere,” she added. “In every way.”

  He growled as he started shoving himself inside of her, forcing himself to stay hard even though the friction only made the sensations worse. He screamed out in pain has he fucked her harder, punishing her as roughly as he knew how for the agony he felt as the skin of his cock began to shred with each stroke.

  “I’ve never been fucked like that,” she whispered, disdain dripped in her tone. “Doesn’t look like you’re vampire enough to fuck me like that either.”

  He came down hard on her and covered her damnable mouth with his own, shoving his tongue inside to shut her up as he continued to ride her even though he suspected it was slowly killing him to do so.

  “What the hell...?”

  Constantine struggled to come to next to them, and though she tried to keep Argos’s attention on her, he grabbed the other vampire by the hair and pulled him over to him, breaking his punishing kiss with Gina only to sink his teeth into Constantine’s neck. As he sucked loudly, Gina felt his cock literally regenerate inside of her.

  Constantine struggled against him, but was no match for the older vampire-witch. He was too weak from the attack, and then from the blood loss.

  She watched in horror as Argos restored himself on top of her, and then his fucking became frenzied and even more hateful as he grew stronger.

  She watched Constantine slump against Argos, dying as his blood drained into his enemy’s mouth. But as long as he sucked on another vampire’s neck he
could continue to punish Gina with his brutal fucking. His hand clawed at her breast, leaving claw marks in the soft skin.

  Just when she thought she might not be able to keep her wits about her one more second and begin to struggle against him, Constantine was ripped from Argos’s grasp. With relief she saw Raven holding the weaker vampire in his arms as he stared at her in impotent frustration. He didn’t know how to save her, or even if she wanted him to.

  Argos almost pulled away to go after Raven, but she clasped him tighter inside of her. “Fuck me!” she screamed.

  He grabbed her neck with both hands, ready to strangle this infuriating bitch as he came inside of her, but that was when it hit him that her neck was completely clean.

  Raven had never taken her. Neither had Constantine.

  He grabbed her up to him as he propped himself up on his knees, holding on her by the neck. “That’s right,” she told him with a triumphant grin. “No one has been vampire enough to take me yet.” Then, with purposeful intent that scared Raven as he looked on, she goaded, “But with your yellow belly and your limp little cock, I doubt that you could ever have what it takes.”

  With a roar he dove into the curve of her neck and she thought he might actually take a bite out of her body with the ferocity of his rage. But the minute his fangs tore into her delicate flesh, she knew her calculated risk had been to her favor.

  The minute her blood, made sacred of years of ingesting holy water, splashed over his lips, it immediately scorched his mouth like hot lava flowing down his throat. He gagged against her and she held him tight in her arms as she forced him to take just enough of her to begin to explode from the inside out.

  She felt his skin fall apart over her body and inside of her like wax melting, and she held out as long as she could – ready to endure it all if it meant Argos would be destroyed for good. Raven, who had watched on transfixed in horror, finally wrenched her away from the clutches of the dying vampire.

  Despite the electricity of her their bodies touching, Raven clung to her as they watched Argos stumble backward off the bed as tiny explosions rocked his body. As every one of her blood cells literally blew up inside of him, rays of light tore through his skin that quickly deteriorated as if they had just pushed him into the sun.

  Gina reached into the discarded corset where the wooden stake had been carefully sewn into the ties that bound the garment together. With a determination that both scared and impressed Raven, he watched as she charged the weakened vampire and plunged the sharpened wooden point with deadly accuracy right into his chest.

  He howled in pain as he writhed on the floor. Every skin cell incinerated before their very eyes. His bones smoked and his tissue evaporated, and Gina stood over her kill triumphantly as he literally zapped into nothingness.

  Only when he was gone did she stumble back and collapse on the bed. Raven rushed to her immediately. “Gina! Are you okay?”

  She felt like she could shower for a month solid and not erase his touch from her body. “I’m fine,” she whispered.

  “Liar,” he accused as he sat next to her without touching her. “Vampire-B-Gone, huh?”

  She gave him a wry smile. “When you find something that works, you stick with it.”

  “I guess so,” he had to agree. And he was especially glad he had decided not to feed from her yesterday. But he hated it meant he couldn’t touch her now. He suspected she could use it.

  She sat up. “Thank you,” she said earnestly. Had he not come along when he did, both she and Constantine could have been history.

  “Yeah, well don’t let it get around,” he said with a half-smile. “If it gets out I’m a part-time vampire hunter it could really ruin my reputation.”

  She gave him a genuine smile. “Your secret is safe with me,” she promised. They heard the muffled groan from behind them and turned to see Constantine crawl up on the bed. “What happened?” he asked.

  Both Raven and Gina shared a look and laughed.

  ***

  A week later Sebastian’s club had the makings of a new roof and a new clientèle. Even Lillith and Damien had come out to celebrate the fact their enemy had been destroyed and they could now go back to their normal existence, such as it was.

  Sebastian wore Pixie on his arm as he entertained his guests, and a sense of renewal had uplifted everyone’s spirits. The music was loud and upbeat, and everyone danced and drank and left memory of Argos at the door.

  Gina stayed to herself tending bar, and Constantine and Raven were unusually sedate, and civil, as they sat together nearby.

  Hunter brought Abi, as both wanted to make amends with Gina before they started their new life together. She hugged them both, and wished them well. She regretted nothing. This was the path she had chosen, and she knew it would lead her places that these well-meaning people could not come.

  So she gave them the only thing she could. Peace of mind.

  Hunter felt better when he introduced Abi to Walter, who had also inexplicably joined the celebration. He wore disappointment on his face, but shook Abi’s hand and wished them well, knowing that Hunter’s journey chasing vampires had ended.

  When Walter joined Constantine and Raven at the bar, they regarded him with a certain amount of skepticism, not for his reputation but for the look on his face.

  Gina handed him a bottle of water. She knew he wasn’t there to share the fruits of their victory. His face was far too pensive.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He didn’t say anything as he motioned to the person behind him. It was a younger man, with Emo hair, goth clothes and the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, made bluer by the fact he wore heavy black eyeliner. He reached out a hand, the nails of every single ring adorned finger painted black, and smiled for the redhead he had heard so much about.

  “This is Tanner,” Walter said. “My assistant.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Gina politely greeted. He turned to the vampires who regarded him thoughtfully. Raven reached out a hand, but Tanner politely declined, holding up a bottle of water for their view.

  “Tell them,” Walter said.

  All three of them focused on the young man. He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid the news is not good,” he told them.

  He slid a newspaper over for their view. The headline screamed about a desecrated grave in Eastern Europe, a reputed vampire from the late 1700s whose reputation of being a vile sadist over the village he lived earned him the moniker “Diavolului Fiul”, Romanian for “Devil’s Son”.

  “I don’t understand,” Gina said.

  Tanner took a deep breath. There was no easy way to say it. “Apparently this is where Argos’s reign of terror began,” he explained. “A week ago, for some unknown reason, the doors blew off of the crypt and the remains disappeared. The only thing we found was a scarf,” he produced it.

  Constantine’s eyes widened as he stared at the material. He grabbed for it. “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

  “From the grave of Octavian Blaga,” Tanner repeated. “Otherwise known as The Devil’s Son.”

  Constantine turned to Raven. “Nina,” was all he said.

  Gina’s face set in a grim line. She sensed there was more. “And?”

  Tanner hesitated only briefly. He slid another newspaper in front of her to describe the ghastly death in Bucharest, Romania – where the victim had been drained of its blood.

  “Found at the crime scene, this,” he said as he showed them a photo of a ring.

  Constantine visibly paled.

  Raven turned to Walter. “You think this Octavian guy was the one who turned Argos.”

  “That’s the theory,” he said.

  “What about Nina?” Constantine wanted to know.

  “Apparently your brother Demetri bribed Argos with the ashes of his wife to find the most powerful vampire in Romania so that he could kill him,” Gina supplied.

  “To kill him would have killed us all,” Raven surmised.

  “
Exactly,” she said.

  “But he’s alive,” Constantine deduced.

  Walter referred to the newspaper and the photo. “Apparently.”

  “So Nina might be alive too.”

  Gina dug out her backpack from under the bar. “Only one way to find out.”

  Constantine was on his feet as well. “I’m going with you.”

  Walter and Tanner turned to face him. He met their glances with elongating fangs. “It would not serve any of you to argue the matter.”

  “Fine,” Gina quipped. She’d worry about what it would mean if she had to kill his Nina later.

  Raven then stood to his feet. “Then I’m coming too.” They turned to him. “I started all this,” he told them. “I should be the one to end it.”

  Gina’s eyes met his. She didn’t want him to go simply because of how much she didn’t want to leave. Having him in proximity was more dangerous than any killers she’d have to face along the way. He had awakened something deep inside of her that she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to bury again.

  Truthfully, she had done the same for him. So even if this new threat had nothing to do with him he knew he would have found an excuse to follow along her newest adventure. He had made that decision when he saw how far she had gone to save them all.

  That had to have been why he couldn’t shake the memory of her body against his or the taste of her mouth. These were the thoughts of a conquest he just couldn’t shake, an entirely new experience for Raven.

  It made him feel alive since the first day he rose as the Undead.

  So he understood their adventure had only just begun. And Raven knew that he had no choice but to follow where Gina walks.

  END OF BOOK ONE

  The adventures of Raven and Gina continue in the next installment, GINA WALKS, coming in 2016.