Blood Curse

“I never was your captive. From the beginning, you were protecting me.”

His haunted gaze held her. “I was serving myself, Ophelia. I am still a monster, and that is what I will always be.” With a swift turn on his heel, he left her, stalking down the corridor with long strides.

She took a step after him, and called, “Stop this. Don’t go.”

I have to. I can smell my sister’s blood from here.

She ran after him. “You can control it. Heavens, you wouldn’t attack your sister.”

But he was gone. She shouted to him through her thoughts but he didn’t answer. Running wildly, she came to the end of the hall, and she could see a rectangle of light ahead, and the stone steps it illuminated. She raced toward the cellar steps.

“Ophelia, what’s wrong?”

She almost crashed into Althea, who was hurrying down the hallway in the darkness. She brushed by her new friend and reached the bottom of the stairs. Her chest heaved with shallow breaths. He wasn’t there. He’d already gone upstairs. Could she catch him before he left the house?

Althea was there, at her side. Althea’s arm slid around her shoulder. “Come home with me tonight. I want you to be my guest. Your brother is obviously very busy with his beloved, and with foolish Ravenhunt stalking off that way, I believe you need some female companionship.”

“He refused to see his sister. He ran away. Why would he do that?”

“He is afraid of his sister’s rejection. And I think he fears you do not really love him,” Althea said. “He fears that you feel in love with him because you were forced to.”

“But my love was proven to be real. It was how he survived.”

“Everyone says men are much more scientific. I have discovered that they are very emotional. There are things they refuse to believe, even with ample evidence to say it is so.”

“He’s afraid,” Ophelia said. “I know fear. I felt it my whole life. For me, fear kept me from running away. But for Ravenhunt, it makes him run away.”

“What do you think he fears?”

“He fears hurting his sister.” That she knew readily. “And perhaps he does fear I don’t really love him . . .”

Althea waited. Ophelia sensed there was something she had to understand. Then it dawned. “He fears love.”

“I believe that is so,” Althea said. “He is afraid of love, so he seeks to run away from it. Even when it is given to him, he is too afraid to take it. Now, come with me. I will also bring your brother and Ravenhunt’s sister. I want to have a physician examine her and ensure she has not been unduly wounded by her ordeal. The poor girl must be ravenous.”

Food. Something she had not thought of in forever. “Yes, we must help her right away.”

Althea smiled. “And then come home with me, my new friend.”

But Ophelia shook her head. “I have to try once more with Ravenhunt.”

“You will, I promise. That is what we shall do after dinner. We shall conspire to make Ravenhunt understand he deserves love, and he must stop running away from it.”

Ophelia squeezed her friend’s hand. “I can’t bear to wait. I have to try now.”

“Then we will use one of the carriages and I will take you to Ravenhunt.”

Ophelia alighted from the carriage and hurried up to the door in her shirt, trousers, and boots. This time she was determined to get into his house. Not one light glowed in a window.

The bleakness of his home tugged at Ophelia’s heart. She knew the logic of why it was dark. He did not need light. But she now knew there was another reason. Raven had fashioned his own prison. That was why most of the rooms were unused and swathed in covers. He had isolated himself. He chose to retreat from the world. As a vampire, he’d had his soul taken from him, and his loss was revealed in the desolate, isolated way he lived.

He had been a man with a broken heart, and he had run away from pain.

Now he was to be condemned to a prisoner’s existence—in a prison of his own making—for eternity. Unless he changed.

She had been cursed to be a prisoner, or to be alone forever. The magic of love had changed that. For him, the magic had to rebuild his heart and it had to give him hope. Love and hope were the two keys that would unlock his self-made cell.

Ophelia rapped firmly.

Time ticked with irritating slowness.

Why could he not give up on the past and look to a future?

She slammed her hands against the door, but that hurt. Arcing her foot back, she kicked it over and over.

Fortunately it was late at night and there were few people to see her attack on Ravenhunt’s door and likely have her arrested.

She glanced back at Althea. She was about to return to the carriage, think of another plan, when rattling sounded, the knob turned, and the door opened a few inches.

Ophelia almost sobbed with delight at Raven’s darkly handsome face. Then she looked down, taking in all of him, and her heart lurched with sorrow. On his lean, powerful frame, he still wore the torn and dirty clothing he had worn as Jade’s prisoner. As if he did not deserve to now be free.

“I want something from you,” she said throatily.

He jerked back. Her quiet, simple demand had surprised him. “What?” he asked. But he wasn’t cool. He gripped the door handle with such force his fingers dented the metal handle. His other hand rested on the door frame, and he gouged his fingers into the wood.

Whatever he was trying to do, he did care about her.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Love forever. But she could not say that yet. “If you are never going to see me again after this night, I want to make love to you one more time.”

“Indeed. Why, when you are free to find love?”

Her old doubts crept in for a moment. Perhaps there was no love here to find. She didn’t believe that, she believed in herself. Running her tongue in a sensuous circle, Ophelia licked her lips and cocked her head, hoping she was giving him a coy look of wanton promise. “I want you.”

“Love, it is probably better if we don’t make this harder. You can live a mortal’s life. You can fall in love with a good man.”

“But Raven, I cannot ask a good man to tie me up.”

Wood left the door frame with a splintering crack. The knob made a groaning sound as it crushed into a deformed mess.

He pulled open the door. “Come in.”

The moment he closed the door behind her and slid the bolts home to secure them, Ophelia grasped the waistband of his trousers and fiddled with the first button.

Raven grasped her delicate, swift-moving hands to stop her, but cool and composed, she said, “I assume you don’t want to waste precious time in conversation.”

“You will do what I say.”

“No. We are equals now. There is a balance of power between us.”

“We are not equals and can never be, because I am a vampire. I’m dangerous. You should go home to your brother. That is where you belong. At your home, not mine.”

Ophelia got two buttons of his trouser placket open and reached her hand inside.

Raven growled as desire streaked through him. Damn it, why did the woman refuse to listen to logic?

God, the feel of her warm, soft skin sliding over his stomach. The heaven of having her warm, soft palm wrapping around his cock . . .

Gripping his shaft firmly, she put her other hand on his chest and stood on tiptoe. Her hand tugged his cock upward. “Let me kiss you and taste you and suck you,” she whispered by his ear, her voice rich and husky.

Her breath was a soft, exotic breeze tickling his skin. Like the caressing heat of India and Ceylon. For