Blood Curse

12 Touch Me

No! Ophelia struggled under the straps that clamped her to the table. She couldn’t break free. She shut her eyes and gritted her teeth as the blade touched her belly.

A loud scream filled her ears, and she opened her eyes wide. A dark shadow stood between her and the doctor. Before she could see what it was, the doctor rose off his feet still screaming. The knife fell from his hand. He was thrown across the room. His short, portly body crashed against the wall of shelves. Jars flew out from the impact and smashed to the floor. His high-pitched shriek overwhelmed the shattering of glass, and he landed, sprawled on his stomach, amidst the wreckage.

She could see what the shadow was. A huge winged creature. It swooped at the other men, who scrambled to retreat, almost tripping over each other. Like terrified rabbits, they scampered toward the door and Ravenhunt chased them. At least, she thought it was Ravenhunt. Who else could it be?

She fought the straps holding her down, straining to see what was happening. But it was impossible. She couldn’t lift off the table far enough.

Seconds later a naked Ravenhunt stood in the doorway.

Ophelia was no longer shocked to see him that way.

“I’m bound by the straps—” she began, but he ripped the ones off her legs with his bare hands. The metal creaked, twisted, snapped.

This display of strength and power didn’t frighten her. But seeing Ravenhunt safe made her long to touch him.

“You are alive.” Her voice was a choked whisper. “I feared they had killed you.”

“I’m the undead. I don’t die.”

“But you can be destroyed,” she gasped. How could he sound so unconcerned about it? She was so relieved, so grateful to him. She yearned to hug him to show it, to wrap her arms around him and press her head against his strong chest. Then she hungered to kiss him. Kiss him all over with joy because he was alive and he had come for her.

She wanted to kiss every single inch of him. Even naughty places.

She couldn’t do any of those things. Even if she were free she couldn’t.

As the band clamping over the top of her chest came off, Ophelia drew in a deep, grateful breath. She almost choked—the stench of blood and alcohol was thick in the air. Ravenhunt came to her, bending over her, concern stark in his eyes. Once she stopped sputtering, she managed to whisper, “I’m all right. It’s just the awful smell.” She met his intense black gaze, and the anger there made her lose her breath.

“Are you hurt, Ophelia? If you are, I will rip them all apart. Tear them limb from limb.”

She laid her hand on his arm. “No, don’t. I am all right.” Then she remembered and pulled her hand away. Startled by his dark rage, she’d forgotten. “You came in time—just before the doctor was going to cut into me. You saved me.” It seemed so inadequate, but she could only express all the emotion roiling in her—the relief, the happiness, the shock, the fear—in words. “Thank you.”

Never had she believed she would thank a vampire. Yet he was kinder to her than anyone had ever been. She supposed it was because he was like she was—a killer who was feared by the world.

His lips kicked up in a smile, and she caught a glimpse of the sharp points of his fangs. He turned from her abruptly, watching the door and the high windows. “Wait until we are sure we are safe before you thank me, love. I believe they’ve run. But they might have only retreated to get sufficient weapons and they intend to come back.”

His strong arms went around her and he lifted her, his large hands supporting her bottom and her back, but she struggled in his cradling arms. “Don’t do this,” she begged. “It will hurt you.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do,” she said.

Making a growling sound of frustration, he set her on her feet. He left her and prowled over to the fallen doctor. Three cavalier words, thrown out with a devil-may-care confidence, and with a certain amount of bitterness, ate in her heart.

Did he really not care? After all, he was willing to be destroyed to take her power. Of course, it would make sense that he didn’t care if she hurt him now. He knew he was going to die. Why was he doing all this for her?

It gave her the strangest feeling, as if her heart was swollen and no longer fit in her chest. But she didn’t want to win her freedom at the cost of his . . . well, his life. She couldn’t live with taking that away from him. Didn’t he understand that?

She stalked toward him, where he was crouched on his haunches at the side of the unconscious doctor.

“Raven—” Her voice died as he roughly rolled the doctor onto his back.

From this view, the doctor’s rotund stomach looked like a hill. Blood smeared the neck, his waistcoat. Grimacing, Ravenhunt pushed the man’s head to the side, then bent toward his neck—

“No!”

It had come out without thought. He looked up at her from beneath the fringe of his coal-black hair. “I need to feed, and this would let me finish him off. He deserves this for what he was going to do to you.”

He said it so matter-of-factly. But Ophelia felt the blood draining out of her head as she imagined his teeth sinking into the man’s neck, as she thought of him drinking blood. She grabbed the shelves as her legs almost melted beneath her.

She managed to hold her body up, but the horror made her dizzy. Ravenhunt needed blood now—he needed to feed, he said. Yet he had gone to feed after almost biting her. That had not even been a full day. How many victims had he taken since becoming a vampire?

At once he was beside her, his hands on her waist, and he supported her.

She pulled away from him. “No, I don’t want this. I don’t want you to—to drink his blood out of revenge.” Warily, she faced him. Agony was etched on his handsome features. “What happens if you don’t feed when you want to?”

He turned away, resting his hand on the shelves. “The craving becomes stronger.”

“What happens after that?”

“I always have to feed eventually,” he said, over his shoulder. “It will happen even against my physical will, if it must. But I understand how you feel. I won’t do it in front of you.”

He went to the door, looked out, then he took a few strides down the hallway. Now she saw there was a corridor formed of stone walls beyond this room, and it led to a heavy oak door. At the end of that corridor was yet another door, which stood partly open. That was where her captors had run.

“I have to get you out of here, but we cannot go that way,” he muttered.

“There are the windows.” She pointed to the low windows that gave a view of the sidewalk and street.

“Good idea.” He gave her an approving smile.

“How do we break them?”

“That is easy.” From the large table, he took a dusty book, flung it, and the glass shattered. It was formed of small panes held with putty and wood, but Ravenhunt threw with such force, the entire thing exploded into pieces.

“Climb up,” he said. “I will help you out the window.” He motioned to the table. It astounded her how it didn’t bother him to be naked. Her shirt was cut into tatters at the waist, but Ophelia had to admit she didn’t care. She just wanted them to escape this horrible place.

She hesitated. “You’ll have to touch me.”

“It’s all right. It won’t hurt for long.” He held out his hands to lift her onto the table.

“Wait. I know we don’t have long and that we must escape. But I have to tell you what I learned. Those men said that a vampire who takes my power will be destroyed. You have to—”

“I know, Ophelia. I’ve known it all along.”

“You know and you—you are willing to die to free me?”

This time he hesitated. He threw a glance back toward the door. “It’s complicated. There is a way out for both of us. Guidon told me how it can be done. But that is for later.”

He grasped her hips and lifted her. With his amazing strength, he easily lifted her up on the table.

Impulsively, she swiveled and bent down. Her hands cupped his jaw, which was soft to her touch, but rough and scratchy, too, because it was shadowed with black stubble.

She had never cradled a man’s face.

She had to stop touching him. But as she tried to move her hands, he grasped them and held them against her face. His eyes widened, his dark brows shot up and disappeared beneath his mussed hair. His full, beautiful lips parted. “Ophelia, there’s no pain. I don’t feel any pain.”

How could it be possible? He cupped the back of her neck with his hand and drew her to him, so their mouths were only an inch apart.

Ophelia surged forward and hastily, clumsily, pressed lips against his. Her heart thundered. They could be caught and killed any moment. But she wanted to know if she could do this without pain. Just one quick, wild kiss.

Heavens, his lips were so warm and velvety soft. When her mouth touched his, there was a sizzle—but a glorious, thrilling, exciting one. The gentle contact of their mouths stole her breath. It made her hot and achy inside.

He drew back. “There was no pain.”

“Does it mean you took my power?” Reality hit her. There was no joy, no happiness now—just horror. If he had taken her power, she’d killed him.

“I don’t know. But it means I can get you out of that window. Come, Felie, let us hurry.”

Felie. A pet name. She’d never had one.

Ravenhunt jumped onto the table beside her, then he wrapped his arm around her hips and lifted her so she could grasp the ledge of the window. She gripped it—a small piece of glass bit into her hand, but she didn’t care about pain. Pulling on the ledge, she tried to scramble up, but he gently pushed her, so she was out the opening in moments. Ophelia scrambled to her feet—the window was just above the level of the cobblestone street. She turned to help him, but he leaped up from the table, soared cleanly out of the window, and landed on his feet beside her.

They were alone in the street, which was good as Ravenhunt was naked.

“We have to run, but you’re—”

“We don’t have to run,” he insisted. “Since you can touch me now, I can transform into a larger bat, and you can ride on me.”

“Ride on you? You mean—in the air?”

He nodded, and then his body jerked and writhed as he went through his transformation. She had seen it in his bedroom, but she’d been too shocked to really understand what had happened to him. His skin stretched in ways that must be impossible. Beneath his pale skin, his muscle and bone reshaped. His back widened, then in the blink of an eye, huge wings formed out of his back. His body had barely changed in size. He still possessed legs, a man’s torso and hips and—and all the other parts. He looked more like a gargoyle than a man and in this form he was covered in sable-smooth black fur.

He turned, so his broad back and his wings faced her. Smoothly, he dipped down on one knee. She climbed on his back, lying along the lean, hard planes. So strange that instead of skin, she was pressed to velvety fur. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and her legs around his waist.

Then his wings flapped, raising up dirt from the street, and sending a soft breeze to ripple over her.

Together, they rose into the air. His wings beat slowly, with a languorous, graceful smoothness, but they lifted swiftly. By the second building they passed, they had reached such a height that they flew past the upper windows of two-story buildings. A heartbeat later, she could look down upon the roofs of Whitechapel High Street. Ahead were open fields beyond the London Hospital, a stretch of gray-tinted blue with moonlight. Shadows clung to the buildings, and Ravenhunt flew within them. She supposed it meant they disappeared from view when they were in the dark.

She held her breath. They climbed higher and higher. She felt as if she could reach out and touch the moon. For one moment, she felt a twinge of fear—they were dizzyingly high—but it disappeared. She had nothing to be afraid of when she was with Ravenhunt.

Ophelia drew in a deep breath. Up here the air felt and smelled different—cooler, crisp, clean. Her arms were securely wrapped around his neck. His powerful muscles flexed and moved beneath her slim arms.

As they’d risen into the sky, she’d heard shouting down below them. Her captors must have discovered she had escaped.

She could not believe she was flying. And if he’d taken her power, why was he not dead? What had he meant that Guidon had told him there was a way out?

Beneath her, she saw the streets of London laid out, following the curves of the Thames. Powerful wingbeats took them closer to the buildings below them.

Her heart dipped and then soared downward, and beat frantically when he climbed again.

Now she knew what it was like to fly. Exhilarating. Amazing. Somehow it seemed even more miraculous to fly close to the buildings below, to just graze over them, to whirl around them. Below them were narrow, elegant buildings with bow windows and painted signs that shone with gilt.

Charing Cross. They were going to Guidon’s.

Ravenhunt slowly descended to the sidewalk outside the bookstore. He landed lightly on his feet, then crouched so she could safely slip off his back. It was dark—no light glowed in Guidon’s shop. She looked back to Ravenhunt and in the seconds she’d peered into the shop, he had transformed back to a man.

“Is he asleep?”

“He’s a vampire.”

A vampire? She’d never dreamed of that, though it explained why he had been working in his shop at night. “What about you?” she asked Ravenhunt. “It is cold and you have no clothing. You cannot go in to see Guidon this way. We must get you clothes so you do not catch pneumonia.”

“Love, vampires do not become sick. The Royal Society will have armed men watching my house, so we cannot return there. Guidon will help me acquire clothing. This is the safest place for you.” He touched her cheek. The warmth of his hand on her skin was enthralling. But she couldn’t do this yet.

“We must find out from Guidon if I’ve lost my power—” She could not make herself say, “and if you are going to be destroyed.”

Ravenhunt hauled open the door. It was unlocked, and they stepped into darkness. Ravenhunt slid a bolt in place to secure the door behind them, then he took her hand. He threaded his fingers through hers—she hadn’t held hands like this in forever. She had last done it with her sister Lydia—she hadn’t seen her sister in years, nor her younger brother, Harry. Not since her family understood her power and kept her away from them. She had not started her life by killing people—it had begun when she was thirteen. She had hurt servants by accident; she had made her family ill, she had almost killed the man she loved. Then she had been locked away.

Holding someone’s hand felt reassuring.

But it reminded her of what she’d done. Probably destroyed Ravenhunt.

“Guidon?” he called.

There was no answer, only silence, but Ravenhunt murmured. “He is in his garden.”

“His garden? It is the middle of the night. How do you know?”

“He told me by thought.”

She let him lead her through the crowded bookshop, in the narrow aisle between shelves, skirting stacks of books. At the back, they passed through Guidon’s kitchen, its kettle on a table. Ravenhunt opened a rear door, and Ophelia walked out first into a tiny, walled garden.

The gnome-like man—vampire, she now knew—was crouched in front of a hedge of flowers. It was late at night, the sky velvety black, yet the garden was alive with color. She gasped, surprised.

Guidon jumped up and faced her, a beaming smile on his strange-looking face. He looked very happy and proud, and she smiled at him, despite her fears.

“Lady Ophelia, it is delightful to see you.” He bowed.

“It is lovely to see you, Mr. Guidon,” she answered. He did not appear shocked that Ravenhunt had no clothing.

He waved toward his house. “My—Mr. Ravenhunt, you will find a robe upstairs, if you wish. While you dress, I will show Lady Ophelia my garden. Then we can speak of what has happened.”

“Do you know what has happened?” she asked, startled.

“I can imagine.”

Ravenhunt left for the house and she could not help but blurt, “I am able to touch him now. It means he has taken my power, doesn’t it? Does that not mean he is going to die?”

“Are you afraid of that?” Guidon asked.

She gaped, perplexed. “Of course. I don’t want him to sacrifice himself for me.”

“That is a good start.” He almost skipped over to a bevy of huge white flowers. They were the size of saucers. “This is a moon flower. They bloom in moonlight.”

“They are lovely. What do you mean by it is a good start?”

“What will save Ravenhunt is your love, Lady Ophelia. He is worthy of it, even if he believes he is not. However, it must be true love, deep and powerful, to save him. I do not know if you care for him quite enough yet. In my garden, though, you will see how beautiful things can be that live for the night. That bloom only in the night.”

“I know Ravenhunt is beautiful, and I believe I do love him.”

“You cannot completely love him, my lady. Not yet.” Guidon pointed out other flowers with a gnarled, ink-stained finger. He spoke like a proud father about his children. There were lance-shaped white flowers with a pinkish tint and hairy leaves that he called Nottingham catchfly. He had borders of pink and purple four o’clocks. A beautiful yellow flower that was as tall as her he called evening primrose, creamy yellow night gladiolus, and elegant Casablanca lilies, which were very exotic.

“One would think a vampire would be denied the pleasures of a garden, but it is not so,” he declared happily.

“It is one of the most beautiful gardens I’ve seen,” she said, honestly. “The flowers show how much you love it.”

Guidon waved toward the back door of his house. “We should go back inside.”

They stepped inside as Ravenhunt came downstairs in a robe that reached his knees. He had it belted at his waist, wrapped around him to hide his naked body.

Guidon insisted they sit and he made tea. She poured it for them all. Guidon addressed Ravenhunt, “Do you have the book, my lord?”

“No, it is at my home. I had to leave my house in a hurry.”

She swallowed. He’d had to run because he was going to bite her, and then because he had chased her outside. Then she realized what Guidon had said. “You called him ‘my lord.’ But he is not—”

“There are still secrets between you. That is why you have not entirely saved him yet, my lady.”

Guidon stood and took Ravenhunt’s cup. He held it so she could see in the bottom. There were leaves there, and they had filled one half of the cup, making a perfect straight line through the center.

“You have given some of your power to him. Right now you are both sharing the strength of your power. It is half with you and half with him, which is why you do not hurt him when you touch him. But once he takes all your power, unless he wins your love, he will be destroyed. Ravenhunt, she cannot love you without knowing the truth.”

“I thought love saved her,” Ravenhunt said.

“It saves you both,” Guidon answered.

“What more can I tell her?” Ravenhunt’s full lower lip thrust out. “She already knows the worst of me. My brutal past and the fact I am a vampire.”

“She needs to know everything.” Guidon turned to her. “What do you wish to ask him?”

There was so much. So much, she couldn’t think of one thing. Then a question popped out, even though she hadn’t really thought of it as the one to ask. “Why would you risk your very life to save me?”

Ophelia licked her lips, waiting for his answer, and when he fell back against his seat and groaned, her heart pounded with worry. There was something he did not want to tell her.

Raven had no idea what in hell Guidon was talking about. Ophelia knew the bad things about him and still cared for him. It should be enough. But, damn it, if Guidon insisted it was not enough, he knew the vampire had to be correct.

Guidon touched Raven’s shoulder but looked to Ophelia. Now Raven thought of her as Felie—his special, sweet, and incredibly courageous Felie. “You love him now, do you not?” Guidon asked.

A fetching blush raced over her soft cheeks. “He was willing to die for me. No one has cared for me so much. Yes, I know I do. So how can that not be enough?”

Raven grimaced. He’d done this for his sister—Felie did not know that. Without knowing all the truth, she must have thought he’d done this solely for her. That was why she cared about him. If she knew the truth, she’d probably feel betrayed. And fall out of love. Women tended to do that. With Margaret, his fiancée, he always had to prove his love. Margaret was always emotional and upset, accusing him of betraying her, of not really being in love with her. She had always threatened to stop loving him if he did not reassure her with one grandiose gesture after another.

Was that what Guidon meant?

“You must understand that she cannot truly love you until she knows everything about you. You have been given a reprieve—a short chance to win her love once and for all. If you are not honest or if she does not fall in love with you, you will be destroyed.”

He poured more tea in Ophelia’s cup and pushed it into her hands. “Love is a most powerful emotion,” Guidon said to her. “It can literally save lives and souls. But if it is built upon a foundation of deceit, it can never be real. To have magical properties, love must be real.”

Raven knew Guidon might be talking to Felie, but the words were meant for him.

“I will leave you now,” Guidon continued. “Here, in my parlor. You will be safe here in my home, and you will have privacy.”

As Guidon left, he stopped in the doorway. He picked up a bowl and sprinkled the contents in the doorway—flower petals, and bits of dried leaves. There was a sweet, pungent smell.

“That will protect you from others who might intrude,” he said. “I will sprinkle these around the doors and windows. No men of the Royal Society could cross these. They would lose consciousness at once.”

Once the librarian left them alone in his parlor, Raven raked his hand through his hair. “Guidon is correct—I haven’t told you everything, Ophelia. I haven’t told you why I must take your power.”

She was perched on the edge of the chair opposite him. She bit her lip, then said, “It is not to save me, is it?”

He was sprawled over the settee. “I always wanted to save you. I thought I was going to kill you by taking your power and I refused to do that. I was only willing to try to do it when Guidon told me that love would save you.”

He had to tell her everything. He sat up, took her hand, and lifted it to his lips, giving a gentle kiss to her fingertips. Threading his fingers with her slender ones, he held her hand. He liked touching her. But when she knew the truth, would she let him touch her again?

He told her about the vampire queens—what they were and how they ruled the vampire world. “One of them turned me. I was bleeding to death in the mud after a battle, with my stomach ripped open by a sword and my throat cut. I probably had a musket ball lodged in my leg, as well—it’s hard to remember the details.”

“And you wanted to be a soldier?” She stared at him as if he were insane.

“Yes.” He kissed her hand once more. “I was tempting fate, waiting to get killed, and fate had finally delivered. But Jade, one of the vampire queens, had decided she wanted me for a mate.”

“To be with her for eternity?”

“Jade was never that faithful. A plaything for a few years was what she wanted. She created me and I had to serve her, acting as her assassin, destroying vampires who did not follow her rules. At first she kept me with her at all times, like a pet. She kept me in her house on the fringe of Mayfair. No one guessed Jade was feeding on residents and servants along the exclusive street.”

He grimaced, but he knew he had to go on. “Jade wanted your power and she commanded I take it, even though it would risk your life. I refused, but then she threatened someone I love.”

Surprise widened Ophelia’s enormous blue eyes. “But you are so alone. I thought you had no one. No family.”

Hades, he saw it in her face. Confusion.

“I am alone now, Ophelia, that is true. But I wasn’t always alone. I have a much younger sister. She is only seventeen. She believes I am dead and I have not spoken to her since I was turned. That was while I was fighting in Ceylon in 1817—when I toured the world looking for wars to fight in.”

“Do you have parents? Does your sister live with them?” Her brows drew together. “And she thinks you are dead—she hasn’t seen you since you returned from Ceylon? You let her believe you were gone? She must be heartbroken.”

Her gentle heart was wounded. Now he knew why Felie claimed to love him. It wasn’t that he was worthy; it was that she had a soft heart and she felt emotions deeply.

“I couldn’t go to her and tell her I had become a vampire. She would think me insane—or she would have been terrified. It was for her sake that I let her believe I was dead. Before my supposed death, I was the Marquis of Ravenhunt. My sister, Frederica, lives with my cousin, who is her guardian. When I lived with Jade in her Mayfair house, I was only blocks from my sister, but I couldn’t go to her.”

Her eyes went even wider. “You are a marquis?”

He shook his head. “Not anymore. I can’t live in the mortal world. How could I explain that I don’t age? That I eat and drink nothing and need blood to survive?”

“I suppose you couldn’t. It is so terribly sad, though.”

Raven didn’t want to think about that. He had no choice. “Jade threatened my sister’s life if I did not take your power. I lied to you, telling you I was doing it for you. I was doing it to save Frederica.”

“I understand why, if you had to save her,” Ophelia said softly. But she knew what it meant—he did not love her.

Yet she did love him—perhaps even more—now that she knew he had been willing to give his life for his sister.

Impetuously, she launched across to the settee and threw her arms around his neck. “That is the noblest thing I’ve ever heard,” she whispered.

“You aren’t angry?” He cupped her face. “I did it for my sister at first, but now that I know you, I would have done it to free you.”

“Do you really think it is enough—if we have love?”

“It has to be enough. It is supposed to be enough to save you, Felie. That is what I care about.”

“But I’m afraid for you—”

“Don’t be.”

“What should we do?” she whispered.

“I am going to take you home, love. I want to make love to you. I can touch you in every way I’ve dreamed.”

“You’ve dreamed of touching me?”

He drew her to him, pulled her against his broad chest, cloaked in the robe. “With my hands,” he murmured against her ear. His lips grazed her lobe and she shivered in intense pleasure. “With my tongue. With my cock.”

Oh heavens. Wild images leapt into her head. Her hands trembled, not with nerves or fear, but with yearning. With a lifetime of wanting to hold someone—

She only wanted to hold him.

“You’ve never been able to touch anyone, Ophelia. I want to be the first.” Raven lifted her hand to his lips and suckled her wrist. She giggled, then squirmed in front of him. “Ooh, that feels lovely.”

He wanted to ease her back onto the settee and—

No, my lord Ravenhunt, you cannot seduce Lady Ophelia in my parlor. Guidon projected the words into Raven’s thoughts, sounding prim and shocked, even in thoughts.

Tonight will be the night, Lord Ravenhunt.

Raven nibbled the soft, silky skin of Ophelia’s wrist, then quickly kissed his way up to her shoulder, where he ran his tongue over her ear. Indeed it will be.

I mean tonight will be the chance to take her power, Guidon said. You must study the last chapters of that book exceedingly well. You must commit it to memory. Leave the poor young lady alone. You are not yet ready to seduce her.

Damnation, Guidon, he muttered in his thoughts, you know how to ruin the mood.