The Vampire's Betrayal by Raven Hart Read Free Book Online

could see it rushing, and my fangs lengthened involuntarily. Mentally, I tamped down my response to the life-giving red nectar and concentrated on my devotion to my goddess.
    My tongue teased the dewy petals it found on the way to the little bud at her center. I stroked it again and again with my tongue, lips, and chin until Connie reached down to grasp my shoulders.
    She urged me upward until I was braced above her and she went about relieving me of my jeans. “I want you now,” she said simply.
    My erection sprang to meet her hands and she wasted no time putting me inside her. I felt like I melted into her, onto her, became one with her. As I moved inside her, I braced on one elbow and cupped her breast, massaging upward from her rib cage to the nipple, teasing its tip with my thumb before starting again.
    In my unnaturally lengthy life I had made love to more women than I could count, and thought myself in love with quite a few of them. I thought I’d known when it was real. And I’d even grieved with the loss of a special relationship when things fell apart, as they always did. Being a creature of the night meant always having to say you’re sorry. And always having to say good-bye.
    But it wasn’t until this woman came into my world that I felt more alive than I had when I was a living, breathing human. She was the only woman who’d ever known what I was. And still she could look past the abominable circumstances that accounted for my existence and love me for the man I still was inside. Or at least the man I tried to be.
    And as for the sex—the way we fit together, the way we moved when we found our rhythm felt like something preordained. It was as if this woman who came along so many generations after my death was made especially for me. As I thought this, I remembered the truth. She was made for me in a very real way.
    She was made to kill me.
    That was why I caught fire the first time we touched. She had learned a spell that cured that bit of sexual dysfunction, but the purpose behind it was clear now. I pushed that thought out of my mind, because as surely as Connie and I had passed through hell in the last few hours, we were in heaven now and I wasn’t going to let anything spoil that for either of us. We came in a shuddering climax while looking deep into each other’s eyes.
    “My Consuela, my goddess,” I heard myself whisper.
    William
    I instructed Werm and the dogs to go upstairs and check on Renee. She wasn’t expected at her private school—when she’d been kidnapped I’d called the headmistress and told her that we were going to homeschool Renee for the foreseeable future. It’s a shame we must go to such ends sometimes to protect our secrets.
    “I’ll see that Connie is buried in consecrated ground,” Melaphia said.
    “Yes. Do,” I agreed, thinking that Melaphia was now acting entirely too calm for what she’d just gone through. “Are you sure you’re all right, my dear?”
    She lifted her chin, and I saw a series of differing emotions play across her face. I’d known those various expressions for thirty years now. This child I’d helped to raise had grown into an exceptional woman, a woman who had never used her considerable powers for any cause that wasn’t noble and just. She’d never been as conflicted as she was at this moment, and she was hurting.
    Finally her reserve crumbled and she hid her face in her hands. “She was my friend.” She choked out the words with difficulty. “And I didn’t even try to bring her back with Jack. I wanted her to stay.”
    I was tempted to gather her into my arms again, but I knew that would not help her regain control. Instead I spoke soothingly to her. “Do you remember how we helped Shari to a better place when she was confined to the underworld?”
    “Yes. I remember.”
    “Do you think that Connie is in a lesser place? Consider this. While she was reckless in crossing the portal to the underworld, she lost her life through no real