Raven

Alison Paige

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER ONE

“This body’s dying, Morrigan. Make haste.” A snarl curled Morrigan’s upper lip, mimicking her master’s orders. She shifted against the cool stone of the tenant building’s roof, high above New Orleans’ busy night streets.

The Leshii demon ordered up a soul like he was calling for Chinese takeout. Fifty-one years and his detached superior attitude still ruffled her feathers. Morrigan sighed and rolled her shoulders, loosening the knot heating through her muscles. She’d be at this all night if she let her ire fester.

Hunting required focus, a tranquil mind and a steady bow. She closed her eyes, reaching deep within her to that eternal stillness, the dark well of energy inherent to her kind and the source of their power. Her mind touched the black quiet inside her and a cool rush of magic gushed up through her veins.

Morrigan’s frustration melted away, left her arms loose, her mind clear. She opened her eyes, scanned the crowded sidewalks below. Herds of people spilled into the streets, bumping shoulders, pressing and pushing against one another like mindless cattle. The sounds of laughter, boisterous conversation, car horns and idling engines were all muffled beneath the thundering roll of music echoing off bodies and buildings alike. The stench of stale beer and bodily fluids, having stewed in the hot New Orleans sun, wafted up to her.

She refused the vile aroma, allowing its notice to pass through her mind without pause or reaction. She hunted, her natural prey so easy to spot. The husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Upper-class, escaping their uptight, pristine world in the sinful city, indulging fantasies unfit for polite company.

They wore their vulnerability like a second skin, an irresistible call to her nature, their wealth, their security, their belief in the greater good all ripe for the taking. She swallowed against the sweet taste of prey, like maple syrup on the back of her tongue, and licked her lips.

Morrigan reached over her shoulder to the quiver she wore on her back and drew out one of the long arrows. Without thought or sight, she readied her bow, shifting up to one knee, pulling the string taut. They turned a corner, taking the less crowded side street, darker, fewer witnesses. So easy. Her belly fluttered, lower regions warmed, excitement tingling through her body.

The bowstring creaked next to her ear. She held firm—waiting. One strike each, rapid fire, and they’d both stand stupefied as she took what she wanted. Or maybe she’d convince them to bring her back to their hotel room, let her rifle through their belongings, take it all. They would. Her magic arrows turned humans into muted dummies, like dolls she could manipulate and abuse. Perfect prey. So easy.

She spotted the other one out of the corner of her eye. Morrigan’s gaze shifted to the opposite end of the street. Exhilaration fizzled like a flickering light, then winked out completely. Here was the prey she’d been sent after. What the master made her hunt. The body and soul he needed to survive.

The couple strolled past the dirty man, Mrs. Upper-class hugging her shoulder bag, Mr. Upper-class tucking his wife close, his other hand gripping his bulging fanny pack. Their pace quickened, eyes darting, watching the staggering indigent without staring. Polite to a fault. Fools. Neither of them possessed an ounce of instinct, both ignorant of what danger looked like, smelled like, felt like.

The bum wasn’t danger, Morrigan was. She was loss. Death was her wake, but not for them, not tonight. Morrigan was here for him. After tonight he’d be nothing, vanishing like cotton candy in her mouth.

Mr. and Mrs. Upper-class turned the corner and Morrigan opened her two fingers. The arrow was set free. Her bowstring twanged. The air parted in a whoosh of wind, her arrow hitting its mark with a muted thunk into his chest. She stood, waiting as the man stumbled back, his greasy salt-and-pepper hair curtaining his face as he stared at the arrow he could feel, but not see.

He lifted the edge of his threadbare flannel shirt, brushed his stained T-shirt underneath. His hand passed through the protruding arrow unaffected. He couldn’t remove an arrow he didn’t know was there. A Raven’s magic, once struck, is inescapable.

Morrigan unfurled her wings, hooking her bow on her belt at her hip. She stepped to the edge of the building and then stepped off. For a moment the Louisiana night felt blissfully cool against her skin, the air rushing by, tugging her long black hair from her face, caressing through the feathers of her wings.

Her feet touched pavement, silent as a cat on the prowl. She strode across the empty street to her prey, meeting his wide, worried eyes.

“I…I think I been shot,” the yellow-toothed man said.

Damn, she hated it when they spoke, reaching them before the magic took hold. She didn’t want to talk to them, didn’t want to hear their voice, see their spirit shining through their eyes. She didn’t want to see them alive.

Morrigan fisted his shirt collar, swallowing back the knot of pity choking at the back of her throat. “Shut up. You’re dead.”

The man’s watery, bloodshot eyes stretched wide, his bushy brows shooting high, shifting wrinkles from his cheeks to his forehead. “Am not. I ain’t dead. I ain’t.”

“Close your hole. You will be soon enough.” A good yank on his collar and the man stumbled behind her into the empty street. The sudden move pushed a cloud of stink ahead of him, body odor, hard liquor and human waste. Lord, did he even bother looking for a toilet before he gave up and pissed himself?

She wrinkled her nose against the pungent assault. At least the master would rid him of the stench…and everything else that made him who he was. Pity irritated through her chest again, stung her eyes, but Morrigan shoved it deep, stomped it down inside her where it couldn’t toy with her resolve.

“Are you…are you the angel of death?” the man tripped out of his left shoe as he struggled to find his footing beside her. The magic was taking hold. Finally.

She allowed her gaze to land on him, see him for who he was, the spirit that lived within. As prey there was nothing about him that appealed to her. He wasn’t wealthy, or key to the treasure of others. He wasn’t blind to the harsh realities of life. He was a harsh reality.

His capture wouldn’t benefit her or her family, wouldn’t feed them or provide shelter. He wouldn’t even be good for sport. He was no prey of hers.

His eyes met hers, blue, like the bottom of a swimming pool. The thought, the color, stuck in her mind. His skin was withered and wrinkled beyond its years, alcohol and exposure shaving decades from his life. He’d be taller than she was if he stood straight, long legs and arms, a broad chest and shoulders. His nose was blunt at the end and looked like he’d probably broken it at least once.

Beard stubble hid a square chin and high cheekbones, the man might be remotely attractive if he didn’t look like he’d been dragged through life on the back of a manure wagon.

He blinked, her magic seeping down to his bone. “Death?” he asked with his last ounce of will.

Morrigan smiled, knowing how her Raven eyes gleamed red in the night. “Yes.”

No reaction. The grimy old man was asleep in his own mind. Her magic had him, dulled his brain, handed him helpless into her keeping. She turned his back to her and wrapped her arms around his chest under his arms. A quick glance to ensure they were alone and she took flight, carrying them both up and into the dark night sky.

Morrigan blinked against the sting of wind in her eyes, except it wasn’t wind that tightened her chest and made her chin quiver. They’d lied to her, tricked her into quiet acceptance. Her family, those who were supposed to protect her, love her. People she thought she could trust.

Nanna was wrong. She’d told Morrigan it was an honor to serve the demon. It wasn’t. The demon perverted Morrigan’s power, used it to take life. She wasn’t a murderer. At least she hadn’t been before he took her.

Morrigan and her kind separated fools from their money, as well as from their gullibility and ignorance. Thieves by most definitions, yes, but they took nothing that couldn’t be replaced—or should be.

Their victims learned a fast lesson in the penalties for complacency and carelessness. One could even say the Ravens provided a service. But the demon served only himself. And he made her help. For that she would be forever ashamed.

Fifty-one years she’d been in service of the demon. Like most shape-shifters she had a life span that was more than double that of a human, and once her kind hit puberty the aging process slowed dramatically. Still, time marched on for her and her kind as it did for everyone. Though the passage of time was never more acutely felt than by one who was forced to stand still as it slipped by. She’d grown older over the years, but little else about her life had changed.

The old mansion she and Akram called home for the past six and a half months peeked between the tall oaks below. Morrigan banished the threatening tears with a deep breath, landing silent as a ghost on the river-rock courtyard.

The century-old house wasn’t really theirs. It belonged to the defense lawyer whom Akram consumed last. The lawyer had made his fortune defending business moguls from their stockholders and suffering employees when the company books didn’t back up the profits claimed.

She’d have preferred Akram consume one of the lawyer’s clients, but time had been a factor and proximity a priority.

Morrigan steadied the bum on his feet. “Come,” she said and led the way up the wide stone steps of the back deck and through the double French doors that opened onto the sitting room. The human host stuck to her heel like toilet paper.

“Morrigan, you’ve kept me waiting,” Akram said, rounding the corner from the hallway. “Was there a problem? Were you seen?”

Morrigan shook her head, then realized he was already busy inspecting his new host. “No. No problem,” she said. “And I’m never seen.”

Akram paused, the man’s dirty head in his hands, his thumbs hiking up the man’s lips to show his teeth. He met her gaze. “Of course. You are a true talent, Morrigan. Thank you.”

His smile was little more than a flicker across his lips, but the rarity of it sent a flutter through her stomach and made her breath catch.

Akram wore the expensive trousers and tailored dress shirt that’d come with the body and house. His hair was neatly trimmed, his face clean-shaven, his shoes shined. Good grooming and fine dressing has its own appeal, but Akram’s outward appearance rarely caught her notice anymore.

Physically Akram looked nothing like he had all those years ago when she was a young girl just beginning her service to him. The demon had possessed ninety-eight bodies from that day to this, devoured ninety-eight souls. Every one of them was male, and no two were alike. The hosts were as different as thumbprints, but Akram made each his own.

How many times had she studied him, discerning the differences and the similarities? Those unique quirks, the cadence of his speech, the crooked tilt of his smile, the fluid gestures of his hands, elements of the demon that never changed regardless of the body that housed him. Too many hours, too many sleepless nights, spent pondering the spirit who’d been her only companion, her only concern for more than fifty years.

Too many times her study of him would shift and melt into something stranger, something shockingly more intimate than the clinical intentions she’d begun with, innocent observations bleeding into wicked fantasy. Hunger for sensation, for the touch of his hands in places she so ached to be touched would swell in her. Deep in her womb heat would stir, her blood surging with warmth throughout her body, turning her molten from the inside out, wanting him. Wanting him.

How could such thoughts, such need, be anything but proof of her soul’s corruption? Yet too often she couldn’t fight, couldn’t deny those thoughts. Vivid images of Akram’s hard, healthy male form behind her, molding to her back, his stiff sex a solid imprint against her ass would invade her mind.

Strong spirit hands wrap around her, exploring her body, pressing at the base of her throat, smoothing down her chest, kneading the heavy, supple weight of her breasts and lower, over her belly, cupping between her thighs. In her mind’s eye she’s helpless to stop him, trapped by her own magic used against her. She must allow what she most desires.

His other hand traces a counter pattern over her willing form, caressing over her hard, puckered nipple, teasing the sensitive nub between his fingers, making her gasp. His hot breaths moisten the skin over her shoulder, his soft lips teasing kisses down her neck, nibbling, biting, sending breath-deifying shudders rippling down to her toes. Muscles deep inside her clench, tugging desire from her core, tightening through the slick walls of her sex.

The host’s thick finger slips down to part her feminine lips, spreading her creamy readiness through her folds, finding the entrance to her body. He invades her, pushing as deep as his physical body will allow, stroking her from the inside. It’s not enough. It’s never enough.

He bends her over. Her naked bottom brushing against the hair-rough flesh of his groin, her wet gaping sex exposed to him. He centers himself, one hand guiding his thick, hard sex to her opening, his other hand clutching her hip. For one brief moment the achingly smooth round of his cock’s head warms against her. Then the demon rocks his hips, pushing his borrowed body into hers, driving deep and hard without a word of permission.

Her body resists, muscles clenching, forcing friction, heightening sensation so that Morrigan’s lungs fill with air turned to pure pleasure, and released in a low, rolling moan. A heartbeat, flesh to flesh, heat to heat, and Akram draws his long, hardened sex backward through her pussy.

Long, invisible tendrils pull sensation from every corner of her body down through her sex. She angles forward, aiding him until the fat head of his cock nearly slips free. Her chest squeezes, catching her breath a shuddering instant before they push together again, their bodies meeting with a hard, satisfying jolt. And then again.

The erotic ebb and flow of their forms, meeting and parting, driving deep and pulling shallow repeats, the rhythm growing faster, more frantic, sensation heightening, becoming achingly acute.

It’s too much. It’s not enough. A little more. She wants it all. Any longer and she’ll burst into a million tiny pieces. Just a little longer…

And then longer arrives and her release floods her body, making her shudder all the way down to the soles of her feet.

Morrigan squeezed her eyes shut, willing the dizzying spin of her mind to fade. A mental shake and she opened her eyes again focusing on the Akram before her, in the here and now. The demon was none the wiser of how he’d so deeply twisted her mind, body and soul. And for that she was both grateful…and frustrated.

He continued his inspection, lifting the man’s dirty hands, turning them over in his, checking beneath his threadbare shirt, determining the body’s potential.

Finally Akram took the host’s head in his hands again, tilting it slightly to the right, his own to the left and brought their lips together. No pomp, no warning or preparation, Akram’s mouth opened on the filthy lips of her indigent prey and the prey’s lips parted in welcome.

There was nothing sexual about the kiss, and though she’d seen the process countless times before, Morrigan couldn’t tear her eyes away. It took only moments before the kiss was broken. Both men stumbled back, as though they’d been fighting against the hold and were suddenly freed.

The weathered old man wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, staring at the neatly kempt lawyer across from him. The lawyer blinked back. His lips parted as though he’d speak. He looked to Morrigan. He blinked again. And then promptly turned to dust.

She swung her gaze to the old man. “That’s ninety-nine. One more and my contract’s fulfilled.”

Akram stripped out of the smelly flannel shirt, then tugged the filthy undershirt over his head. “Right. We’ve done well with this last one. I thought a trip overseas might be nice.”

Already the abused old body was rebounding, the flesh filling out across his broad chest, smoothing wrinkles on his face, thickening muscles in his arms. She was right. When he stood straight, the old body was a good two inches taller than she was, and Akram never slouched.

The body didn’t matter, it was the strength and potency of the soul Akram craved—what he fed on. Though to consume the soul destroys the body in the end, Akram had the power to sustain the host’s outward appearance until the very last drop of soul was gone. He’d cut it dangerously close more than once.

The transformation always amazed her. It wasn’t the first time she’d chosen a body so dilapidated that when the demon restored it to good health she scarcely recognized it. Though she would always recognize Akram, no matter what body he wore.

He flicked his gaze to her, his golden eyes gleaming through orbs born blue. The memory of eyes the color of a swimming pool flashed through her head. The demon’s eyes were always golden, always Akram. “Does that please you, my little Raven?”

Morrigan shrugged, ignoring the butterfly flutters in her belly when he called her his. “Europe, the States, Asia, doesn’t matter. Just tell me when it’s time for the next hunt, demon.”

“Fifty-one years together. Are you so eager to be free of me?”

Morrigan met his gaze, held it so there’d be no misunderstanding and replied coolly, “Yes.”

Akram looked away to hide his flinch. He was a fool to hope he could please her. He’d never be more to her than what he was, her demon master. Why did the prospect bother him so? He couldn’t be sure. These sorts of thoughts and longings had never arisen in him before.

He glanced at the pile of dust that was once his host and tossed the filthy shirts on top. He shoved out of the jeans, so ripe with stench they could almost stand on their own, and added them to the pile. A lone shoe was last to go. He didn’t ask about the other. It didn’t matter.

“Clean that up,” he said, catching her midnight eyes taking in his naked form. “We leave tonight.”

Akram strode from the room, refusing to give more weight to Morrigan’s passing physical interest than it deserved.

So she wished to be free of him. He should release her. Let her remember what it was like to be without the comforts he provided.

But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. And not just because he enjoyed the luxury of her skill at securing him hosts. He needed her, but he’d be damned if he’d play the sentimental fool.

“Sentimentality…pfftt,” he said to himself, taking the carpeted oak stairs two at a time. She’d take it as weakness, and to his mind it was.

Akram, ancient demon, survivor of torments and time’s unending march, would have none of it. He would not be torn asunder by a woman.

On the second floor of the mansion he slammed the bathroom door behind him, striding to the long double sink. His spirit had worked its magic on the new host, taking back years lost to abuse and neglect. He was still filthy and smelled like dung, but the flesh had tightened over hard muscle, once-rotting teeth were healthy again, and some of the gray hair had returned to its original ebony shade.

Akram turned his chin from side to side, eyeing his reflection. He needed a shave, but the silvery shoulder-length hair suited him. Or it would once he’d washed it.

He closed his eyes, his spirit warming as it pulled energy from the host’s soul. An exhale gushed from his lungs. Damn, it felt good to soak his spirit in a full, deep well again. Every day that well would grow shallower, every day there’d be less and less to sustain him. Akram pushed the unpleasant worry from his mind.

He opened his eyes and stared into the dead-gray eyes of his brother. No. Wait. Akram shook his head. Richard wasn’t his brother. He was the brother of Daniel, the host whose body Akram now possessed.

Akram clenched his jaw, braced his hands on the sink he knew was there but couldn’t see through the memory the host forced him to witness. Jeezus, he hated this part, the last fit-‘n’-fight of the host trying to oust him. It was always a wretched experience, some vile memory he was forced to endure, touching, smelling, feeling every nuance as though it was his own memory.

Akram’s gaze shifted to his hands, shocked for a moment to see them tight around his bother’s throat, his long fingers turning white from the squeeze. But they weren’t his hands, it wasn’t his brother; it was Daniel’s, his host. Not that it mattered. The emotions storming his brain were real enough.

Morrigan had a habit of choosing the worst dregs of society, those souls whose after-death trip would likely be short and at a downward tilt.

Pure, absolved souls use pity as a weapon in the battle for possession—heartfelt glimpses of loved ones to try to play on his guilt, try to break his heart, his determination. The wicked used their sins against him, trying to shock and disgust him into letting go. Neither worked, though both were a torment to endure.

This host’s last stand was no different. Richard, the brother, flailed at Akram’s shoulders and head in the vision, though the slaps that stung his cheeks and rattled his brain were as real as anything.

Akram ignored the pain, Daniel’s anger burning through him, tightening his hands, shifting his weight to press everything he had against his brother’s miserable neck. Why can’t Richard mind his own damn business? Just shut up, you stupid jerk. Shut up. Shut up.

The flesh around Richard’s lips shifted from red to blue, the color quickly spreading to his cheeks, around his bulging eyes, across his forehead.

Richard clawed at Akram’s hands and arms, desperate to break his grip. Blood beaded along the scratches, the wounds burning like acid, but he ignored it. The little jerk never could beat him in a fight.

Then suddenly his kid brother stopped. Stopped slapping, stopped scratching…stopped moving. It was over. Richard stared up at Akram, his blue eyes dulling. Shit. He was dead. Akram had killed his brother. The knowledge slammed through Akram so hard he couldn’t breathe.

He sat back, resting his full weight on Richard’s chest. His kid brother was dead; he wasn’t breathing, couldn’t talk—ever. Akram—Daniel—was safe. She’d never know. Their mother would never know he’d gone back on his word and started gambling again. She’d never know he’d stolen her medications to sell to cover his debts. She’d never know the truth about why her savings account was empty, why she was suddenly destitute. She’d never know.

A huge swell of relief swamped through him, made him giggle like a loon. He looked at his hands, so powerful, like a god. He’d taken his brother’s life and stopped him from ruining everything.

Akram’s pulse thundered in his ears, joy and disgust, terror and relief, all mixed and churned inside him. His head spun. He’d hide the body. No one would ever know.

No one ever did.

The vision ended. The battle was over. Richard’s soul had tried its best to oust him and failed. The body was Akram’s. The vivid memory, the crazed, manic feelings would never fade, never leave him even after he shed this body. Now and forevermore he knew exactly what it was to murder. But then, he’d already known that and worse. Such was the price he paid for the feast. A price Morrigan seemed determined to make him pay dearly.

He’d often wondered if it was a conscious choice, or did her subconscious automatically target tainted souls to make her own sin in aiding him less profane? Perhaps she chose the rancid souls as a kind of punishment for him.

Akram straightened, shoved the long, greasy hair from his face and went to turn on the shower. After a few seconds the water was hot enough to form a thick steam cloud above the glass stall. Hell’s bells, he needed a hot shower about now.

He climbed in and snapped the glass door closed behind him. His back to the showerhead, Akram closed his eyes against the hot water cascading over his new face and down his body, his mind still on Morrigan. Always on Morrigan.

Akram certainly didn’t believe he deserved punishment, no more than the lion that feeds on the young wildebeest, or the whale that waits in stealth for the weak seals and penguins to set to sea.

Like any living thing, he must feed to survive. He could provide for himself, but the Raven shape-shifters’ unique gift for stupefying their victims into quiet compliance made the taking of the body and soul far more efficient. Without his Raven, Akram would spend all his time hunting and overpowering his next meal before the current soul was depleted and the body ash.

The Raven Morrigan enabled him to live, to enjoy the short time he had in each body. In return he provided her with the luxurious lifestyle her kind craves the way mammals crave air. The symbiotic partnership between their kinds, the Leshii and the Raven, was one forged through the ages. Akram was simply the first foolish Leshii to fall in love with his huntress.

Irritation tightened his shoulders. He shook the thought from his mind and grabbed the shampoo. There were far more pressing matters to concern him. The body he possessed may have belonged to someone else, but it was his now and there were standards any respectable Leshii demon must abide.

Akram took his time washing and rewashing. When the water finally ran cold, he stepped out, wrapping himself in the thick, terry-cloth robe, toweling dry his hair.

He cleaned and clipped his nails, trimmed his wild brows. He combed his hair until it hung in damp silvery waves to his shoulders. A nice strap of leather held the strands in a neat tail at the base of his skull while he shaved.

Akram studied the thin line of hair he’d left over his top lip and the small triangle he’d left beneath the center of his bottom. Normally he wouldn’t bother with such detail, easier to keep a face shaved bare than fiddle with mustaches and such. He wasn’t in the bodies but six or seven months. What was the point?

However, he’d noticed that most of Morrigan’s choices for hosts had some form of facial hair, whether it be scruffy beard stubble or groomed goatee. He wondered if that, too, was choice or happenstance. Was it a point of attraction for his beautiful young Raven, or yet another reason she found to feed him their soul?

Not that he cared either way. This was an experiment, that’s all. Curiosity. He’d use himself as a test subject, study her reaction. If she seemed pleased, he’d make a note to consider it as yet another way to keep his Raven happy and working at her best. If she seemed repulsed…

His gut twisted as he studied his reflection. He didn’t think the groomed strip of hair and small tuft was unattractive on his host. The body looked to be in its late thirties, the premature gray giving him an air of class and wisdom Akram liked. But would Morrigan?

An unhappy Morrigan could be a troublesome bird. The woman gave merit to the mortal saying Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…or not. Irk the spunky female, and his next host might arrive missing parts no man cares to go without.

He pressed his fingers along the line of hair, tugged the tuft above his chin, turning from side to side. Maybe he should shave the hair off like always. So close to the end of their time together, perhaps it was best not to ruffle feathers.

Bugger that. If he changed nothing between now and the last host she was obligated to bring him, then nothing, in fact, would change. Akram was loath to admit his growing attachment to Morrigan, but there was something about her he’d truly miss. Why let her slip quietly from his life when everything he was screamed to rage against the loss of her?

A firm nod to his reflection, decision made, Akram turned to go dress and pack. Time was running out and the demon had much to do before his plan to win Morrigan for another fifty years could unfold.

CHAPTER TWO

After so many years together Akram had grown to abhor Morrigan dwelling in her Raven form. “Please, Morrigan. Walk at my side. When I told you I wanted to show you the city, a bird’s eye view was not what I had in mind.”

Morrigan shook herself on his shoulder, drawing the eyes of passersby in the narrow streets of Sorrento, Italy. Yet another reason Akram dreaded walking in public with the silken-feathered Raven on his shoulder. She drew far too much attention for his liking.

People, tourists mostly—not that it made a difference—seemed to take her presence as an invitation to press into him, touch him, poking their fingers at Morrigan as though she might actually hop on.

“What a beautiful bird,” one rotund, loudly dressed, big-haired woman said. American, no doubt. “Can I pet it?”

“No.”

Akram spotted a jewelry store up ahead, just beyond a fruit stand filled with oranges and bananas, lemons the size of grapefruits, and grapefruits the size of…grapefruits. The display spilled halfway across the ancient narrow street forcing him to pass nearer to humans coming the other way. He clenched his jaw, turning sideways, careful not to rub shoulders.

He stopped at the jewelry shop’s window and tipped his chin at the display of shimmering gold and flashing silver. “Walk at my side, Morrigan, and you may have your pick.”

The ink-black Raven cocked its head, its midnight eyes darting to the window, to the people walking by, to the afternoon sky overhead. After a rude-sounding caw she launched into the air, the push-off enough to rock his shoulder.

Within seconds she’d vanished above the ancient Roman rooftops.

Old fears seized Akram’s gut. He exhaled, forcing the worry from his body. She would return. Morrigan always returned. Even after he’d stopped attaching the tethers he once insisted upon in her fowl form, she stayed with him.

What choice did she have? She knew the punishment for escape. If she didn’t return he’d consume her soul, which he kept as insurance for her service. The thought pinched his chest, tightening muscles. He exhaled again, then inhaled, slowly and deliberately, trying for a single, unshaken breath.

Bother these idle thoughts and cares!

He would end her. He would. No matter how accustomed to her company he’d grown, he’d devour her soul without mercy. At least, that was the only possibility he’d allow his mind to entertain. If there was another option, his heart kept it well hidden.

Akram studied the waterfall of necklaces and bracelets, earrings and anklets, filling the deep window display. A delicate white-gold necklace in the back caught his eye. Its glittering diamond captured in a matching bird’s claw dangled at its center. The necklace would look stunning around Morrigan’s slender neck, set against her wealth of black hair, against her pale, milky skin.

He’d given her diamond earrings years ago. She wore them constantly. He read nothing into that. Though if one were to ask, it would seem to indicate, to him at least, he wasn’t so despised that his gifts were unwelcome.

The idea tickled a smile across his lips. He licked it away, cleared his throat. The point was, the necklace would go nicely with the earrings. However, the choice was hers. Whatever got Morrigan on human feet would do.

Akram rubbed the back of his neck at the base where Morrigan’s soul resided. His fingers pressed the mark indented in his flesh, tracing the twisting, intersecting lines that to the laymen might appear to be a Celtic design, the top shaped somewhat like a bird’s head.

The truth of the design was a mystery to him, a part of every Leshii demon who held rule over a Raven. Like human fingerprints, everyone has them, but why they swirl this way or that can’t be known. The Raven’s mark simply appeared in the shape it would, always at the same spot on every body he possessed, and held the soul of his Raven huntress captive until she fulfilled her duty to him.

Once she offered her replacement, the design would alter slightly to house the new Raven’s soul. The change was negligible as far as he could tell, a line twisting right, instead of left, going under one way rather than the other. It mattered not to a Leshii demon.

Akram’s finger followed the lines, knowing the intricate design of Morrigan’s soul by heart, knowing that when it changed this time…he’d notice. He forced his hand away, tugging the shoulder seams of his blue crew shirt, straightening it on his body.

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks just as the mark tingled, like a million spider feet dancing over his flesh. She was coming.

Akram turned his chin, looking down the lava-stone street. Morrigan rounded the corner, her long legs navigating her body like a boat through water. Fluid grace, precision in every move she made, aware of every inch of her long, slender body.

She was sixty-five years old chronologically, but she appeared no more than twenty-eight. And a young twenty-eight at that. Another reason her kind served so perfectly the needs of his. Akram hadn’t a clue how old he was, older than the first fall of Rome, younger than the birth of Egypt. His kind did not age. Ever.

Morrigan wore the same snug black jeans and knee-high, thick-soled boots as always. Her black T-shirt was short-sleeved this time, her only concession to the warm Mediterranean weather. She could dress herself however she chose, a perk of being a shape-shifter. Foreign objects, however, like jewelry, were incorporated into the whole when she shifted, then returned to their natural state when she shifted back.

He presumed that intergrading the additional matter wasn’t entirely pleasant, which explained why she kept so few possessions. Her bow and quiver, the knife sheaths strapped to her forearms and around her right thigh, were a part of her. She could meld them into her body at will, making them invisible when necessary. A convenient ability for airport security searches and such.

She’d used the old leather straps of her tethers to tie her long, blue-black hair at the back of her head, and he could see the earrings he’d bought her sparking on her lobes. Her onyx eyes met his and Akram warred against the sudden race of his heart, tightening his brow and forcing the corners of his lips flat.

The organ between his legs twitched and swelled, tightening the otherwise comfortable fit of his cargo shorts. About this he could do nothing. Troublesome as it was, beyond tolerance, it wasn’t the first time his host’s body responded in such a way at the sight of his Morrigan. The reflexive reaction never ceased to catch him by surprise, and it took all his will now not to reach down and relieve the strange ache.

In all his years he’d never been harassed by such a disconcerting physical response. He was spirit, animating, the host body like the hand of a puppeteer. Was the puppet master soaked through when the dummy was left in the rain? Would a tickle to the puppet’s belly bring a chuckle to the puppeteer’s lips? No. Then how to explain it? He couldn’t. No more than he could deny it.

He’d tried, with varying measures of success, but inevitably the desire would build so strongly within him it threatened to consume him as surely as his spirit consumed souls. But what to do when you cannot move, cannot think or speak, for the want of a woman who lives and breathes for the moment she can escape you? His solution still sent a mix of shivers, both repulsive and erotic at once, down his spine.

The knowledge that he’d stolen into her room while she slept, and the surety he’d do it again, twisted his gut with disgust and pulled another hard tug of arousal through his cock. In her sleep she was helpless, unaware and so sinfully compelling. Her defenses lowered in slumber, her unconscious mind untroubled by thoughts of clothes, leaving her slim female form naked for his unblinking observation. The sight pushed him to do things he still struggled to understand.

Before he could connect thought to action, his hands would move to the aching pressure of his swollen cock, stroking his sex through his slacks, wanting to touch her with it, stroke himself between her pale supple thighs. Was it wrong, perverse? He didn’t know. Couldn’t bring himself to ask.

Instead, he would brace his knees against the foot of her bed, unfastening his belt and the button beneath. The soft rip of his zipper seemed to thunder in the room, yet she never roused, never fluttered her eyes. His slacks would drop to his spread knees, his underwear he’d easily shove low enough to free the engorged organ between his legs and the oh-so-sensitive sack beneath.

His hand would tremble as he gripped the stiff cock, wagging eager and ready from his body. He’d tighten his fingers around the root, his palm warm and smooth as he stroked the shaft to the fat lip of its head. His breath would catch each time his fingers rippled over that lip, his thumb teasing over the hole at the center before drawing the sweet friction back down to its base.

The sensation was like nothing he’d ever known or imagined, agonizingly pleasurable and dangerously addictive. Each caress seemed to echo through his body, vibrating through his blood so his whole body hummed with the feel of it, wanting more. More.

He’d discovered quickly enough that the heavy sack of his testicles sent knee-weakening jolts through his body if he toyed with them as he caressed his cock. He’d become a master of the dueling actions while his mind filled with the vision of his sensual slumbering Raven. With each passing second his pumping strokes would go faster, his hand gripping tighter. He’d rock his hips with the growing rhythm, driving his cock through his hand. Thigh muscles tense, his gut pulled, his mind spinning with wicked, lurid thoughts.

Sweet Lucifer, how he longed to press his lips to Morrigan’s soft flesh, to taste her lips, to feel her puckered nipple against his tongue. She’d shift and turn in her sleep, giving him a great view of her pulpy round ass and flashing the pink glistening flesh between her legs. Akram’s muscles would snap tight at the sight. He wanted to drive his too-hard cock deep into those soft, wet folds, to possess her body like he’d never done before.

The thoughts would only add to the mounting sensation swirling through his body, pressing against his skin till it seemed if he didn’t concede to them soon, he’d be torn to bits.

His breaths would tear through his lungs, shallow and fast. Fatigue begging him to stop, but the hypnotic, electrifying feel of his hand pumping his cock wouldn’t permit it. He’d have to finish, pushing closer and closer to that distant, indescribable reward. And then suddenly he was holding back, making his needy body wait just a moment longer. Sweet, sweet denial.

Ultimately, inevitably, his focus would zero in on the sublime form of his dear Morrigan, her milky skin, her silky hair, the soft, feminine curves of her body. His restraint would falter as the rush of wants and needs bombarded his will again. His knees would buckle, thwarted by the release roaring through his body, turning his bones to rubber and staining the footboard with his host’s seed.

For hours more he’d stay there, watching her, horrified by her power over him, marveling at his want of it…of her. How had this happened? How had a powerful Leshii demon fallen so pathetically? And why didn’t he care?

Akram blinked from his thoughts, pulling a cleansing breath through his nose, clearing his mind.

“For the record,” she said the moment she was near enough. “This trip was your idea. I’m only here because I have to follow where you lead.”

Akram turned toward the window display, banishing all emotion from his expression. “Yes, Morrigan. I know you were loath to come along, as was quite evident in the way you snatched the tickets from my hand and raced down the jetway to reach your seat in hopes the plane might lift off sooner.”

“Whatever.” He caught her shrug out of the corner of his eye and felt the tug of his answering smile. He refused it, though he did enjoy proving he knew her better than she knew herself.

Morrigan knotted her arms under her breasts and shifted her weight to one narrow hip, drawing his attention back to her like a dancer on a stage.

She’d been just a slip of a girl when he’d contracted her, but over the years her body had gradually taken on the gentle swells and seductive curves of a woman. She had an athletic build, with small, but obvious breasts beneath the snug fit of her T-shirt and rounder hips, though still narrow enough for fast, fluid movement.

“What are you staring at?”

His gaze jumped to hers. An instant later, irritation at his absentminded appreciation of her form drew his brows tight. “It’s nearly seventy degrees. Must you always wear black?”

“It’s my thing,” she said. “What do you care? I look good in black.”

She did. He let the thought vanish in his mind as quickly as it had formed and pointed to the necklace he’d spotted for her earlier. “That one with the bird’s claw seems apropos.”

“It’s nice.” She shifted closer to the window and to him. His lungs gave a sharp squeeze when her shoulder brushed his, but Akram kept a stranglehold on his outward response. Her scent, fresh air and wildflowers—from time spent foraging for seed—clouded around him, unavoidable.

He breathed her in, then glanced up when their reflection in the shop window caught his attention. The breath he’d taken, her scent inside him, held. Sweet hellfire, they looked like a couple. A normal, human couple.

Akram exhaled, mesmerized by the sight of them side by side. He slipped his arm around her, cupping her small shoulder in the palm of his hand like he’d seen so many human couples do. The gesture drew her close, pressed their bodies together, her heat warming along his side. He liked it.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He flicked his gaze to hers, then nodded back toward the glass. “Look at us. We could pass as a couple.”

But she didn’t look. By their reflection he could see she was staring at him directly, and looked back to her. Akram had tried not to pay much attention to her beauty, though he was constantly aware of it. He’d reason it wasn’t unlike one might acknowledge a well-presented meal.

She was birdlike in so many ways, a slender nose with a soft point at the tip, a small bow mouth, a rounded chin and midnight-blue, almost black eyes framed in thick black lashes. There was little difference between her and any other female human or Raven he’d met.

But the way she looked at him now altered his perception. Her lids low over eyes so warmly inviting sent sudden, strange heat radiating through his veins, tightening his muscles, making his mouth go dry.

His gaze dropped to her lips, zeroing in on the delicate shine, the plump pink flesh. He leaned toward her, drawn as though she pulled him on a string.

She flinched back. “Except we’re not a couple. We can’t be. Right?”

Her brows went up. Hopeful? He couldn’t be sure and erred on the side of familiarity and reason. He dropped his arm from her shoulder, put a step of distance between them. “Right. So choose something already.”

Morrigan deflated as though she’d been holding her breath while he answered. A smile flickered across her face, more obligatory then heartfelt.

“Yeah. Well, if this is a bribe, I want to see all my options.” She slipped around behind him and glided into the store. Akram followed at her heel like one of her mindless marks.

The satisfaction that warmed through his chest as he latched the white-gold chain with the bird’s claw around her neck was worth the high price tag. He knew his little Raven so well.

“Stop it,” she said, her back to him, holding the tail of hair up and out of the way.

“Stop what?”

“That smug grin of yours.” She let her hair fall and turned, fiddling with the pendant, centering it in the little niche between her collarbones.

His fingers flexed, clenched and opened, itching to trace the ridge of skin where her delicate bones pressed, to touch the soft flesh beneath the pendant, to touch her. He shoved his hands into his pockets.

“I don’t grin,” he said, pulling his lips to a straight line, denying the expression beaming in his chest.

“Right. Your face might break. Someone might mistake you for actually having feelings. My bad.”

A single eyebrow lifted. “I have feelings.”

“Not that anyone could tell,” she said, turning to lead the way along the narrow, lava-stone street. “I don’t think I’ve ever even heard you laugh.”

“I’ve found nothing so moving to induce the emotion.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “In fifty-one years you’ve found nothing to laugh about? That’s…sad.”

He thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. “No. Not sad or humorous. It simply…is.”

“I remember thinking how morose you were when I was a girl, when we first came together,” she said, blatantly ignoring his denials. “I remember trying so hard to make you laugh.”

“Yes. I was grateful when that phase in your development passed.” He quickened his pace so their strides matched, their shoulders brushed. Why did her touch alone make his body warm and hunger for more?

She laughed softly, barely enough to shake her shoulders, but the sound rippled through him like pure honey. He glanced away to endure the effect.

“Was I really that much of a pain-in-the-ass?” she asked.

“Yes.” No.

“Right. ’Cause you were such a pleasure.” She sighed, her smile faltering. “Fifty-one years, ninety-nine souls, it’s almost over. Do you realize I’ve spent more of my life with you than I have my own family?”

“A Raven’s life is long,” he said. “You’ve many years left to enjoy.”

“Yeah, just pick up where I left off,” she said, her voice distracted as she scanned the opening street. “Easy.”

After a right turn and a small uphill grade, the street opened onto the Piazza Tasso, the main square of Sorrento. The busy square offered a breathtaking view of the sea far below, while shops and bustling outdoor cafés edged the wide street. Cars and tour buses and humming scooters whizzed by in a frenzy of traffic patterns everyone seemed to understand instinctively.

Morrigan strolled to the outer tables of a small café, her eyes enviously scanning the customers seated among the sandwich shop’s outdoor tables. A wide canvas awning shaded them from the Mediterranean sun and made for a quaint Italian scene. Akram couldn’t read her mind. He didn’t have to.

“Hungry?”

Her dark gaze swung to him, her cheeks pinking with her smile. She nodded and Akram gestured for them to enter the café seating area, enclosed by a low, wrought-iron fence.

Akram followed two steps behind, allowing her space to fully appreciate her coming surprise.

“Morrigan?” Someone said off to the side of the large seating area. “Hey, Mama Ray, it is her. Look, it’s Morrigan.”

Morrigan swung her gaze, a smile blooming across her face, lighting her from the inside out like the sun behind a wisp of cloud. Akram’s chest pinched, and he couldn’t look away. Morrigan’s flock had arrived just as he’d planned.

Bloody hell.

“Nickolas?” Morrigan narrowed her eyes. It couldn’t be true. After so many years…her family, her entire flock? Here? The group looked like a band of Gypsies filling nearly one full side of the outdoor café. All of them with dark hair and dark eyes just like her, just like all Ravens.

By the looks of their hand-sewn clothes, her family’s values hadn’t changed. They kept life simple, believing the rewards of their gift, their craft, should be savored in the moment, not hoarded for some intangible rainy day.

Which Morrigan realized now was just a nice way of saying they were perpetually broke, their bounty never lasting more than a few days. She didn’t miss that kind of constant insecurity, especially now that she knew what it was not to worry about money, food, shelter. Akram provided her with everything she could possibly need. Almost everything.

Morrigan’s belly fluttered at the thought. If not for his inability to feel, to love, Akram could make an ideal mate for a Raven. That and the fact he consumed human souls to survive.

It was Nickolas who got to his feet first, zigzagging through the crush of tables and chairs to the isle, arms wide for an embrace. The rest of the family members were close at his heels.

Arms and bodies pressed around her, hugging the breath out of her. Morrigan couldn’t stop grinning. Nickolas had started the hug fest, and he ended it, too, his arms, his strength, his scent the last to leave her.

Old Spice, summer wind and the faintest hint of sunflower—his favorite, Nickolas’s scent would be forever imprinted on her psyche. Once upon a time, when they were very, very young, she and Nickolas had promised to love each other forever. And then Akram took her away.

The memory pinched her chest, but Morrigan banished it with a deep breath. Akram wasn’t what she’d thought back then, wasn’t what she’d thought last year. There was more to him than his self-serving demands. Morrigan just wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with that information.

She stepped from Nickolas’s arms, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, straightening her hug-wrinkled shirt. “What are you all doing here? How’d you get here?”

“We flew,” a young girl said, sashaying up to Nickolas, her full, wine-colored lips making her innocent smile just shy of sexy. “On an air-o-plane.”

Morrigan’s belly twisted, her vision going green. “Who’s this?” she asked Nickolas, forcing a smile with clenched teeth.

“That’s Sophia. My daughter. Your niece.” Morrigan hadn’t even noticed her big sister until she spoke, standing behind their mother. “She’s fourteen.”

“Fourteen,” Morrigan repeated, more to herself than anyone. The same age she’d been when she was taken from her family.

Gut instincts washed an icy chill down her spine. “How did you afford the plane tickets?”

“Morrigan,” Akram said before anyone could answer. “Will you not introduce me? Let’s start with this young gentlemen here. He looks particularly happy to see you.”

Morrigan turned to face Akram, his hands casually pressed into the front pockets of his slacks, his golden eyes hidden behind his dark sunglasses. His smile was a poor imitation. She’d seen it before. There was nothing warm or humorous about it. Despite the dark glasses Akram’s expression was cold as stone.

Nickolas stepped beside her, the feel of his arm sliding around her shoulders so familiar even after so many years. “I’m Nickolas, of the Crete flock. A very close childhood friend of Morrigan’s. And who might you be?”

Akram gave a gracious bow, very old world, very cold. “I am Akram. Morrigan is my honored companion.”

Nickolas stiffened against her, his arm hugging her more tightly.

“Akram?” young Sofia said. “But that was the name on the envelope. Wasn’t it, Nickolas?”

Nickolas gave a single nod. “It was.”

“Envelope?” Morrigan asked.

“We got an envelope, hand-delivered. Tickets and cash inside,” Nickolas said, his dark eyes steady on Akram. Akram held his chilling smile. “The only other thing in the envelope was a note. It said if we ever wanted to see you again, we should come here. Today.”

In a flash, puzzle pieces clicked into place. One hundred souls and one Raven to succeed her. Morrigan was one soul away from completing her duty to the demon.

And he was one step closer to choosing her replacement.

CHAPTER THREE

“So that’s him?” Nickolas asked, his arm around her shoulders as they walked. “He’s handsome.”

“Ya think?” Morrigan said. “Thanks. I picked the body.”

“You always choose handsome hosts for him?” The corners of his eyes tightened, lines deepened beneath the thick waves of his bangs. “Must make the sex interesting. A different lover every…” He looked at her. “How many months?”

“What? No.” Morrigan flicked her gaze from Nickolas to Akram, walking ahead of them next to Mama Ray. “I’m his huntress. I don’t give a crap what his hosts look like. We’re not lovers.”

Nickolas raised his chin. “Right. Fifty years and he never took advantage of his power over you? Never indulged his needs with his pretty, caged Raven?”

Morrigan shrugged from his arm. “No. He’s got my soul held prisoner. He could devour it at any time. I am not screwing him.”

Her belly rolled. It sounded so wrong to her ears, so perverse. How could she ever entertain the thought of making love to Akram? And how could she ever explain why she so often thought of doing exactly that?

Nickolas reached for her, tucking her under his arm again, their strides never broken. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It’s just something that’s been on my mind lately. I should’ve trusted that you’d stay faithful to me, even after all these years with that…man.”

Morrigan swallowed hard, then licked her lips. “Faithful?” she asked, her gaze flicking from the lava-stone street to Nickolas and back again.

“Well, yeah. Don’t you remember? We promised to get married one day.” There was something about his smile, a tensing in the muscles of his cheek, a cold glare in his eyes. Morrigan fought not to shiver at it.

He swung his gaze ahead of them, watching their flock, watching Akram. The group walked on, unaware, toward the beach and the bonfire Akram had planned for them. “How close are you to finishing up your service to him? One, maybe two souls, right? I was just thinking ahead. You know, wondering if you’ll be wearing white when you walk down the aisle.”

She laughed, her nerves keeping the sound strangely humorless. “Nickolas, I’m sixty-five years old.”

His dark gaze swung to her. “Yes?”

“I’m…I mean, you can’t expect that I…I’m not a virgin.”

He dropped his arm from her shoulders, slipped his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “So you are his lover.”

“No. He’s not the only man I’ve encountered over the years.”

“Your demon master gave you time off to go screw?” Nickolas’s tone was sharp as a razor, but its cuts exposed his own pain.

She stopped, knotted her arms under her chest. There was no reason she should have to explain or defend her actions during her enslavement, but she cared about Nickolas. If she could endure all she had for the demon, she could endure this small humiliation for Nickolas.

“It was a long time ago,” she said, Nickolas standing stiffly beside her. “Nothing came of it. I just needed to connect with another human being, someone who could feel and show emotion. I was…lonely.”

Nickolas exhaled through his nose, his lips sealed tight, turning white around the edges. He shook his head, glanced at his feet and then up toward their family as the distance between them grew. “How long did it go on?”

“A few months,” she said. “Akram doesn’t stay in one place long. He can’t risk that someone might discover the possession. Though I’m always careful to choose hosts who have little or no family and friends. When we moved on, I never saw him again.”

Nickolas nodded, shifting his gaze to his feet again. “Any others?”

“No.” She’d learned her lesson with David. It wasn’t not easy being a lover to a Raven. The need to be free, to roam where her instincts urged her, was difficult to explain to a human who wanted to put down roots. Hiding her need to indulge in her gifts, to relieve the foolhardy of their pretty, shiny things, was an obstacle she hadn’t even tried to overcome with him.

At least with Akram she could be who she was, what she was, and he wanted her, anyway. He wanted her despite her flaws…or because of them. The thought warmed through her mind.

“It took time to get used to having only Akram in my life. David was one last attempt at resisting my fate,” she said. “It was a mistake. The relationship couldn’t work.”

Nickolas nodded, his face still tight, but softening by small measures. “It’s okay. I…I can forgive you.”

The knot in her shoulders eased with her exhalation. She hadn’t even realized she’d been holding her breath. “I’m sorry, Nick. I never imagined you’d save yourself for me. That’s…that’s just amazing.”

She wanted to be grateful, to be overwhelmed by his gesture of chastity. But even though much of Nickolas was familiar, his scent, his voice, the way one side of his mouth rose higher than the other when he smiled. It’d been so long since she’d last seen him, the man he’d become was virtually a stranger to her.

“Morrigan,” he said, a strange smile flickering across his lips. “I’m a man. I’ve been with dozens of women. You can’t possibly expect me to have endured a cold bed with so many eager to warm it.”

“Then what’s with the indignation at the possibility I’d done the same?” She could hardly breathe around her outrage. “You think there weren’t men eager to warm my bed?”

“No doubt. But you’re a woman, Morrigan. Your bed is for your husband alone.”

She blinked at him, her mouth agape. This was the life she’d longed to return to? This was the belief system she’d cried for night after night for years?

“What kind of logic is that? What kind of woman would accept such a double standard?” She’d always seen her time with Akram as an imprisonment, though she’d grown accustomed to it, even comfortable. Now looking back on their years together, compared to the life she’d lead with her flock when Akram let her go, she realized she would always be held captive, and only the jailer would change.

“It’s our way. It always has been. It’s better than whatever you’ve got going with that demon,” Nickolas said, his disgust curling his lip. “Bringing him victims to murder.”

“Some people deserve to die,” Morrigan said. “Akram’s not very picky. Being demon food is almost too good for some of them. Child molesters, killers, rapists…”

“You like being his huntress?” Nickolas asked.

“No. I mean…he can’t help what he is. He had to choose someone. Liking it, him, or not has nothing to do with it. Because of my enslavement to him, the rest of you will never be culled by a Leshii demon. I was payment. The flock sacrificed me to save themselves.”

She’d never said it out loud, and the moment she did she wished she could take it back. Never mind it was the truth. She sucked in a quick breath, held it, waiting for his response.

Nickolas stared at her for what seemed an eternity, then shook his head. He glanced at their family nearly all the way down to the beach now, then back to her. “I swear to you, Morrigan, none of us saw it that way. I hate that you’ve been gone so long, that you’ve been with him, but I never once imagined you were suffering.”

“Not suffering. I didn’t say that.” After all, she’d wanted for nothing, save emotional contact, during her time with Akram. He was never abusive, never caused her harm in any way. She was lonely, hurt by her family’s abandonment and consumed with guilt over using her powers to bring harm—even to those who may have deserved it.

“If I’d known,” he said, as though he hadn’t heard her. His mouth was tight again, the lips going white, his hands balling to fists. “I should’ve known. We all should’ve known. But don’t worry. You won’t suffer another second at the hands of that bastard demon. It stops here. Now. I’ll find a way.”

Morrigan was never so happy to have the long, uncomfortable evening at an end. She collapsed onto the French antique love seat in the suite Akram had procured for them. Two rooms, both extravagantly furnished, with king beds, thick mattresses, clean sheets, heavy comforters and piles and piles of plump pillows each.

An absent thought went to her family, sleeping in their moth-vented tents on the beach. All of them crowded beneath smelly old blankets, people wedged side by side to fit as many as possible.

Campfire smoke scented their hair and clothes, and there was a time Morrigan had thought the closeness comforting, the smells endearing, the financial uncertainty exciting. No more. A shudder rocked across her shoulders and she pushed the image from her mind.

It wasn’t just the tension pressing between Nickolas and Akram that’d made the evening an exhausting experience. It was Morrigan herself. She’d spent too many of her years with Akram trying to forget what it was like to be with her flock, refusing to indulge in the heartache of missing her family. It seemed she’d succeeded.

She thought she hadn’t changed, that time had stood still for her. It hadn’t. She wasn’t the girl Akram had plucked from the fold all those years ago. And they weren’t the people she remembered, the people she thought they were. She loved them dearly, but she didn’t fit in their world anymore. For so many years she knew she’d go home one day, but now she realized when her time with Akram was done, it was home she’d be leaving behind.

Akram leaned a shoulder against the wall next to the doorway that joined their rooms. She showed no signs of having heard him. Why would she? Morrigan was lost in thought.

About what? he wondered. Her young Raven lover? Akram’s jaw tightened, muscles in his gut clenched.

“Why so pensive?” he asked, fighting the acidic notions that threatened to color his tone.

Morrigan flicked her gaze to him, forced a smile that never quite reached her eyes. “Nothing. Tonight…wasn’t what I expected.”

He pushed off with his shoulder and crossed the room to her, settling on the sofa beside her. “You and the young male Raven have a lovers’ spat?”

Morrigan met his gaze, her dark brow knotting. A curious smile flickered across her lips as though she thought he might be joking. Akram didn’t joke.

“No,” she said. “Well, yes, but… We’re not lovers. We were close when we were kids. He’s just having problems accepting that I’m not the same girl he knew all those years ago.”

“He’s angry that I’ve kept you from him so long,” Akram said. The young man had spent the evening puffing out his chest and taking exception to everything Akram did or said. He’d been looking for excuses and Akram had had half a mind to give him one.

Killing the young upstart would gain him nothing, though. He feared that Morrigan, too, was forever on the prowl for a reason to despise him, to deny these inexplicable sensations swirling between them like a mighty storm on the horizon.

Akram couldn’t name them, wouldn’t name them. But he couldn’t deny them, either. And despite his supreme Leshii intellect and all he knew to be of worth or merit, he could not bear the thought of never again feeling the way he did when she was near.

“Nickolas thinks I’m suffering at your hand. He can’t believe I haven’t been pining away for him all these years,” she said. “And yeah, he doesn’t like you much.”

“Suffering? Is it such a hardship being my companion, my huntress?” His chest squeezed, his lungs holding his breath as he waited for her reply.

“Yes,” she said, and the single word stabbed through his heart. He looked away, his eyes strangely hot, swimming with a sensation he didn’t know, didn’t like.

“I mean, it was hard…at first,” she said. He felt her shift beside him on the couch. The heat of her thigh pressed against his, her small hand smoothed across his shoulders. “I was young, I missed my family. And I felt so guilty about using my gifts to lure people to their deaths.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “You harm no one, Morrigan. The damage is mine.”

“But I make it possible.”

“You make it easier. I would feed no matter what. I must.” He turned, took her hands in his. “Without you I would take what I could, where I could, with no thought to their crimes or innocence. By hunting for me, choosing for me, you save people, good people…you save me.”

Her dark eyes held his for a moment, then shifted to his lips and back again. “I know that…now.”

The dark, sultry look in her eyes sent a quick jolt sizzling through his body. Akram blinked at the sensation, noting the need hardening between his thighs, the excitement tensing through his muscles. This was not his body, but it was his thoughts, his wants and desires, that ruled the physical form.

He marveled at the fine attunement between mind, body and soul…until Morrigan reached up and cupped his face. The soft heat of her touch stole all coherent thought in an instant. His hand covered hers, his gaze tracking the sweep of her tongue across her lips.

“I am saved by you, Morrigan,” he said, slowly closing the distance between them. “I will be undone without you.”

Morrigan lifted her chin, pressed her lips to his. The heat of that simple touch ignited a firestorm inside him, burning through his veins, snapping muscles tight, swirling like a fever through his mind.

Akram let go the demon intellect and gave free rein to his spirit’s desire. He ignored the small voice in his conscience that complained such wants, such deeds, were frivolous, useless to his survival and therefore a waste of his time. He wanted this. Some part of him, some part of his spirit, wanted her—always had.

He pulled Morrigan’s slender body to his, looped an arm under her legs, the other around her back. He stood cradling her, with the ease and grace of his demon nature, taking her to the waiting bed.

Akram laid her down atop the thick comforters, and Morrigan squirmed as she willed her body to shift, to absorb her clothes so all that remained on her naked body were the earrings and necklace he’d bought her.

His gaze traveled the length of her, from the delicate line of her shoulders to the teardrop swells of her breasts, to the slopping plain of her belly and the small triangle of dark hair between her thighs. His lungs closed, his body growing so hard the sensation became an odd mix of pain and pleasure.

“Come to me, Akram,” she said. And something wholly different chilled through his veins.

Akram met her gaze, the icy freeze of fear stiffening down his spine. “You understand, Morrigan, this is not my natural form. This act…intercourse…is not an instinct common to my kind.”

She pushed up on her elbows. “You’re a virgin?”

He nodded, a sickening weight settling in his gut with the admission. There was no reason to be ashamed, he knew, but his intellect was no longer ruling his body.

Morrigan smiled, but there was no mockery in the expression, just simple pleasure. “Undress.”

Akram moved quickly, shedding his shirt, his leather loafers, his slacks and underwear, kicking them thoughtlessly to a pile at the corner of the bed. He stood naked before her, awaiting her next request, his body hard and eager.

She held out a hand and he took it, allowing her to coax him onto the bed beside her. She lay back on the pillow, placing his hand on her breast. Her warm female flesh molded against his palm, her nipple puckering, the sensation triggering a fast answering response in his body.

He squeezed, marveling at the feel of her, then moved his hand to take her breast into his mouth. Desire took hold, blocking the part of his mind that questioned his actions, made him hesitate. This was not the first woman this body had touched; what Akram’s spirit didn’t know, the body did.

His hands smoothed over the velvet-soft flesh of her chest, to her belly, then lower to the thatch of curls between her thighs. Her heat warmed his fingers as he pressed between the lips of her sex, the wet feel of her readiness pulsing a sudden, sharp need through his groin.

Release teased along every inch of his skin, every touch, every breath pushing him to give way to some strange blissful relief. He wouldn’t. Not yet. He wanted to know the feel of her, to bury his body inside hers, to possess her in a way he’d never possessed a body before. He couldn’t breathe. His jaw was clenched, breaths squeezing from his lungs.

“Had I more experience I would strive to endure this maddening pleasure,” he said, shifting his body on top of hers, nestling his legs between hers. “But if I don’t take you now, all will be lost upon the sheets.”

“Right. Absolutely. Next time we’ll go slower,” she said, her voice breathy, her hands gasping his waist, centering him above her.

The hard shaft of his sex pressed against her heat. He rocked his hips, drove himself deep. Morrigan moaned, her back arching, her body opening to him, taking him deeper. The silky walls of her sex hugged him, milked the sensitive flesh of his penis so every move, every breath, sent a mind-numbing wave of pleasure rippling through his body.

Sensation hummed along his skin like an electric current, tightening muscles, coiling low in his groin. He pulled back, dragging out the sweet friction of their bodies, then drove into her again…and again…

The pace quickened, though Akram’s mind was lost, his body working on pure pleasure response. His skin tingled with each stroke of his body in hers, his muscles coiling, pressure building. He dropped his gaze, caught the look in Morrigan’s eyes, vulnerability, trust, contentment. Beautiful. Hell’s bells, he loved her. He loved her.

The thought echoed through his mind, rippled like a tangible thing through his veins. It tipped the scales within him, his body coalescing with his mind and spirit, melding into one perfect, pristine being and spilling him over into the abyss.

Her body quaked around him, his release triggering hers. He lay atop her, her arms and legs wrapped tight around him, hugging him. He turned his head, nuzzled through her thick, silky fall of hair and kissed her neck.

He sighed and spoke against the sweet feel of her flesh. “The feel of you is such sweet sorrow. To finally know you in this way when our time grows so quickly to an end is indeed as much a gift as a torment.”

“Some of the most important lessons in life are the hardest learned,” she said.

“Yes. Had I known this bliss with my last Raven I would not have waited so long to share it with you,” he said. “I will not make the same mistake again.”

Her body stiffened beneath him, setting warning bells blaring through Akram’s mind. It did him no good.

“Get off me, demon,” she said. “Get off me, now.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Akram did a slow blink as though he was trying to understand something profoundly complicated. Morrigan didn’t care. She pushed his shoulders and the demon helped by rolling to her side, their bodies parting. Morrigan rolled the opposite way and she got to her feet beside the bed. With an easy thought she shifted, bringing forth her black T-shirt, black jeans and boots, along with her standard weapons.

“You’re thinking of your next Raven…now?” she asked.

Akram’s glazed confusion cleared. He sat straight, his arm relaxed across his lap, casually blocking her view of his sex. Morrigan gave herself a mental slap when she realized she’d been looking.

“I must be prepared, Morrigan. If you have a suggestion that would mitigate the need, please tell me,” he said.

Her mouth opened to speak, but she snapped it closed. What was she going to suggest? That he not take another Raven after her? That he allow himself to die because she couldn’t stand the thought he’d have this closeness with another woman?

“You’ve already chosen, haven’t you,” she said, instead.

Akram swung his feet to the side of the bed and stood. “I have,” he said, gathering his clothes.

Morrigan swallowed the tightness in her chest and throat when he pulled his BVDs over the firm round of his bottom. Akram’s spirit did wonderful things for the male form.

“Tell me who,” she said, though the twist in her belly told her she already knew the answer.

“Sophia,” he said, pulling his slacks to his hips. He tugged the blue crew shirt over his head before he finished fastening his pants, casually tucking in the shirt.

“She’s only fourteen.”

“As were you,” he said. “She’s eager and well skilled in the hunt, as all the women in your line have been.”

“Eager? Only because she hasn’t got a clue what it’ll be like, leaving her family, being cut off from all she knows, using her gifts to help end lives—”

“To bring justice to those who’ve escaped it.” Akram corrected.

“It doesn’t matter.” Morrigan’s stomach churned. A sick weight settled in its pit.

“Was your time with me so miserable?” he asked, the look in his golden eyes almost pained.

She knew he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. Akram was a Leshii demon. He felt for—cared for—nothing but himself, his own wants and needs. Why would he bother asking if she was happy or miserable? Though it wasn’t the first time he’d asked.

“That’s not the point,” she said, evading the question. It should’ve been an easy answer. Yes, it’s been miserable.

But now that she’d seen the truth of her past and future, instead of the wistful fantasy her lonely heart had designed, the answer wasn’t so easy. It was her longing for what she thought she’d lost that made her so impatient and unforgiving of her time with Akram. And now that she knew she’d been longing for a life that never existed, her perspective on the past fifty years was changing.

She shook her head. Akram was a demon. He consumed human souls to survive. He was heartless, self-centered and unfeeling. None of their time together mattered to him. They’d made love moments ago and he was already moving on, choosing another to take her place before their time had even ended.

Morrigan’s chest pinched with every heartbeat, made it hard to breathe. Whatever the past fifty years truly meant for her, it clearly wasn’t the same for the demon. She couldn’t let the same thing happen to Sophia. She couldn’t allow her little niece to make the same heart-wrenching mistakes she had.

“I won’t let you do this, Akram,” she said, rounding the bed and heading to the double French doors that led out onto the balcony. She flung the doors open.

“Where are you going, Raven?”

“To put my niece, and everyone else I care about, out of your reach.” She willed her body to change, holding the image of her Raven form in her mind as she took three long strides and leaped over the thick wood railing.

Pain rolled through her like a giant hand squeezing toothpaste from the tube. She was the tube and her Raven form was the toothpaste. Her breath caught in her throat, choked back the scream that always threatened when she shifted. Bones snapped, reshaped, organs shrinking, the pores of her skin sprouting feathers.

The ground fell away and the night air rushed around her body, ruffling her wings, lifting her up, up.

“I have your soul, Morrigan. It is mine until the last host is delivered,” Akram called after her. She looked down and saw him step out onto the balcony, watching her escape. “Do not make me take you that way, Morrigan. I will devour you. I will.”

You already consumed me—body, heart and soul. She flapped her wings and kept going.

“What’re you doing here, demon?” Nickolas stepped from a dark alcove to block Akram’s way down the hall.

“Where’s Morrigan?” He truly did not have time or patience to deal with petty jealousy.

“Morrigan? Far away from you, I hope. Serves you right,” he said, his top lip curling in a sneer. “Can’t keep a woman who was never meant to be yours in the first place. Morrigan belongs with us. She’s mine.”

Anger bolted up Akram’s spine like hot lava, turning his vision red. Never in all his years had he bothered with such useless sentiments, but lately they seemed to hit him in waves. “Morrigan was mine for fifty years, in every sense of the word. We were together longer than most mortal couples, each of us utterly responsible for and dependent on the other’s survival. And yes, soon her duty to me will be at an end. She will leave me to return to her family…to you. So do not bother me with your indignation. I assure you, I will suffer justly in the end.”

Nickolas snorted. “Says you.”

Akram glanced at the dark alcove Nickolas had been hiding in. The ice machine clunked, a fresh shower of cubes rained down into the open bin. Akram shifted his notice to the bucket resting on Nickolas’s hip under his arm.

Morrigan didn’t know he’d put up her family in a local hotel. Perhaps she was still searching the beach for their tents. He still had time, but not much. Morrigan had a quick mind, and a bird had an instinct to help it find its flock.

He had no doubt Morrigan was good for her word. If he wanted to live a moment longer than his host, he needed to make sure his future would play out the way he planned. If things didn’t work as he hoped, that single moment would be an eternity too long. “Fetch me the girl, Sophia. Tell her parents it is time.”

“What? Why? Morrigan is still your huntress. She told me so. You can’t take Sophia, too,” Nickolas said.

“I can do what I damn well like, Raven. Now do as I say and bring me the girl.” Muscles tightened, his heart ratcheting up a beat, pressure quickly building, so he could scarcely breathe. Akram clenched his jaw, fisting his hands, trying hard to keep the swell of emotions in check.

“Wrong answer, demon. You’re days of ruling us and stealing our women are over. It ends here, now, tonight.” Nickolas dropped the ice bucket, reaching behind his back at the same time. His stance widened, lowered, a knife flashed in his grip. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Clearly.”

The young upstart lunged at him, swiping the blade past Akram’s chest, almost nicking the side of his neck as he turned. “You mean to kill me, Raven?”

“Yeah,” Nickolas said and lunged again, slicing the air near Akram’s side. Metal met cloth and flesh, pain seared through his veins, screamed in his head. Akram ignored it.

“You fool. I am spirit. Incorporeal. This body is not my own,” Akram said. “You can’t kill me. Nothing can.”

“We’ll see about that.” Again Nickolas jabbed the blade at Akram, the two of them dancing in circles in the narrow hotel hallway.

Akram jumped back, missing the blade but slamming his back hard against the wall. The air gushed out of his lungs. He recovered just in time to dart sideways, dodging yet another attack.

With each miss Nickolas grew more crazed, more determined, his face red, veins bulging on his neck and forehead. Muscles tensed along his arms, his legs trembling with his anger. This was the man Morrigan would leave him for? This was the man who would have her, love her, be loved by her, until the end of her days? It wasn’t fair.

It’s not bloody fair.

A sudden swing of his arm and Nickolas’s knife slit Akram’s chest. Akram glanced down at the damage, the line of dark red blood already staining through his torn shirt. Pain roared through his body. It meant nothing. How had the dim-witted Raven done it? Akram was faster than a flash of light, swifter than the wind. How?

He looked up into Nickolas’s face in time to see the blade slicing toward his throat. Time slowed. Akram blinked. He knew. This was what he wanted. How it had to be. And then the knife slit through his flesh, spilling a rush of blood, hot and wet down his chest.

Nickolas wasn’t done. He’d turned giddy with his success, ramming his knife with manic glee up beneath the protective ledge of his sternum. The knife pierced Akram’s heart and Nickolas twisted the blade, slicing muscle, severing his artery. Like the intruder he was inside his body, Akram watched it happen.

Akram’s spirit could restore youth and vitality, could heal deformities and set back the damage of cancer and other terminal illnesses. But the body, no matter what, needed its blood. For that there was no substitute. This body was now beyond his repair.

For a moment, eons of survival instinct swirled to the surface and demanded he let go of the ruined body. His gaze riveted on Nickolas, seeing only the healthy soul and the body he needed. He could take him, possess him, with no effort at all.

Akram swallowed back the thought. Morrigan would never forgive him. She cared for this man, for her family. They were dear to her and she was dear to him. He wouldn’t take any as a host. Not even to save himself. Akram held on, hunkered down, refusing to be turned from his path.

He’d lied. He, Akram, could die…if he chose. All he had to do was let the death of the host take him, too.

The hall grew darker and Akram felt his body slide down the wall until he crumpled on the floor. Nickolas stood over him, his arm bloodied to the elbow, the knife fisted in his hand. Akram closed his eyes.

“Nickolas,” a girl’s voice said. “What’ve you done?”

And then the world went silent.

CHAPTER FIVE

“He can’t take her,” Morrigan said. “I’m still his huntress.” Her gaze moved from face to face around the hotel room. From her sister and her husband at the table, clinging to each other, cheeks blotchy, tearstained, to Nickolas, slouched on the edge of the bed.

He shrugged. “Maybe he’s freed your soul and you just don’t know it.”

“Don’t be stupid, Nickolas. You think I wouldn’t feel if my soul had returned?”

He shook his head, his gaze on the carpet. “Didn’t say it returned. Said he might’ve freed it. If you want him to have it, then it’s his whether he holds on to it or not.”

Her breath came out in a half laugh, half scoff. “Right. Like that’s what happened.” Never mind it was true. She’d given him her heart. Why not her soul, as well? She shook her head. “No. He told me Sophia would take my place. Something must’ve happened to force his hand.”

Nickolas looked away, rubbing his hand over his forearm, nervous.

“Nick, you said you saw him take her,” she said. “Did he say anything? Did he look…I don’t know, distressed?”

The look in Akram’s golden eyes standing on that balcony as she flew away into the night flashed through her mind. Anger, panic, pain, he was desperate to stop her. Or was he just desperate? Had he taken Sophia so when he consumed Morrigan’s soul he wouldn’t be without a huntress? It’d be typical behavior for a Leshii demon. But was Akram a typical Leshii?

Morrigan’s gut went cold, a heavy block of ice weighing in the pit of her stomach. She watched Nickolas’s face, hoping he’d tell her there was another reason. Hoping he’d say Akram had done something, said something that would explain.

Nickolas shook his head. “No. He just said it was time.”

The words echoed through her mind. The same words Akram had used fifty-one years earlier. He meant to take Sophia as his huntress, just as he’d done her. Just as he’d done to the Raven before her and the Raven before her and on and on into the dark, distant past.

Bastard. How had she let herself fall for such a self-centered fiend? Was this all her fault? Had she given Akram more credit than he deserved, hoped he was more than she knew he was? He’d never pretended to be anything more than a soul-eating demon. He’d never done a single thing that didn’t serve him in some way—even the pleasure of sex was a two-way street. Had her lonely heart twisted his actions, given him emotions, sentimental motives where there’d been only self-preservation?

She had to stop him. She couldn’t allow her confused heart to cloud her judgment any longer. No matter what he’d do to her, to her soul, she couldn’t let the demon wreak havoc on another young girl’s life, on her heart.

Nickolas was right. Their flock’s service to this demon had to end and Morrigan knew exactly how to do it. Her gaze flicked to her sister. “I know where he’s taken Sophia. I’ll get her back, but then you have take her and the rest of the flock out of here. Get as far away as you can and don’t let anyone know where you’re going.”

Her sister stood, still holding her husband’s hands, her face tight with pain and worry. “What about you? Your duty is nearly finished.”

Morrigan owed him one last soul, one last host. He already had her soul hostage. She’d force him to take her body, as well. Once inside her she’d end them both before he had a chance to escape.

Morrigan turned and headed for the door. “Don’t wait for me. I won’t be going with you. I won’t be going anywhere.”

“Where is she, demon?”

Akram didn’t turn around at the sound of Morrigan’s voice. He couldn’t. He hadn’t the energy left to him.

Worry eased from his shoulders like an icy chill chased away by a warm bath. He thought he’d overplayed his hand, allowed too much of the host’s lifeblood to escape the body. He thought he wouldn’t last to see her one last time.

Akram sank a little deeper into the high-backed Victorian armchair. He faced the balcony, purposely hiding a clear view of himself from the door where Morrigan stood.

“Morrigan, you’re here. Thank goodness.” Sophia rushed from the bathroom, where she’d gone for the third time to wet a washcloth or bring a dry one. She, silly bird, had been frantic to save Akram.

“Sophia. I want you to leave—now,” Morrigan said.

Sophia knelt in front of Akram, gingerly removing the soaked cloth from his neck and replacing it with the dry one she’d brought. Morrigan stepped around beside her and for the first time saw the state into which Akram had allowed himself to slip.

“What the hell?”

Sophia shook her head, her brows tight. “I know. It’s bad. The bleeding’s almost stopped, but he won’t leave the host for the new one I brought him.”

She tipped her chin to the young boy, no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, who sat at the small table, stupefied by her magic Raven arrow.

Morrigan followed her gesture and seemed only then to have noticed the boy. “He’s a child,” she said. “And what are you doing bringing him hosts?”

Sophia shrugged, dabbing the gash on Akram’s neck. “I figured if I’m going to be his new huntress, it’d be cool if we were closer in age.”

“He’s more than one thousand years old,” Morrigan said.

Sophia glanced over her shoulder at her, glaring. “I know. But you weren’t here and as you can see, he needs a new host.”

Morrigan sighed, crossing her arms under her chest and shifting her weight to one hip. “Go home, Sophia.”

“What? No.” The young Raven slouched back from him, twisting to see her aunt behind her. “He wants me here.”

“Sophia, if you’re really supposed to be the next huntress, trust me, you want to take time to say your goodbyes,” Morrigan said. “Now, go. Go!”

Sophia startled at her raised tone, but didn’t budge.

Akram mustered his last bit of strength to nudge her with his knee. “Leave, you daft little bird. You were only bait. You’ve lured my huntress back to me. You’re service is complete. Now go back to your flock.”

“Bait? That sucks,” Sophia said, her teenage voice full of whine and sarcasm. She threw the bloodied washcloth at his feet in disgust. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll be back in a little while, anyway. He needs a host and as soon as you snag him one, you’ll be done. Then it’s my turn to live like a queen, never wanting for anything.”

Morrigan closed her eyes, shook her head. “Except everything you gave up to get it. Just get out of here, Sophia.”

The young Raven got to her feet and headed for the open balcony. She began shifting with each stride, and by the time she leaped from the railing she was fully in bird form.

“What the hell are you doing?” Morrigan asked him the moment her niece was out of earshot.

“I’m dying,” he said, though his voice was raw, almost too soft to hear.

“Right.”

He glanced at the boy. “Send him away.”

Morrigan crossed the small distance. She snapped her fingers inches from the boy’s nose, then lightly slapped his cheeks until he came to his senses. “Get out.”

Eyes wide and still a little foggy, the young man didn’t ask questions. He ran for the door, slamming it closed behind him.

Morrigan came back to stand in front of Akram. “I’ve got your next host. My last body and soul to bring you.”

“Where?”

“Here.” She drew her knife from its sheath on her thigh. “Me. You can take this body. You’ve already got my soul. Eat it. Do what you will to my body.”

What was she playing at? “Tempting thought, having your body to do with as I like. But you’ll die in the end,” he said.

“Yeah. I know. C’mon, you haven’t got much time left in that host. Let it go. Take me.”

“But, Morrigan, if I possess your body, won’t you kill us both with that knife?” he said, his inhale wrenching a hacking cough from his tightening lungs.

Morrigan blinked, surprise flashing through her dark eyes before she reeled it in. She stiffened, confidence returning with her steely determination. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t really have a choice, do you? I’m not finding you another host. It’s me or nothing.”

“Let me guess,” he said, ignoring the searing burn each breath brought to his throat. “Instead of wasting your last fight trying to cast me out like most souls do, you plan to hold on and pull me with you into death?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe I just want to end my life. Maybe being your food is my way of making up for all the lives I helped you take the same way. Or maybe I’d rather be demon food than be alone in the world surrounded by family and friends who’ll never understand me.” She glanced away, her dark eyes glistening wet. She looked in his eyes again and pointed at her chest. “You’ll have come in here and find out.”

The smile that bloomed across his lips was born of pride and an utter lack of strength or will to suppress it. “You are a clever bird. Loving you was inevitable,” he said, ripping another painful round of coughs from his throat.

“What? What’re you saying?”

“There’s no need to sacrifice yourself,” Akram said. “I’m leaving with this host. I forgive your last debt to me. You’re free.” The back of his neck tingled like a million tiny pins, heated white hot, prickling over his skin. Her soul left him in a blaze and for the first time there was no cooling breeze of a new soul taking its place.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Search your heart, Morrigan. You’ll find your soul is yours again. It’s done,” he said.

“What about Sophia?” A tear shimmered down her pale cheek. Her chin quivered.

“As I said, she was merely a means to see you one last time. I have no desire for another huntress. I want only you. And you…are lost to me. I cannot bind you again. A Raven serves but once.”

“But you don’t have to die,” she said. “You can hunt your own hosts.”

“I am a Leshii demon. I function without emotion. You’ve ruined me, Raven Morrigan. You’ve made me love,” he said, his smile warming his chest even as his lungs struggled to breathe. “Thank you.”

“Why are you doing this? What do you get from dying?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why?”

“To survive is not the same as living. To live I must take a huntress and that would cause us both pain. I don’t wish to cause you any more pain, Morrigan.”

“A selfless act?” she asked.

He laughed and the pain it sent roaring through his chest, burning into his lungs and tearing at his flesh, nearly ended him. He gasped for breath, swallowed hard.

Morrigan began to pace in front of him, even as his vision grew dark and his breaths became more and more shallow.

“Damnit, Akram. You always think you know me better than I know myself. You’re so sure you know what I want better than I do. Men. You’re not always right, you know.”

He wanted to argue, but his eyes were simply too heavy to keep from closing, and forcing his lungs open again took everything he had. The room went silent.

“Take him, Akram.” Morrigan shook the host’s shoulder, refusing to believe it was too late, that she’d taken too long flying out to the hospital for the criminally insane and back again with a new host. Akram was still in there. He had to be.

The demon’s eyes fluttered, the golden color so faint she could hardly see it. She made the hulking body of the murderer kneel before Akram’s chair, pushed his shoulder so he leaned in, ready for the kiss. The blackguard had used an insanity plea to avoid the death sentence.

Morrigan was happy to give him another way to make amends for his crimes. “Please, Akram. Take this host.”

Akram’s brow furrowed. He tried to shake his head, but couldn’t seem to even manage that.

“I’m staying,” she said.

His mouth moved to form the words “You’re free,” though he made no sound.

“I know. And with this soul, my duty to you is fulfilled,” she said. “I’m still staying. That’s what love is, Akram. Staying because you want to, not because you have to and putting the other’s needs above your own.”

Akram’s brow creased, his dull eyes studying her. His gaze shifted to the stupefied new host and he lifted his chin as though he’d take the kiss. Morrigan pushed the new host closer until their mouths touched. It took only a moment. Akram’s lips broke the kiss an instant before the old body disintegrated.

Morrigan’s gaze shifted automatically to the back of Akram’s new neck. The sight of smooth, freckled flesh beneath the short line of hair brought a smile to her lips. No Raven mark. A tension she hadn’t known was there eased from her shoulders.

Akram got to his feet, his hands smoothing down his chest, straightening the gray hospital shirt. He tugged the elastic band of his matching pants, turning to face her, shying from her steady gaze.

“You’ll stay?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why did you free me before I’d fulfilled my duty?”

“Love?” He made it a question.

His uncertainty brought a smile to her lips. “You’ve got a lot to learn about emotions. Love’s the easy answer. The hard part is going to be figuring out which one of us calls the shots now.”

Akram laughed. Not the fake laugh he did to pass as human. Not the reserved laugh of a demon unused to emotion. But a full-on belly laugh that worked its way up from his toes, filling him until it had nowhere to go but into a shoulder-rocking, tear-jerking riot.

The emotion died slow, naturally, and he pulled her into his arms. “My sweet, sweet, Raven. Don’t you know? You rule me. You always have. And I think it best we keep the status quo.”

She looped her arms around his neck. “Yeah. I like that. I like that a lot.”

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ISBN: 978-1-4268-3985-6

Raven

Copyright © 2009 by Paige Cuccaro

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Índice

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE