Sharon Page - Blood Curse

Ophelia let Raven hug her closer. “I can take you, Darlington,” he said, “but I cannot see her. She’s afraid of me.”

“No!” Ophelia cried. “She mustn’t be. Let me speak to her. I will make her see that you are still the brother she loves.”

Raven tenderly, slowly, kissed the top of her head. It was so sweet, so loving a gesture, Ophelia almost burst into tears. To be loved was a dream she had believed would never come true.

“I can walk now,” Ophelia insisted as Raven carried her to a heavy oak door. He had gently taken her down the stone cellar steps and along an unlit, stone-walled passage, stopping here at the end of it. Light gleamed through a small gap between the door and the frame, allowing her to see. It was a door to a prison, with large iron hinges, but the thick padlock dangled from a hasp.

“No,” he growled. “You went through hell up there. I am trying to make amends.”

Her hands held his powerful arms. “You went through just as much. You don’t have to do this.” She loved being in his arms, but it was strange to be cossetted, treated as if she was broken. She didn’t want to act like a fainting ninny with no endurance, no capability of facing risk.

In truth, she had never felt stronger.

“I’m a vampire. To me you are as light as a feather.”

“I want you to be ready to embrace your sister,” she insisted. “You cannot do that if I am in your arms.”

He was sweet, showing her a kindness she hadn’t known for much of her life, but also arrogant. She had saved him by coming after him, but she had overheard him talk with de Wynter and Lord Brookshire. He would not excuse them for allowing her to come into danger.

She hadn’t yet told him she had agreed to be a distraction so they could break into the house.

Suddenly she realized she was afraid to tell Raven. He had been an assassin. What did a man like that do in rage? She owed their lives to Brookshire, his brother, and Althea. She dare not say anything that would make him hurt them.

Showing his strength, Ravenhunt shifted her, so he had her perched on one arm, and he opened the oak door with his free right hand. In here, torches burned along the walls. Not much light but enough to blind her eyes.

“God,” he muttered. A thud sounded. It had to be his hand hitting the door.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Something slightly rough and warm touched her chin. His fingers, and they tipped up her chin. In a low voice, he said, “I cannot do this. When she saw I was not dead, she fainted. She doesn’t know yet that I am a demon—a predator and a monster. Or she does know, because your brother has told her.”

“He wouldn’t.” But he might have. He wouldn’t have thought he would have to hide it. “I will speak to her.”

“I can’t face it,” he growled. “Not her horror, her hatred. Her rejection.”

Footsteps sounded. Ophelia blinked as a dark shadow emerged from the light. Her eyes focused and she saw it was Harry.

“I have told her,” he said heavily. “I heard footsteps. Thought it would be you, so I wanted to tell you she knows you are a vampire. It was a—a bad shock.”

Raven kissed the top of her head. Ophelia looked up after he did. His eyes shone, but not because they were a vampire’s eyes. It was due to the watery film of tears. “I can’t go to her,” he muttered. “I told Jade I wanted Frederica released, but it cannot be by me. This is wrong, and it will only hurt her. I can never see her again.”

“No,” she gasped.

Her brother nodded. “As you wish, Ravenhunt.” Harry turned and ran back down the corridor to where Frederica must have been imprisoned.

“You must go. I will explain what you did for her.”

“No.”

“Don’t be stubborn and ridiculous. She will accept you, especially once she knows how you heroically risked your existence for her.”

“She should never accept me.”

He set her on her feet, and though she’d wanted to walk herself, the way he did it made her nervous.

“I am going now.”

“Going? Without seeing her?”

“It has to be this way. You do not have to come with me if you don’t want to. You are free now, Ophelia. Not my captive anymore.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ophelia, what’s wrong?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you think he fears?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ophelia rapped firmly.

Time ticked with irritating slowness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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