4. Raphael
FOUR
RAPHAEL
The Present
New Elysium
Cradling my soulmarked in my arms, the terror in her eyes rips apart the insides of my very soul. The stars of my endless night sky should never feel fear when she looks at me.
Five hundred years of waiting and she looks at me as if I’m the spawn of a witch.
I want nothing more than to bury my face in her neck. To smell her scent as I mark her as mine. I want to rub my whole body against hers to slake my all-encompassing need to possess her fully and wholly.
If I was still a human, I would seriously consider kidnapping her, chaining her to my bed, and just staring at her delicate beauty until I withered and died.
I’m not a human, though.
I’m a monster she’s staring at in horror.
Tearing my eyes away from her, I glance around the dingy room I’ve brought us to and don’t recognize anything.
Everything over the past hour or more has just been one long red foggy cloud.
My inner beast took total control of my body. And I don’t know what the fuck he did while he had it.
He should have taken us back to our safe house, but he didn’t.
Why? I ask the beast.
But the berserking fucker doesn’t answer.
The house we’re in is old, smelly, and most likely condemned.
Where the hell are we?
Safety should be paramount, but this raging erection I have isn’t making me feel very cautious. I can’t even will the fucker to go down.
Reaching back with my foot, I kick the rotting door shut.
There are no heartbeats in this place, and I don’t hear one for at least a couple of hundred yards.
If there is anything about, it’s not humanoid.
Maybe that’s why the beast chose this location?
Privacy is a needed now, and it doesn't matter where we find it, as long as we’re alone and safe.
The moment when my soulmarked and I become a shared soul is close.
This isn’t the most ideal of places, but I’ve waited so long…
Too long to care where it happens.
For over five hundred years, I’ve waited for this. Longed and ached for it.
She keeps pushing against my chest, though, but I hold on to her tight. There’s no way I’m willing to set her down.
“Let…” she breathes against me, struggling against my embrace. “Go… of me.”
No, I can’t . Not while she is still fragile and vulnerable to the world. She’s still human and too much shit could easily kill her.
Shaking my head as I look around the rooms, I shush her gently. “Shh, my love. I need to make sure we’re safe.”
My thoughts wander as I carry her through the dilapidated house. I want a clean, safe space for her turning, but nothing looks right.
Nothing feels right.
Five hundred years ago, from its size alone, this hovel would have been considered a lord’s house.
Even if it was this filthy.
Hell, some of the manors I remember seeing and being inside of were worse than this.
Now it’s barely befitting of the rats scurrying in the walls.
“Help,” my fated breathes out loudly, and this time I catch a small scent of her breath.
Looking down at her plump lips, I instantly long to kiss them. To feel them crushed against my own.
They move again, but I’m utterly transfixed as I stare at them and have no idea what they’re saying.
There’s a small scar on her lower lip, a line that’s so faint most wouldn’t notice it, but it stands out to me plain as day.
Her lip was split there sometime in the past. Like someone hit her and it caused her delicate human flesh to break. Her precious blood must have spilled…
Red slowly begins to seep into my vision over the thought of someone touching her in such a way.
The rage I feel brings the beast clawing his way back to the surface. He thrashes against my chest to find the one who did this and show them the true meaning of suffering.
But a sharp tug on my bond and a buzzing in my ripped-up pants instantly snaps me out of it.
Shaking the fog from my head, I’m forced to wonder how it’s possible for me to delve into so many unnecessary things when what I have in my arms is the only thing that matters in the universe.
How is it that I keep getting stuck inside my own mind while admiring her beauty? It’s like there’s something there, buried beneath her features, that crawls into my head and sinks its hooks deep inside my brain.
I keep getting transfixed by her…
But I’m not a newborn vampire. I’m over five hundred years old, for fuck’s sake. I haven’t been so easily fascinated or transfixed by something shiny and pretty for hundreds of years.
Fear comes through our bond, faint, but it’s there.
Her wide eyes stare at my mouth in horror. She’s terrified of me, and I can feel two pointy reasons why in my mouth.
Fuck.
Snapping my jaw closed, I try to push soothing calmness into the bond, but I don’t think she’s feeling it.
“I’m sorry, my dear soul,” I whisper in apology. “So very sorry.”
Moving us back to what was once the living room, I carefully set her down in a shabby chair.
“I… I…” she stutters before looking away from me.
Her deep blue gaze turning away from me nearly kills me.
Focus, I tell myself.
Focus on her mental wellbeing. Don’t fixate on her perfection.
“Stars,” I whisper. “I promise you safety.”
“From you?” she asks.
“No,” I growl instantly. “From those who would hurt you.”
Shying away from me, her voice trembles. “But you’re… you’re one of them...”
One of them .
“The damned,” she finishes.
I scoff to hold back my angry chuckle. “Ah, I haven’t been called that in a long time.”
The phone in my pants starts to buzz again, but I ignore it. Nothing is more important than her right now. I’d hear another human or shifter’s heartbeat approaching, and I’m positive I’d sense another of my kind anywhere near me right now.
All my instincts are on hyperalert. Not only do I have to protect her, this is the most crucial of moments.
“Please let me go,” she pleads, her eyes finally meeting mine again.
She’s confused and scared, but the feelings are faint. Like I’m only getting the echoes of them.
I don’t know if it’s from the drugs Nikolaos’s coven pumped into her system or something else.
But I should be feeling her emotions stronger than this.
I should be able to share mine as well.
Lifting her hand to her chest, near the swell of her left breast, she rubs it tenderly as if she’s massaging an ache.
I’m not entirely sure she’s even aware of what she’s doing. It’s surely not meant to be an erotic gesture...
Is she feeling the bond?
The thread that’s connecting us?
A thread that’s too fucking weak and hanging on only by the thinnest of fibers.
“Look,” I say as gently as possible, “my name is Raphael. What’s yours?”
Shaking her head again, her raven-black hair waves back and forth in front of her face.
She curls up in the chair like she wishes the filthy cushions would swallow her.
My heart crumbles just a little more each time she refuses to even look at me.
I’ve longed for this moment for so long…
For centuries .
Yet the very sight of me sends her into a panic.
Maybe she feels my panic through the bond? Or senses the terror that’s trying to grip my soul and shred it to pieces?
“Were you one of the ones that kept drugging me?” she asks quietly.
“What?” I ask in horror.
How could she believe such a thing about me? Does she not feel anything from me?
“ Never ,” I insist. “I never would have done that to you.”
I can tell from the look on her face she doesn’t believe me.
“I don’t remember anything,” she says. “I don’t know how I got here after… I only remember being held down, drugged, and forced to sleep.”
Fuck.
That makes two of us losing our memory. Except I wasn’t drugged when I couldn’t control myself.
I have faint recollections of right before we stormed the building that Nikolaos was holding her prisoner in.
The agony of knowing she was trapped and not by my side.
I remember the red haze that ripped through my vision. The uncontrollable rage as my berserker broke free from his chains.
I tried to control the rage. I always try to control it, but I couldn’t.
From the state of my clothing, I know I fought.
And most likely killed.
From the smell of the blood on me, I know I battled shifters and vampires.
But which side did I destroy? Mine or theirs?
It should matter to me, but I can’t seem to find the worry. Only the longing to stare at her enchanting face.
The lips I wish to kiss.
The eyes I want to stare into for eternity…
“Do you remember what happened before I took you?” I ask.
Shaking her head, she says, “No. I can only remember chains around me and… I don’t know… vampires like you?”
Another loud buzzing in my pocket and the sound of tires racing up the street nearly sends me into a rage.
We haven’t had enough time!
I’d crumple the cellphone to dust if I wasn’t worried it could be my family warning me of a possible attack incoming.
Yanking the phone from my pocket, I have to stop myself from smashing my finger through the screen.
Putting it up to my ear, my entire chest rumbles as I snarl, “What?”
If this isn’t important, so help me unholy gods…
Andrei speaks so loud even my soulmarked looks up in surprise. “We’re pulling up on your location now. Unless you’re actively turning your Marked, we need to move locations immediately.”
I wince when her heartbeat races with fright. “Now’s not exactly a good time.”
“Doesn’t matter, Raph,” Andrei says back. “You’re deep in the middle of the Order’s territory. I mean deep .”
Watching the other half of my soul, I see sheer terror filling her eyes before she jumps up from the chair.
“No!” she shouts into the darkened room. Her wild eyes searching every corner. “We have to leave.”
“She’s right,” Andrei says then disconnects.
That’s not exactly the reaction I thought would happen when the Order was mentioned.
And all of a sudden there’s a vise crushing around my ribs.
Squeezing so tight, I would struggle to breathe if I needed to.
My blood rushes hard and fast through my veins, as if I’m being flooded with adrenaline.
These aren’t my feelings, though. They’re coming through the taut string connecting us both.
Then a deep, emotional pain slams through what little fog I had in my brain, scattering all my thoughts.
Moving faster than she can react, I scoop her back up into my arms.
Her words slam into the thread.
Flee .
Hide.
Don’t speak or draw attention.
Am I supposed to feel her emotions this powerfully only to have them fade to almost nothing?
I wince when she shrieks in my ear, begging to be released. “Please let me go! They’ll find me!”
Shaking off her fears, I feel the beast inside of me wanting to be free again. He wants to run and sweep across this street, this neighborhood, this city like a fucking tornado.
He wants to leave death and destruction in his wake. He begs me to give him full control.
Not like when I went to hunt my beloved down.
No, this one is different.
I haven’t let him go into a full, raging berserk of destruction since the War of the Witch. When I rampaged across Europe like a plague…
In fact, most of my barbaric rampage was blamed on a plague.
Holding my very soul in my arms, I whisper, “I’ll protect you with all that I have in me.”
Pushing tentatively on the bond, I try to calm her raging emotions. But I dare not push too hard.
Nor do I dare let her see the real me.
She would truly want to run then.
I walk us quickly to the door, and she calms enough that she’s no longer screaming madly in my ear.
But her delicate human body trembles against me.
She’s so fragile right now. So very fragile that I can’t help but fear I’ll accidentally crush her in my arms.
Unable to move even one hand from her, I lift my foot and open the door with a solid kick.
The door flies off the hinges and skids across the pavement right as a large black SUV skids to a stop in front of the house.
I don’t hear a heartbeat or smell the sweet perfume of blood pumping through a living being’s blood, beside my beloved’s.
All I can smell is an acrid stench of vileness that I must of ran through at some point.
Mentally shrugging to myself, I say, “These men are my brothers. Mother should be at our safe house. She’ll want to meet you as soon as possible. The way humans consider it, she’s not really my mother, though. She didn’t give birth to me or turn me. She’s Asher’s bonded.”
I have no clue why I’m running at the mouth. It’s not like it means much to her. But she’s trembling in my arms, and I want her to feel safe.
Andrei hops out of the back of the car and holds the door open for us.
“I will protect you from the Order,” I vow. “But we have to get away from here quickly.”
Carrying her to the SUV, I nod to Andrei, and notice Maddox is in the front with Caden.
Thank the gods they didn’t allow that doofus Ambrose to come. The last thing I need is him freaking her out even more.
“No, no, no,” she murmurs over and over.
Quietly humming to her, I slide my body into the backseat. Andrei, my coven brother, shuts the door quickly behind us and races back to his side of the car in a blink of the eye.
Hopping in, he taps the back of Caden’s seat. “Move it. Father wants us home as soon as possible.”
The SUV peels out and we’re pushed back into our seat.
By luck, my soulmarked is forced deeper into my arms.
Her plush body feels right in my embrace. Even if she has a bit of the stench I was smelling earlier.
Racing out of the distressed landscape of dilapidated homes, boarded-up corner stores, and stop signs with bullet holes punched through them, I stare into the dark night surrounding the car and feel true worry for the first time in centuries.
Worry.
Is it my own or hers?
I gently push against the bond we both share, but I’m still hesitant to push too hard.
The damn thing is still too fragile. Maybe it will strengthen when we’re both finally whole?
Very gently, I nudge my nose into her hair and just rest it there for a moment. Closing my eyes, I try to tune out the world around us. Try to remove all the fears and worries.
I need to relax as much as possible.
Gently probing against the bond, I feel it almost respond to me before resisting. Like something is blocking my love, care, and feelings for this woman.
She’s my everything, and I need her to know it and feel it.
I can give her some of my love, but only the vaguest of wisps slip through.
Is she blocking me? Is she so traumatized that she’s able to block me out almost entirely?
The angry beast inside me wants to rage against that possibility. Rage against another roadblock standing between us.
Keeping myself calm, I open my eyes and take a deep breath of the world around us.
The stench is still here in the car with us. So acrid I can barely stomach it.
Three days ago, when our souls first connected, I threw up for the first time as a vampire.
And now I’m on the verge of doing it again.
We vampires do not get sick.
We don’t catch the flu, colds, or diseases.
But here I am, my stomach knotting up as I try to keep my last blood meal from spewing all over my beloved’s back.
I sense a hard thump from Maddox before he elbows Caden hard.
“For fuck’s sake, Maddox, just speak,” I snap in annoyance.
A middle finger is waved at me from the front.
Caden chuckles. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you what that meant.” The front windows of the SUV roll down. “But we both want to know if you two rolled around in a puddle of something rotten?”
“No,” I grunt, and snuggle the quivering woman in my arms more tightly. “It’s been a long fucking ordeal. Just get us home.”
“Okay…” Caden drawls out like he doesn’t believe me.
We ride on in silence, each of us in our own thoughts.
My brothers are on edge. Tension has been building since our sire, Asher, found his own soulmarked.
Me being the next to find one and so quickly has rattled us all.
Soulmarks simply do not appear so closely together in time or space.
They are a rarity.
Yet, here we are. Two in the same city within days of each other.
In all my centuries of being a vampire, I’ve never heard of something like this happening before.
Things are changing and we don’t know why. It’s like all the rules we’ve lived by have been thrown out the fucking window.
It’s giving us all hope, but what’s the hidden cost?
And why now?
When we’re turned and reborn, we know we will suffer years, decades, centuries, and sometimes even millennia, waiting for our other half to be born.
And there’s no guarantee that it will ever happen. I’ve seen vampires go mad or die from waiting.
Is that a thing of the past now?
Or was this some random fluke? Like a sudden rift in the cosmos?
All my coven brothers surely must be wondering if their turn will be next.
How long will they have to wait?
Days? Or decades?
The road changes from pavement to gravel as we pull up the hill our current safe house sits on. It’s perfectly placed with a view of the city, and it has the high ground should we be attacked.
When the car stops, my soulmark’s shaking increases.
It’s been such a long night for us all, and I know my dear one must be exhausted. I am. Even though my body is begging to finally join us together.
I must be careful, though. I’ve seen what happens when a vampire turns his soulmarked and she wasn’t ready.
One vampire I met, his soulmarked despised him with every ounce of her very being. They’re fated to be, yet the loathing and hatred has never ceased.
How catastrophic that would be… to find your soulmarked and she hates the very essence of you for all of eternity.
You never age, you never get sick, and the one who completes you can’t stand you.
Or worse than all of that.
Meeting your soulmarked, knowing that she’ll soon be yours, and that all the years you’ve waited have not been in vain.
Only to have your maker rip her head off before you can truly join together.
That’s what happened to my adopted brother, Ambrose.
It’s beyond my imagination what Ambrose must feel, and sadly it makes sense why he seems so haunted. His body is stuck in the modern world while his mind is stuck a few centuries in the past.
Before I even have a chance to open my door, Caden is opening it for me.
Lifting my soulmarked and cradling her against my chest, I’m reminded of just how light she is.
Moving slowly and carefully, I take a deep breath of the fresh air, hoping it will settle my stomach.
But I’m hit in the face by the awful smell again.
Asher and Chloe come out of the house to meet us.
The rest of the family must be off somewhere, busy securing the city. But given how close to dawn it is, they’ll probably be returning home soon.
Taking out the other vampire coven was dangerous.
Too dangerous.
We already have the Order breathing down our necks and a possible witch in our midst.
With humans massively outnumbering us, we don’t need a war starting with our fellow vampires.
Pushing all that shit out of my head, I smile at Asher, my adopted father. Warmth flows through the connection we share in return. A warmth full of family and hope.
When I was turned by my real sire, he abandoned me and left it up to the fates if I survived or not.
Asher took me in and gave me the safety I needed.
“Sire, Mother, this is…”
Fuck.
I don’t even know my intended’s name.
Chloe chuckles and shakes her head at me like I’m some troublesome child.
“Raphy,” Andrei says from behind me. “That’s probably the first thing you should have asked.”
“Alena,” my beloved murmurs. “My name is Alena.”
It’s beautiful, sensual, and as perfect as she is.
Gasping loudly, Caden says, “She speaks!”
Maddox elbows him in the side and Caden frowns. “We can’t roughhouse with our little sister yet. She’s still human. We’d break her.”
Ignoring the ‘twins’ antics, Andrei moves closer to me and points at Alena’s waist. “When did she get that cut on her hip?”
Cut?
My soulmarked is wounded ?
Clutching her tightly to my chest, I move with a speed only a vampire can. Racing past my family and straight into the house through the open front door, I rush her up to my bedroom.
I’m moving on instinct again.
Protect.
Keep her safe.
The door to my room shuts, and I sense Andrei moving slowly to stand beside me.
If it was anyone else…
But I know he’s here to help her.
Alena is shaking like a leaf in my arms. My speed terrifying and confusing her.
I should have felt it as I was moving.
But, dammit, the bond between us is still weak.
Bending forward carefully, I gently set her on my bed.
Her slender legs dangle over the edge and she’s still shaking, but I can see her trying to fight her fear.
“This is my brother,” I say quickly before squatting down to look at her hip. “You will come to no harm here. I swear it on my life.”
Black medical bag in hand, Andrei squats down beside me.
Examining her injury with my eyes, it’s a not as bad as I first feared. Only a splinter of wood as big as my finger is sticking out of her pants.
The smell, though…
Slowly reaching toward her, so I don’t frighten her more, I touch the blood on the splinter.
And I’m instantly flooded with bile and disgust.
“Tainted,” I say quietly as I realize where the smell that was twisting my stomach was coming from.
My psyche doesn’t want to believe it, but the smell in the air proves I’m not wrong.
“You’re tainted,” I repeat in a horrified whisper.
How can we complete the bond?
Will we ever be able to complete the bond?
Standing up quickly, I stare at her as my worst fears come true.
I’ll never be able to fully have her…
We’ll always be incomplete with this taint standing between us.
She will never truly be mine.
And one day I will have to watch her die .
The world shatters around me and crushing pain eats away at my very sanity.
As the void opens its gaping maw and my beast breaks free…
My vision clouds over.
The same color of her blood.