If this was the Serpent she had set loose, long may he reign.
How many times he sent her crashing over that hill into oblivion, she didn’t know. It all became a blur of movement and pleasure, and it all centered around him and his inarguable presence. Of feeling him over her, in her, around her. Of hearing his voice snarling above her, telling her again and again that she washis.As if she had ever been anything but.
When he slammed into her and held himself there, so hard that it made her cry out again with the ache of it, as it was almost too much for her to take, he roared in release. She felt the volcanic heat of him as he filled her, and her mind went blank with the ecstasy of it all. She barely felt him yank her upright. Barely felt him pull the chain away from her neck, just far enough to make room for him.
But she heard the purr. Heard it sink into her soul, just as his fangs did into her skin. And she felt thatpull.Thatpullfrom her throat even as he still pressed himself against her, somehow trying to bury himself deeper, stillfillingher even as he took from her.
He wrapped his arms around her, clutching her tight to his chest.
The Serpent.
She was his.
She always had been.
Now the only question was…
How many lives would be destroyed because of it?
THREE
Nadi woke up in Raziel’s arms, feeling like she’d been run over by an automobile. She grunted and buried her head into the crook of his arm. He chuckled quietly and stroked his fingers through her hair, his sharp nails grazing her scalp.
“Hello, little murderer. Welcome back.”
He still hadthat tonefrom before.A voice that she remembered from her nightmares. For a while, she thought she had imagined it. It was something about him that she’d watched almost vanish over the last few weeks after she had first met him face to face as Monica.
Now it had returned full force. No. Worse than before. This was the Raziel—theSerpent—from her childhood. The one that was certain of his actions. One that was hungry for violence.
The question was, did she still have a real part to play in it? Raziel Nostrom had loved her, but how much of that man had been left at the bottom of the ocean and been allowed to die, once and for all?
Nadi wasn’t a vampire, but it didn’t take much of an imagination to understand the difference between a simple death and being left to die forever at the bottom of the ocean. What Mael and Lana had been willing to do to Raziel…it wasbeyond cruel. She couldn’t imagine being betrayed like that by family.
She had killed her uncle, Luciento, when he’d discovered her identity and plot to kill the Nostroms.
She hadn’t condemned him to an eternity of suffering.
Of never dying.
If someone in her family, even an enemy, had done that to her? It might have driven her insane. Opening her eyes, she was relieved to see that she could, well, in factsee.Raziel had taken them somewhere where the vines were still growing overhead, filling the space with purplish light.
And he’d redressed her. How thoughtful. Touching her throat, she cringed. He’d bitten herhard.Mercilessly.
“I simply got carried away.” One of his arms that was draped lazily around her lower back tightened ever so slightly. “I can almost hear the gears whirring in that head of yours. No. You aren’t trapped with a rabid animal. I simply have a clearer mind than I have in a very long time.”
Clearer. Or shattered. That would remain to be seen. “We should get going. Things that stay in one place for too long don’t survive in the Wild. Especially this far down.”
“I think we are getting closer to the surface. I can hear what I believe is the sound of…” He paused, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. Tilting his head, he looked as though he were straining to hear something. “Wheels. Large wheels. A repeated pattern, like vehicles rolling in large numbers. You said your people moved in caravans. Would that sound right to you?”
That got her attention fast. Pushing up, she groaned and lowered her head just as quickly as the world spun around her. “Fuck.Damn the Mother, vampire?—”
“I said I got carried away.” He stroked her hair away from her face. “You’ll be all right. The bruises are already fading.” There was regret in his voice. At least there was some semblanceof humanity left in him. “There are vibrations in these vines that seem to have infested every ounce of this forsaken place. Vibrations that if I listen hard enough, I can make out patterns, as I said.” When she watched his face, he was staring up at a vine intently.
He wasn’t making it up.
All the vines of the Wild were connected. They were all part of one massive organism. If his vampiric hearing was truly that powerful down here, it was fully possible that he could hear the sound of the caravans rolling along the heart-vines.
Or, he could be entirely insane.
