Free Raven Walks by Ginger Voight Page A

life, leaving her the same way you found
her. Let her free.”
    Constantine glared at his master for a moment
as he contemplated his options. “Why do you care, Raven?”
    Raven only wished he knew. He said
nothing.
    Constantine walked around Raven to perch on
the edge of the bed next to Abi. “You know, this reminds me of a
time when I left the woman I loved in your care. Entrusted you,
even. Remind me again, Raven. How did that work out?”
    “I’m not going to apologize again,” Raven
told him. “It’ll never be enough for you.”
    “You got that right.” Constantine looked down
at Abigail, and his anger seemed to evaporate somewhat. “She
reminds me of Nina in a lot of ways. She’s strong, she’s stubborn.”
He looked back at Raven. “Even if I tell her not to return, she
will.”
    Raven thought back to the Creature. “I doubt
that.”
    Constantine turned back to Abi and brushed
her copper hair from her face. “You could have taken her, you
know.”
    Raven felt the desire bubble up inside of him
as he glanced down at Abigail, still flushed from his hands on her
body. Physically he wrenched away. “I’m not like you,” the older
vampire retorted as he walked to the door. “I have respect for the
living.”
    Constantine watched Raven depart. “I haven’t
promised you anything yet, you know!”
    Raven turned to glare at him from the door.
“You wouldn’t want to disappoint your master, now, would you?”
    The door slammed and Constantine growled with
his own frustration. He gathered Abigail into his arms and took off
into the night.
    In his own quarters, Sebastian drank wine
from a pewter goblet. He gazed out of his window at the moon riding
high across the dark summer night. A lone tear hovered at the
corner of his eye as he thought about the loves he’d lost over the
past hundreds of years. The advice he’d given Raven was solid. It
was just a shame it was advice he himself had never learned how to
heed.
    He could still name them off one by one.
Alana. Josephine. Elizabeth. Rayn.
    Sonja.
    His eyes closed and he recalled that dark
winter night she had first sneaked into the club, a mere teenager
at best. She had been a child of the streets. She was hungry. She
was cold. But she was not afraid. It was that last part that had
him hooked the moment he looked into her wide eyes, the same shade
of topaz as his own. He had been unable to turn her away, even
though he knew that would have been best.
    For years he looked over her like a daughter.
He nurtured her and protected her. And he had loved her. God, how
he had loved her. Much more than she could have ever known.
    Now she was gone. A victim to his lineage. He
sat the goblet down with a slam. He should have turned her himself,
he thought. It was the only way to protect her, he understood that
now. If he couldn’t stay away, and only the gods knew how he
couldn’t, then he could have turned her and trained her to be as
powerful as he.
    But that chance was long gone now. He grasped
the goblet and hurled it across the room, smashing the stained
glass window. After a moment of luxuriating in his impulsive
action, he gathered his senses and walked over to the window, to
pull the heavy drapes closed.
    And that’s when he saw her, standing under a
broken street light.
    Like a flash he flew from his window and
landed on the ground behind her. Her short dark hair glistened in
moonlight. That familiar tribal tattoo crawled across her lower
back. She hadn’t turned to face him, even though he knew she could
feel his presence.
    “Sonja,” he spoke softly.
    He approached cautiously. Something was not
right. Her energy was not the same; and he should know because he
fed from her many times. Her aura was small and dim. It was like
she was in another spiritual realm.
    “Sonja,” he said again, louder, with more
command. He reached out and touched her shoulder and she jumped
from the contact. He gently turned her around and then gasped when
he saw her pale