Sacrificed to the Sea - Cari Silverwood Page 0,39
him, turned over. “What is this?”
“A brain probe. If, by surgery, a probe were to be implanted, we could trickle small amounts of electricity into you…”
Her mouth had fallen open.
“They do it to stop seizures. Pick the right spot and it should cause arousal, which… Okay. I can see it’s a no, for now.” He searched her face.
“It is a no. As in forever a no.”
“Hmmm.” He flopped onto his back. “Let’s look at the stars awhile. Instead of me talking brain surgery.”
If she hadn’t thought him serious…
A breeze whistled across her ears and stirred his hair. A night bird made strange sounds from the line of pine trees that shielded the front of his property. And the sea, the sea murmured to her, calling her. The smell of salt and fish never left the air.
Raffaela held up her hands and stared at how they blocked the stars. She felt the suck and surging pull of the ocean that she had refused to acknowledge. It had always been there but had been less palpable. Now, it tugged at every fragment of her body. The ocean knew she was never gone, that she belonged in the depths and chasms, in the frolicking waves, and it was calling her home.
The sea was in her blood. She could not survive for much longer without swimming in the waters that were a true part of the immensity of the ocean.
Hence, the Ravening came early.
“I am sorry. My solution is a bad one.” He rolled over to put his hand on her breast and ran his thumb over her through the light dress. “Stay with me. Don’t shift. Be my girl a little longer.”
“Mmm.” She sighed and snuggled into him again, toying with his shirt buttons. He wasn’t simply meaning tonight. “I will.”
“You see, I love you. I’m fairly sure of it. This is new for me.”
Oh. Fuck. And new for her.
She closed her eyes. No.
Yes.
But also no, no, no.
What was she to do?
“The thing is, I’ve been a bad man. A very, bad man. I don’t deserve you.”
“Shhh.” She placed her forefinger over his mouth, felt him kiss it. “You’re not that bad. You cannot be. I’ve lost count of how many men I have drowned. A thousand or more.” Bitten to death, allowed to bleed out. Whose life force she had taken.
“Then we are both bad, and I am lost. I don’t think I can survive without you.”
“Wolfgang, I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “What to say.”
“Say nothing except this. Do you love me?”
She considered the bright, bright stars. “I don’t know if a mermaid can love.”
She was pretty sure she was lying. Fairly sure she had indeed fallen in love.
But she was even more sure the Ravening was closer than she had imagined.
Maybe it was his declaration of love that had triggered this increase in her need. Her mouth twisted. She could push it down for now, but soon it would be too strong.
“Tell me,” she said to distract herself. “What did you do that was so wrong?”
“I cannot say. I will not. But it was terrible. I lost sight of my humanity. Not sure I ever had any.”
She shook her head in disbelief.
“Sometimes…” Wolfgang lifted her hand and pretended to count her fingers, pressing each one upward, stroking them. “I think you may be more human than I am.”
The next morning she found herself sleeping on the bottom of the pool, with a wicked hunger inside her. On the tiles above, she heard the slap of feet.
He was here.
She stiffened, swirled in a circle, then sped to the surface, flinging a spume of water high.
She showed her teeth.
“You need to go, now!”
“What?” He stopped at the top of the steps. “What do you mean?”
The water gurgled at her ears.
She smelled him. This was not the smell of an available male; it was the smell of life.
Cautiously he came closer, halting a few yards from the pool’s edge.
“Is it the Ravening?”
Though she was not mindless, the craving was too strong. She lunged, skating and sliding across the shallow water on the ramp, launching herself with a flick of her tail muscles. He spun and fled down the steps. The door slammed.
She hadn’t come close to getting him, had not used her siren song.
Raffaela lowered her head to the concrete and shut her eyes.
Next time she would be compelled to sing.
The Ravening had come.
She needed blood and death, and a life to eat.
CHAPTER 11
Wolfgang leaned his shoulder on the door. Not