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.After he dropped the book, he ignored the women and took to the air, back toward the house burningbright in the black night.Rukh put her down gently, stepped away, and flashed brightly to meet his change.She blinked hereyes.His Raven ducked his head to her and lifted off, straight toward the flying incubus.“What is he doing?” Alfred stood behind her.“Where is Christopher?” she asked.At Alfred’s startled expression, Isabel’s stomach plummeted.He hadn’t followed them out.He mustbe trying to save Sheila, but he was too late.He couldn’t save her.She rushed to stand below the broken window.Her foot caught a sliver of the glass.She ignored thecut.“Christopher!” she screamed.Beside her, Alfred stripped off his shirt.She looked to her husband, screeching and diving at thedemon in the air above them.Her husband struck out with a talon.The demon swiped back with his razor claws.She flinched insympathy for Rukh’s wounds and murmured silent prayers.The Raven dove with wings pinned to his side.His entire body crashed into the incubus.They rolledin the air.Rukh’s beak tore across Bluebeard’s neck.The demon sank his claws deep into the Raven’sback.Isabel put her fist to her mouth to bite back her scream.She watched with dread when Rukh pulledaway with a sluggish flick of his wing.Alfred heaved from the ground.His bird form not nearly as big as Rukh’s, he did not move toward hislord but went straight up to the window.Christopher appeared behind the broken glass with the sword in his hand.Sweat and tears ran downhis face.“I can’t get to Sheila,” he shouted down to her.“Christopher, you can’t.” She coughed.She needed to tell him he was too late, but the words cloggedher throat as her eyes filled with unspent tears.“I have to try again.” He lifted a hand in salute to Isabel, a pained expression on his face, before hetossed the weapon to the ground.He made a motion with his hand.A slash across the neck.www.samhainpublishing.comElla DrakeShe had to cut off the demon’s head.Nervous and on edge, she giggled.Head shaking side to side, shewilled herself to stop before she became hysterical.Isabel’s stomach burned and heaved.Tears streaked her face as the heat from the house grew withroaring crackles.Christopher backed away from the window and away from his father, whose screechingrenewed.Alfred tried to dive into the window, but a wave of heat blew him back away from the totaldestruction of the manor.He fell to the ground next to her.“Christopher,” Isabel shrieked.The crumbling edifice took her friend, and while streams of losscoursed down her cheeks, the fire caused the tears to evaporate in steam, gone before they reached theground.A heavy thud resounded through her.She turned to see her husband’s Raven scramble from theground, shaking his head.Bluebeard landed with a fierce expression on his handsome face.He’d ignored her since the battlebegan.Now his dark eyes fixated on her.“Raven, leave us be, or we’ll take your morsel back with us.We won’t be gentle this time.”The Raven cawed low, deadly, in a repeated burst of sound like a snare drum.Cold ice traveled downher spine.The demon had access to all those doors, if they hadn’t burned.Where else could he go andcause such upheaval and death?The sword lay three feet away.She took a sideways step.The Raven barreled into Bluebeard.Isabel crouched to retrieve the sword.Bluebeard knocked the Raven to the ground.He put his foot, claws extended, on the fragile chest ofthe giant bird, now on its back, motionless.White noise filled Isabel’s ears.She swung the sword, but it was so heavy.She missed entirely.Strong arms clenched around her and halted her return swing.“No,” Alfred insisted.“This demon has to die.” She panted from the heavy weight of the sword.“This family will never befree.What good is immortality if you harbor evil?”“Christopher…” Alfred’s voice broke before he could continue.“Christopher asked me to do this,” she said, all her conviction in her voice.Alfred let her go.Sinking to his knees, his face crumpled into devastated tears, and he did not move tostop her.The gift of immortality had not saved his son, but Isabel had no time for his grief now, or her own.Bluebeard taunted the too still Rukh, “Get up, Raven.We want you to watch us take your woman.”Rukh jerked as if the words were a physical blow.He struggled to rise.Isabel swung the heavy sword up and aimed for the demon’s neck.The difference in height provedinsurmountable.The weapon crashed into his shoulder.The sword stuck there.www.samhainpublishing.comElla DrakeThe Forbidden ChamberBluebeard rounded on her.With one step, his pale blue body nearly pressed against hers.The cold phallus near her face made hercringe.He flicked the sword from his shoulder.With a surge of wing, he sent Alfred sailing through the air.Behind Bluebeard, a flash heartened her, but it came too late.The demon clutched her to him andspread his wings.She tried to yank away from his impossibly tight hold.Clenching her eyes shut, shestruggled in vain to escape.A swoosh cut through the buzzing in her ears as wind moved her hair.Before the incubus took to the air, he gurgled, and his hold dropped away.She let out a pent-up breathand wrapped her arms around her middle.Isabel opened her eyes to the fury of her husband, covered in deep gashes and bloody smears, swordin hand.Bluebeard, body separated from his head, crumpled on the ground.Rukh gave her a relieved look and collapsed.***“London is beautiful, Rukh.I wish you could come to the shops with me,” Isabel said with distractedjoy.Rukh doubted he’d want that nearly as much as she.He smiled at her when she crossed to the bed.The windows let in the bright sunlight and heightened her sparkling eyes.Eyes that had been clouded with grief over Christopher for so long.“I will go with you tomorrow,” he said, and found that perhaps he would enjoy walking through everymilliner, every haberdasher, and every confectionary establishment that caught her fancy.“You’ll be off bedrest?” She perched on the edge of the mattress.Her fine dress and hat smelled offresh air, but beneath he could scent her muskiness with a hint of rose.He leaned up from the pillows and put his arms around her.Her breath caught when he smiled.Sheresponded so quickly and easily to him.No doubts or inhibitions.His hands cupped her stomach, nowprotruding enough to force him to use more ingenious positions in their love-filled joinings.His smilewidened as he curled around her and captured her sweet bottom against his groin.“Perhaps one more day in bed will be better,” he purred into her ear before he licked that damnedbirthmark that still drove him mad.She shivered.“We return to the estate next week.Before we go, I want to see that new diorama and go to thetheatre.Oh, and we’ll need tapestries for the new house,” she said with a quiver.She rolled her neck to give him more access.“Yes, love.”www.samhainpublishing.comElla DrakeWith a breathy rush, she listed all she wanted to do before they left, but he didn’t listen.He busied his fingers on her dress bindings
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