Kiss Me Deadly Read Online Free

her hair.
    Salvation. Here is where you belong.
    This is wrong. Why did you…? How could you?
    She lay in a heap, her head tilted to the right to expose the deep wounds he had inflicted. Blood streamed down her neck and across her chest, staining the blue T-shirt stretched tight across her breasts.
    No anger. No fight. Utterly silenced, his gorgeous witch.
    Hurt? Had he…?
    Nikolaus scooped Ravin into his arms. He pressed his lips to her forehead. She didn’t feel inordinately cold. A steady pulse beat against his palm where he slapped it over her neck.
    “What have I done to you, my love?”

Chapter 4
    Two months earlier
    J amming the syringe into the gel-tipped shotgun cartridge, Ravin filled the last of a dozen bullets with five milliliters of her blood. She did this every Sunday night. It was a ritual. She needed rituals. After two centuries of living, rituals kept her life on track and her focus sharp.
    She’d been stalking the Kila tribe for weeks. They laid low and never made a mistake. She attributed that to their leader, Nikolaus Drake, who was known to keep a very tight rein on the tribe members. No unnecessary kills—that was their law.
    A dead vampire was never an unnecessary kill, as far as Ravin was concerned.
    A count over the weeks had determined two dozen in the tribe. The number of enemies didn’t faze Ravin. She was a witch. So long as she kept her back to a wall, and her gun loaded, no longtooth was going to mess with her. The vampire’s choice was to either run, or take a blood bullet and explode into ash.
    She preferred the exploding part as opposed to running. But they could run forever; she’d never give up her quest to annihilate every bloody longtooth on this earth. It was a promise she’d made to her parents on the eve of their deaths.
    Ravin checked the sawed-off shotgun for a full load and fitted it into the leather holder strapped across her back. Another belt strapped at her thigh secured a silver dagger, the edged metal soaked in her blood. She wore leather chaps over tight-fitted black suede pants and a black T-shirt beneath her leather vest. A big silver cross swung around her neck.
    Reaching back, she secured her shoulder-length dark hair out of the way with a rubber binder. Her gloves slid on and snapped, and she donned clear safety glasses to protect her eyes from vampire debris.
    The only thing that could take her down tonight was reluctance or fire.
    Neither would bother her. For beyond the innate determination lived an indelible image of her parents’ dying faces. No matter the notches Ravin marked on her gun, or the plunge toward darkness that occurred when slaying tipped her balance, that image would never be erased.
    Not once did she question her relentless quest. For if she did, the truth might be harder to face than a tribe of bloodthirsty vampires.
     
    The wolves had sent a messenger stating that there would be no communication-gathering this night. The nerve of Severo, the leader of the northern pack. He insulted Nikolaus with his blatant disregard for the vampire/wolf relations.
    The vampires had always considered the city their territory. The wolves kept to the suburbs and countryside. And while he preached peace to his tribe, Nikolaus would not stand back and watch the wolves creep onto his grounds and begin to terrify Kila’s source of nourishment.
    “We’ll snuff him out of his lair,” Truvin Stone, second in command to Nikolaus, suggested. “I’ll gather the troops?”
    “No. They have shown us their fear. It is enough.” For Nikolaus would not march his men into needless battle. The werewolf pack had retreated, offering a bloodless victory this day.
    He could sense Truvin’s tension, the need to react and charge into danger, as it stiffened his cohort next to him. Never would Truvin completely accept the peaceable ways of Kila, but Nikolaus was reassured in knowing that he did try to embrace them. The man had not killed for survival in the three years