Ravensclaw Read Online Free Page A

“but no.” Zizi closed the door behind her. Machka leapt on the bed, raised one back leg, and began to lick herself.
    Leaving the cat to its ablutions, Emily swung her bare feet down to the cold floor. After a quick visit to the corner basin stand, she pulled off her nightrail, folded it neatly and placed it in the valise that Isidore had found abandoned at the bottom of the broken stone stair. She shook out her wrinkled gown, struggled into it, and set out in search of the Count. Machka jumped down from the bed to trail at her heels.
    Ravensclaw was in the Lady’s Chamber, Drogo dozing at his feet. The Count had dressed for traveling in fawn breeches that clung to his muscular thighs, snowy linen, a superbly cut brown coat, and glossy boots. His auburn hair was drawn back and tied at his nape.
    He rose to greet her, a slender volume in one hand. “I am reading a formula for the manufacture and use of a magic carpet. A virgin is required.”
    Emily narrowed her eyes at him. Did not the undead, at the break of day, take refuge in their tombs? “ I have read that one may vanish a nosferatu by stuffing his left sock with graveyard dirt and cemetery rocks, then tossing it into water flowing away from the area one seeks to protect. Supposedly, the demised may be controlled by the use of spiritwood and rum.”
    Ravensclaw awarded her his bewitching smile. “One needs to be naked during that particular ritual, I believe.”
    Wonderful. Now I’m thinking of him naked. “Alternately one might make a stake of ash, hawthorn, or maple and pound it into the corpse, put garlic in its mouth, and pound a nail in its head. Remove the heart and halve it. Incinerate the decapitated body and throw the ashes to the wind.” Any of which, Emily admitted, would be a great pity in the present case. “You have a reflection. I saw it in the window yesterday.”
    “Why would I not have a reflection?” Ravensclaw replaced the book on its shelf. “I assure you that I am quite corporeal.”
    He was entirely too corporeal for her peace of mind. “I understand we are to go to Edinburgh.”
    “Is that not what you wanted?” Ravensclaw inquired politely. Drogo opened one yellow eye.
    “What I want, ” retorted Emily, “is to be able to travel without the annoying restrictions placed on females.” Curiosity got the best of her. “Tell me, does a sanguisurge discriminate between male and female blood?”
    “The undead are amphierotic,” Ravensclaw informed her. “Umbivalent, that is. I know this due to my vast reading, you understand.”
    Amphierotic? Umbivalent? “Are you mocking me?” Emily asked.
    “No, Miss Dinwiddie, I am enjoying you. It is a very different thing.” Ravensclaw scratched Drogo’s head. The wolf parted his great jaws and yawned.
    Enjoying her, was he? Emily wished she might say the same. “Speaking of Edinburgh, how do you plan to transport your, ah, resting place?”
    “Has anyone ever told you that you are a very exasperating young woman? Come with me.” Ravensclaw indicated a doorway in the far wall.
    He stepped aside. Emily entered the adjacent, smaller room. She was no longer surprised to see antique furnishings and tapestries and colorful wool rugs. Never, however, had she seen anything like the canopied bed that dominated the chamber, its headboard and posts elaborately carved with figures in bas-relief. Behind her, Ravensclaw said, “This is where I sleep.” His husky tones evoked erotic scenarios played out on the fur coverlet and linen sheets.
    Cheeks burning, Emily bent to peer beneath the bed. She saw not a speck of dust or dirt. “I thought revenants couldn’t go far from their native soil.”
    “I don’t know about revenants, but I can go anywhere I please.” The Count’s amused voice came from the vicinity of her upthrust rump.
    Hastily, Emily righted herself. “And can you cross running water, my lord?”
    “I swim,” he informed her. “I also bathe.”
    She wouldn’t, she