Salvation of the Damned Read Free

let go with him, and God knew she wanted to, it could do something a lot worse than tank her career. She didn’t really know him. But even deeper, some part of her heart thudded, telling her the truth.
    She knew this man. Knew him as well as she knew herself. Gut deep she was positive she’d met him before, and recognized him now as someone different, someone special to her.
    “Come with me, darling Eva.”
    It wasn’t in her power to deny him.
    Anything.

Chapter Two
    Outside the costume party, colorful chaos reigned the night. Beads flew, music poured out of nearly every open door, and people pushed in a moving, breathing tide in the streets.
    But it meant nothing to Raphael. All that mattered was Eva. He kept hold of her hand, feeling each pulse beat beneath his fingers in a maddening tattoo, as he pulled her behind him through the revelers.
    The door to a black stretch limo opened and he helped her inside, choosing purposely to sit across from her.
    He had to.
    She was simply too much temptation for him to take the risk of sitting too close. As it was, he had to pull his gaze away from the rapid pulse at the base of her pale, slender throat. The mouthwatering sight echoed a deep bass, thumping through his chest, as if he were standing next to a large speaker at a concert. The moment the door shut, the frantic noise outside lessened. He watched Eva’s pulse slow.
    “Crazy crowd.” He smiled at her, hoping to ease the confusion and uncertainty he sensed in her.
    “What else can you expect? It’s Mardi Gras.”
    “Well, the party we’re going to is a bit more sedate.”
    “Family crowd?”
    “Yes, but not small, by any means. All my extended family comes in from all over the world for the event.”
    She reached for the door handle. As if he’d allow her to leap out of the slowly moving vehicle. “Oh,” she breathed, sounding almost relieved that she had an excuse to leave him. “A family reunion? I probably shouldn’t go then.”
    He smiled. He’d never let her go. Not again. “They’ll welcome you with open arms.” Especially since she was the sacrifice that would save them all. But he didn’t need to reveal that to her; he only needed to get her back to the estate for the midnight ceremony.
    Eva might be confused on how she knew him, but Raphael knew only too well. While the scent of her blood had driven him across the globe to find her this night, the connection he’d recognized the moment he’d stared into those beautiful blue eyes had razored him to the core. More immortal than time, Eva—the soul that was Eva in this life—was none other than his beloved Isabeau come back to him.
    The realization had been both divine elation and ultimate torture. She was so close; he wanted to crush her to him. But in her fragile human form, she’d die, again. How could the universe be so cruel as to ask him to sacrifice the one soul with whom he shared a bond for the survival of his kind—not once, but twice in his interminable existence?
    How many millennia had he performed the steps of this dance to save his kind? And yet to save them all, he had sacrificed her before—and would again.
    But the very human urge to kiss her, to hold her against him and feel the heat of her body, warred with his need for survival. He’d vowed when he lost Isabeau he’d never allow himself to be seduced by the sacrifice again. He had ached for too many centuries and, even now, felt as if his stone-still heart had fractured and was beginning to crumble within his chest. Eva bit her lip; the rosy blush it caused made him ache and burn.
    “Why do I feel like I know you?” Her gaze raked over him, and he felt the temperature kick up a notch as she blushed.
    Raphael cleared his throat, trying to ease the discomfort and intense thirst and hunger she created in him. It was like offering up a prime rib to a starving man and asking him to ignore it. Had he not been on so important, so critical a mission, or damn it, had even a