5. Raven
CHAPTER 5
Raven
A s if it wasn’t bad enough being sent out the fucking window like some stupid teenage boy not wanting to get caught by his girlfriend’s parents….now I was stuck in the lower levels of the keep, like I’d been caught by said parents and thrown in jail.
Not that the space wasn’t nice. A nice space to pace and mope and throw shit as needed.
I snorted to myself as I went from one side of the room to the other. Dominic and Nicholas were playing pool on the billiards table, and Sienna sat curled up in a chair with a book in her lap and a huge orange cat draped across her shoulders like a shawl.
“You’re going to have to replace that rug.” Dom didn’t even look up at me as he took his next shot, sinking the solid yellow he was after.
I rolled my eyes. “Then perhaps Her Majesty should have let me stay and keep an eye on her. Even with guards at the door, I don’t trust that someone won’t try something.”
“You mean like Maverick?” Sienna turned a page of her book. “You’ve been here for all of fifteen minutes, and in that time, you’ve cursed him out under your breath more than once a minute.”
I wasn’t about to tell Sienna that I was cursing him out because he’d interrupted what could have been a moment for Diana and me to truly reconnect. A moment to find some healing between us, and dare I even hope, some understanding on her part? Because I knew that deep down, she understood why I’d given her my blood, but that was different than being able to look past what I’d done. To see that the decision made to bring her back to her vampiric side wasn’t even a decision. That I hadn’t actually known that drinking from me would send her wolf running.
None of us had.
We’d only wanted to save her. To keep her from dying and that had meant trying something without understanding the possible repercussions.
“She will come around,” Nicholas said.
“You can see that?”
A shuffle and the smell of mothballs. “No, but I can.” Myrr plunked herself down on the biggest chair in the room, high backed and obviously meant for a visiting dignitary.
She had a massive bowl of popcorn cradled in her arms.
Theo limped in after her, holding a wide board of charcuterie items. “Cook said to bring this down, as we’re all locked up for the night.”
Theo set the huge platter of food on the main table.
“That won’t last.” Nicholas said, softening the words with a smile. “Unless Myrr is fasting tonight?”
“Bah, rotten boy!” She threw a single popcorn at him, then seemed to regret it as she slipped from her chair, bent and picked it up, popping it into her mouth. “Waste not, want not.”
Theo put his hands on his hips. “Where’s Maverick? Shouldn’t he be down here with us too, hiding from the beasties running wild tonight?”
That stopped my pacing. “You have a point. But maybe he’ll die out there and solve one of my problems.”
Dominic grunted. “Tell us how you really feel, my friend.”
“She won’t choose him.”
We all turned to Sienna. I wanted to ask why not but didn’t want to seem too eager. Nicholas caught my eye and nodded, asking the question for me.
“Why not?”
Sienna shrugged. “Because no matter how stubborn she is, she can’t deny the fates that brought her and Raven together. Maverick, no matter how much she cares for him, does not stand a chance against the power of mates that truly love one another.”
“You sound like you’re reading that?” Theo motioned at the book in her hands.
Sienna lifted it up. The bonds of Fate, by Evangeline Blackthorne. “Did you know that Evangeline wrote a book? And to find that here, not in Blackthorne castle. That I find even more interesting.”
Interesting indeed…“Can I see it?”
Sienna handed it over to me, a distinct sparkle in her amber eyes. “Of course.”
I shot her a questioning glance and she shrugged. “You’re welcome.”
I turned and headed to the massive table, ignoring the food at one end, and sitting in the shadows to read on my own.
I flipped through until I found the section that was marked by a ribbon that smelled like Sienna.
Fated Mates Across Species
It has not only anecdotal evidence, but actual written accounts that fated mates across the seven species: vampire, fae, werewolf, demon, angel, witch and human only occur at certain junctures.
Junctures where the world is in upheaval and the bonds between the six species need to be made stronger. Such events are rare, but some of note are the human world wars, one, two, and the hidden third. Other events in our own territory include the First Oracle’s prophecies of destruction of our second continent, Alutheianus. The loss of so much life, drew us together as nothing else could, according to Bantheena, the First Oracle.
My jaw dropped open; my thoughts yanked away from Diana while I absorbed a truth that I had never heard so much as whispered. “What the fuck…did you know that there was a second continent? And where the fuck was this book all these years? Did Evangeline have it hidden somewhere?”
I held it up and looked at Sienna.
“Be careful how you speak to my wife,” Dom growled.
I threw the book at his head, but he caught it before it could hit its mark. “I would cut my own arm off before hurting her, you know that.”
The door behind us opened and the author herself stepped through.
“Duchess.” I bowed from the waist, as did Nicholas and Dom.
She waved us off. “I heard some nattering on the other side of the door that included my name. What have I done now?”
Making her way to the seat next to Sienna, she lowered herself next to her one-time protégé. Sienna patted her arm. “You should feed.”
“I did before I descended to the depths.” She smiled and I knew without a doubt that she meant before Lycan’s death as opposed to this place, where we were all hiding from the moon maddened wolves.
“That,” I pointed at the book that Dom now held. “You wrote it?”
She held out her hand and Dominic made his way to his aunt and slid the book in front of her. “I did. I hid it here at the keep, on one of my last visits. Lycan…he hid it for me.”
Her hand trembled as she placed it on the cover. “Neither he nor I thought it was worth our lives to make it available to anyone else. Fated mates across species? Taboo.” Her eyes drifted to mine. “But your fated mate is not taboo, Raven. She’s just angry that you made a choice for her. A choice she would have made also given the circumstances, which I believe is why she is so furious.”
Her words were a strange kindness. “She doesn’t want to be a vampire.”
It was as if the others floated away, and I was having the conversation with Evangeline that I should have had already.
“It is because she does not remember it as anything but pain and betrayal. Her father abandoned her. Her brother tried to murder her. Her people that took her in told her that vampires were monsters—that was all she heard her whole life. Remember, she wasn’t told that she’d been a vampire originally for many, many years, and the truth was kept from everyone. She was trained away from the other children, even her own adopted siblings didn’t know—that is how well we masked her scent. She was well into adulthood before Lycan and I dared to tell her the truth. We kept the truth from her, and from her people.”
And it must’ve rocked her world. “What can I do to help her, Duchess?”
Her smile was sad but still, there seemed to be some hope in her eyes. “Do not give up on her. Respect her space as she requires it, but do not leave. Do not abandon her.”
Someone cleared their throat. Maybe Nicholas. “Duchess. Raven said there was something in there about another continent?”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I found the last writings of the First Oracle. And in it, she spoke of the distant past, when there was a second continent. Our species were split across the two, a land bridge between them.”
Her words trailed off and she flipped open the book, stopping near the back. “I transcribed it all here, so we didn’t lose it. The original was written in ancient glyphs that took us years to decipher. It was the ruse that we met under, working together on a project. It was why my brother allowed me to travel back and forth. Why I…well, it does not matter now, does it?”
I might have been as engaged as the others with the story she was spinning, and in all truth, I wanted to know more but…I felt a tug on my bond with Diana.
I frowned and turned toward the door. I should have felt her above us, not to the west.
“Diana is not in the keep,” I said.
I yanked the door open and was through it before anyone had a chance to ask me, or worse try and stop me. Because it was far worse than her just not being in the keep.
She was in danger—fear and rage raced through her.
I felt her fear, hunger, and frustration as clearly as if it were my own.
I raced up the stairs and out the closest exit I could find which happened to be a window. Good enough. I hit the ground running, feeling the danger around me as wolves took note of my emergence from the keep.
Bellows and screams, howls in the dark. A voice that was human—I was sure of it, and only my desire for it to be Maverick suffering somewhere let me believe it was him.
A wolf got in my way, turned wide eyes to me, and I knocked it to the side, sending it clear of my path to Diana.
Felt the teeth as the wolf bit down on her arm, breaking through her skin and digging into muscles. I ran faster. No wolf would catch me at top speed.
I would not lose her.
The world would not survive if I lost her—I would kill them all and salt the earth where their bones lay.
The trees around me changed, the sound of water reached my ears as I found her, my vision narrowed to the scene alone and nothing else.
Diana was under the wolf, sobbing, her hands buried deep in its chest as she squeezed its heart with her bare hands.
The wolf jerked and twitched, its body convulsing.
I slid to my knees next to her and pulled the massive animal off her, already knowing it was dead. “Frostbite, look at me.”
“His name is Gavin Barrach.” Her green eyes were wide, dilated with the fight and the scent of blood all around us. “I was feeding and…he attacked me. I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen! Like I wasn’t even his queen.”
The last words were whispered as I tugged her into my arms. She pulled away three seconds later.
“He’s not dead. We have to get him to a healer.”
I wasn’t sure I was hearing her right. “What?”
“I didn’t want to kill him. He’s not himself, no one is during a full moon.”
I could hear the beast's heart, a weak, sporadic thump with no rhythm, and knew she wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t dead.
Yet.
There was only one thing I could do. I scooped up the wolf. “I’ll carry him. Let’s go before anyone else sees. You cannot be seen here, Diana.”
Because anyone seeing the wolf queen attacking one of her own, feeding on a deer, helped by the bastard vampire they could smell all over her? It would be the final nail in her crown. There would be no coming back from this.
“Hurry.” Diana gripped my forearm. “We don’t have much time.”
Having someone reach through your chest and try to rip it out would do that to a heart. The problem was…that move…I’d seen William and Dominic do it on the battlefield. Hell, I’d heard that Edmund had been proficient at ripping hearts right out of chests. I was not about to tell Diana that there was a genetic component at play—that when push came to shove and she was fighting for her life, she pulled a move off that only the strongest vampires could. And against a massive, strong, male werewolf on a full moon?
It was an astonishing display of power.
“This way.” She took the lead, cradling her arm as we moved as quickly and stealthily as we could. It seemed to take forever to get back to the keep, when in reality it was minutes.
The wolf in my arms was barely hanging on by a thread as we burst into the infirmary.
“Help him!” Diana yelled.
There was a single male doctor there—human—and that was it. The others were all out in the woods on the prowl like this one had been.
I laid the wolf on the table and the doctor went to work. “This is bad, Diana, the chest cavity has been mutilated, it looks like…if I didn’t know better this looks like?—”
“A bad attack…bear maybe?” I cut in. “Seems like this wolf got himself tangled up with the wrong opponent.”
He shook his head grimly but didn’t look up. “Unlikely that he’ll survive. I’ll give him a sedative, and that will help ease the pain?—”
“Sienna could help,” Diana murmured, her eyes glazed over with a mix of shock and pain. “She’s a healer.”
“She’s also pregnant.” The doctor held up a vial and a bottle, drawing a full syringe. “I do not want to put pressure on a valuable resource when we may need her for those who have a better chance of survival.”
Diana’s eyes narrowed. “You would gainsay me?”
He plunged the syringe into the wolf. “I am sorry. I was just offering my opinion as you seem upset.”
But I knew the words for the lie they were. No one in the keep would ever have questioned her in the past, least of all one of the human doctors in her employ. She was losing respect across the board. I felt the pain of that knowledge as if it were my own, but I didn’t let it show as I gave her a quick nod.
“I will get Sienna.”
The doctor let out a weary sigh as he lifted the sheet to cover the wolf’s face.
“Don’t bother. He’s gone.”