Raven Chapter 12 Revelations and Belgian Confections 137 #2
Dre clears his throat, pulling a small penlight from his pocket.
"Before you do anything else, I need to actually assess you.
Forrest's orders." He tilts my chin toward the light, checking my pupils.
"Follow my finger. Good. Now take a deep breath.
" His cool fingers press against my wrist. "Any lingering pain? Dizziness? Strange sensations?"
I list them—the bone-deep ache, the weird static when I think too hard, the way my skin still feels like it's adjusting to being skin . He nods along, making mental notes, then steps back with a small smile.
"She'll live." He informs the group at large, then mumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, "Forrest will be thrilled."
I make my way over to my favorite spot on the couch and plop down. Once everyone is settled around me, I pull my feet up and curl into the cushions, dragging the sleeves of Anik's ginormous thermal down over my hands. There are definitely a few flour splotches that weren't there last night.
Whoops. Maybe someone will teach me how to use the washing machine?
“Emerson, what can you tell us about her markings?” Forrest asks.
“They’re undoubtedly runic, but the language is vastly different from mine.
” He holds up his hands, displaying the precise lines etched down his fingers.
“My own runes are of elven nature and designed for one purpose: to efficiently channel and direct magical energy into a technological medium. Raven’s, however, appear to serve a much more complex function.
My initial assessment suggests they’re part of a ritualistic inscription, though my expertise doesn’t extend to identifying the specific purpose. ”
I decide to go looking for some memories because, now that I have a real brain, maybe I’ll find something I couldn’t before.
“Worth a shot.” I mumble.
As I look inward, the world tilts.
Not a memory. Something else. Something that hurts.
Cold stone against my back—I know it the way you know pain without knowing why. The ache in my wrists, sharp and burning. Dark lines carved into floors, filling with something thick.
Then my head splits open. Actual, physical, bone-deep agony.
I gasp, lurching forward, and something warm drips from my nose.
"Raven?" Multiple voices. Distant. Muffled.
I touch my upper lip. My fingers come away red.
Dre is there in an instant, cool hands cupping my face, tilting it up. His eyes go wide—then dark. Something flickers across his expression, there and gone, before he masks it behind that careful calm.
"Stop." His voice is tight. Controlled. "Stop trying to remember. Just... stop."
"I wasn't trying—" The words cut off as another wave of pain crashes through my skull. I squeeze my eyes shut, but the images keep coming. Lines. Cold. A body that might be mine, pale and small, lying in the middle of something terrible.
"Raven." Dre's grip on my face tightens. "Look at me. Only me. Breathe."
I try. The pain doesn't fade, but it... recedes. Pulls back into whatever dark corner it crawled out from.
Dre holds my gaze for a long moment, then reaches into his pocket. He produces a handkerchief—of course he does—and gently wipes the blood from my lip. His hands are steady, but something in his jaw is not. Tension. Strain. Like he's holding himself back from something.
"Chocolate," he says abruptly, snapping his fingers at Kieran without looking away from me. "Now."
Kieran produces a piece from out of nowhere, and Dre presses it into my palm.
"Eat. Slowly. Let your brain have something else to focus on."
I obey because honestly, what else am I going to do? The chocolate melts on my tongue and the world starts to feel solid again.
Dre watches me for another long moment, then stands. "Do not try that again." He glances at Emerson, and something passes between them—a whole conversation I'm not privy to. "Whatever's in there, it's protected. Aggressively."
"She saw something," Forrest presses. "The symbol—"
"She saw pain." Dre's voice cuts like a blade. "That's all she's going to see until we figure out why her own brain is trying to kill her for looking."
The rest of the room goes quiet as a low, continuous growl vibrates against my back.
When did I get here?
I blink, disoriented, and realize I'm pressed against something solid and warm. Anik. He's got me pulled into his chest, one arm locked around my waist like he's afraid I'll float away. Or maybe like he'll float away.
Either way, it doesn't matter. This is a good place to be. Solid. Safe. Growly.
I sink into him.
I glance over at the others to see how they’re handling all the insanity that seems to have cropped up around me in record time.
Forrest and Emerson have gone neutral. That specific kind of blank that means they're wrestling with something they don't want to show. Processing. Calculating. Filing away for later.
Kieran has gone still. Completely still—which for him is like the sun deciding not to rise.
Wrong. Unsettling. His grin is gone, and in its place is something I've never seen before. I mean, I have seen it, but never on him. I’ve seen it in the eye of a hurricane, in the calm before a storm, in the minute before a bomb goes off, but on Kieran?
I shudder.
Dre, meanwhile, is already moving. He disappears toward the kitchen and returns thirty seconds later with a glass of water, pressing it into my hands with exactly the right amount of concern. Not too much. Not too little. Perfect.
And honestly? It bothers me. It's too perfect. Like he's done this a thousand times for a thousand people, and I'm just the latest name on an endless list.
But then I see it. The tightness in his jaw. The way his movements are a fraction too sharp. Incandescent rage, barely banked, flickering behind every perfectly timed gesture.
Maybe not just another patient after all.
It’s obvious that he's furious. He just doesn't want me to see it. Which hurts a little. I want all of them, not just the good parts.
Then again, the hidden parts are kind of doing it for me, so maybe I'm not the best judge.
I take the water because my throat feels like sandpaper and I'm not stupid.
"Thanks," I mumble.
Dre's jaw tightens as he gives a short nod. That incandescent rage flickers behind his eyes again, there and gone.
"We'll figure this out." His voice is soft, steady. "I promise."
He means it. I can tell he means it. But underneath the warmth, underneath the perfect bedside manner, something darker is stirring. Something that doesn't want to fix this.
No, it’s something that wants to destroy. Something that wants to make whoever did this pay.
It’s something that should probably scare me.
Too bad I need therapy as much as these idiots because all thoughts of pain have been shoved aside and replaced by little zings that travel up and down my spine before settling low in my belly.
A dangerous pairing with the low rumbles still vibrating through me.
And yet. Even through all that, my curiosity wins out.
I tilt my head against Anik's chest, voice muffled. "What is it you smell like? It's... primal. Wild."
He relaxes a fraction at the distraction, a low hum rumbling through him as he considers it. "Petrichor. The rest is pheromones. Alpha. Smells different to everyone."
I nod, my mind scrambling for a word to describe that secondary, intoxicating layer beneath the rain-soaked earth. Deep. Raw. Musky is the only word that comes close. It evokes a primal, dizzying need to stake a claim, to mark him as mine just as his scent seems to be marking me.
I am moments from tearing into him like he would a juicy steak and sinking my teeth into him. The need is urgent and insane . Luckily, Forrest’s usual demands act like a bucket of ice water, yanking me back to reality.
“What is the mark on her hip if not a part of these runes?”
“It’s the sigil of the High Priestess,” Em states, his tone as simple and casual as if he’d just commented on the time.
I have no idea what in Hel's name he's talking about, but Anik reacts like Emerson just pulled the pin on a live grenade. He straightens so fast it's like a soldier snapping to attention, his whole body rigid.
I use the sudden shift to scoot away, needing to sit up on my own.
“As in… the High Priestess?” Anik’s voice is low, stripped of its usual gruffness and filled with something akin to awe.
“Wait,” I say, my head swiveling between their stunned faces. “What High Priestess?”
"There's no' been one in more than a hundred years." Kieran breathes, his gaze locked on me as if I'd just grown a second head.
Emerson corrects him, "A correct assessment of the historical record would be three hundred years."
"Hello!" I yell. "What. Are. You. Talking. About?"
Forrest meets my frantic gaze, his own steady and grim.
"The magical community wasn't always governed by a council.
It was once overseen by appointed officials.
The individual who held the sole power of appointment was the High Priestess.
There has only ever been one true bloodline for the role—the magic is passed directly from Nyx herself. "
My mouth drops open. "So the High Priestess is a literal demigod?"
"Not with the raw power of a direct offspring," he corrects, precise as always. "But formidable beyond any other bloodline. She wouldn't be your mother, but a distant ancestor. This lineage has always been more potent, magically, than all others. They were chosen."
"Chosen how? Like, 'congratulations, you exist, here's a power-up,' or more of a celestial bloodline situation?"
Em leans forward, eyes glowing like a kid who just found a treasure map hidden in a boring history book.
"All magic users are descended from Nyx in one way or another.
She is the mother of all magic. But only one bloodline has ever been more potent than the rest. The prevailing theory is that the High Priestess isn't merely a descendant—she's an anchor. Nyx's direct tether to this world."
"Wait, so you're telling me—" I have to stop, take a breath, steady the whirlwind in my chest. "That I'm a long-lost demigod-adjacent priestess with a direct line to a full-fledged goddess? And not just any goddess, but the mother of all magic?"
"Might be," Forrest says, ever the cautious strategist.
"The mark isn't merely a symbol; it's a unique genetic key. There is no 'might.' The universe does not produce duplicates. She is the sole extant heir. A living grimoire of that bloodline." Emerson cuts in, leaving no room for argument.
My mind whirls, trying to process the scale of it. But the awe curdles fast into something cold and sharp.
None of that can be right. I'm just a weird ghost-person hybrid. A former phantom who's too clumsy for her own body.
And more than that—I realize with a jolt of panic—I don't want to be someone that important.
I was ready to be a regular supernatural.
To slip into the group as another member of the team.
What terrifies me now is the look in their eyes changing.
The thought of being coddled, hidden away like some precious, breakable relic because I'm the "last" of something? It makes my skin crawl.
I was silent and unseen for forty years. I can't—I won't—go back to that. I want to be myself. Loudly and proudly. Wherever the hell I want.
"Everyone believed that bloodline was extinct," Leandre says, like he’s physically grappling with the impossibility of it all. "How did this happen?"
"I don't know," Forrest admits, his gaze shifting to Emerson. "But we will figure it out." His eyes, cold and focused, snap back to me. "The more immediate question is, how did the demon, Asag, know who you were?"
I scrunch up my nose. "What? Who's Asag?"
"The bastard who made you whole, lass," Kieran clarifies, his usual levity still nowhere to be seen.
"Oh, that asshole?" I shrug, as if getting your whole existence obliterated and rebuilt by a demon is just another Tuesday. "I have no idea. I just didn't want you guys getting zapped. I was invisible. If I'd died, you wouldn't have even known to be sad about it."
This time, they all growl. In unison. Like I just insulted their mothers or something. And then, through all that noise, a voice I least expected cuts through like a blade.
"Do not take a risk like that again."
I look up, startled. Forrest. The man who looks at me like I'm a security breach with a pulse. His expression is, as always, an unreadable mask of stone, but that command was definitely meant for me.
A wide, slow grin spreads across my face, a spark of pure delight igniting in my chest.
"Awwww," I tease, my voice dripping with playful triumph. "So you do like me?"
He huffs. Sharp. Dismissive. But the corner of Emerson's mouth twitches—a rare sight—and for one weightless second, none of it matters. Not the mark. Not the bloodline. Not the terrifying reality I've been dropped in.
I'm not a lost priestess. Not a victim.
I'm just... here.
After five years of being a ghost in their story, I'm finally a character.
I'm the one causing Em's tiny smile. The spark in Kieran's eyes.
Leandre's warm, easy grin. Anik's reluctant smirk.
And that huff from Forrest? I've watched a thousand movie nights from the shadows.
I know that sound. It means he's fond of someone and hates admitting it.
Then Forrest claps his hands together, sharp as a starter's pistol. "Enough. These revelations change nothing about our immediate priorities. Everyone, to the training room. Now." His gaze lands on me, expectant and unyielding. "Your assessment begins in five minutes."