Raven Chapter 27 A Five-Course Meal With A Side of Cardiac Arrest 334 #3
My apologies to the woman I just called a bitch. I mentally project into the universe. I know we should be building other women up and not tearing them down but I swear on Thor’s sweaty ball sack I will tear this woman apart the minute I see her.
Dre’s laugh tears me out of the vivid and intense murder plot I had started scheming up in my head. Miriam’s eyes are wide and she’s saying something frantic in a language I definitely don’t understand as Anik rumbles back to her. Meanwhile, Selena is beaming at me.
She shoves the glasses and bottle aside before launching herself across the table at me, squealing like human women do sometimes when they see each other.
I close my eyes as my chair starts to tip back, her arms a vise around my neck.
There’s nothing I can do about it as my eardrums are probably bleeding, and what in the realms is happening right now?
“We’re going to be sisters! Like, real, actual sisters!” Selena finally says, “I had my suspicions, but I’m so happy! Oh-em-gee!!” She squeals again.
My brain is a browser with seventy-three tabs open, and they all seem to be playing different videos at full volume.
Selena is squealing in my ear, Anik is going full growly bear, Miriam is fluttering her hands in a panicked way, my chair is tipping, and my future as a mate-murderer is flashing before my eyes in gory, vivid technicolor.
My head whips around, looking for a lifeline. It would make sense for my eyes to go to Em—he has all the answers. Or to Leandre—he fixes things for a living. But it doesn’t. Instead, it lands, like a homing missile, on Forrest.
He’s just… watching. Sitting there like a stone gargoyle on a rooftop amid the chaos unfolding. His expression is unreadable, but his eyes are locked on the scene before him, assessing.
Why him? I think, even as I’m mentally screaming at him. Fix this. Make it stop.
As if he hears the thought, he stands.
The movement is smooth, deliberate. It’s not loud but boy, does it just drip with command. Enough of it that the squealing cuts off, the rumbling stops, and even the air seems to be still. Then I realize that Kieran has just grabbed hold of my chair to keep us from hitting the floor.
“Selena,” Forrest says, his voice calm but unyielding. “Release her. Now.” It’s very clearly not a request, and Selena takes it as such, not-so-gracefully separating herself from me and scooting back across the table.
He then turns his head towards Dre, jerking his chin towards the kitchen. “Leandre. A glass of water. Now.” There’s a pause before his eyes cut to me for a microsecond before adding, “Please.”
Miriam looks, emotionally at least, like a deflated balloon. Anik is a statue of tense fury. Forrest's eyes sweep over both of them. "The living room. Five minutes. This is not a conversation for a dinner table." His gaze finally lands back on me. "Raven. Breathe."
I want him to explain. To comfort. To do literally anything except stand there like I'm a mess he's cleaning up.
He doesn't.
He's isolating variables. Giving orders. Managing the crisis.
Managing me .
He told me to breathe. Begrudgingly, I do. Once. Twice.
The noise doesn't stop, but it gets quieter. The chaos has a shape now. A sequence.
Forrest turned my meltdown into a to-do list.
And damn him, it's working.
I take a few more deep breaths as everyone files out of the dining room and into the living room. By the time I stand up to follow, I'm much calmer.
That is, until I walk into the living room and slam into the weird vibes they've all cooked up in here.
Everyone is situated in the seating area on the far end of the room. Anik stands in the middle, waiting for me.
The giant mountain of a shifter is rigid, his expression closed off entirely, but his eyes are blazing with intensity.
I take one of the two remaining armchairs—the ones that make up a little reading corner off to the side, between the door and him.
The minute my ass hits the cushion, words are spilling out of me, “I swear to every god I currently hate, somebody better start talking. And it better start with this mystery woman’s name and address, or I’m gonna go full John Wick on a bitch I’ve never even met.”
When all I get are a few owlish blinks, I continue, attempting to sound less unhinged. “I just want to talk to her. And by talk, I mean commit several felonies.”
Or not . I think to myself. Just go full unhinged. Set that expectation early.
My eyes catch on Emerson, who is ominously standing in a corner like usual while spinning a knife through his fingers.
Apparently, he’s on board with this energy because his eyes are burning into me, and a part of me hates that there are so many people and weird vibes between him and myself right now.
"No," Anik says, pulling my gaze away from one flavor of brooding intensity and straight into another.
How do I sign up to get all of this intensity in one room without clothing?
I mentally slap myself. Focus . Now this bitch—whoever she is—is going to have to John Wick me for fantasizing about her mate. This is getting convoluted real quick.
No matter how messy though, the problem could still be solved with a sharp knife and the staggering amount of rage inside of me.
I finally understand what people mean when they talk about a crime of passion. I realize as I hear Dre cough weirdly.
“There is no other woman.” Anik says, and my thoughts just cease to exist at his low, gravelly tone. “The woman you apparently want to commit crimes against does not exist.” He steps closer, becoming the only thing I can see. “My mother was talking about you , little one. You are my mate.”
My jaw hits the floor. Makes sense—this rug is plush as fuck, and my entire reality just exploded. Might as well get comfortable.
"My panther has known since the night you arrived.
Possibly even before that." My brain short-circuits.
I have the intense urge to either kiss him or punch him in the throat.
Maybe both. In quick succession. Meanwhile, my vagina—the only part of me seemingly in the building right now—stands up and starts slow-clapping.
"My shadows respond to you. They have from the start. Keeping them contained has been... impossible." He lets out a breath. "You are mine to protect. Mine to provide for. My instincts—my entire world—now revolves entirely around you."
The slow clapping turns to thunderous applause. My body does a full systems reboot as my entire reality shifts.
I open my mouth to ask why he kept this from me, but he beats me to it.
"I didn't tell you. I should have." He pauses, glances at Forrest. "You were new to this existence. Fragile. Overwhelmed. Pressure wouldn’t have helped.
You needed your feet under you first before making you choose, because this bond—it's permanent.
" He clenches his fists. "What you do with that knowledge is your choice. "
“You absolute idiot. Do you have any idea how many hypothetical crime scenes I just staged in my head? I was ready to go to war for you, you broody, secret-keeping asshole.” I stand up and walk right up to him.
My head comes to like mid chest so the glare I aim at him probably looks less intimidating than I’d like, but I continue anyway.
“Also, ‘my choice’? My choice is that you never, ever withhold world-shattering information from me ever again.”
Then I’m climbing him like the magnificent, infuriating tree he is, locking my lips to his before he can spout any more nonsense.
And holy siren titties, he kisses me back—like he’s starving, and I’m the first meal he’s seen in centuries. One massive hand clamps onto my ass, squeezing hard enough to brand ownership, while the other drags up my spine and fists the hair at my nape, tilting my head exactly how he wants it.
Control freak.
His tongue traces my lower lip, demanding entry, and I open for him because apparently my body likes his controlling tendencies. I need his taste like I need a godsdamn french fry dripping in salt and grease—immediate, filthy, and completely irrational.
My fingers dive into his hair, and we go at each other like we’re trying to win a fight with only our mouths. When I nip his lower lip he growls, the sound vibrating straight between my thighs, and backs me into the nearest wall hard enough that the air wooshes out of me.
Perfect.
My hands frantically search for the hem of his shirt before diving under, greedy for skin.
He’s not carved like the others; he’s built like a siege engine—broad, thick, heavy with power that doesn’t need to show off.
Every flex under my palms feels like a promise of destruction if he ever lets go.
And right now, I want to be the thing he decides to destroy.
I smirk against his mouth, then bite him again—harder—raking nails down his back for good measure. I want that legendary control to crack. I want to run just to feel him chase, to watch the civilized mask shatter and the beast underneath drag me down.
So I scratch and squirm like I need space, like I’m overwhelmed, and the idiot actually eases up, loosening his grip a fraction.
Rookie mistake.
I break the kiss, slide down his body with zero grace, and bolt with a gleeful little squeal that is absolutely not dignified.
I make it maybe four steps.
A growl rips through the room, and then his hand is around my throat from the front—firm, not cruel—and the other arm bands across my ribs, caging me against all that hard heat.
“I want nothing more than to hunt you down,” he rasps against my ear, voice rough as gravel, “pin you to the ground, and make you come so hard you forget your own fucking name, little one.” His fingers tighten just enough to make my knees wobble.
“But we’re in my mother’s house, and I’m not tasting my mate for the first time where she can hear you scream. ”
I go molten, then immediately deflate. Because damn it, he’s right.
I glance around—yep, the room’s empty. Everyone’s mysteriously vanished like they’ve got a sixth sense for impending filth.
His grip loosens, transforming from a cage to a steadying hold. The panther is still there, simmering in his eyes, but the man is wrestling it back under control. For now.
“Right,” I say, my voice embarrassingly breathy. “House rules. Got it.” I pat the arm still across my ribs. “So. I’m just gonna… go. To the bathroom. For a minute. Or an hour. Don’t wait up.”
I don’t wait for permission. I slip out of his hold, which he lets me do with a low, warning rumble that vibrates straight to my core, and take a wobbly step back.
“Bathroom,” I announce again, to the room, to myself, to the gods of terrible timing. Then I turn and walk—not run, walk, like a dignified person who hasn’t just been thoroughly claimed and subsequently put on hold—in the general direction I hope a bathroom might be.
My face is on fire. My body is a live wire. And the only coherent thought in my head is a loop of mate, mate, mate set to the rhythm of my pounding heart.
Mission: Find a cold shower. Or a wall to scream into. Or just a locked door to stand behind while I remember how to breathe like a normal entity who hasn’t just had her entire reality rewritten by a growl and a set of very capable hands.
Coward? Maybe. But a coward who hasn’t scandalized her maybe-mother-in-law.
I’ll take that as a win.