Reaper: A raven paranormal romance (Crookshollow ravens Book 2)

by Steffanie Holmes

“Cheer up, big brother,” I sat down next to him and shoved the coffee under his nose. “If we can find Ingrid, you might be free to sleep in as late as you like before you know it.”

  “For now I’d settle for not feeling as though I’ve been run over by a bus.” He sat up a little and sipped his coffee. “That’s disgusting.”

  “This is a library, not a Starbucks. I’ve made you some jammy bread, too.” Byron pulled himself up and I shoved his bread slices into his hand. I sat down next to his and we ate in hungry, naked silence. All I’d had to eat yesterday was half a bowl of chips. Bread and jam had never tasted so good.

  “That was surprisingly delicious,” Byron wiped his jammy hands on the cushions, and stood up, stretching his hands over his head. I averted my eyes so Byron couldn’t accuse me of staring at him in envy. “It’s amazing what starving yourself can do for one’s appetite.”

  “Tonight, I promise we’ll break into a restaurant, or a bakery.”

  “I’d even settle for a horrible petrol station pie. It’s a pity your girlfriend couldn’t have given us a picnic basket to go.”

  At the mention of Belinda, I stiffened. Byron saw my face. “Don’t look like that, Cole. We’ll be back to her before you know it.”

  “Yeah.” I glanced out of the window again. A car turned off the road and pulled up to a space near the library doors. Our first librarian had arrived. “Shit, let’s go.”

  As I forced my own shift back to my raven form, I watched Byron change, his face shrinking back into itself, the top of his head flattening out as his bones cracked and changed, forming his curved beak and thick, strong legs. It was strange, like watching myself in a mirror. When we were both back to bird form, we hopped into the entrance alcove and hid behind a potted plant while the librarian fiddled with the alarm.

  “That’s odd,” she murmured, as she opened the door and pressed several buttons on the unworking keypad. “I definitely set this last night.”

  We scampered out just as she walked into the main room and took in the mussed cushions, the dirty coffee cups on the counter, and the crisp crumbs all over the floor. “What the—”

  I soared up into the sky, relishing the wind whipping through my feathers. I looked back and saw Byron struggling along behind me, grimacing as his ring bit into his wing, causing him to list to the right.

  “Come on, we’re not far away!” I called out to him in caw-tongue.

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  I could ignore the pain, as I’d had several days to get used to it. And knowing that I only had to endure it a little longer had filled me with a new-found lightness, a sense of purpose I’d never felt before. I dipped and dived, pulling my wings in tight and spinning down into a barrel roll, laughing as the wind zoomed past my face. I hadn’t had this much fun flying in a long time.

  If only I could be free, it was actually pretty awesome to be a Bran.

  Byron wasn’t doing as well. As the day wore on, he flew lower and lower, his ring digging deeper into his skin. At one point, his wing collapsed completely and he dropped out of the sky, toppling arse over tit down towards the village below.

  Fuck. I dived after him, but he had no control, and couldn’t slow his descent. He crashed into a tree. I dived in after him. Byron? I called, moving through the branches, searching

  Caw ... He croaked out aloud. I found him in one of the lower branches, his feet hanging in the air and his head and wings jammed in the fork of a branch. He’d managed to land in a tree overlooking a school cricket field. The kids on the pitch were all pointing at him. I grabbed his feet in my beak and tugged him free.

  “I hate this,” Byron fumed at me as he hopped along the branch, pecking at the ring. The boys below laughed harder. He glowered at them, but the glower of a raven doesn’t do much to deter a schoolboy. A few moments later, a large pebble sailed past my face.

  “Let’s get out of here.” I flapped my wings and lifted off again.

  Byron looked miserable as he struggled alongside me. “I hate feeling like this. I am so weak.”

  “We’re nearly there. If Ingrid can help us, you’ll never have to feel like this again.”

  “And if she can’t?”

  “Then we’ll go back and force Morchard to free you. I’m sure we’ll find a way to persuade him.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Byron moaned. “I’m feeling pretty violent right now.”

  After four hours of solid flying, Byron was in a sorry state. We’d slowed our pace down so dramatically, I probably could have walked faster, and that was even accounting for the fact I would have been walking naked and would have the police and a long line of desperate housewives slowing me down.

  “Cole,” Byron puffed, his breath coming out in a sharp wheeze. “I can’t … fly … anymore …”

  I could see he wasn’t lying. Every breath he took came out as a ragged wheeze, and he could barely keep his wings open. We were so close, but I knew we’d have to stop somewhere for the night before we continued on. That was another night before we would both be free, but better to wait in agony then to be dead.

  “Make it to that forest just ahead.” I pointed with my wing. “We’ll camp there for the night.” I figured once it was dark I could break in somewhere and bring us back some food.

  “T-t-thanks.”

  My own ring tugged on me as well, and my wing muscles ached from the long flight. It would be good to rest. I dipped lower, aiming for a clearing in the trees. Ahead of me I could make out a structure inside the clearing, and a path running alongside it. As I drew closer, I heard the voices of birds. A whole cacophony of different species assailed my senses, chattering news of the day and gossip and calls for potential mates. Only one kind of structure could account for that kind of concentration of different bird species ...

  “It’s the shelter.” I swooped down towards it. “Byron, we made it!”

  Byron followed, flying shakily. As I breached the tree canopy, he hurtled down in front of me, landing hard on the gravel path in front of a long wire aviary.

  “Oh no, did you see that?” A female voice cried out.

  “I think it was a bird.” A male voice called back. “Are they starting to come here on their own, now?”

  “Maybe word has got out about our excellent continental breakfast.”

  Two other voices laughed.

  As I watched from the tree above, a black-haired girl raced from the trees. She found Byron on the ground and scooped him up into her arms.

  She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and her long hair was tied back off her face. And the green overalls she wore did her tall, willowy figure no favours. But I recognised her instantly. It was Ingrid.

  She rolled him over in her arms, cooing at him under her breath. “It’s OK, little one. I’ll take you to our infirmary and—”

  Ingrid drew in her breath as she felt around his wing, and her fingers located the black ring. “Holy shit,” she whispered. “You’re a Bran. How did you find me?”

  That was my cue. Checking that none of Ingrid’s co-workers were in my line of sight, I hopped down towards the trunk of the tree, where the branch was sturdier, and forced a shift. When I’d fully changed into my human form, I called down to her, “Is that a raven on your breast, or are you just pleased to see me?”

  Ingrid whirled around, her eyes taking in my naked body. She dropped her arms, and Byron rolled out of them on to the ground. “C-C-Cole?”

  I nodded. “Hello, Ingrid. You’re looking well.”

  Croak? Byron moaned pitifully from the ground. Both Ingrid and I ignored him.

  “And you look just as sexy as ever. How did you find me?”

  “Your online profile, RogueBird69.” Byron said. Ingrid whirled around, gasping as she found him lying naked on his side with his hand behind his head like a tattooed Adonis. “For someone who is supposed to be hiding, you’re pretty easy to find.”

  “Keep your voices down,” she hissed. “My colleagues are just at the other av
iary. If they hear you … it’ll be very hard to explain why I’m talking to a couple of naked men. Tell me what you’re doing here. I see you’re both wearing the rings still. So, on whose command have you come? Why didn’t Mikael come with you? Is he free?”

  At the mention of Mikael, my chest ached. “He’s not free. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Ingrid sank down to her knees. Tears sprung in the corners of her eyes. “No …”

  “He was killed to keep him quiet,” I said. “Mikael and I were working together on a plan to become free, but I made a mistake that cost him his life. I am so sorry, Ingrid, so very sorry. That’s why we’re here. We need your help. We need to know how you freed yourself from the bond. We’ve got to free ourselves before more lives are lost.”

  “You’re lying,” she whispered through her tears. “You’re wearing the rings. You’re still working for Morchard—”

  “Rest assured, we came here by ourselves,” Byron said, wincing as he held up his hand, giving her a good look at his blackened, swollen finger.

  Ingrid held out her hands, and took Byron’s in hers, gently stroking the black ring, her lips moving, forming silent words as tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Finally, she looked up at me, and wiped her eyes. “Change back into your bird forms, and come with me. We have much to discuss.”

  We hopped along behind Ingrid as she ushered us inside a tiny potting shed behind the aviary. Inside, a cosy office had been set up, with a computer and stacks of files buried under piles of empty coffee cups, seed packets, and pamphlets about different bird species. Post-it notes, photographs of Ingrid and her workmates with the birds, and bird-related stories clipped from the papers covered the walls. Ingrid took down a map of the different nesting areas around Royal Lewcott and pinned that over the window above the desk.

  “OK,” she said, slumping down in the desk chair. “You can change now.”

  We did, Byron plonking his naked arse down on top of a stack of bird books, and me leaning up against the closed door. The shed didn’t lock, but I’d be able to prevent anyone from entering and seeing us.

  “You know,” Ingrid said with a sly smile. “I used to always wish shifters changed with their clothes, the way they do in stories. But right now, I’m starting to see the appeal.”

  “I wouldn’t flirt with Cole if I were you. He’s taken.” Byron pulled a pen out from under his arse, frowned at it, and tossed it against the wall. “It’s his cock that got us into this mess in the first place. My cock, however, is a free-for-all.”

  Ingrid laughed. “I’ve missed you guys. So tell me, what’s going on?”

  As briefly as we could, we filled her in on everything that had happened since I’d run away from the Morchards. Byron explained how we’d found her on the library computer and decided to come to the aviary.

  “You’re the only one we know who has successfully gone rogue,” I said. “You’re not wearing your ring. And you are in a human form. You could never do that before.”

  “If you had, I wouldn’t have been able to leave you alone.” Byron licked his lips.

  Ingrid punched him lightly in the arm. “You haven’t changed a bit, Byron Erikson. You’re still a total man-whore.”

  “And you are still smokin’ hot, even in those dungarees. There’s something sexy about a girl in dungarees ...”

  Ingrid punched Byron in the leg this time, but she was smiling.

  “Mikael was trying to find the witch who freed you before he was killed,” I explained. But he wasn’t having any success. She seems to have gone missing. We were wondering if you happened to know—”

  Ingrid was shaking her head. I stopped talking, my heart plummeting.

  “She’s dead,” Ingrid said.

  “But then how—”

  “I freed myself.”

  I leaned forward. What did she mean, she freed herself? That wasn’t possible. “Explain.”

  Ingrid tapped a pen against her knee. “As soon as I left the estate, I went to the witch Mikael had found. She was waiting for me at that old Witches’ Cemetery behind Crookshollow, preparing to perform the spell she’d concocted. It’s quite advanced magic, there were lots of crystals and incense sticks and incantations, and it took her some time to summon a circle of power. I was waiting on the outside of the circle for her to declare it time for me to enter. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow darting between the trees. I didn’t think much of it at first. After all, we were in the middle of the wilderness. It was probably a fox or squirrel.”

  “But it wasn’t a squirrel, was it?”

  “It was that wolf, Isengrim.” Ingrid shuddered. “I gathered from talking to other rogues later that this witch had been working with him to free other Bran who wanted to join his pack. But the night before my spell, he’d brought her a particularly nasty bird and demanded she free him. She refused, knowing that this bird would cause a great deal of damage if it were set free of the constraints of its master. They fought, and she told him she refused to ever perform the spell for him again, and told him she would warn other witches not to work for him.”

  “Of course, none of this was known to me when I watched a wolf slink from the shadows, a still-living raven clamped in its jaws. He slunk to the edge of the circle, saw me waiting there, and gave me a wink. I croaked at the witch to get her attention, but she was so intent on her work she didn’t even look up. Isengrim slunk through the gap she’d made in the circle for me to walk through, and dropped the bird into the centre.

  “The witch whirled around, and grabbed for the raven, trying to toss it out of the circle. But it transformed in her hands, becoming a large man with flowing black hair and cruel eyes. He knocked her down, its half-transformed talons slicing at her belly, and Isengrim lunged for her neck.”

  Ingrid closed her eyes, the memory painful. “It was awful, there was blood everywhere, splattered across the grass, dripping down the tombstones. They disembowelled her, then used the energy she’d drawn down to finish the rite. I’d slunk back behind a grave, too petrified to run, but hoping they might leave behind enough energy that I could also break my bond. Isengrim crept over, poked his head behind the stone, and bared his teeth at me. I flew away, as far away as I could get.”

  “But I don’t understand. If you didn’t perform the rite, then how are you rogue?”

  “I told you. I freed myself. Everything we’ve been told about Bran and what they can and can’t do, it’s all a lie,” Ingrid said. “And the biggest lie of all is that we need our master or a witch in order to break the bond. We can do it ourselves, for we were never meant to be slaves. I went into the forest, and I hid in the trees. I spent days there, living with the other birds, listening, watching, meditating, drawing back the power of freedom, the power of the sky, the trees, the world. Day by day, the pain faded. And then, one day, I lifted my wing, and the ring just dropped off.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “It’s not.” Ingrid held up her right hand. The only ring on her index finger was a small Celtic band. “See?”

  “But how did you end up in human form? The whole reason we met was because Victor was trying to treat you for your inability to completely shift.”

  “It was fear. I was so afraid of what the Carnarvons or Morchard would make me do in my human form, that I had internalised that fear, and it became a physical impairment. As soon as I had nothing to fear from my masters any more, I was able to change fully into my human form.” She flipped her long ponytail over her shoulder. “Now I spend most of my time in this form, except when I want to go flying. That bit is still too much fun to give up.”

  “Let me get this straight.” Byron gripped the ring on his finger, wincing as it flared with heat. “You are telling me you went into the forest and just thought, and then this thing came off?”

  “That is exactly what I’m telling you.” Ingrid met his eyes, and then mine. “We Bran have been fed so many lies in order to keep us in servitude. We have so much
more power than we realise, but it’s not until you dig deep past all the bullshit that you can actually find and harness it. For fucks’ sake, we shuttle souls from one life to the next. That’s some seriously powerful stuff. It makes no sense that we’re forced to be bound to a human family.”

  “No,” I agreed, thinking of Morchard’s grim face and sickening smile. “It doesn’t.”

  “If you guys want to be free, you have to get back to the natural order of things, back to your base animal instincts, in order to draw that power out. I know it’s a bit hippy-dippy but I can’t really tell you much more than that, sorry.”

  “I can’t fucking believe this,” Byron grimaced as he knocked his injured finger on the edge of the desk. “I’ve been living in agony for days thanks to my dear brother here, and you’re telling me all I have to do is fly into the forest, do a little bird yoga, find myself, and I’ll be free?”

  “I don’t know if it works that way for every Bran,” said Ingrid. “But it worked that way for me.”

  “Will you help us?” I asked. “Will you help Byron and I figure out how to be free?”

  “Of course. But first, I think you probably need something to eat.”

  As if in reply, Byron’s stomach rumbled loudly. Ingrid laughed. She reached under the desk and pulled out a pet cage, the kind with plastic sides and a wire front you used to take cats to the vet if you wanted your legs clawed to death through the wire mesh. “Hop in here and I’ll take you back to my place. I’ll make you a feast you’ll never forget.”

  “This is bullshit,” Byron complained in caw-tongue.

  “Shut up. I can’t focus if you’re talking.”

  Ingrid sighed. “You’re both hopeless. I don’t how why I even bothered bringing you here.”

  We were perched on one of the highest branches of an ancient oak, deep in the heart of Sherwood Forest, or at least, what was left of it after deforestation and urbanisation had claimed a major portion of the ancient wood.

  Ingrid was trying to show us how she had freed herself. But between Byron’s obnoxious flirting and Ingrid’s giggling at his obnoxious flirting, and all the thoughts of Belinda running through my head, I was finding it impossible to concentrate.