Conspiracy of Ravens

by J. C. McKenzie

  The elderly couple were the last in the restaurant. When they hobbled past the front counter, Raven smiled and waved, wishing them a pleasant evening.

  When the door shut, Mike turned back to her. “So, what’s up?”

  “What do you know about Lloth?”

  “The Corvid Queen? Not much. Why?” Mike wiped the sweat from his brow with his unharmed forearm.

  “Just something Odin and Huginn Muninn said.”

  He tugged his stained uniform down and waited.

  “Odin asked if Cole was visiting him on Lloth’s behalf, and when I showed him the feather I found in Bear’s safe house to Huginn Muninn, he confirmed it wasn’t his. He suggested I ask Cole about it.” Raven took a deep breath.

  “And?”

  “And Cole said it was Lloth’s.”

  Mike’s eyebrows rose. “What did Cole say when you asked him about Lloth?”

  Raven wrung her hands in her apron.

  “Raven?” Mike growled.

  “We got...” She looked away and heat crept up her neck. “Distracted.”

  Mike groaned. “Are you kidding me? If you were in a horror movie, you’d be the one who’d jump in the serial killer’s truck.”

  “That’s not fair. While I admit, I occasionally have brain farts—”

  “Raven. Your brain doesn’t fart. It completely shits itself.”

  “That’s crass.”

  “Crasser than getting too distracted by the bad guy’s dong to say: ‘Hey! Did your boss abduct and possibly kill my brother?’” Mike vibrated. “I told you we couldn’t trust him.”

  “He said he wouldn’t harm Bear. He swore a fae oath.”

  “That doesn’t exactly protect brother Bear from others hurting him, now does it?”

  Raven rocked back on her heels. Son of a banshee. Why did her baby brother have to constantly make logical points?

  “He won’t harm our brother, but he can get someone else to do it for him.” Mike’s face grew red. “He’s the goddam Patron Fae of Assassins for fuck’s sake.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “Because you shared a moment?”

  Raven clamped her mouth shut.

  Mike sighed and some of the red in his cheeks drained away. “Cole is working with or for the Corvid Queen. She most likely learned the general location of Bear’s safe house from your Prince of Penis in advance and used some hocus pocus magic to locate him before you arrived. The only question remaining is whether Cole was complicit in her abduction of Bear or whether he’s played you from the beginning.”

  As much as she didn’t want to think Cole betrayed her trust, the idea of the Lord of Shadows being vulnerable or naïve enough for someone else to use him was unfathomable. Sometimes, the simplest explanation was the best one. Even if it tore her heart out.

  Cole was a dark fae lord, and dark fae lords couldn’t be trusted.

  When the barrier between the realms fell, fae lords had been some of the cruelest Others. They had already squabbled and fought amongst each other, carving out realms within the dark and light domains to manipulate and preside over. The Mortal Realm represented new territory, and they scrapped to seize control. A lot of people died. If Odin hadn’t stepped in, Earth would still be a battleground. Or maybe even a graveyard. Now, it was home for the mundane, and the supernatural, like shifters and witches, who’d already existed in the Mortal Realm.

  The naming and classification of the realms and domains didn’t make any logical sense. A hundred years ago, they were probably convenient, but now they misled the ignorant. The Mortal Realm implied the Other Realms were immortal. Fae lords and Others may have inspired the literary portrayals of fae, angels, demons, and even gods, but they could be killed, and they aged, just slowly. And although they were a mix of these mythical beings, and shared characteristics, they weren’t the same thing. They were darker, and in some ways, more formidable.

  Two main Other Realms existed, and they mirrored the Mortal Realm’s religion and myths of heaven and hell. Beings from the Realm of Light, or Rollers, rarely cavorted with the mundane, but the Underworld was another circus entirely. Many smaller realms, including the Realm of Shadow and the Realm of War resided within the Underworld. It was a place of darkness, deadly deals and scandalous secrets, with promises of naughty sex, lies and everything in between. The dark realms held a certain appeal with the mundane, and many travelled there to seek their inner sinful desires. The fae lords, displeased with Odin’s earlier intervention, brutally punished anyone who dared to enter their territory without permission or something to barter with. In other words, people entered at their own risk, and often paid for their stupidity with their life or servitude.

  Not only had she slept with a powerful fae lord, she’d entrusted the safety of all her loved ones to him. Mike was right. A bad guy’s dong had distracted her.

  Only time would tell what the true cost of her actions would be.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “My knight in shining armour turned out to be a loser in aluminum foil.”

  ~Unknown, but also Raven Crawford,

  after one beer too many

  With everything else in her life going crazy—Bear missing, Cole’s potential betrayal—she needed to keep some normalcy around her. What better way to stay grounded than to meet with her financial planner to discuss how broke she was? After all, she’d questioned her life choices repeatedly, maybe it was time to pull up her adulting pants and do something more proactively about it.

  After her day shift ended, she dragged herself home for a shower and change of clothes. Now clad in a T-shirt, shorts and flip flops, she walked to the local bank branch. The afternoon sun bore down on her and the heat from the pavement bathed her legs.

  A heavy weight settled in the pit of Raven’s stomach. Her financial advisor, Lucy, kept talking, but Raven’s brain and pride had already taken a beating. At her current rate, she’d pay off the remainder of the fifty thousand dollar loan in another five to ten years assuming no more large financial burdens popped up their ugly heads.

  Raven didn’t need a reminder of her lousy run of luck.

  Jean Claude was on his last leg, or tire, and she had a cracked filling to repair. If she wanted to go back to school and pay off this loan, she’d have to move back into her parents’ place.

  She sank farther into the chair.

  She didn’t see any way around it.

  “Any questions?” Lucy asked. Her expensive lash extensions fluttered as she blinked and waited.

  “No. No thank you.”

  Lucy’s kind smile faltered. “You know, it’s not my business, but...”

  Raven straightened.

  “Have you ever considered going after your ex-boyfriend in small claims court?”

  Raven frowned. “I thought because he declared bankruptcy, he was essentially expunged of any responsibilities to pay off the loan.”

  Lucy nodded. “If you hadn’t co-signed this loan, he’d still have to make payments depending on his income, but if he is making bankruptcy payments, it isn’t being applied to this loan. So, with the bank, yes, he’s off the hook, but not necessarily with you. I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not sure how it works, but it doesn’t seem fair that he gets a slap on the wrist while you get saddled with one-hundred percent of the loan repayment.”

  Raven sighed. “No. It doesn’t seem fair at all.” Story of her life. “He gets to go on as per usual, and my life has been drastically affected.”

  “You said he’s a doctor now? He could afford to pay you back.”

  Raven pursed her lips. Lucy had been helpful in setting up a manageable repayment plan with the bank and offering helpful financial advice over the last few years.

  “But sue him?”

  “I know it’s not really the Canadian way, and it may not even be an option because he declared bankruptcy, but...” She sat back in her chair and tapped the forms on her desk with her pen. “It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it.” />
  Raven snorted.

  “At least look into it.”

  Raven dropped the boxes in her living room and let the grocery bags and purse slide off her arms and shoulders. The weight didn’t lessen. Sure, she could’ve slept on the idea of moving back to Crawford Central with a skulk of foxes. Sure, she could’ve dwelled and dawdled. But no amount of pouting would change the inevitable. Her need for independence and a place of her own prevented her from changing her circumstances. She didn’t want to be a server for life. She needed to be proactive and take advantage of her parents’ offer. Not everyone had a loving family to fall back on, so despite having the luck of a funeral director who purchased a mortuary the day before a zombie apocalypse, she was still more fortunate than a lot of other people. Now she had a little more than a month to enjoy the last of her independent living before she returned to her old room in her parents’ basement.

  The shadows poured from the edges of the room, pooling in front of her. The lighting dimmed.

  Raven held her breath. She needed to talk to Cole, but she feared the answers he’d give her. She feared he’d distract her with his large, magnificent...

  Focus, Crawford!

  The shadows spiraled up into a tower. Beul na h-Oidhche gu Camhanaich stepped from the Shadow Realm to stand a foot away from her. Fully clad in fae garb, his leather and metal armour, and along with a billowing cape, emphasized his imposing stance.

  She still wanted to pull him into her bedroom. Her gaze drifted down his body.

  The shadow portal faded away and the late afternoon sunlight streaming into her apartment returned.

  His smouldering gaze scanned the room. He frowned. “Boxes?”

  “I’m moving back to my parents’ place.” She kicked off her flip flops. They bounced off the baseboard with a smack and settled by the door.

  “Does this have anything to do with not being good at adulting?”

  “Sort of.”

  He folded his arms in front of his chest. One hand splayed across his other bicep. Those hands. Those masculine, strong hands had worked her body and made her moan. Heat crept up her neck to her face.

  He cleared his throat.

  “It has to do with taking back control of my life. I need to move home to pay off my loan faster.”

  “What did you buy?”

  Raven nudged an overturned box with her toe until it stood upright. “A lie and a whole lot of heartache.”

  “Explain.”

  She rubbed her bare arms. “I co-signed a loan with my now ex-boyfriend.”

  Cole blinked. “The doctor?”

  She nodded. “He needed money for med school but didn’t qualify for a student loan, so I co-signed a bank loan with him because I was naïve and thought of it as an investment for our future. He defaulted on the payments and the bank came after both of us. Honestly, looking back, I doubt he had any intention of paying off any of it.

  “He declared bankruptcy, but somehow avoided jail and kept his spot in med school after a hiatus. I didn’t get off so lucky. They’d recently changed the law in Canada, so you’re not considered financially independent from your parents until you’ve been living on your own for at least four years or you’re over the age of thirty. Under the law, Robert was independent, but I wasn’t. If I had declared bankruptcy, the bank would’ve gone after my parents. That wasn’t an option. They would’ve lost the business and possibly the house, and frankly, I’m a grown-ass woman. I needed to fix my own mistakes.”

  “So, I dropped out of school and started working full time to make the payments. Shortly after all this ugliness unfolded, I discovered Robert was cheating on me with pretty much any woman who’d have him.”

  Cole’s expression hardened. “You should’ve let me hurt him in the hospital.”

  “That wouldn’t have helped Mike at all.”

  “Mike doesn’t require medical assistance anymore.” His body tensed as if ready to spring forward.

  Raven straightened. The hairs on her neck stood up. He wasn’t suggesting what she thought he was suggesting...was he?

  “But I could make sure your ex does.”

  Oh. He wasn’t suggesting, he was flat-out offering. Raven licked her lips. That would feel so good.

  “Just say the word.” Cole stepped in and plucked a strand of errant hair that had escaped her messy bun. His earthy scent surrounded her. “Let me do this for you.”

  The tempting promises of the Underworld. Would she lose her soul if she took Cole’s offer? Raven still didn’t think of herself as a violent person, but the thought of Robert getting mauled by her fae lord lover sent warm fuzzies all through her body. Ah, the seduction of the Underworld.

  She never understood how regs ended up making deals that landed them in servitude to a fae lord. She felt it keenly now.

  Cole’s gaze darkened. The gray bleeding out to leave swirling pools of black. She had no doubt he would disappear on her word and visit her ex-boyfriend. But it wouldn’t be a sound beating, like he deserved. It would be annihilation.

  Would he kill her ex? Leave him permanently disfigured? Extract money for her loan repayment and leave him destitute?

  “So tempting,” she breathed.

  “He deserves it.”

  “Not arguing that, but...”

  “That’s not your way.” He let her hair slip from his fingers. His expression softened. “Let me loan you the money.”

  Her brain stalled. “Absolutely not.”

  “We could sort out a less aggressive, more flexible repayment plan, and I wouldn’t charge you interest.”

  Oh no. He was serious. “You don’t even know how much I owe.”

  He shrugged.

  Her tongue knotted in her mouth.

  He stepped forward, now only inches away. He ran his finger down her face.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  He nodded. “It’s not your way either.”

  She swallowed. Her body thrummed with need. His understanding and acceptance were more potent than his lethal prowess.

  He leaned down to kiss her.

  “What’s up with you and Lloth?” she blurted.

  Cole sighed and straightened. The air between them cooled. He took three steps to move from her entranceway to her living room and sat on her small couch. He almost took up the whole thing. He patted the cushion beside him. “I guess we should talk.”

  “Yes.” Yes, talk. They needed to talk. Her body and heart wanted to do something else entirely, something requiring no words. She worked her wooden legs and moved her lead feet until she reached the living room. Luckily, she only had to take five steps. She plopped down on the couch and turned to face whatever he had to say.

  “A long time ago, Lloth helped me rip a portion of the Underworld away to create the Shadow Realm. We were...involved. Romantically.”

  Her blood heated and spread through her veins like a toxic substance eating away at the tissues it passed. “And now?”

  “And now we’re not.”

  “But Odin asked about her.”

  “Fae have long memories and longer lives. The ancient ones lose track of time. To Odin, my relationship with Lloth was yesterday.”

  Raven leaned back into the cushions. “We’re not related, are we?”

  Cole started. “We are definitely not related.”

  Raven rolled her eyes. “Not you and me. Am I related to the Corvid Queen?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “It’s just that—” Her brain scrambled for the words.

  “You’re both connected to ravens?”

  Guess that was a bit obvious.

  “Lots of Others have some sort of connection with corvids.”

  Mike’s similar comments from a previous conversation flooded back. “Because ravens are connected with death?”

  Cole peered down at her. “Not always.”

  “How’d she find out about Bear?”

  Cole grunted. “Spies for the Others
are everywhere. We already knew we weren’t the only ones looking for the Claíomh Solais and your brother. Now we know who was behind the mercenary attack.”

  “Oh. I thought...” She looked away.

  “You thought I betrayed you.”

  Well, technically Mike thought that, but she couldn’t deny his reasoning. Instead, she fell into a pit of despair and self-doubt. “How’d she find Bear’s safe house before us?”

  “There’s more than technology and PI tricks to find someone, Raven. Lloth is an adept sorceress. She uses death magic and corvid energy to fuel her spells.”

  His answers seemed so reasonable. The weight on Raven’s shoulders didn’t slip away, though. It intensified. She was missing something. Something she should ask but couldn’t quite grasp. She’d love to accept his answers and melt into his arms, to let his shadows take her to a world of ecstasy and bliss.

  “Why are you here?” she asked instead.

  “To see you.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  Cole frowned.

  “I’m not an idiot, Cole. I know now you didn’t really need me for information. You could’ve just followed me or found another ‘adept sorceress’ in the Underworld to help you.”

  Cole leaned back into the couch cushions. His hands splayed on the arm rest and along the cushion beside her. His large, capable hands. The same hands he ran along her body to make her nerves sing. He’d strummed her like a guitar.

  Warmth crept along her skin. If only he’d reach forward and stroke her again. She wanted him on her, around her, in her.

  But, somehow, she held back. Something kept nagging her. Like Mom when Raven didn’t put her dishes away, the voice wouldn’t leave her alone. Yes, he’d made sweet, sweet love to her, finding a magical rhythm all their own, but had he played her as well?

  “You probably already tried the magical route, and when that failed, you found me. You’re using me as bait, just as Bane intended. Although, I appreciate your gentler approach, I don’t understand why it was necessary to seduce me. You’ll get what you want regardless.”