Conspiracy of Ravens

by J. C. McKenzie

  Her whole body ached, and her lead-like appendages refused to move.

  Maybe she’d stay here for a minute longer. Or two. Or sixty. Mike would be done with his classes soon. She could call him and ask him to pick her up in Jean Claude. That was worth the extra gas.

  She pulled her phone from her other back pocket. Her hands shook. Her phone clattered to the ground. Raven sucked in a deep breath and turned to find it.

  Cole stood three feet away. A swirl of shadows lifted the phone from the dirty ground and brought it to her. She plucked it from the air.

  Cole remained still. His jaw clenched, his gaze fierce, his expression murderous. A thin red line marked the otherwise perfect skin on his neck.

  He wore combat fae leathers and armour, a more simplified version of his court attire, yet, somehow more captivating. His cape billowed behind him. His disheveled ink-back hair curled around his ears.

  Her body grew warm.

  “Einin.” His deep voice wound around her with a low-vibrating caress.

  She sniffed and wiped drool away from her chin and lips again. She forced her mouth to move, but the words came out with a lisp. “What happened to the man?”

  His open hands curled into fists. The shadows pulsed and rushed out from the crevice of the alleyway. They engulfed her.

  “You’ll never have to worry about him again.” Cole’s voice rumbled from every direction.

  Her body sagged. Her head grew light and she fell. Cole’s shadows caught her, pillow soft. He stepped forward and gently collected her in his arms. His hand stroked her swollen cheek.

  “I hurt,” she said.

  “I know.” He continued to caress her skin. “Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”

  She shook her head and regretted it.

  “Home? Your parents’ place?”

  “No,” she whispered. The idea of sitting alone in her apartment no longer appealed to her and neither did an interrogation session from her family.

  “If you want, I can take you away and make you feel something else.”

  “Yes.” She leaned in and rested her face in the crook of his neck. His forest at dusk scent surrounded them. “Yes,” she repeated.

  The shadows rose up to surround them, and their feather-light touch carried them away to the Realm of Shadow.

  Gentle hands set Raven down in a shower. Cool air with a fresh meadow scent surrounded her. Cole reached behind her and turned the nozzles. A stream of cold water hit her back. She flinched. The water quickly turned warm, then hot. Scalding hot. Just the way she liked it. A cloud of heated steam rose around her. She kicked off her flip fops and clung to Cole, the smooth tiles still cool against her feet.

  The dark energy of the Shadow Realm spiraled around her, drawing out her own power so, it pushed against the inside of her skin, and muted the pain.

  Cole’s gaze blazed under the soft lighting in the shower. He peeled her wet, sweat-soaked, blood-stained shirt from her body and flung it away. His mouth clamped on the smooth surface of her stomach and along with the hot water, trailed down her body, inch by slow, delightful inch. He pulled off her shorts. Cool air rushed over her. Cole’s mouth instantly returned, chasing away the cold. Her panting and the sliding of Cole’s hands along her wet body merged with the sound of water.

  Her heart thudded in her chest, heavy and powerful, and the pain in her head eased. The phantom hands of Cole’s shadows caressed and soothed, gently kneading at the knots in her shoulders. Cole removed the rest of his clothes, all the while, kissing and licking every peak and valley of her body. Fabric slapped against the tiles. Her breasts grew heavy. Her stomach clenched. His mouth travelled lower and lower. The promise of his skilled mouth sent shivers racing along her skin.

  With each surge of dark Other power brushing her skin, the nausea and pain from her concussion and recent dental work faded away, driven to the background until it disappeared altogether. Replacing the pain, the beguiling pressure continued to ebb and flow, until it filled every cell of her being and demanded release.

  Cole’s breath fanned her core before his mouth explored. He watched her writhe in tune with his tongue. His dark Other eyes bled out to cover the white. They caught and held her gaze, hypnotizing and seducing. Water ran down his face and slicked his hair, dripping from the ends.

  She leaned back into the tiled wall of the shower. A moan escaped her lips. Yes. There. He needed to be there.

  His tongue plunged in. She cried out as an unexpected orgasm ripped through her. She arched against the wall and he gripped her hips. He continued to tease, taste and thrust with his tongue as the aftershocks of her orgasm travelled to the tips of her fingers and toes.

  Her limbs grew languid. Her body, content, slid down the tiles. Cole slowly rose along her trembling body, his naked skin slid along hers.

  He paused to caress the bruised and swollen side of her face.

  “What happened to the man?” she asked.

  His lips twitched. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”

  “I need to know.”

  His face grew hard, cheekbones rigid, mouth compressed. “I killed him.”

  Not waiting for a response, he lifted her against the wall with her legs wrapped around him, flexed his hips and thrust into her, hard.

  She gasped.

  He caught her cries with his mouth and continued to pump into her. All she could do was grip his broad back, dig in her fingers and hold on. He’d killed a man for her, and she didn’t even care. She couldn’t find any emotion to feel other than the pleasure he stoked inside her and the safety he provided in his strong arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “We are all broken...that’s how the light gets in.”

  ~Ernest Hemingway

  Raven’s face regained feeling two hours later, but this time the throb had dulled, and the headache and drooling stayed away.

  “I thought you didn’t claim healing capabilities,” she mumbled. Her damp hair stuck to her face as she rested on a plush pillow in a cloud of bedding with a fresh linen scent.

  “I said I didn’t think I could claim that ability.” He ran a finger down her arm. He rested behind her, spooning his body against hers. “Now I know I can...for you.”

  “You’re better than ibuprofen.”

  “Don’t tell your dentist. They’ll try to bottle me.” His mouth moved along the back of her neck. His warm breath fanned her skin and sent a shiver of goodness running down her spine. He’d carried her from the shower after toweling her dry. His muscles flexed and his hold tightened. He pulled her against his chest.

  Spooning with the Lord of Shadows.

  A lone, black feather rested on the nightstand closest to her. “Is that mine?”

  “Of course.” He dropped kisses on her bare shoulder.

  He’d killed a man for her, and she didn’t cower in fear or become plagued with guilt. What did that say about her? Did that make her as heartless as the Others? Was she becoming the very thing her mom feared from the Underworld? Was her friend right to want the Other Realms separated from the mortal one?

  Raven pushed the troubling thoughts from her mind. “Cole?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you get me an audience with the Corvid Queen?”

  He sucked in a breath. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s crazy. Crazy and dangerous. Let me take care of this, Einin.”

  She tensed in his arms. “She has my brother.”

  “She might’ve killed your brother. Or your brother might’ve escaped.”

  Raven shook her head. She refused to believe her indomitable brother was dead. Her brain couldn’t compute that possibility. No body. Not enough blood. She needed to keep moving forward with the assumption he lived. She’d crumble otherwise. “She wouldn’t have sent a thug to get me if he was dead.”

  “All the more reason to avoid her.”

  “I don’t think she wants me harmed. The man you killed o
nly hit me because I was hanging off his hand like a rabid squirrel.”

  Cole’s arm relaxed. “I wish I could’ve seen that.”

  A question flickered in and out of Raven’s mind. No. Not today. She needed to work through this and understand.

  She turned around in Cole’s arms. “We know Lloth found out somehow about Bear stealing Chloe. How did she use death magic to track him? Doesn’t she need something of his?”

  “She would’ve used my blood to track Chloe.”

  Ravens mouth snapped shut. She counted to ten. “How’d she get your blood?”

  Cole’s mouth pressed into a straight line.

  She waved the question away. “You’re right. I don’t want to know.”

  Another question clicked in place. The question eluding her from before. She’d been asking all these “how” questions that she forgot to ask why. “Why did she steal your sister?”

  “To control me,” he said.

  “She already has your blood. Isn’t that enough? Can’t she control you with that?”

  “Not as well.”

  Raven took a deep breath. “Does she control you now?”

  “Not in the way you’re asking. She governs the realm I exist in.”

  Instead of the tension easing from her muscles, the tightening of muscles intensified. “Why does she want to control you?”

  “I’m powerful, and she’s crazy, which is why you should stay away from her. She feeds off corvid energy.”

  “At the very least, sneak me into her court.”

  “No.”

  She pulled away from the warm cocoon of his body, slid from the bed and searched for her clothes. They lay draped over a chest. Cole must’ve wrung them out and hung them to dry. He sprung from the bed to stand in front of her. One of his feet landed on her bra. It must’ve slipped off the nearby chest. “Just because she didn’t want you harmed en-route doesn’t mean she has good intentions.”

  Raven ducked down and grabbed her bra. She tugged. “I get that, but what she does have is my brother.”

  “Maybe.” Cole folded his arms across his chest. His abdomen rippled with muscle which corded in a distinct V down to his groin. His groin, which hung very close to her face in this position.

  She bit her lip. If she shifted her weight to the left, she could change the tone of this conversation with one flick of her tongue. She tugged at her bra instead.

  He lifted his foot and released the strap. She sprawled backward and landed on her butt. Raven shook her head. Mike was right. She got too easily distracted by Cole’s large, beautiful, silky-smooth, powerful...What was she saying?

  Focus. She needed to focus.

  “Can’t you arrange some sort of parlay?” She clambered to her feet.

  “Parlay?” His tone was incredulous. “We’re dark fae, not pirates.”

  She scooped up the remaining pieces of her outfit.

  “Raven.”

  “Cole.” She pulled on her underwear and clasped her bra.

  “You can’t do this.”

  She pulled her shirt over her head. Still damp, the thin cotton clung to her body. “I can and I will.” She shoved her legs through her shorts and yanked them up. Goosebumps pebbled along her skin against the clammy material.

  “How?” Cole glowered at her.

  “I’ll find a way. I’m going with or without you.”

  “Right now?”

  Raven checked the time on her phone. “No.”

  His dark brows bunched inward.

  “Right now, I’m going to Sunday night dinner with the Famjam. Tomorrow, I’ll figure out a way to reach Lloth’s court.”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “You can and you will. Our deal was to work together to find my brother and your sister. We know where they are and who has them. I’m going to get my brother.”

  “I distinctly recall adding the caveat disallowing too-stupid-to-live moments. Going after Lloth falls under the TSTL clause.”

  “I’m asking you to come with me so, your point is moot.”

  “I’m not taking you.”

  “Then, aside from not hording your sister all to myself, which I have no intention of doing, I owe you nothing.”

  Cole growled and stepped forward. “Is that how you want to leave things?”

  “Of course not, but I won’t leave you to handle this.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “Yes. No.” She ran a hand through her hair. It snagged on a wicked knot. She winced and pulled her hand free. “I don’t know. You haven’t been fully honest with me and I think you’re still hiding something.”

  He placed his hands on his bare hips. “Do I have any redeeming qualities?”

  Her gaze drifted down. Nope. Not commenting on that. “I trust that you won’t hurt my brother.”

  “But?”

  “But as Mike pointed out, you can work around that promise.”

  His eyes narrowed. “If either or both of us walk into Lloth’s lair, we’ll walk into a trap.”

  “Maybe. But I can’t leave my brother’s fate in someone else’s hands. Instead of trying to stop me, you could help me so, I’m more prepared.”

  He shook his head. “I will not deliver you to the Corvid Queen.”

  “Fine.” Raven folded her arms and looked away from the still naked Patron Fae of Assassins. For the first time since her arrival, she examined his bedroom. Old, heavy furniture with tufted backs, rich in textures and colour. He didn’t have anything tacky like red satin sheets or a mirror on the ceiling. Instead, muted blacks, grays and whites tastefully decorated the room and covered the bed. Soft, natural light filtered into the room through the blinds.

  The energy of the Shadow Realm continued to curl around her and call to her power. It hadn’t stopped since she stepped out of the shadows with Cole.

  Raven had no way home.

  Cole continued to do his best fuming naked statue impersonation, as if the sheer force of his glare would change her mind.

  No. She needed to get home. She couldn’t allow his glorious penis to distract her any more than it already had. Her brother was injured and most likely held captive by a crazy Corvid Queen, and here she was going to O-town with a fae lord.

  She cleared her throat.

  Cole’s expression shuttered.

  “Will you put some clothes on and take me home, please?”

  For a second, she thought he’d refuse her request. His calculating look suggested he considered the idea. After the longest twenty seconds of her life, he threw on some dry clothes. His shadows spiraled up and did their shadow portal thing and he dropped her off unceremoniously in her parents’ front yard. His shadows withdrew, whispering threads against her skin, before carrying him away without a word.

  No goodbye. Nothing. He was pissed.

  Her stomach sank. What did she expect? She essentially told him, his dick, and his integrity to fuck off.

  Her shoulders dropped. She was such an idiot. How could she let him go? Why did she have to push the whole Lloth thing?

  Pepe bleated at her as she walked by. She patted his head. Though early evening, the sun still shone and heated the path. She dragged her concrete feet up the final steps to the front door.

  Because Bear needed her. That’s why.

  “Rayray!” The door flung open and Dad stepped out on the landing. He scooped her up and squeezed her. “You’re just in time.”

  “Like I’d miss roast night.”

  He pulled back and held her by the shoulders an arm’s length away. His smile faded. “What the hell happened to your face?”

  “Dentist, then failed abduction. I’ll tell you about it over dinner.” She left out the sweet, sweet loving à la Cole. There were some things dads didn’t need, or want, to know.

  His fingers dug into her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  She beamed up to his open and honest face. “I am now,” she said, and meant it.

  “Good.” He hugged her agai
n and pulled her into the warm comfort of her childhood home. The savory smells of butter, garlic and seafood floated through the air from the kitchen.

  “What’s going on? No roast?” Not that she was complaining. She loved seafood.

  Dad grinned and led her to the dining room. Her entire family, minus Bear, had taken their seats.

  “About time!” Juni shouted and reached forward to spoon some vegetables onto her plate.

  Raven clamped her mouth shut and watched her sister dish food onto her plate. Juni, the notorious salad-dodger, voluntarily selected something green to eat. What in the Underworld was going on?

  Mike rolled his eyes. “She’s eating ‘healthy’ because Robby Feathermore likes ‘healthy’ girls.” He used air quotes when he spoke.

  “Who’s Robby Featherhead?” Raven asked.

  “Feathermore!” Juni burst out, then turned red.

  “Whatever.” Mike flapped his hand for the potatoes.

  “He’s just the most handsome, smart and—”

  Mike groaned loud enough to drown out the rest of Juni’s adjectives.

  “Hey.” Raven poked Juni’s neck. “Your hickey is healing nicely.”

  Her sister batted her hand away. “It was a rash.”

  “Sure. Sure.”

  “It was! The doctor figured it was the new detergent. Mom switched back and it’s going away.”

  “Told you so,” Mike bellowed from two feet away.

  “Take a seat, dear.” Mom smiled. “We have a special treat for tonight.”

  “Not that I’m complaining, but why?” she asked, taking the vacant seat beside Mike. Normally, Juni sat here.

  A mild odour wafted from her brother. She leaned over and sniffed him. Body sweat, sugar and pizza permeated around his favourite metal band T-shirt in an unpleasant combination. Raven recoiled.

  “When did you last shower?”

  “Midterms are coming up. Back off.” He glared at her and snatched the dish holding the fish from Juni. It looked like halibut, Raven’s favourite. His gaze flicked to her damp shirt. The shower hadn’t removed all traces of sweat or blood. He wrinkled his nose. “Like you’re a bed of roses.”

  Raven slumped in her seat. She probably didn’t smell too great after the dentist, failed kidnapping, and sexual healing session. The shower helped, but they probably picked up Cole’s scent on her skin. Her face grew warm. Please, please, don’t bring up Cole.