Fur and Feathers [A Raven Saga Book 2]

by Crymsyn R. Hart

  "Alena, killing my father was an accident. I know that. My mother knew that. There were some in the pack who called for your death. But my mother wouldn't hear of it. She took over the pack for a couple of years until my brother challenged her for leadership."

  "I'm sure Carol was thrilled when he did that,” Alena muttered. She never thought her aunt had it in her to run the pack since she was so soft-spoken, even though she did have a stubborn streak in her.

  "Yeah. Mom thought it was a joke until Vincent called her out in front of the entire pack. Everyone was shocked. A woman is hardly ever called out and never your own mother. You have respect enough to ask them to give up their leadership. We are a long-lived bunch, nearly immortal, but my mother had to follow the rules of the pack. They had the succession circle. Our witch was present to see the ascension was done correctly, but Vincent didn't play fair. He had a silver dagger and plunged it into Mother's heart. No one saw it, and if they did, they won't cop to it because they're afraid of him. Everyone is afraid of him. Even me.” Jamie stared up from her tea and looked deep into Alena's eyes.

  At that moment, the well-constructed mask shattered, and her emotions flooded Alena's mind. Tears welled on her lashes. In that moment, the past years played out in her mind in a blur of colors, and Jamie's emotions consumed her. The fear for her cousin, the panic of Alena's running way, a mixture of love and sorrow for her marrying her husband and then losing him. The feelings became a neon rainbow in Alena's mind and were so overwhelming she had to pull away from Jamie and dampen the sensations. The colors in her mind's eye dulled, and she was able to think rationally again. She got up and grabbed tissues for herself and for her cousin. When she did, questions swirled around her thoughts about what Jamie had told her.

  "Jamie, you were married?"

  The werewolf nodded. “I met Tuck in college. Tucker. He was mortal. Vincent hated that I had fallen in love with a human. He thought like our father. That we should stay true to the bloodlines and that I should have married someone in the pack. But I didn't love anyone. I told Tuck my family would disapprove of the marriage, but I wanted to elope. So we did. I even told him about being a wolf, and he didn't care. It was so amazing. We were married for two years, and then I became pregnant. Tuck was thrilled. He thought it would be cute to have a little werewolf running around, but I told him I didn't know if the child would be a wolf. I mean, you never did."

  "Jamie, there's something I have to tell you about that night when you father forced me in front of the pack. That can wait until later, but please, continue."

  "Well, I had the child. A girl, Trina. But I, we, couldn't hide her from the pack. It goes against everything I believe in. I brought the child home, and Tuck insisted on going with me to meet my mother. However, Vincent was there. He and Tucker got into it. I tried to make them stop, but Vincent kept beating him until Tucker fell and hit his head on a rock. He died instantly.

  "My brother called down pack law on me and told me to kill the child because she would not be accepted by the pack. No one would claim Trina or me. But someone did. Ben. I don't know if you remember him, but Ben took me and the baby. He shocked my brother since he was the second-in-command. But Ben has always been kind to me. He consoled me through everything, and we fell in love over time. He said we would face the night when the baby stood before the pack to change. Three years into our marriage, I was pregnant with twins. Ben was ecstatic. I was the most dominant female in the group besides our vedma, our witch. I was never challenged.

  "But then Vincent began to change things. He wanted to expand our territory. He wanted the pack to grow so he began to let strays in. Some that he had bitten and survived the change. Not true blood wolves. You know we don't bite humans lightly. It's like a vampire biting all of their victims. Soon the world would be overpopulated with the vermin if they lived through the initial bite. Anyway, he got a lot darker. Wanted more power. He and that witch of his, I don't know, they started calling down some of the old gods we wolves gave up worshipping a long time ago. By doing rituals, he's broken the ties to the moon as if he were one of the older wolves. He's gained a lot of power and can change his shape at will. Because of that, many have begged him for the chance to become more powerful. Many of the pack don't want to wait centuries before they can break the tie to the moon. Ben is being threatened. If he doesn't join them, they will make sure he regrets it. Just a few months ago, Vincent misunderstood something he said, and he thought he wanted leadership. Ben never wanted to be leader, but Vincent wouldn't let it go. He called an ascension circle and fought Ben. Vincent nearly chewed him up. He only let him live because of me."

  "Jamie, I'm sorry to hear Vincent is being a power-hungry asshole, but like father, like son. Really, why tell me this when I'm not pack anymore? According to your brother, I'm a half-breed and never will be pack."

  Jamie tried to keep her hands from shaking. “Alena, Vincent has been looking for you ever since you left. He never told Father, but he always told me one day you and he would be mated. He believes you and he would birth true children. Something about your other gift. He thinks you already hold the key to breaking the moon's ties. That you can transform at will. But when you ran away, he stopped talking about it. He doesn't blame you for Father's death. He understands in his own, twisted way. Father would have killed you that night if you hadn't run away. He would have made you prey. These past few months, pack members have been finding mutilated corpses of animals and humans. It's Vincent and his lackeys. They've been killing for sport, but the deaths are starting to be noticed. The local police have come to the compound a couple of times because the bodies are on pack land. Please, Alena. You have to come home and try to talk some sense into him. He'll listen to you. You were the only one who he listened to before and your gift. You can make other people feel what you do. Can't you turn it all back around on Vincent and make him see? Please. Before he decides to hunt his own."

  Alena had been shocked at the news she was hearing from her cousin. The pack had gone to hell in a handbasket and there was nothing that could be done. Alena's knowledge on pack lore and lifestyle was a little rusty since she they weren't involved in her everyday life anymore. She knew the mythology of the pack, of all packs, was they had descended from the gods and mixture of wolves. A Romulus-and-Remus kind of deal, except the gods were much harder, and in their primitive form, the wolves had been more bestial until they were tamed by the goddess Morena, who gave them more intelligence and the ability to pass for men. But there was a consequence to this. In order to be the wolf in sheep's clothing, they could only slip their skins when the moon was full. They would be near immortal only slain with silver or catastrophic injury and they could bear children.

  The elders of the werewolf clans split territory evenly. As time went on, they found a loophole in the goddess's rules. The older they got, the more powerful they became. Soon they found they could sway the moon's hold over them and transform even when the disk was not pregnant. The oldest in the pack Alena knew about was a woman who was four centuries old, and she hadn't looked much older than her late thirties. Jamie didn't look old. She could have passed for twenty, but she was two years older than Alena. Alena knew she looked younger than her age, but she doubted she carried the immortality gene in her bloodstream, and if she did, that gift had passed away when her ability to change into a wolf died.

  "Jamie, I don't have a life with the pack. Nothing there interests me. I became dead to them when I ran away. No one there wanted me anyway. I'm sorry to hear Vincent is a total prick, but there's nothing I can do about it. I have a life here. It's been fourteen long years since the night I ran away and turned my back on being a wolf. I wish you and your children well, and I'll bet you anything your oldest will slip her skin. You just have to give Trina time. It was more than your father ever gave me."

  "What are you talking about, Alena? You never changed. I was there. The whole pack saw you lying on the ground like a helpless human. I loved you even thou
gh you were half. I still do. My mother considered you her daughter until the day she died. Ben remembers you and thought the way my father treated you was horrendous. You were family. Are family. You might not be able to change, but the blood is in you. That makes you pack no matter what. There are some, very few, who are full blood and they never change. Normally, these are the ones who live the longest and are pack elders. They became the vedmas, the witches of the pack, the seers. Whatever you want to call them. They guide us on the full moon, protect our hunts, and guard over our children when there's a threat. They are our human face and have full rights and protection of the pack. You have a gift which could help heal us. You are like the vedmas, but you hide behind mortal walls. You think these paper and concrete buildings are any substitute for the forest? Alena, you have never known the thrill of the hunt through the wood. The feel of prey in your mouth. The death scream of a deer as it falls under your bite. You've never heard the song of the moon as it lulls my children to sleep. I'm sorry I ever came here. It was a mistake. Maybe Vincent was right? Maybe you are a lost cause."

  Alena had sensed the confusion and anger in her cousin's heart. Much of the fury was because she had run away, leaving Jamie there. She had never tried to contact her cousin leaving a raw wound in her soul. Whenever her name was mentioned, the thought only rubbed salt in the gash. Jamie was hurt she had come and Alena wasn't willing to help her with the duties of the pack because she shouldn't have even questioned. Jamie thought she should have jumped on the idea. Alena was different, but they needed her help. Jamie knew that on instinct, had prayed she would be able to do something because she was afraid of her brother, of how twisted he was becoming. Something inside of him had become dark like an eclipsed moon. Whatever he was doing with the witch he had brought back with him from the old country was not right. Gone was the twin she had been so close to. She wanted Alena to help Vincent remember who he had been when they were kids and not the animal he was today.

  Jamie got up so quick her knee slammed into the table and sent her coffee cup flying. Alena ignored the display and grabbed her cousin's arms. Jamie spun around and growled at her. Her eyes had turned the color of burnt amber. Her teeth were a little more pointed than they should have been. Her cousin didn't scare her in the least. She was not going to back down. Alena was an alpha in her own right, even though she had never been with the pack. Her hand came up and slapped Jamie across the cheek before she could react. She had absorbed her cousin's anger and was now acting on it.

  "For your information, Jamie. I hunted with you every full moon while I slept. I smelled the earth, felt the light of the moon on your back as if it were mine, and heard the killing crunch of teeth on precious bone. So don't tell me I don't know what it's like. The night your father threw me on the pack's mercy, setting me up to fail, I did begin to change. I was just too slow for him. I experienced the burn in the pit of my stomach as it spread into every cell. I suffered the beginnings of the stretching of my tendons and muscles. I even got as far as having fangs, but your daddy didn't like the fact I couldn't slip my skin quick enough. Or maybe he sensed it and didn't want to be proved wrong? Or that his brother, even though marrying a human bitch of a mother, could have actually sired a werewolf. Whatever the reason was, he interrupted my change when he kicked me. When he picked me up, I felt his hatred of me so pure it was like a white light, so intense I grabbed onto it and pushed with all my might. I felt his brain pop when he died."

  Alena let go of her cousin. The walls dropped around Jamie's mind for a second. Then her face hardened. “I don't believe you."

  Alena watched her apartment door open and then slam shut. She jumped when the door hit the jam and then bounced back open again. Her cat emerged from her bedroom with a soft meow as if saying, “I'm glad she's gone.” Alena had half smiled and picked up her hefty cat. Bun had to go on a low-carb diet. She scratched him behind the ears for a minute and then let him down on the table, where he immediately began lapping up the spilled tea. The tea was his favorite, too. Closing the door, Alena had felt a wave of regret wash over her for saying what she had to Jamie. But there had been no stopping her. She couldn't remake the past. And when the door clicked in the latch, she had known one thing. Her cousin had believed everything she had told her.

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  Chapter Four

  Darius flew for a little while over the southern town Caleb had his charge in taking in the different scenery. He couldn't dawdle long because Betha wanted him to immediately start investigating the death of the child. Probably was hunting with one of its elders tripped and hit its head. Nothing more than that I'm sure.

  Still, he couldn't just assume the death had been an accident. If Betha suspected foul play, then there probably was. She was normally right about things. He hated to admit Betha was correct since she was a woman. However, he didn't harbor any ill will against the queen because she was the one who gave him orders. Sure they had a council who ruled over them, but they were only consulted in times of dire need. He didn't know the last time they had truly convened. Caleb had said Tremain should have been brought before them last year when Maili had called the Warriors down on him, but Betha had acted in haste. She hadn't seen past her own flesh and blood. Just like what she was doing now. The Banshee Queen hadn't fully recovered from Maili's death. I don't know if she ever will. No matter. I have to go and meet with this witch. She knows how much I despise witches. Of course, she would send me to meet with one.

  Darius shuddered to think about what he was going to expect. He knew he had to bite the bullet and buck up to his responsibility. His duties as a Raven Warrior were more important than his own feelings. No matter what. If he acted out of line, Betha or Caleb would be the first one dragging him back to the astral realm by his tail feathers. No, he had to have some decorum or he would be punished. The Scotsman did not feel like being turned into a raven forever and forget about ever being human. That was a curse unto itself.

  The Scot shivered when he thought about the hell of losing his humanity. Tremain had told him he had given up believing he would be rescued from his curse and he had started to lose the memory of his human years. Darius cherished his mortal recollections. Sometimes, they were the only things, which had kept him going. Ages ago, he had watched the last of his family die out, leaving nothing of his clan. He mourned the loss because he no longer had a connection to his past or his heritage. On his time off, he went back to his homeland to mingle with the people, but even staring at the ruins of his childhood, he didn't understand how humans were today. They seemed former echoes of what he remembered. In his time, his clan had been one of pride. You wore the colors to distinguish who you were, what region you were from, not because you were rediscovering the past and trying to play warrior. None of them knew the true weight of the sword, bleeding to live and battling with a neighboring clan because they wanted your land. He had been present at the games where people tried to relive the glory days, but they had no idea. The closest thing he had seen to the truth was a movie called Braveheart, and even that was a bit silly. He didn't understand why women swooned over the lead actor. Darius was much cuter than any human. His laugh came out like a cackle.

  The balmy heat clung to his feathers like dew sticking to grass. Caleb had it made with a charge in the Deep South. Darius was stuck with Jonathan in the North, but he wouldn't give up the kid for anything. The Raven Warrior had grown fond of the teenager since being assigned to him when he was only a few weeks old. He hoped Caleb would be true to his word and make sure nothing happened to the boy.

  The cold of the Grey caressed his feathers, and his power crackled through his form. He left the sultry Southern nights behind, focusing on his task. On instinct, he began to follow the link connecting him to Jonathan, but in his mind's eye, he sensed another direction he was supposed to go in. He examined the thread and found he wasn't linked to a particular person. Just a place. With a small push, he split the veil of the worlds slipping thro
ugh the mists. Reappearing in the mortal world, his senses were assuaged with the sudden scent of fur. Very wet fur. A large plop of water hit his beak. He shook his head and uttered a caw of displeasure. He hated the rain.

  Darius settled on a branch near the trunk so he could remain a little dry. The aroma of damp pine came to his nose. The Warrior rubbed his back against the rough bark satisfying an itch that had seized him. His thoughts strayed to the wolves around him. He always hated wolves even back in his old days. Nowadays there were no more wolves in his home country and that saddened him. The soft patter of rain soon turned into the heavy thunder of a downpour. Even among the thick pine branches, he wasn't safe from getting wet. Soon, the deluge had him soaked and lazy, and he didn't want to look around to see what his next assignment was. Then again, even though his feathers were drenched from the deluge, he was actually pretty warm. The elements could not affect him the way they did humans or any of the other shifters he was about to meet. He knew some about werewolves, but not very much. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the environment around him. The moon was two days from being full. From what Betha said, he should be able to change back to his human form during the night since she had given him a reprieve from his curse.

  "Raven Warrior, I know you're up there. I can smell you. Come down. Our vedma said you were out here in the rain."

  Vedma. Where have I heard that word before? The word sounded familiar, but he could not place it.

  Darius peered down through the branches seeing a woman with wavy black hair, almost like the black of his wings. He noticed there were threads of silver in her hair. Her face belied her age. The Scotsman hopped down a few branches to get a better look. The overcast sky made seeing difficult with human eyes, but he could see well enough just like the wolf could below him. Power radiated off her in waves so he knew she was old. If she was as old as he thought she was, then she was not held by the moon's sway either. This one could shift whenever she wished. Her face was tan, but not overly so. Her tan didn't come from a bottle nor from spending many hours at a salon. Hers came the natural way, from working outside under the sun's rays. Tiny lines etched around her eyes showed her wisdom. There was even a jagged scar running down the right side of her neck, covered by most of her hair and disappeared under her shirt. She had fought for power in the past, had been injured, but he suspected she had come out on top.