Ravensong

by TJ Klune

  “Don’t,” Mark warned. “Gordo, don’t. Don’t make me angry. I can smell it. Your magic. It’s—”

  “Fuck my magic,” I snarled at him. “Fuck the pack. Fuck my father and your father. Fuck Thomas. This is you and me. This is you and me, and fuck you if you think I’m just going to let this go. Let you go. I’m not scared of you. I never have been, and I never will be.”

  He shook his head. “It’s too late. Gordo, can’t you see that? It’s too late. I—I can feel it. In my head. It was just a whisper, and it was just scraping along my skin. But now it has hooks, and it’s digging in. It’s digging in, and I can’t make it stop. Gordo, I can’t make it—”

  Once, the moon had loved the sun.

  Once, there was a boy who had loved a wolf.

  Once, an old witch had spoken of choice, of truth and prophecy.

  And it was blue, so much of it was blue, but I was tired of it. I was tired of feeling this way, of being alone, of being scared, of thinking that I couldn’t have what I wanted more than anything in this world.

  And so I made my choice.

  I chose the wolf.

  I took three steps forward, my hands going up to Mark Bennett’s face. He flinched, eyes flaring, but it was already too late to stop it.

  I kissed him. There, in the darkened room while snow fell outside.

  At first he didn’t respond, and I thought I’d misunderstood. That I was too late. That the gulf between us was too wide to ever be crossed.

  But then he sighed and slumped against me, his hands on my hips, the raven still clutched between his fingers. I felt the sharp press of its wooden wing against my side. He sang a song in my head of gordo love mate please love, and though it was tinged with blue and blue and blue, there was a thread of green shot right through the middle, of relief and hope. It was like I was young again and there was this boy, this tall, gangly boy sitting against a tree in summer, his feet bare in the green, green grass, and he was my shadow, following me everywhere, telling me he was trying to keep me safe from bad guys. I’d sat up on my knees and kissed him because it felt like the right thing to do. Everything about Mark Bennett had felt right, even then in the summer when we hadn’t known just how sharp teeth could be.

  We weren’t young anymore.

  But it still felt like we could be.

  It still felt like this could be a first time.

  And then it changed.

  The green began to tinge toward red, like fire spreading along the grass. The blue started to swell, an ocean rising. It hit the fire and mixed until the sea burned violet, and it was there, just lurking underneath the surface.

  Claws, near my skin.

  I groaned against him, mouth opening. His tongue slid against mine as he growled, the rumble crawling in his chest and up his throat. He felt like he was vibrating, and as I slid my hands down from his face to his chest, my tongue scraped against the tip of a fang. It should not have turned me on as much as it did.

  And then it was gone.

  He was gone.

  One moment he was pressed against me, his mouth on my jaw, my neck, and the next he was standing on the other side of the room, chest heaving, eyes wide, jaw clenched.

  I blinked slowly, trying to clear my head. I reached for him.

  He took a step back. “Gordo. You—I….”

  I shook my head. “No. Enough.”

  “We can’t do this.”

  “We can.”

  “I could hurt you,” he snarled at me, eyes orange and bright in the dark room. “Don’t you get that? Haven’t you been listening? I’m losing my fucking mind. I’m turning Omega. I already hurt Elizabeth. I can’t take the chance that I could—” He choked.

  “You won’t,” I told him. “You won’t.”

  “You don’t know that. It’s happening, Gordo. It’s happening, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

  “Then fight it!” I shouted at him. “Goddamn you, you fight it. You aren’t allowed to give up. You aren’t allowed to leave me again. You hear me? Fuck you if you think I’m going to just let you go again. Not now. Not because of this. Not because of something as fucking stupid as this.”

  “Why?” he cried. “Why the hell are you doing this? Why do you even care? Is it guilt? Is this your way of getting back at me? Do you really hate me that much? Why the hell are you doing this, Gordo? Now, after all this time, why are you doing this?”

  “It’s because I’m scared,” I said, voice breaking. “I love you, and I’m so scared I’m going to lose you.”

  The wolf responded then. The wooden raven fell from his hands and the wolf came rushing forward. I didn’t have time to react. If he was truly lost to me, if the tether had finally snapped, then I didn’t know if I wanted him to stop.

  I closed my eyes.

  But then I was lifted, hands under my thighs, pulling me up. My back slammed against the wall behind me, almost knocking the breath from my lungs as the plaster cracked. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and his mouth was on my neck, teeth scraping against my skin. He was rumbling lowly in his throat, and I felt it, the way he vibrated. The way he shook. My hands went to the back of his head, forcing him to look up at me.

  Orange and violet and that ice-cold blue flickered back.

  I kissed him, pressing his lips back against his teeth. His fingers dug into my thighs, claws piercing the thick pants I wore, dimpling the skin. He rolled his hips, grinding against my dick. I groaned into his mouth as he sucked on my tongue. Bright flashes went off in my head, and they were him, they were coming from him, and I was shocked at the level of desire I felt, the animalistic urge that roared through him, demanding that he bite. That he fuck. That he claim.

  And I—

  I knew what I had to do.

  “Mark,” I gasped as he latched on to my throat again, beard scraping my skin raw. “Listen to me.”

  “No,” he growled, worrying a mark on my neck. “Busy.”

  “I need you to fuck me.”

  “I’m getting there.”

  “No, listen to me. Just—Jesus fuck, do that again—no. Stop. Mark, listen.”

  He pulled away, eyes dazed. His lips were swollen and slick with spit, and I wanted nothing more than to pull him back to me. A drop of sweat dripped down the side of his neck and onto my thumb. “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

  I shook my head furiously. “No. You didn’t. Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you love me?”

  And he said, “Yes.”

  Because I have never seen a wolf love another as much as he loved you.

  I am here as your Alpha. And I have received a formal request from one of my Betas.

  I thought of a boy with eyes of ice telling me that he loved me, that he didn’t want to leave again, but he had to, he had to, his Alpha was demanding it, and he would come back for me, Gordo, you have to believe I’ll come back for you. You are my mate, I love you, I love you, I love you.

  I leaned close and whispered words in his ear. Words I once said to him when he stood outside my door and my heart was breaking. “You can have me. Right now. Here. Choose me. Mark. Choose me. Stay here. Or don’t. We can go anywhere you want. We can leave right now. You and me. Fuck everything else. No packs, no Alphas. No wolves. Just… us.”

  He pulled his head back.

  His eyes were the brightest orange I’d ever seen.

  “You want this?” he whispered. “With me?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “But—”

  “Maybe it’ll stop it. Maybe it’ll slow it down.”

  The orange faded slightly. “If you’re only doing this because of—”

  I kissed him. “No,” I mumbled against his lips. “Not because of that. Not just because of that. Because of everything else.”

  “There’s no going back. After this.”

  “I know.”

  “And it might not wo
rk. Gordo, it might not do anything at all.”

  “I know that too.”

  “And you would still? For me?”

  “Yes. Yes. Always for you.”

  It was blue. Of course it was. The ocean always was. It was vast and filled so deeply with melancholy that I thought I would choke on it.

  But through the ocean, through the violet fire that burned on top of it, the green grew again.

  He kissed me reverently, his grip softening, as if he never thought he would hear such words from me. It was soft and sweet, and I ached from the very thought of it.

  I reached down between us, fumbling with the buttons to his pants as my skin flushed. I’d thought of this before. In those late nights when I couldn’t sleep, though I’d never admit it to myself the next morning. I wondered how he’d feel pressed against me, how the muscles in his arms and chest would feel under my tongue. I’d thought it weak and foolish, angry with myself how much it hurt.

  But this was real now. I could smell him. Taste him. Touch him. He turned and carried me to the bed, setting me down gently before he crawled on top of me, letting his considerable weight push me down into the mattress. I was engulfed by him, and everything was Mark and Mark and Mark, and there was an answering song in my head, a howl coming from deep within him. It rocked me to my core, the sheer joy of it causing my hands to shake as I wrapped them around his neck, urging him on.

  He pushed himself up, hands on either side of my head, muscles in his arms straining. He leaned down and kissed me as I felt his legs jerk. He toed off his boots, which fell heavily to the floor. I ran my hands through the hair on his stomach before I reached the top of his pants and shoved them down as far as I could get them. His cock sprang free, smacking up against his stomach. I used my bare foot to push his pants the rest of the way down. They, too, fell to the floor.

  He was all hard lines and edges perched above me. I remembered who he once had been—who we both had been. Nervous and hormonal and awkward.

  My shadow protecting me from bad guys.

  We weren’t like that anymore. Gone were the boys who thought the world was a safe and mysterious place. We’d been hurt, and we’d hurt each other, but everything had led to here, now. This moment.

  He sat up, knees on either side of my arms. His balls rested on my chest, and he reached up and stroked his dick slowly, staring down at me.

  I burned at the sight of him.

  I tried to move, needing to get my hands on him, but he squeezed his thighs, pinning my arms at my sides.

  I was trapped by a wolf on the way to losing his mind.

  And I didn’t care.

  His voice was low when he said, “Open your mouth. Stick out your tongue.”

  I did as he asked.

  He grunted, moving forward slightly, ass rising but still holding my arms in place with his legs. His cockhead bumped into my chin before it hit my tongue. I closed my eyes at the taste of skin. “That’s good,” he said quietly. “That’s real good, Gordo.” His balls rested in the hollow of my throat. His dick pressed against my tongue. My lips. I tried to catch it in my mouth, but he wouldn’t give it to me. I opened my eyes to glare at him, but he paid me no mind. He fisted the base of his cock, and he watched as he rubbed it against my face. He lifted it and smacked it against my tongue, heavy and fat.

  “I’ll give it to you,” he said. “I promise. Is that what you want?”

  He was driving me crazy, and all I could do was nod.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

  He lifted his hips as he grabbed the headboard above me. The shadows played along his nudity. His nipples were hard, gooseflesh prickling along his skin.

  He was gentle when he fed me his dick, canting his hips down, the muscles in his legs flexing against me. I swallowed him, breathing through my nose, barely able to keep my eyes from rolling back in my head. He pressed down on the top of his dick, keeping it in place as he thrust shallowly. I was overwhelmed by him, my heart stumbling in my chest. My throat worked around him as he pushed in deeper, my tongue running along the underside of his dick.

  Mark growled above me as he fucked my face. Everything was him. His eyes were narrowed, and he kept saying, “That’s good, Gordo, that’s real good, you’re so good,” just under his breath, like he couldn’t help himself. It was thrumming between us, the thread, the bond. It wasn’t about packpackpack. It wasn’t about anyone else. It was him and me. It was just us.

  He pulled out of my mouth. My jaw hurt, but I tried to raise my head to chase after him. He sat back against my chest, still holding me in place. He cupped the side of my face, thumb tracing over my bottom lip. I couldn’t figure out the look on his face, but it was akin to awe.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I croaked out.

  He leaned down and kissed me, slow and sweet.

  Later, I groaned his name, spitting curses at him as he pressed my knees against my chest, folding me in half. His hands were on my ass, holding me apart, and his tongue inside me. The raven fluttered around on my arm on a bed of blooming roses. The petals were red like the eyes of our Alphas, and their leaves were green, green, green with relief that I could have this. That I could finally have the one thing I needed most.

  He licked up my ass until he reached my balls, taking one in his mouth and then the other. My dick was flat against my stomach, so hard it hurt. I told him to fuck me, you bastard, Jesus Christ, just fuck me, but he only laughed against my skin before running a finger over my asshole. He brought his hand up to my mouth, telling me to get his fingers wet. He pressed down on my jaw until I opened wide. I sucked his fingers as best I could, rolling my tongue around them. He pulled them out with a wet pop before he brought them back down between us.

  I winced when he pressed a single finger inside. It’d been years since I’d been with anyone else, and even longer since I’d been fucked. I hadn’t much liked the thought of someone above me, fucking into me. It felt wrong.

  It didn’t feel that way now.

  He turned his face and kissed my knee as he added a second finger. I gasped at the sensation as he slowly worked my hole. He looked down at the sight of his fingers disappearing into me, eyes blown wide with lust.

  “Pervert,” I muttered.

  “Yeah. I guess I am. You’re taking it, though. You’re taking it so good.”

  I flushed at the praise. It’d never been like this before.

  But then, it’d never been him.

  He had worked a third finger in before I snapped that he either needed to fuck me or I’d do it myself.

  He laughed. “I’d like to see you try.”

  I wrapped a hand around his throat.

  The vines around the roses tightened.

  I shoved him to the side, rolling with him as my magic burst along my arm. He grunted in surprise when he landed on his back. I straddled his hips, his cock under my ass. I ground down against it, and he groaned as he thrust up. “Impatient,” he said.

  I ignored him, reaching over to the nightstand to grab the slick I kept in the drawer. The wooden raven rattled across the surface, tilting to the side on its wing.

  Mark was watching me when I sat back up, having found what I was looking for. I met his gaze after I poured the slick onto my hand, sitting up and reaching behind me. I wrapped my hand around his dick, getting him wet. He swallowed thickly, eyes fluttering shut as I stroked him. The angle was awkward, and he was thick, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I wiped the remaining slick against my asshole as I tossed the bottle onto the floor.

  I put one hand flat against his chest as I reached behind me again and rose. His eyes opened, his hands coming to my hips. I pressed his cock against my asshole, breathing out slowly as I bore down on him.

  Claws popped against my skin.

  His chest rumbled as I sank down.

  One of his claws pierced the skin on my right side.

  I breathed in the blue and the green and the violet and—
/>
  My hips were flush with his.

  “Gordo,” he breathed, my name like a benediction through sharpening teeth.

  I waited, holding myself in place, hands in his chest hair. “Yeah,” I sighed. “I know.”

  “I need to move,” he said, sounding desperate. “You need to let me move—”

  I glared down at him. “You need to hold the fuck up.”

  He snapped his teeth at me, eyes flaring violet.

  I brought my hand back to his throat, wrapping my fingers around his neck. The skin dimpled where my fingertips pressed down.

  He growled up at me, claws digging in.

  The raven stretched its wings.

  I watched as roses began to bloom down my arm. They covered the runes and symbols my father had given me. They’d never been like this before. So free. So wild. The grew until they covered every inch of skin, the vines stretching down toward my hand, leaves sprouting, the thick black thorns curved sharply.

  The roses burst along the back of my hand, the red as bright as it’d ever been. The vines stretched down the lengths of my fingers, and for a moment, brief though it was, I swore they began to spread along his neck underneath my hand. That part of me was now etched into him.

  The violet in his eyes faded away.

  All that was left was blue. Clear, clean ice-cold blue.

  I rose slowly, holding my hand in place, before falling back down on him. He groaned as I clenched my ass. His claws retreated, and I felt a thin trickle of blood roll down my side as his fingers gripped my hips. I rose again and was met on the way back down by his hips. He moved until his feet were flat against the bed before he fucked up into me harder, his skin slapping against mine.

  I bowed my head, my hair falling into my eyes. The raven shrank as it flitted down my arm toward my hand, its wings scraping against the rose petals. It spread its wings when it reached the back of my hand, and Mark groaned my name as I held on tight. He pushed his hips up again harshly.