The Raven Trilogy- Complete Series

by Elle Lincoln

  I press my hands to my cheeks, pinching them for color, feeling annoyed and self-conscious.

  Balor squeezes me. “Don’t listen to them, they’ve been chugging moonshine.”

  I snort, I knew they were drunk! “Okay, back on topic.” Because it’s damn hard to stay on track right now.

  “Ryoden is nothing if not a drama queen. He will no doubt make sure all species know of the time limit he gave you.” Mac’s voice holds a slight air of indignation, determination sobering him further. “Which means we should expect more death threats. There is no hierarchy right now. There is no voice of reason. The world is breaking apart faster than anyone could have guessed.”

  I lean my head back against Balor’s shoulder, my body exhausted and my mind tired. I just want to live my life in peace. Which is weird, considering that is nothing like what I wanted only a few short months ago. Or years. Everything keeps blurring together at this point.

  “Death threats, check. I can mist into town and look for Kelsie. I’ll bring Casseus with me. But we have no security. We are an open target.” With no home, no shelter, there is nothing to keep us safe.

  “The forest,” Logan pipes up. “You have lived here all your life and don’t realize the dangers that lurk here, even more so now.”

  “Explain.” Balor’s voice rumbles through me, lulling me to close my eyes.

  “There are things hidden out there that not even a wolf dares to sniff out. Areas off limits. We use those to our advantage. The pack moved back out last night, heading farther north, they want no part of this.” I hear the ache in Logan’s voice and feel it through our bond. I hate that this is my fault, him losing his family, including his brother.

  “Logan, I’m so sorry.”

  He slices a hand through the air, dismissing me. “It’s on him, not you.” He coughs once. “I don’t know what else is out there besides the forgotten, but the Realm was full of creatures out to constantly kill you. They are here now, hidden. Make pacts and loyalties, but remember many Fae are more monster than human. Don’t make the mistake that they abide by a code you do.”

  “Noted. What happened to Falin’s body?” The last thing we need is evidence just lying around.

  “We took him to a cave where we could preserve his body.” Mac twists his face up, telling me what he really thinks of that action.

  “Great, a supernatural morgue.” Not like a regular morgue would have been any better, considering hospitals still don’t have power. Which reminds me of the lack of hot water and clothes I now have, besides whatever is hidden in the trunk of the car. “And Ceth? How much of a problem will she be?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I haven’t seen her in a very long time.” Thousands of years is more like it. “If she has lived all this time, then she has adapted to this world far better than I have.”

  I turn in his arms to search his face. He is completely serious in his statement. “Balor, you forget that the world isn’t what it was when you were released. It changed quickly and dramatically, throwing us hundreds of years into the past. For us, this is a good thing. No technology means we are untraceable right now. And what we really need is the king you were meant to be. And perhaps the king you were. They saw you as a threat, we need that man today.”

  “I am no man, Bette. Logan makes a valid point. Many of us are beast first. The appearance that we all look human is a disguise to blend in.” His haunted voice holds the memories of the past that bleed into the present.

  I cannot argue his words, because they speak a truth that I’m only just beginning to understand on a deeper level. Not even hours ago, I held a heart in my hand. I can still feel the blood that pulsed through it beneath my fingertips—a sobering thought when I realize that no human would do that.

  Unless they happen to be a serial killer, but that’s a different argument for another day. I shake the thought from my mind, focusing instead on the feel of Balor beneath me.

  Relaxing my shoulders and curving forward, my forehead meets his as I breathe in his earthy scent. “Will the gods come for me?” A flutter of nervous energy floods through me as I ask that question again. I get the feeling I’ll be asking it often, because the thought of gods and Fae alike coming for me scares me.

  As it should.

  “Let them come.” Balor leans up, brushing a kiss across my lips before pulling back to look me in the eyes. “I will destroy anyone who dares to dismember you and set you on fire.”

  I tip back. “That was oddly specific.” Violent, but sweet, and I lean in for a longer kiss. My body still isn’t completely satisfied, even though Casseus and I spent the morning together. Again and again. With Balor beneath me, it’s a different kind of burn that spreads through me, one only for this man. Each of them sparks something different inside of me. All of them adding to my desire in a different, yet specific way.

  And I’m insatiable. I’ve got a lot of time to make up for and possibly not a lot of time to make it happen.

  His hands grip my hips, and with a tortured groan he pulls away. “I want this right now, I fucking need this.”

  I sigh and lean back. “But?”

  Logan coughs behind me. “Casseus and Patrick are back.” Logan stands, his cheeks flushed, and his lungs panting. “They are still blocking us so this can’t be good.”

  I peek over at Mac whose own eyes flash with lust and longing. I give him a coy smile, wondering how much of a priority this news is.

  “Get up, devil woman.” Balor stands unceremoniously and dumps me on the ground. I’d be angry, but Mac’s laughter breaks the spell of lust.

  I lie on the surprisingly clean floor, closing my eyes for just a moment. “Go on. Leave me here to ferment in my own lust.”

  Mac stands above me, that crooked smile doing things to me, like making my need worse. “Up you go. I think this is big.”

  I groan, smacking his hand away and popping up. My old Converse sneakers squeak along the floor as I drag my legs out of the little distillery. Freaking Grandma. I swear she never stops surprising me with her random knowledge or illegal liquor production. She really is a force to be reckoned with. Which makes me miss her.

  “Come on,” Mac insists, smacking my ass.

  I leave the cave and climb the rock wall back to the depressing rubble. It takes me a full moment for the scene before me to register, but when it does, the first thing I feel is anger for some reason.

  “What the fuck? I left you two for a half hour, an hour at the most, and one of you brings back a long-lost daughter?” It’s completely ridiculous, I know this, but I thought that would be something you’d tell your girlfriend. Or whatever I am.

  The child in question stands between Casseus and Mac. Her fiery red hair is full of dreads, matching Balor. She wears Patrick’s shirt that completely dwarfs her, and her eyes... her orange eyes stare directly at me, her head cocked.

  There is something completely off about this child. She looks no more than five, and yet she holds an intelligence far beyond her years. I take a step closer as we study each other. Her eyes blink, her lids slowly lifting, and I catch an even slower double lid retracting horizontally. That’s when I realize her pupils are vertical.

  “What did you do?” My eyes widen as I look to Casseus and Patrick.

  “Well, we found the dragon—” Casseus begins, before Balor cuts him off.

  “You didn’t think to share this with the rest of us?” Balor’s cheeks redden with his anger as he grows. I place a calming palm on his back.

  “You went looking for the dragon and found it, but then what happened?” I speak slowly as though I’m talking to children.

  But my suspicions grow when the child sneezes fire.

  Chapter 7

  Bette

  Increasing Demand

  Children. It isn’t as though I didn’t know of their existence. I do. Hell, we searched for that missing boy. But the interaction there was between a rush of finding him then getting as far away as possible. My only goal was
to get him back to his mother.

  Shit. “Where is her mother?” How I didn’t think of this first is beyond me.

  “She doesn’t speak anything. Not even a language we could get an interpreter for.” Casseus twists up his features before kneeling. The gentleness in him as he brushes a strand of hair from her face strikes something within me—an odd feeling I can’t put my finger on, but there without definition floating around in my soul. Her focus falls to him with a tug of her lips. He points to himself, “Casseus.” Then he points to her.

  It would be comical, except for the fact that we are quite literally dealing with a dragon child in the middle of a crisis. At this point, nothing else could possibly go wrong.

  “Name. Do you have a name?” Casseus begins again, and I can’t help but roll my eyes at him.

  “Cas, if she knew English or any other language, she would be speaking it.” I really needed some sleep. Between my emotions and the lack of dreaming, my eyes felt gritty and my body heavy. I clap my hands, trying to wake myself more than anyone else. “Okay, now we need a new plan.”

  “I’m not sure what to do with a child,” Balor announces, finally speaking up and drawing our littler observer’s attention. They both stare each other down, sizing the other up. “I admit a dragon on our side would help.”

  “She is a child,” I chide. Even I know that much about kids. “There are child labor laws.”

  “Bette, this child is no child. She is Fae and probably eats things your size.” Logan sniffs the air, his mouth turning down into a frown. “Balor is right.”

  “But a child,” I protest. I don’t know how to care for one, but I also don’t want to see her hurt.

  “If it makes ye feel any better, I stabbed her with me ax,” Patrick says as though this is just a passing comment, no big deal.

  Horrified, I gape at him. “You stabbed her?”

  He holds his hands up, deflecting my ire. “Look, she was invisible. I went to toss my ax into a tree. It wasn’t intentional.”

  “Casseus fed her cigarette butts,” Mac adds casually, just like Patrick, as though these are normal things to feed a child.

  “Now wait a second.” Cas swings around, giving Mac a dirty look. “I thought my butts were going into some weird dimension. I couldn’t see her glamour like you.”

  I scrub a hand down my face. The universe has a tricky sense of humor. I swear right now it’s playing some trick on me. At any moment, someone is going to pop out and yell, “Got Ya!” I wait an entire minute while the others bicker, looking around at the line of trees, but no one pops out. This is my reality now, the six of us guardians for this small child.

  “Oh no, she isn’t small,” Patrick corrects, diving inside my head. “She’s about the size of a small car.

  “Really?” Mac takes a step forward, his professor face on, before kneeling in front of the girl. “She was much smaller than that a month ago. Maybe the size of a bike.” He smiles at her with a genuine smile that pulls people in. It’s contagious and puts anyone at ease. Well, usually. This little girl backs away to hide behind Cas. “Interesting.”

  “Naw.” Patrick takes a swig from his flask, obviously feeling better about the entire situation if he’s back to drinking. I stopped worrying about that long ago, whiskey is leprechaun water. “Yer a God of the Sea, she is a creature of literal fire. You don’t mix.”

  Mac turns to Patrick, horrified. I bet it’s the first time in his life this has ever happened, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Logan and Cas both break out in a fit of ridiculous giggles.

  One look from Balor and they fade into stifled snickers. Balor seems to sense something I don’t by the pinched expression on his face. “You say she was twice as small a month ago?”

  “She was.” Mac stands and walks toward me, easing the child considerably.

  “She’s only months old,” Balor states, also takes a step back.

  “I’m sorry, did you say months?” Dumfounded, I look at her. “She’s not a child, she’s a goddamn baby.”

  “Calm, Bette. I haven’t dealt with dragons before, so this is just speculation,” Balor soothes, but it doesn’t work.

  “Patrick used to have a pet dragon!” I can hear the frantic worry seeping into my voice as it rises in pitch, and there is nothing I can do to curb it.

  “An adult dragon, I think. And it never once turned into a human form.” Patrick runs a hand through his scruffy red beard. “Temperamental creature, if I’m not mistaken. Had no idea they could shift.”

  “Okay, so she hatched what, a few months before the fall?” I try to think through this, because the last thing I want is a baby dragon caught in the cross hairs of my drama.

  “Oh aye, Maybe only a month before.” Now Patrick sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, but I suspect he’s just bullshitting me.

  “So in about month, we will have a preteen, temperamental, hormonal, immature baby dragon to deal with?” Oh yes, my voice has grown panicked.

  “Well, when you say it like that, it sounds terrible.” Casseus pulls out a toothpick as the situation finally pierces his brain.

  “And Ryoden will declare war on us if I don’t hand over a person I have no control over. With a dragon to watch.” I heave out a sigh. “Guys, we need to find another dragon to take her in. None of us truly know anything about them.”

  “Aww, Bette.”

  I hold my hand up, cutting Cas off. “She is not a pet. She is in the guise of a human child. But she is a dragon at heart. Look at her!”

  We all glance to the little beasty in question, who is smiling at our arguing. A smile that is sharp and full of pointy white teeth. Not only that, but a fly buzzes past her and her forked, pink tongue snaps out and eats the damn thing.

  “Guys,” I groan.

  “Okay, okay, I see your worry here. But who better to teach her to blend in than us?” I tilt my head at Casseus, realizing something.

  “You’ve already made up your mind.” He wants to keep the poor dragon like a pet.

  “Yes. I mean, if we find another dragon then we can reevaluate, but until then we integrate her into society.” Casseus stands tall and proud, the toothpick bouncing around his mouth as he controls his excitement.

  “I need to move past this conversation, Balor.” I flutter my hands, moving away to peer out over the valley. The sun sits at high noon, warming the land below. Steam rises into a fine mist, coating the area in ethereal light. At least our new little friend will keep the mosquitoes at bay.

  “She can stay, for now,” Balor declares, and I tune him out after that statement.

  Maybe I’m being selfish. But I honestly just don’t want to share my guys, even with a child. Having immortal children is rare, I’ve come to learn this, so I know she is probably only one of a few dragons in existence. Hell, she could be the only one.

  Which makes me feel like a complete asshole. But the damage has been done. She probably thinks I’m a crazy bitch.

  I exhale into the humid air, dropping my hands and shoulders, letting all the tension bleed from my body. Tiny little fingers slip into mine. My eyes move slowly to the little girl clasping my hand. For a long moment, I can’t think. The feel of her tiny hand in my larger one is beyond surreal. Beyond anything I could truly describe, and it chips the ice from around my heart. I no longer want to dive in and check her soul.

  Shit. One tiny gesture and I’m nearly as far gone as Casseus.

  I investigate her chubby, dirty cheeks. “Okay, kiddo.”

  Her smile, still all teeth and a bit unsettling, is full of thanks. Her intelligent eyes crinkle around the edges and I can only shake my head.

  “You know they will eventually figure out you understand them.” This creature is far more adaptable than even I first gave her credit for. Sneaky dragon.

  Her shoulder shrug confirms it. This kid and I, we may just get along.

  “Can you talk yet?” Her piercing orange eyes blink up at me in slow motion. “Taking tha
t as a no. You need a name though. I’m guessing Falkor won’t fit.” I hum low under my breath. “Do you have a name?” Another slow blink, this time accompanied with a bright red brow raise. “Ginger? Goldie? Coral? Ember?”

  She squeezes my hand once.

  “You like one of those? Ember?” I start with the last name first and she squeezes my hand once more. “Ember it is. Well, Ember, we are going to have to work through that mane of hair you’ve got going on.” I mentally make a checklist to pick up clothing for us. And brushes. Maybe a few of those because her hair is insane.

  Again, her smile is equal parts terrifying and endearing. She probably eats all things, like that fly.

  Her head jerks quickly to the side, and her vertical eyes slit to a thin line as she peers out deep into the forest.

  “We’ve got something incoming, don’t we?” It isn’t like I didn’t expect it, but honestly, a break would be nice. “Boys!”

  Their bickering fades into curses.

  “And there it is, sweet Ember.” Though I doubt she is anywhere close to sweet, not this little beasty. Ugh, the compassion rising in me is foreign. “You hungry?”

  This time her smile is anything but sweet. Her eyes darken to a deep hue of orange, bordering on red. She lets go of my hand to back away. In a shimmer of red and orange glitter, her body expands into that of a dragon.

  “She’s a bit bigger than a car.” Beautiful. She is absolutely stunning. And some inner part of me recognizes the creature for what she really is—a monster from a Realm foreign to this Earth. “Let me make sure none of them are full of iron, and then you can fill your tummy.”

  “Seriously, Bette?” Logan steps up beside me.

  I shrug. “I mean, she has lived this long without us. She knows what she’s doing.” At least I hope so. “What do you scent, Logan?”

  “Nothing.” His furry brows pull down low and his hands clench into fists. “I scent nothing. What did Ember sense?”

  “Oh, you guys caught her name amongst your bickering, did you?” I look at the she-dragon. Her body crouches low to the ground, her wings tight against her body, and her eyes are pulled into narrow slits. “She senses something.”