The Raven Queen
-Some Myths Are Prophecy-
Emma-Jayne Mills
~The Morrigan Prophecies~
Book One
Text Copyright © Emma Jayne Mills 2019
All rights reserved.
Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
Purchase only authorised editions.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, storylines, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Chris at KUDI-DESIGN
A note for readers
This book is written in UK English. Therefore, some spellings will differ from American English. It also contains some English and Irish slang words.
While several rounds of edits have taken place prior to release, some errors may have squeezed their way through the net. Sadly, and as much as they wish they had superpowers, authors are only human and these things happen. Please feel free to bring the author’s attention to anything you find. She doesn’t bite (unless you ask her to).
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
A Toast!
About the Author
Other Works by the Author
A single raven, born of wolves,
the time to reign for her has come.
Her faith is strong,
her heart is true.
Raven Queen we call to you.
Three thousand years ago The Raven Queen, alongside her Fae and Vampire sisters were prophesised to bring peace to the paranormal races.
They failed!
The vampires enslaved the witches they didn’t burn, the shifters went into hiding and the Fae closed off their realm forever.
The war still rages, but a new Raven Queen has been born and a new prophecy has come to pass. However, fulfilling a prophecy is the last thing on Aurora Byrne’s mind, because her pack doesn’t yet know there’s a raven in its midst.
-The Morrigan Prophecies Book One-
For Aurora and Jax,
who waited (im)patiently inside my head,
for so long.
Now is your time.
I need a love that I can’t get enough of.
A love that can’t live without me.
A love that will never walk away.
-Raven Black
Prologue
Jax looked down at the wild beauty in his arms and his heart shattered again. The pain sliced through him, stealing his breath in the same way it had, countless times, since that fateful night. A night when long kept secrets were revealed to him and his future- wrong, their future, was set in motion. He breathed through the torment, wondering how the hell he was going to do this. Because he was going to do it. Their lives depended on it.
Her eyes, rimmed with tears she refused to shed, had no problem breaking through the façade he’d put in place to get him through this. The sadness in her gaze reflected his own and it ripped him apart to know he’d been the one to put it there. He’d take the life of anyone else who made her feel that way without a second thought, but he was the guilty party. Lying to keep her safe was something she would despise him for, she was nobody’s to protect. That was the easy part. It was the hurt she would feel because of his actions that threatened to bring him to his knees.
Aurora was tough and outspoken, a born leader, and popular among the pack. People gravitated to her. In spite of her prickly nature, they wanted to befriend her. Only he knew her deepest feelings. He was granted the privilege of seeing the softness underneath the hard exterior. She showed the traits she considered to be weaknesses to him and him alone. She was anything but weak.
At seventeen, she was already as strong as him and regularly bested the males in the pack during their training sessions. She had no idea how magnificent she already was, let alone what she was destined to become. It both blew his mind and scared him to death to think about it. The responsibility lay on him to ensure she was able to fulfil that destiny. No matter how difficult it was to leave her, he had a job to do.
She peered up at him, long lashes blinking away the strands of inky hair that hung slightly too low and caught in her emerald eyes. He smiled at the thought of the way she constantly flicked her hair out of her eyes. Those were the moments he would remember when they were apart. Those were the things that would keep him going- her quirks and her fierce temper, her laughter, and her voice. Always her voice. Their mate bond was no secret among the pack, it was obvious to anyone who looked at them, but the words had never been spoken aloud and it was that tiny detail he was counting on to help turn her against him now.
He reached out and tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear, burying the urge to kiss her in the way he’d wanted to for far too long. If he kissed her, he would never leave and if he didn’t walk away, they would have no future at all, let alone one where they could be together. Jax took a breath as he looked into her eyes and steeled himself to break both their hearts. Their time would come, he had to believe their mate bond would withstand the separation or this pain would never be worth it.
“Fuck! This is harder than I thought it would be.” He braved a weak smile, reaching up and cupping her cheeks in his palms.
“Then stay, Jax. Don’t leave me. I’ll get into all kinds of trouble without you, you know it’s true.” Her voice, even in sadness, held a melody his heart would always dance to.
“You get into all kinds of trouble with me, Rory.” He forced the lazy smile, the one he knew she loved; she’d told him she did at least a thousand times.
“Life will be shite around here. What am I supposed to do without you?” she sulked, his smile failing to charm her this time.
“Train, be the pack’s tracker, become the alpha. Let my brother love you,” Jax choked on the words as they left his mouth, desperately trying to hold onto his composure.
“I haven’t even shifted yet, I’m on borrowed time. If I don’t shift, I won’t become the alpha and if that doesn’t happen the pack needs you. You’re next in line.” Aurora fisted his shirt in her hands, his stomach muscles involuntarily contracting when the tips of her fingers grazed his skin. He’d wanted her for so long and not giving in, not claiming his mate, was torture for both him and his wolf.
“You will shift, Rory. You will become so much,” he told her, with a pride he couldn’t hide. His fingers tangled in her hair, fighting the need to pull her head back and guide her lips up to meet his.
“I don’t love Caspian!” Aurora narrowed her eyes at him. She was angry, pushing his buttons in the way only she knew how.
“He’s your mate, Rory. He feels it,” Jax said, with a muted growl.
“Well, last time I checked these things are meant to work both ways and I don’t feel it. Not for him. Even without shifting I know it’s not him. You know it too, Jax. The whole of Shadow Fen knows it!” She was challenging his every response, as if he would expect anything less of his wild thing.
“Rory, no! It can’t be that way. I know it hurts. Believe me, I feel i
t too, more than you know. I love you, I always have, but we have no bond and if I don’t leave, I won’t be able to let you go. This blows for me too.” He pleaded with her to understand the lies that left his lips.
If he had any choice, he would never walk away from her, deep down he was certain she must realise that. Nobody knew him the way she did. Surely, she would see through his act and understand.
Walking away from his true mate and best friend was one thing but handing her over to his brother was the hardest thing he had ever faced. He didn’t want another man’s hands on her. Knowing those hands belonged to his brother sent his wolf into a rage and the animal surged to the surface, in a fit of anger and frustration, desperate to claim their mate. Jax pushed the beast back down in a silent war of control.
He believed Caspian loved her, but he knew his brother was lying about feeling the mate bond, because the true bond was between Aurora and Jax. He’d felt it the second he went through his first shift, before that, if he was being honest with himself. Being two years older than her, he’d promised her father he would wait for her to shift and feel the bond herself before he acted on it, but she was nobody’s fool. She knew he was lying and she knew Caspian was lying too.
Time had run out for them. Aurora hadn’t shifted and other factors had come into play. Their future, every action they would take, every decision they would make would affect the lives of millions. He had to focus on becoming who she needed him to be, the warrior that was born to fight beside her. He had a task, set out by ancient prophecy, that had to be his priority now. Because if what he had discovered was true, she was going to need all the warriors she could get.
As farfetched as it seemed, he believed it was true. Her Grandmother, the oldest wolf on the elder council, had shown him the prophecy and his own part in it. She had also told him both their lives would be in danger if they stayed together before Aurora’s first shift. He wasn’t yet ready to be her warrior. They would be vulnerable, a target once word of her true form got out. And afterwards, no-one could be trusted with her life, especially not those closest to her, that’s when he had to be at his strongest for her. That was why Jax had given his mate to his brother for protection in his absence. Caspian was the only person he knew who loved Aurora as much as he did, he was the only person he believed he could trust.
“Why are you doing this? I don’t get it.” Caspian had argued.
“Don’t question it, Cas. I need you to be there for her, love her the same way I would.”
“I’m not going to say no, I’m not a fucking idiot, but there’s more to this, Jax.”
“If I could tell you, I would,”
“I won’t let her go. You know that, don’t you? Once I have her, she’s mine.”
“Just make her happy, little brother. Keep her safe. Don’t fuck this up, because I will only walk away from her once.”
Jax had neglected to mention that he had every intention of returning for her one day, if she would have him. He hadn’t wanted to lie, he hadn’t wanted to deny their bond, but to push them together was the only way he could think of to guarantee her safety. He couldn’t be her mate, not yet and if they thought she was with Caspian, no other wolf would try to claim her.
“Then go! Go and be a hero. Forget all about me! Forget about us! Forget this pack and everything it represents, because you, Jax O’Conner, are no longer part of it!” Aurora surrendered to her fiery temper and the flames blazed in her eyes as she snarled at him.
Her animal was near the surface, his wolf sensed it and became restless again, wanting to comfort its mate through their bond. It wouldn’t be long before her first shift, he wished he could be there to guide her through it. Jax watched his whole world turn and storm away from him through the woods, away from the waterfall that they considered their special place and away from their true mate bond. Hurt and confusion hurtled through their bond, he picked up the anger in her scent when she ran from him.
“I’ll never forget you, Rory. I love you. I’ll love you all my life. For the rest of my days, I am yours…” Jax whispered into the wind and allowed his wolf the freedom it craved.
Chapter One
While the war may quell, tempers will rage still.
And a new generation of saviours will rise.
The messenger’s less than delicate steps broke the vampire king’s concentration and he paused, forcing a lull in the blood flow from the vein of the girl in his arms. Sensing the desire for his full attention, he carelessly shoved the stray from his lap, allowing her wound to go unhealed. She would bleed out onto the floor of his suite, her predicament masked by the euphoria brought on by his bite. The practical details had long ago become unimportant; someone would clean and dispose of the body. Donors were easily replaced and more pressing matters had presented themselves.
“She has shifted, Leo. Sorry, my lord,” the messenger announced, struggling to contain the excitement.
“You are certain?” Leonardo’s eyes lifted to the hooded figure in the corner of the darkened room, not prepared to risk that there could be any misunderstanding.
“Yes, my lord,” the messenger replied. “In the early hours of this morning, I witnessed it myself.”
“And?” Leonardo pressed, rolling down the sleeves of his white shirt and fastening the pearl buttons at the wrists.
“It is as you predicted, my lord. She is a raven.”
“Good. Continue your watch. No harm must come to her.”
“But…”
“Were my instructions unclear?” Leonardo rarely raised his voice, preferring to convey his power in more dignified ways. “Leave on a quieter tread than you arrived with.”
“My lord.” The messenger bowed low and departed on decidedly more silent feet.
Leonardo stood and moved to the window. Resting his hands on the marble ledge and leaning forward, he allowed himself a smile. There was a long-awaited feeling of satisfaction to be found in the knowledge that the time had come. The Raven Queen was rising.
The culling of the shifters, sending their numbers into rapid decline, and what had come to be known as the extinction of the witches, brought about a war of epic proportions, after the first raven queen failed in meeting her destiny. The Fae bowed out early in the battles that followed her death, sealing off their realm permanently from the other species and refusing all requests for assistance. The war raged for more than two thousand years before the battles dwindled and a peace, of sorts, was agreed between the vampires and shifters. It was more of a “You take care of your shit and we’ll take care of ours,” kind of agreement, in which each race took responsibility for their own rogues and dealt with them accordingly. However, it was a peace that dangled precariously over a lake of bubbling lava that could erupt at any second, given the slightest irritation.
Shifters had appointed trackers within their communities. These trackers were tasked with hunting (and killing if irredeemable) the rogues and splinter groups who took it upon themselves to carry out acts of war and any crime in general. The trackers had evolved into a supernatural police force over the years, responsible for bringing to justice every shifter who dared overstep the boundaries set out by the elder council.
Aurora Byrne was one such tracker. At twenty-one years old, the future alpha of The Shadow Pack excelled in the job and had a reputation to match her fierce attitude. She had a nose for bullshit and no detail escaped her attention. Aurora brought in the scoundrels swiftly and cleanly, leaving no trace of paranormal activity on the human world. Her record was unblemished and her partner was nothing to be sniffed at either.
“We have him.” Caspian grinned, slyly, savouring the adrenaline pumping through him in anticipation of the chase to come.
He lived for these moments, when it was just the two of them, hunting together. This was when he got to show her that he was worthy of her and a strong wolf in his own right. At times like this, there was no need for him to live up to the dregs of his older brother’s legacy. A legacy
that, even after four years, lingered in the air like the stench of wet dog after a stormy run.
His chest was pressed tightly against Aurora’s back, in the narrow alley way between two buildings. He could feel every breath she took through the thin material of her black t-shirt and matched his own with them. Here, they weren’t future alpha and beta of The Shadow Pack, with him always carrying the weight of humiliation that came from constantly deferring to the more powerful female. Here, they were partners. Here, they were equals. And to be fair, she had never treated him as anything less.
Aurora held up a hand, signalling for Caspian to wait. She’d picked up the scent again and, still smarting from losing him once, wanted to be certain the rogue wolf didn’t get away a second time. The rogue in question had committed the worst crime a shifter could and Connell Byrne, Aurora’s father, and present alpha of The Shadow Pack had, naturally, given the task of bringing him in to his best trackers. A wolf with a taste for human blood could not be left to roam.
“Wait,” Aurora whispered back. The rogue had just entered a packed shopping centre, directly opposite where they now stood. “There are humans inside, we need to protect them first.”
“Agreed. So, how do you want to play it?”
Aurora took a few precious seconds to gather her thoughts. The wolf had taken out an entire family of humans; parents, three children. It was common among rogues, when they left their pack, to lose their humanity entirely and begin to prey on humans, in the way their werewolf cousins did. He had a taste for human blood now, but he was currently in human form, which would normally work in their favour. A wolf in control of his animal wouldn’t risk being discovered as a shifter, but this was not a wolf who was in control.
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