The Raven Queen

by Emma Jayne Mills

  “I warned you,” she whispered, placing a hot kiss on his lips. He let her lead, allowing her mouth to own him, her tongue swirling over his and sending sensuous shocks through him.

  The sound of the gunshot registered a millisecond after the pain sliced through his foot, sending him to his knees. She was gone. He pushed himself up, ignoring the pain and stumbled out onto the street to see her approaching a waiting vehicle. Aurora, climbing into the passenger seat, took a moment to look back and blow a kiss. He knew it was fuelled with sarcasm and anger, but he’d take whatever he could get, so he’d winked and threw her a kiss of his own. The men arrived on the busy street shortly after Jax.

  “We’re going to need a clean-up team.” Zane looked at the trail of blood leading from the door of the building to Jax.

  “On it,” Cole plucked his phone from his pocket and called in their details.

  “She fucking shot you!” Hunter pointed at his foot. “She blew a fucking hole in your foot!”

  “She warned me,” Jax laughed.

  “You’re as fucking crazy as her.” Marco shook his head, a wry smile on his face.

  “It’ll heal.” Jax accepted Cole’s help, leaning his weight on him as they made their way across the road and back to the helicopter. “I’ll shift on the roof, before we get back in the air.”

  “Where are they?” Zane asked.

  “Gone, Cas had a car waiting. Headed back to the fen.” Jax looked into the distance, in the direction the car had gone.

  “Did she mention the intel?”

  “No. She just shot me.”

  “What now?” Marco asked.

  Jax grinned. “Now, it’s time to go home, my friend.”

  Aurora and Caspian arrived back at Shadow Fen with their final mark of the day, to find Jax and his team in the custody block with her Father. She should have processed the rogue and gone home. That’s what any normal woman would have done after shooting her mate, gone into hiding until it blew over. Instead, she sent Caspian to process the rogue and followed Jax’s strong, masculine scent, unable to resist his lure.

  “You can have him when I’m done with him,” Connell was saying, when Aurora slid past her brother, who was leaning in the doorway, flicking his ear in the process.

  “Twice in one day, how lucky do I feel?” Aurora drawled sarcastically, perching on her father’s desk, and crossing her feet at the ankles, she turned to Connell. “Cas is processing the last one.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart. I had Darius clean up after your little shooting spree,” Connell informed his daughter.

  “Yeah, sorry about that, ran into something unpleasant,” she answered.

  Connell knew he should have reprimanded her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. His daughter was hurting because of the actions of her true mate, she had been for years and he was willing to allow her to deal with it in whatever way made her feel better. She was his best tracker, discreet and efficient and, not counting today, had never caused him to send out Darius to cover her tracks. There had been a surge in rogue wolf activity in recent months and the Shadow Pack were playing a major part in getting them under control. Connell was known for taking in rogues and re-habilitating them, but he knew when a situation was getting out of control and he was certain it was tied to his daughter’s prophecy.

  -How’s the foot?

  -Healed, thanks for the concern.

  -I’m not concerned. I was just hoping you’d be in pain for a bit longer.

  Jax grinned, she still hadn’t looked at him, but she had used their connection. True, it was to abuse him, but she had used it. Another win for him. He’d felt their bond hum into life several minutes earlier, so he’d known she was on her way as soon as she was back in Shadow Fen. Their bond would work the same way for her, he knew this. He wanted her to acknowledge it for his own satisfaction.

  “How did you know we were there earlier?” Jax demanded out loud. She took her time in turning to face him. Crossing her arms and fixing him with a look of boredom.

  “You landed a helicopter, on a rooftop, in the middle of Dublin, in broad daylight. The whole fecking city knew you were coming. Besides, I can pick out your stench a mile off.” She turned her nose up at him.

  “Would that be the same stench that drives you insane, the one you crave as much as I crave yours? The one that demands you move closer to me now?” Jax took several steps closer to her. She pushed up from the desk and straightened, he kept going until their bodies were flush against one another. Her chest rose and fell in time with his and he felt their heartbeats sync, provoking a sharp intake of breath from her. “The same stench that makes you wild with desire for me. The stench that makes you want to put your hands all over me, strip me down and claim me, dig your nails into my skin and mark me as yours?”

  “Do you need me here, Dad?” Aurora blinked, turned her face away and side-stepped him, flushed and unnerved. She needed space. Jax gave a victorious grin, he’d rattled her into acknowledging their bond.

  “No, you’ve done enough for today, love.” Connell shook his head, ignoring Jax’s show of dominance over Aurora.

  “We’re happy to question the rogue together,” Zane suggested, bringing the subject back on track. “I’m sure you are aware of your son’s ability to extract information from even the most stubborn creatures.”

  “I am aware.” Connell looked at Marco, a slight nod acknowledging Zane’s declaration. “However, this is pack business. You may have him when I’ve finished with him.”

  “Am I not pack, anymore?” Marco asked, straightening from where he had been leaning on the doorframe.

  “You’ll always have a home here, son, as will you, Jax,” Connell said. “I am proud of you both. But until you are fully re-integrated into the pack, I cannot share our business with either of you.”

  “Leaving without saying goodbye, Rory? No kiss this time?” Jax threw the baiting at Aurora’s back as she made to leave the room. His concern ought to have been the information they needed, but he had to have one last interaction with his mate, even if it wasn’t a pleasant one. He craved her attention like a toddler craved its mothers. Even if she insulted him, it was still a reaction.

  “Gentlemen, I’ll be seeing you,” she addressed the team and then looked at Jax. “Or preferably not, in your case.”

  “We’re not done, Rory,” Jax retaliated. He barely held onto his temper at her dismissal. He may have wanted the response from her and deliberately goaded her into it, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt or anger him when she treated him as though he didn’t matter to her.

  Aurora paused, looking at him for a few seconds with her head on one side. Then she moved, slowly stalking him. Moving closer and closer, until once again their bodies touched. Hunter murmured something about it getting hot in the room and Cole agreed. Aurora reached out, hooking her fingers into the gaps between the buttons of Jax’s shirt, his skin puckered and his stomach vaulted. Lifting her face to look at him, she ran her fingers along the buttons, popping each one open as she went, the backs of her fingers lightly brushing the skin underneath and pulling a deep rumble from his chest. She lifted her chin and brought her lips up to within millimetres of his mouth.

  “We were done before we had chance to begin.” Her lips were like ice brushing against his as she spoke. “You saw to that.”

  Backing away with a smile full of venom, she spun on her heel and stalked from the room leaving her mate dumbstruck.

  Chapter Five

  When home is no longer a sanctuary,

  Embrace the wings of the raven.

  An ever-present blanket of mist and a cascade of drizzle from the skies did more to highlight the beauty of the forest than sunlight ever could. The rain darkened the leaves, making them stand out against the muddy earth, the mist adding a haunting atmosphere that cried out a warning that a supernatural presence was nearby. Do not enter! Aurora loved Shadow Fen, it was more than home for her, it was her sanctuary. The watchful trees h
ad seen her through every hurdle in life, providing protection and solitude when everything got too much. These days, she rarely visited the waterfall and lake, where the pack swam under the light of the moon. Too many memories lived there, but the forest would always hold happiness and comfort for her.

  Returning from another satisfyingly bruising training session with Brone and his sons, Aurora’s enhanced hearing caught the tail end of a conversation Caspian was having. It wasn’t the first time she’d overheard cryptic phone conversations recently. In fact, they were becoming increasingly frequent. That, along with mysterious disappearances in the middle of the night, which he passed off as a need to shift and run in wolf form, added to her ever-growing list of reasons to suspect Caspian was hiding something.

  Yes, he had a need to let his wolf out, as did any other shifter, no matter their animal, but she didn’t believe that was what he was doing. Mainly because whenever he had shifted before, he wanted her with him. Caspian’s wolf never ran alone, not since Aurora had begun shifting. He liked to run with her raven flying above him.

  Between Caspian, his brother and the prophecy, her energy was drained, her defences were up and her patience was wafer thin. Jax’s sudden re-appearance in her life had thrown her off guard for a few days. Training hard and letting her raven fly free more than usual had been an affective coping mechanism for a while, now she was starting to lose patience. She briefly glanced in his direction and headed to the bathroom, stripping off her sweat soaked clothes as she went. Her body was already beginning to ache from her workout and she wanted the healing heat of the shower on her limbs.

  “Everything is set to go as planned. It’s under control. I’ll be there.” Caspian hastily hung up and dropped the phone on a nearby table and followed her to the bathroom. “Good session, gorgeous?”

  “Brutal. Just the way I like it. Who was that?” Now naked, she stepped into the shower cubicle and turned on the hot tap, letting the first rush of ice-cold water take her breath away before it began to run hot.

  “Nobody important. Need some help scrubbing your back?” The hushed whisper of his clothes hitting the floor joined the harsh patter of the water on the shower’s PVC door. He stepped into the cubicle behind her.

  “You better not be lying to me again, Cas.” She stuck her head under the steady stream of scalding water, not looking at him.

  “Let me help you.” He grabbed the shampoo bottle from the shelf, lathered it into her wet hair and began to massage her scalp gently. She leaned her back against his chest, allowing his body to support hers, but she was far from relaxed.

  “Don’t change the subject,” she warned him.

  “It was just Brone, asking me to attend a beta meeting tonight. You know, you’re not the only one who needs extra training now the prophecies have come into play. Once you take over as alpha, I’ll be pack beta.”

  He was lying. She’d been with Brone all afternoon and he’d gone straight to a meeting with her father after their training session. Finn, also a beta, had gone off to meet some female he had his eye on from another pack. Caspian had chosen to lie to her again, even after their little heart to heart. She didn’t yet know what was going on with him, but she intended to find out. There was no way she could be with a man she didn’t trust. Caspian left about an hour later, disgruntled after their tandem shower hadn’t ended the way he wanted it to.

  Already being in a foul mood meant that Aurora didn’t go easy on Marco when he called. She had hammered him with questions about what he was really doing with his life and how he and his team knew about the prophecy. After their clash over the rogue, he wrongly assumed that giving her a few days to calm down was the best approach. She hadn’t calmed down though and wouldn’t any time soon. Exactly how many more men were going to let her down?

  “You knew,” Aurora growled into the phone.

  “Aurora, it wasn’t like that. We left the pack so we could get more information and learn how to deal with this,” Marco defended.

  “We? Of course, he would be involved. I guess it runs in the family. Is it any wonder I have trust issues?”

  “Who don’t you trust?” Marco demanded, with obvious concern.

  “Nobody, forget it.” She wasn’t in the mood for discussing her relationship drama with her brother. Especially, since the first person he would go running to with the details was Jax.

  “Listen, I don’t have much time. We’re coming to get you, okay? Things are changing, a lot of crazy shit is starting to happen. There’s unrest in the shifter world, not only the wolf packs but all the breeds. I need you to take this seriously. Your life is in danger, Aurora. There are people out there who would do anything to have someone as powerful as you under their control.” He spoke quickly and sounded out of breath, as if he was running.

  “Powerful? Are you being serious? I’m a fucking bird, Marco! I’m not going anywhere. My place is here, with my pack,” she ranted. “Since when did you become the fountain of knowledge on the Morrigan prophecies? You’ve had this information all along and didn’t think it might be an idea to tell me?”

  “I’ll explain properly when we get there,” he snapped, his own mood darkening.

  “Don’t bring him back here, Marco!”

  Aurora threw her phone to the ground in temper, not caring whether it broke, there was nobody she wanted to speak to. At a run, she tore at her shirt, removing it as she moved and letting her need to be air born take over. She launched her body off the ground and surrendered to her instincts. Her raven shot into the air, not stopping to take notice of anything, until she was high above the trees.

  Moving at speed, she curled her wings around herself and plummeted back down towards the tree line, spiralling as she went. The rush of hurtling down through the clouds and watching the ground coming up on her, knowing she could stop in a spilt second was a thrill she would never tire of. She came to an abrupt stop just before she broke through the canopy of trees and hovered in the air. Breathing deeply, she calmed her emotions and clarity returned to her, breaking through the angry haze that had clouded her mind. She brought a hand up to push her hair, dampened by the rain, away from her face and… wait a minute. Looking down at her body she saw her legs, still human and encased in the black jeans and boots she’d been wearing when she took off. A startled laugh left her. She’d done it. She had partially shifted without even thinking about it.

  She screeched happily to herself and stretched out the enormous appendages that now protruded from her back, turning her head to look at them. Black feathers, tinged with metallic blue, layered each other to form a pair of stunning raven wings. Whooping loudly and punching the air she turned and shot upwards, holding back nothing. She reached speeds she hadn’t dared attempt in bird form. Her cheeks ached from laughing and she had no idea how long she spent up there as she experimented with her new toys. She could have stayed there forever. Maybe being a raven didn’t suck so much after all.

  Marco questioned the rogue who had, as promised, been handed over to them as soon as Connell finished with him. Unfortunately, he had no idea who hired him to steal the Morrigan prophecies. Literally, no idea. His memory had been wiped. Marco was now in turmoil. Had his father somehow wiped the man’s memories to stop them from gaining the information? He knew Marco’s skills in getting people to give up what they’d sworn to secrecy couldn’t get through a memory wipe. The only being that could conduct a memory wipe was a vampire.

  There was a time he would have instantly denied his father would do anything as underhand as hiring a vampire. Now, he was no longer certain of his faith in the man who raised him. There was no sign of the book they were told had been taken. Connell denied all knowledge of it ever having been at the poker game, which fit with Aurora’s claim, when they were in Dublin, that only money was taken from the game. So, where did the book come into it? Was it taken and now being covered up, or was it only ever a ruse to send them on a wild goose chase? If it was a ruse, why would they need to send them
looking for something that wasn’t there? Marco’s biggest question, however, was why would his father want to do anything that would stand in the way of his own daughter’s protection?

  After the fractious conversation with his sister, Marco pocketed his phone and climbed onboard the helicopter. Gloria’s blades began to swirl above them and Jax had to strain to hear him, but his expression gave away all he needed to know. Things were not good with Aurora.

  “She hung up again.” Marco slumped in his seat and buckled his belt, neglecting to mention it had been as soon as Jax’s name was mentioned.

  “You can talk to her face to face soon enough,” Cole offered, nudging Marco with his shoulder.

  “I’d be surprised if she’s even there when we arrive. Especially now she knows Jax is on his way.” Marco offered Jax a look of sympathy.

  “She doesn’t want me there,” Jax stated the obvious.

  He wasn’t exactly surprised at her reluctance. She’d given him hope when she engaged in banter, been content to play games with him, but she hadn’t hidden her annoyance at seeing him. He’d be a fool to believe it would be any different. Her reaction was understandable, he’d even expected it. Still, it didn’t stop the agony that came with the confirmation that his mate still wanted nothing to do with him.

  “That’s the least of our worries, buddy. She’s not taking the prophecies seriously.” Marco let out a ragged sigh and dragged a hand through his hair. “I spoke to Gran, earlier. Aurora doesn’t believe in them. I mean, she’s gone for the extra training without a problem. She’s beating the shit out of Brone and his sons in combat training. She knocked Finn’s arm out of the socket yesterday, she gets stronger every day. We saw how easily she took Zane down, but she’s refusing to attend elder and pack meetings. She wants nothing to do with the uniting the packs part of the prophecy. Gran said she jumped out of a fifth story window to get away from the last meeting.”