The Raven Queen

by Emma Jayne Mills

  “Aurora, please. Your mind is running at warp speed right now and I need you to slow down.” Standing and resting his hands on her shoulders, Cole rubbed gently, attempting to calm her. She sighed, looking into the full-length mirror at their reflection and saw the bite mark on her neck. “Just breathe deeply and we’ll go over it all together.”

  “He bit me. He started to seal our mate bond. While I was fucking unconscious. Well, I suppose that explains the whole feeling like a hole opened in my chest when he left the room thing. Shit!” She silently fumed as the previous night’s events continued to filter in.

  “Aurora, you were dying. You and Jax are true mates, his bite was the only thing that could save you.” Cole spoke softly, his hands still rubbing away the tension in her shoulders. As good as it felt, it wasn’t working.

  “He left. He denied the bond and now this? I’m going to kill him!” She spoke through gritted teeth. Cole wasn’t quick enough to stop her from turning, ducking under his arms, and bolting out the bedroom door, into a hallway. “Jax! Jax O’Conner! Get your sorry arse here. Right now!”

  She scanned the hallway and turned to the right, heading towards his intoxicating scent. At the end of the hall, she came upon a large open plan living area with a kitchen in one corner. There he was, with that stupid, lazy grin on his face that she had once loved so much. Shit! She still loved it. Never stopped. Melaina sat on a stool at a breakfast bar, watching with interest as Aurora stalked Jax.

  “You’re dead!” she promised, reminding herself she was angry with him and should not be drooling in any way.

  “Scale of one to ten, how mad are you?” He began taking careful steps backwards in the direction of an open door, his hands held in front of him in surrender.

  “If I had a gun, with two bullets and was stuck in a room with Hitler, Bin Laden and you. I’d shoot you twice!” She stepped towards him. Melaina snorted into her coffee cup.

  “All right, I can work with that.” He continued to back away.

  “You worthless, cowardly, arrogant, ball sack!” she listed and Zane gave a snort of his own.

  “No need for insults, baby.” Jax moved to the side slightly.

  “I’m not insulting you, Jax. I’m fucking describing you!” Her voice was low as she mirrored his moves. He might have been trained by this elite task force of his for the last few years, but she had been training too and there wasn’t a better tracker on the planet. “I’ll give you a ten second head start.”

  “Let’s just talk,” Jax pleaded.

  “Nine...eight...”

  “Come on, Rory. Let me explain.”

  “Seven...six...”

  “Now, listen...”

  “Five...four...three...” she took a step towards him.

  “I had to do it, baby. I lov...”

  “Two!” she interrupted him with a snarl; he was not saying those words.

  Jax spun on his heel and ran out the door. Aurora took a deep breath and looked towards Zane, who was in the kitchen, holding a coffee pot in one hand and a cup in the other. He had watched the exchange with a look of amusement on his face. She took a seat on a stool at the breakfast bar opposite Melaina and smiled at Zane.

  “Is there coffee in that pot?”

  Zane’s lips quirked up in what was nearly a grin. “Sure is, how do you take it?”

  “As it comes,” she said pleasantly and watched Zane pour the black liquid into the mug he was holding. He set it down on the counter in front of her and turned to grab another mug from the cupboard, for himself.

  “You’re not going after him?” Cole asked, taking the seat beside her.

  “Nope. Hopefully, the fuckwit will keep running for at least twenty minutes before he realises I’m not chasing him. Gives me enough time to enjoy my coffee and figure out how badly I want to hurt him.” She wrapped both hands around the coffee cup and both men laughed at her explanation.

  “Don’t kill him, okay? We kinda need him, sis.” Marco’s voice came from behind her and she set down the cup, turning to meet her brother’s open arms.

  “You’re lucky you’re not running with him, Marco.” Pulling back from his embrace, she mock punched his shoulder. She twisted on the stool and picked up her coffee, lifting it to her nose, she inhaled deeply then took a sip. “You ready to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

  “We’ll talk. But this involves Jax too, you’re going to have to be in the same room as him.” Marco stretched across the table for the coffee pot but it was just out of reach. Melaina pushed it towards him without looking up from her own cup. He murmured a thanks that went unacknowledged and moved with the pot to the cupboard to find himself a mug.

  “If you’ve been experiencing the same feelings Jax has recently, you will want that closeness with him. Your bond needs to be eased or you’ll both suffer, the only way to do that is to be close to one another. We can’t afford to have either one of you distracted because you’re at odds with each other.” Zane’s no-nonsense manner showed Aurora why he was in charge. She wondered how the dynamic worked with two obvious alphas in their team. Zane evidently had seniority, perhaps because he was older, but Jax was a strong alpha and had never liked being told what to do.

  Aurora pondered Zane’s words as she sipped her coffee. There had been a Jax shaped void in her soul since he left the pack. It had eased for a while, returning with force after her first shift. Now, with the bite, it had grown and it seemed she couldn’t stand to not be in the same room as him. The whole thing made her guts churn and her thoughts spin in circles. She didn’t know whether she wanted to jump him and rip his clothes off or hunt him down and kill him.

  -I vote for the first option, wild thing.

  “Talk of the devil.” Cole nudged her shoulder with his own, not knowing she already felt Jax’s presence. She looked up to find Jax standing in the doorway, watching her.

  “You turned back quicker than I thought. I didn’t even get one cup of coffee in,” she smirked.

  “Missed you, wild thing,” he replied, with a smirk of his own.

  “Back at ya, cock womble. Still hate you though,” she returned and hid her widening smile behind the coffee cup.

  “No, you don’t.” His smirk became a grin. He took the stool on her other side, sliding it as close as he could get it before sitting down.

  “So, you’re obviously immune to silver poisoning.” Marco changed the subject.

  “Apparently so. The collar stopped me from shifting, but that’s all.” She lifted her hand to touch the collar for what felt like the hundredth time.

  It was common knowledge that silver of any description would have weakened another shifter beyond measure. A shifter’s inherent allergy to the precious metal caused them to enter a catatonic state, rendering them weak and helpless. Aware of everything happening around them, but unable to physically move. It wasn’t uncommon for a shifter to suffer enormous mental anxiety after a bout of silver poisoning, if they survived.

  “You didn’t know?” Zane asked.

  “I didn’t know I was a raven until a year ago,” she replied.

  “Point taken,” he nodded.

  “So, how do I get it off? Lykos has the only key I know of.” She looked around at their clueless faces.

  “I tried everything I could think of, bar melting it.” Another, rumbling, voice joined the conversation.

  Aurora took in the blonde, Viking of a man, who joined Zane on the opposite side of the counter. She and the male watched one another, eyes locked, as yet another connection whirred to life inside them, like wires fusing together. He grinned, nodded a greeting at her and upended a juice carton into his mouth before he spoke again.

  “That bond’s going to take some getting used to. The name’s Hunter, good to see you up and around, Aurora.”

  “Lion.” She acknowledged his animal and he quirked a questioning brow at her.

  “Told you,” Jax announced, proudly.

  He slid a hand under the counter and
smoothed it along her leg, bringing it to rest on her inner thigh, and squeezing slightly. The tip of his little finger, whether intentionally or not she wasn’t sure, lightly grazed the apex at the top of her thighs and heat hovered in the air between them. She clenched her thighs, trapping his fingers in her grip and turned her head to glare at him. He held her stare, unwavering and moved his fingers again, his grin confirming the move had not been accidental. He knew the effect he was having on her.

  The current that pulsed between them whenever they touched intimately had been silent before. Now, it cracked in the air gaining the attention of everyone in the room. Aurora curled her fingers around his, digging her nails into his palm, she peeled his fingers from her thigh, yanked her leg out of reach and shoved his hand away. Taking her objection as a challenge, Jax put his hand straight back, pulling her leg tight against his own. Their eyes met and ignited with a fire that burned with sexual aggression and unhinged desire. Neither of them willing to back down, they silently discussed the matter for a few seconds. Until Jax sensibly decided he was content to sit next to her without any physical contact.

  “Did it just get hot in here?” Melaina dramatically fanned herself and flashed a smile at Aurora that wasn’t returned.

  “Well, you two have got some serious hate sex vibes going on!” Hunter laughed loudly. “Remind me to be very far away when you seal that bond.”

  “You know what a shifter’s animal is without being told?” Zane brought them back on track.

  “It’s not too difficult to work out if you really look at people.” Aurora shrugged. “You’re a bear. I’m thinking grizzly.”

  “What am I?” Cole asked, nudging her with his shoulder.

  She twisted in her seat and leaned towards him, resting her chin on her hand to inspect him properly. There was no hint of wolf in him, Jax and Marco’s grins gave their animals away. He wasn’t a wall of solid muscle, like Zane. Nor was he blonde haired and lethal looking, like Hunter. He shared the same sleek, graceful movements as Melaina, but his heart was too open to be a cat. Cole was taller than any of the other men in the room and his body was lean, but she could see it was strong. He wasn’t skinny, he still packed muscle, but it wasn’t bulky. His hair was jet black and he had high cheekbones and a long nose leading to a full, wide mouth. His face was more pretty than handsome, though still striking in its beauty and his eyes were deep pools of emotion that could so easily lure you into a false sense of security.

  “Horse,” she declared and sat back, triumphantly. “Black stallion, with one white mark on your nose...”

  “Go on,” Cole nodded, wanting her to make the connection.

  “In the shape of a bird?” she asked, with a furrowed brow.

  “What kind of bird?”

  “It’s not,” she shook her head. “It can’t be.”

  “It is,”

  “A raven?” she asked, to confirm her thoughts.

  “Freaky, huh?” Cole laughed.

  “Yeah…” she replied.

  “Nobody ever guesses him,” Hunter marvelled.

  “Like I said,” Aurora pulled herself together. “When you really look at someone, it’s not hard to tell. You just have to truly see them.”

  Seeing a shifter’s animal had always been something she was good at. Her Gran, being able to do it herself, had taught her what to look for at a young age. Aurora had known long before Jax shifted that his wolf would be black, even though both his parents and Caspian were silver. She could see the animal underneath human skin. Although her own had always escaped her. No matter how many hours she stared at her reflection before that first shift, she could not see her animal. Perhaps, it was because she’d been looking for a wolf.

  “Still, shifters are good at hiding their animal’s identity, it’s one of our strongest defences. The element of surprise,” Zane said. “So, resistance to silver, possible telepathy, what other powers have you discovered since your first shift?”

  “Powers? This is about that sodding prophecy again, isn’t it? I don’t have any hidden superpowers, Oso. I can’t even tell you why I’m a raven instead of a wolf!” She was becoming exasperated.

  “Why did you call me, Oso?” Zane jumped on the word. “You did it in Dublin too.”

  “Because it means bear in Spanish. You’re Spanish, surely you know that?” She furrowed her brow at him.

  “I didn’t tell you I’m Spanish, Aurora and my accent is American, so you didn’t get it from that. How did you know?” Zane pushed.

  “Someone obviously told me.” She looked around at the others in the room, they all shook their heads. She paused when her gaze landed on Zane, could she have plucked it from his mind? Surely not. Maybe it was something to do with this connection they all seemed to share.

  “It wasn’t me,” Jax defended himself, when all eyes turned to him.

  “Are you sure? I mean, you two always could do that freaky thing where she can read your thoughts.” Marco remembered the silent conversations the two had growing up in Shadow Fen.

  “What do you mean?” Zane probed.

  “Rory can hear me. My thoughts. She’s always been able to hear my thoughts and send me some of hers. We had a ball with it when we were kids!” Jax supplied, with a grin.

  “Yeah, except it’s a two-way thing now,” Aurora murmured. The ability had only worked one way in the past.

  “Sure is,” he winked at her, then turned to their audience and explained. “Before, I could only hear the thoughts Rory wanted me to hear. The ones she sent to me, but she could hear whatever she wanted to of mine. We got pretty good at blocking each other out after a while. We discovered in Dublin, that I can hear her in the same way she hears me now. It got a little noisy in here, wild thing.” He tapped a finger against his forehead and she looked at him silently.

  -You receiving me, wild thing?

  -I don’t believe this shit.

  -Pretty cool yeah?

  -No. Not cool, Jax.

  -I heard you gushing over my smile earlier.

  -Temporary insanity. I’ll beat the crap out of you if you repeat it.

  -Oh, this is fucking phenomenal! We’re going to be unstoppable in a fight, baby.

  “Don’t call me that!” she spat, out loud.

  “Did you two just have a conversation in your heads?” Melaina’s mouth hung open, until Hunter reached across and tapped her chin with his finger and she snapped it shut.

  “Yep!” Jax couldn’t contain his grin.

  “That’s why you came back so fast. You heard me. You knew I wouldn’t chase you.” It dawned on Aurora and Jax gave her a conspiratorial smile.

  “Does it have a limit?” Zane wanted to know. “Could you communicate while you were separated?”

  “No,” Aurora supplied. “I could feel his presence, but we couldn’t communicate.”

  “Same. That might be different now we’ve begun sealing the bond though,” Jax added.

  “Can you hear the rest of us?” Marco asked, before Aurora could lose it over the bond issue again. She turned to her brother and looked at him while he tried to send a mental message. Her head remained silent.

  “No,” she shook her head. “I can only hear Jax.”

  “Is it a mate thing?” Cole wondered with a glance at Zane.

  “Not one I’ve ever heard of,” Zane responded. “But that’s not to say it couldn’t be.”

  Aurora felt sadness emanating from him suddenly. Something had happened in his life, something that left him feeling lost and incomplete. He watched her watch him and gave a slight shake of his head, which she took to mean he’d rather she didn’t bring it up, so she didn’t.

  “A Morrigan thing then,” Jax mused, his fingers absently trailing a pattern along the outer edge of her arm where it rested on the table. She didn’t know how long he’d been doing it, but the way his body had moved closer to her and the way hers was now angled towards him, told her it had happened instinctively, without either of them realising.

/>   “Anything else?” Zane asked. “Anything at all. Even things you considered normal, maybe? Didn’t realise it was different.”

  “I can stop someone from reacting to my orders when I use my alpha dominance, if I’m touching them. Caspian thought it was only him, but I tried it with Finn and Darius in training, it worked with them too.”

  “We saw that in Dublin. We also noticed that Jax isn’t compelled to react to your alpha ranking at all,” Zane added. “That could be a mate thing or it could be that you’re equally matched.”

  “She didn’t react to me either,” Jax added. “I tried to get her to let the rogue go, she didn’t even flinch.”

  “Your powers might be linked then, or at least some of them. I was able to fight your order but not fully resist, perhaps there’s a link with the warrior connection too, we’ll explore that. Anything else?” Zane asked.

  “I can partially shift, but not in the way wolves can. I don’t know how it works for other breeds, but wolves can bring out their teeth and claws without fully shifting.” She looked at Zane, who nodded once to confirm he knew what she meant. “I keep my human body and halt the shift with just the wings, except they’re bigger, human size.”

  “You can fly in this form?” Zane asked, setting down his coffee cup.

  “Yes,” she confirmed.

  “Fuck! That I gotta see,” Hunter’s eyes widened with excitement.

  “We need to get that collar off!” Jax stood abruptly and grabbed her hand, dragging her from the stool and pulling her along behind him. He led her out the door, into a walled courtyard lit brightly by the sun.

  “Where are we?” She raised a hand to her eyes and tried, unsuccessfully, to pry her other hand out of his. The others followed closely behind.

  “A safe house,” her brother told her.

  “That’s not what I asked.” It was too hot outside to be Ireland, so she knew they were no longer near home.

  “We’re in Spain, Aurora. Rumours spread rapidly that you were killed last night. We want to keep it that way for as long as we can, so we need to stay out of sight until we figure out what’s going on. It’s dangerous for you at home. We will explain what we know and we’ll try to figure it out together, but in the meantime, we will protect you, don’t worry.” Zane spoke gently and with kindness, but his words angered her.