Reaper: A raven paranormal romance (Crookshollow ravens Book 2) (2 page)

“I don’t believe it. Cole would never do such a thing. And even if it
were
true, which it’s not, why seek revenge on your own? Why not simply go to the police and allow the evidence to convict him?”

“You know very well I cannot have the police poking around in my business.” Victor picked up the eclair and took a large bite. A dab of cream stuck to the end of his nose. “I am dealing with rogue shifters and a meddling fox and the country’s oldest and most distinguished vampire—”

“This mess is no one’s fault but your own.”

“This is all your boyfriend’s doing. I would have assumed by now you would have got the message that Cole was trouble and backed off, but then I know how stubborn women can be.”

“The message … you were the one who destroyed my store?” I snarled. The eclair had been a clue, but how casually he’d just confirmed it … I was shocked by the surge of hatred that welled up inside of me. Victor blinked his reptilian eyes, but he said nothing.

“Cole’s not alone, you know.” I shot at him. “He’s got resources. He’ll be able to find me and—”

“Oh yes. You have Raynard on your side.” Victor gave a high-pitched laugh. “That is something I had not anticipated. But the vulpine is not as powerful as he would like to think.”

I turned away from him in disgust, orienting my body towards the door and shifting my weight ready to push off. “You sound like a villain from a comic book. Why have you come up here?”

“That tour group you were calling out to so desperately is the last of the day. It is such a lovely day and you have been cooped up inside this room for hours. I would be honoured to have your comp—”

I launched myself at the door. My knee connected with the brass bedframe, slowing me down as I swung over the edge of the bed and raced towards my only escape. My fingers grasped the frame, ready to pull myself through. Cool air rushed past my face – the winds of freedom. The next moment, my body slammed against the wall. Pain shot down my side, and my legs were dragged out from beneath me. I crumpled to the floor, my head bouncing hard against the baseboard. My vision swam as pain arced through my skull, and my ears rang loudly. A heavy shoe pressed down on my chest.

“I have watched you eye up that door since our conversation began.” Victor’s voice broke through the ringing. “Do not try anything that foolish again.”

I nodded limply, my hand clutching the throbbing lump on my head.

Victor removed his boot from my chest. Thin hands helped me up, and sat me back on the bed. I heard the door slam behind me.

“As I explained in the letter, you are not to be trapped in this room forever.” Victor said, his hard voice managing to sound a little friendly. “I came upstairs to invite you to walk with me around the grounds, if you wish. It would be my pleasure to show you all the treasures of Morchard Castle.”

I shrugged. “Sure.” It was such an oddly phrased request from a man who was keeping me prisoner, who’d only moments before slammed me against a wall. But if he was willing to show me around the house, then I would happily take the opportunity to search for any potential means of escape or clue that might help Cole.

Unfortunately, shrugging caused my head to move, sending another searing jolt of pain across my skull. Those ravens must have hit my head quite hard.

Victor stood up, his body unfolding like a roadmap being dropped from a great height. He extended his arm to me. “Come with me.”

Inwardly, I wanted to retch at the idea of holding his arm like a character from a Jane Austen novel, but I thought it best to be polite, to play along with his show of gentility. So I slipped my arm through his and allowed him to lead me to the door. Far better to have my kidnapper in good humour, and watch for an opportunity to flee. That’s what Cole did, he watched and waited.

Victor pulled open the door. Outside was a long hall, the floor below my feet a beautiful marble chessboard, the walls finished with crisp white plaster. Unlike Ryan’s main halls with the heavy wood furniture and gilded portraits crowding the walls, this hall contained only a small, spindly French sideboard, and some tasteful but dull pastoral paintings.

“This is the guest wing,” explained my host. “It has hosted many noble families and celebrities, even the royal family during their visits to the county. The young prince and his lovely wife usually stay in your room.”

“Delightful,” I said woodenly, casting my eyes around with interest. The hall stretched for several feet in both directions, and was lined with doors, all closed. As Victor guided me to the right, towards an open landing and sitting room, we passed a door with a large deadbolt on the outside.

Who needs a lock on the outside of a room?
I wondered, my stomach tight with fear.

We descended the wide staircase and moved through more expansive hallways, large drawing rooms and sumptuous guest rooms. Finally, we passed through an opulent ballroom, the vaulted ceiling carved with Rococo designs and lavishly gilded. Carvings depicting hunting scenes decorated the walls and columns. The inlaid marble floor had been polished to a high sheen, and upon it stood several wax figures in period costumes posed around the piano, in the midst of a waltz. The whole thing looked ready for a grand party, as though Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett were going to swoop in to perform a waltz at any moment. I sniffed – there was a faint smell of ammonia in the air.

Victor held open a set of French doors on the end of the room, and we stepped out into the walled garden I could see from my bedroom. I noticed immediately a building to our left extending out from the end of the ballroom and down into the garden, creating a small courtyard enclosed on three sides by the castle. The building was clad in the same stone as the rest of the castle, but it was clearly a new addition. Oddly, there was no door leading to the building at the end of the ballroom.

“What’s this building?” I asked, as we walked down a stone path along the side of the extension. After about twenty feet the building gave way to some kind of outdoor greenhouse. Tall glass walls reflected the afternoon sunlight. Behind the glass was a layer of thick wire mesh, and beyond the mesh was a thick canopy of trees. I peered through the glass, but could barely see a foot inside the expansive space.

“That is my aviary,” Victor explained. “This area is where I keep injured and recovering birds. The building extends around the corner, and there you will see some fine specimens. The aviary connects to my laboratory and office. I am able to conduct my experiments in peace.”

“Experiments?” My body tensed with foreboding. I had a feeling what Victor was showing me had something to do with why Cole hated him so much.

“I am a scientist, Belinda. I thought Cole would have told you? I work on cures for diseases spread by birds. My research has been published all over the world, and has been instrumental in creating human vaccines for several avian-carried viral strains.”

“I don’t see any birds,” I said, pressing my nose up to the metal lattice and squinting into the dense trees.

“Oh, they are all in there. Most of them are probably asleep. I have a lot of nocturnal birds at the moment. They find the sun bothersome.”

Victor led me around the corner, and the rest of the aviary came into view. It was enormous, running nearly the full length of the castle. A thick metal internal door separated the infirmary section from the next. As we passed through the main section of the aviary, several birds fluttered down from the trees inside to peer out at us. They tweeted enthusiastically to me, their voices muffled by the thick glass walls. Despite my fear of Victor, I couldn’t help but laugh at two gorgeous yellow parakeets in a tug-of-war over a breadstick.

“—this aviary is absolutely state-of-the-art.” Victor was explaining. “I spent a year designing it for my specific requirements, and another two sourcing all the materials from a specialist German glazier. I have been conducting most of my work here since I had it installed ten years ago, but originally it was much smaller. I extended it some years ago in order to accommodate my more ambitious experiments. Now, graduate students from around the world come here to learn my techniques.”

That explained why I didn’t remember the aviary from my last visit to the castle. It must have been quite a bit smaller, and I was probably too distracted by Ethan to notice the birds. As Victor walked me through the rest of the gardens, memories from the visit flooded back to me, each one tearing me apart. Ethan had packed a picnic lunch for us to enjoy on the grounds, and we’d tacked ourselves on to the end of a National Trust tour. In the middle of long-winded speeches about historical battles and the history of the castle draperies, Ethan had pulled me behind the topiaries and under the gazebo to snog. As he’d dragged me behind a hydrangea bush and shoved his hand up my skirt, working me until I came while a woman prattled on about the coronation in the background, I’d realised I was in love with him. Ethan was going to save me from my parents and their tug-of-war over my life. We were going to have wonderful dates like this every week, and one day, we would bring our children to explore the castle.

And here I was again, in the same garden, hoping that another man was going to come and save me. It was almost as if it wasn’t a coincidence, as if it was the universe telling me that things would be exactly the same. Cole and Ethan, what evidence did I have that they were really any different? I thought about what Victor had said about Cole killing his son, and I shivered.

“Are you cold?” Victor asked me.

“Er … no.” I stood up straight, not wanting to give Victor any indication that what he’d said was getting to me.

“Good.” He unlocked a gate and showed me into a small courtyard, surrounded by a high stone wall. Large raised beds overflowed with vegetables and sweet-smelling herbs, and grapevines twisted around a large trellis arch, beneath which sat a lovely wooden bench. The place would have been beautiful if it weren’t part of my prison.

“You can take the air in this area of the garden any time you like,” Victor said. “But I must ask that you restrict yourself only to this area. Do not go through the gate to the lower garden or around the side of the house. If I were you, I would not try another ill-conceived escape attempt.”

“What’s to stop me from doing that, though?” I eyed the small, low gate at the end of the high stone wall that led around the side of the castle – a pathway to freedom. “You’re not really very good at this whole kidnapping thing.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Victor pointed up. I followed his long finger to the top of the stone wall, and my chest tightened with fear.

Perched on the wall was a long line of ravens, each one staring down at me with cold, piercing eyes. There must have been a hundred of them lined up, guarding every square inch of the garden, staring down at me with black, silent faces. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed them there earlier, but they were so still, so silent. Just watching.

They were the same ravens that had brought me here, and now, they were my prison guards.

Victor’s eyes burned into mine, his stare as cold as the birds’. I wasn’t going anywhere.

“
W
ake up
, sleepyhead.” A gentle voice cooed.

I opened one eye, squinting in the bright light. I became aware of pain pounding against my skull. More pain flared through my whole body, a fire in my veins so intense I felt certain I must be burning up.

So this is what it feels like to go out in a blazing inferno.
I tried to focus my vision, but the light burned my eyes. I was trapped inside the fire, burning up. At least death would be a relief from the screaming pain.

“Cole … can you hear me?”

If I was dying, then who was speaking to me? It couldn’t be an angel. Bran don’t get visitations from angels. We’re expected to ferry our own souls into the underworld. I opened one eye again, steeling myself against the burning of my retina, and tried to discern what was going on.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw the figure of a woman standing over me.
Belinda.
It must be. She was OK. An intense relief swept through my whole body. Belinda was safe, that was all that mattered.

Slowly – my body protesting every movement – I reached out to her, my whole body pulsing with pain. I’d never known pain like this before.

“Belinda, what happened? Where am—” I couldn’t finish my sentence. I gasped for air, my throat closing up.

I tried to sit up, but the world spun crazily. I lost my balance and flopped back down against the soft surface I lay on. A bed. I was in a bed. But why?
Where is the fire? Where is Belinda?

“Don’t move,” the voice said. “You’ve hurt yourself pretty badly.”

My head swam. I kept my eyes open, waiting for the blurriness to fade. The face looming over me came into view, and my heart sank when I saw it wasn’t Belinda at all, but her friend Alex. Gradually, the rest of my surroundings became clear. We were lying in my bedroom at Raynard Hall, a room I’d never actually slept in, due to spending all my time over in Belinda’s room across the hall. There were other people in the room, but I couldn’t focus on them. I tried once more to pull myself into a sitting position, but my limbs felt heavy, like someone had filled my skin with rocks. A strong hand rested on my stomach, pushing me back down into the bed.

“Cole, don’t sit up. You’ll bust your stitches and we’ll have to start the whole painful process again.” That was Ryan.

My stitches?
I groaned as another wave of pain shot through my body. “What happened?” I managed to croak out.

“You and Belinda went for a walk in the garden. You were down near the edge of the forest in your raven form when you were attacked. An huge flock of ravens—”

“—unkindness.” I croaked.

“What did he say?” Ryan sounded confused.

“He means an ‘unkindness’ of ravens. It’s the correct collective term for a large group of corvids.” I recognised Elinor’s voice. Trust the girlfriend of the gothic rock star to know that.

“He’s lying there halfway to death and he’s correcting my
grammar?
”

“At least we know he hasn’t changed a bit.” Alex had a hint of a smile in his voice.

Their voices stabbed inside my head like knives.
What is wrong with me? Why do I hurt so much?

I could just make out Ryan’s tawny hair as he too leaned over my bed. “Anyway, as I was
saying
, you were trying to fight off the birds, and it looks as though you were attempting to shift back into your human form while they set upon you. I didn’t get to you in time, and best I can figure, you were airborne during your shift and you fell pretty hard.”

“They attacked you quite viciously,” Elinor chimed in. “You have cuts all over your body, and you’ve cracked a couple of ribs. Alex’s friend Kylie is here. She’s a nurse, and between her and Simon they’ve probably saved your life.”

“Hi, Cole.” An unfamiliar but very kindly voice said. Someone patted my leg. “I’ve fixed you up as best I could, but it looks as though you also have some kind of virus. It probably came from one of the birds. You’ll have to take it easy until you recover.”

“Easy is what I do best.”

“What happened to your finger?” The strange voice – which I presumed belonged to Kylie – asked. “That black ring is awful, it looks as if you’re having an allergic reaction to the metal. The skin around it has gone all black. I tried to take it off, but it’s so hot I can’t touch it.”

I ignored the question. I didn’t have the energy to explain. “Were the birds … Bran?” I squeezed my eyes shut. The light was too much.

“I don’t know.” Ryan said. “None of them shifted into human form, and I couldn’t see any rings like yours. But it was dark. They could’ve just been ravens; perhaps their minds were being controlled from somewhere else. I tried to catch up with them, but they can fly a lot faster than I can run.”

“Byron?” Had he been attacked, too?

“He had a few scratches, but nothing as bad as you. He’s gone off to try and find out who has taken Belinda.” Alex explained.

“How did they break through the defences?” I demanded. “Both Belinda and I were wearing our charms.”

“I don’t know the answer to that, either.” said Ryan. “But Clara – that’s my mother – is in the library right now, investigating. She thinks perhaps it has something to do with intent. The charms seek to repel those with the intent to harm, but maybe the birds were acting on instinct. Maybe they didn’t actually intend to harm you. Maybe whoever sent them has figured out how to circumnavigate the charms. We just don’t know.”

“Belinda’s OK, isn’t she?” I tried to pull myself up again, but my body still wouldn’t cooperate. I opened my eyes again and gazed around the fuzzy room, trying to see her face amongst the circle of people. “I protected her. I stopped them from hurting her.”

No one answered me. Ryan and Alex exchanged a worried glance. My stomach sank.

“Come on guys, don’t play coy with me. Where’s Belinda?” I demanded.

Elinor wiped tears from her eyes. Bianca turned away, hiding her pixie face in her shoulder.
No. No. No!

It was Ryan who met my gaze, his expression grim. “I’m sorry, Cole. But I didn’t get to her in time. There were just too many of them. The ravens took Belinda. We don’t know where she is.”

* * *

N
othing gets
a man out of bed and on his feet again faster than hearing that the girl of his dreams had been kidnapped.

As soon as Ryan said Belinda had been taken, I leapt out of the bed so violently I pitched myself onto the ground. Unable to move my arms enough to catch my fall, I landed hard on my chest, my ribcage and face taking the brunt of the force, driving the wind right out of me and making stars appear across my vision.

“Get him back in bed,” Kylie shrieked. “He’ll do himself serious damage. I only just finished wrapping his ribs.”

Wincing in agony, I lowered my hand to my stomach, and felt a series of bandages tightly wrapped around my naked torso. That would also explain the tightness in my chest, the difficulty in breathing. Ryan had said I’d broken some ribs.

Fuck.

And that wasn’t all that was wrong with me. My whole body felt hot, sickly. That was probably the virus working its way through my system. I could see bandages around my arms, and felt the pull of a dressing over my temple. I probably looked like a soldier dragged from the battlefield.

But worse than all that, my whole body felt squeezed, as if I were clamped in a vice that was being wound tighter. I tried again to push myself to my feet, only to find my arms lacked the strength to hold my weight. I slumped back on the floor, my face pressed into the thick carpet.

Strong arms hooked me under my shoulders and pulled me to the bed. “Don’t move,” Ryan pulled my hands to my sides and straightened my legs. “And don’t try to get up again. You need to lie here and heal.”

“What’s wrong with me?” I growled. “I feel as if I’ve been run over.”

“You broke two ribs, you’ve got some kind of fast-acting viral infection, and you’ve been badly cut all over. Those birds have sharp beaks.” Kylie leaned over me to adjust the dressing on my face. I got a great view of her expansive cleavage down the front of her shirt. If I’d been feeling up to it, I might have gone in for a cheeky feel, but at that moment, I could barely move my head.

“That doesn’t explain—” I started to say, but then I noticed the throbbing in my finger, and realisation dawned.

“Today is the last day you belong to Victor Morchard,” Ryan said, confirming what I’d just deduced. “At noon, you become Gillespie’s Bran. I imagine the pull to return to your master is quite strong.”

I gritted my teeth at the word master, but what could I do? Morchard
was
my master. As long as I was bound to his family, he still controlled my fate. Even my own body betrayed me, the bond that tied me to Morchard was pulling me back to him, stretching and squeezing my body. I felt as though an elephant sat on my chest. An elephant named Victor Morchard.

At midday, I’d at least feel some relief from the pain, but then Sir Thomas Gillespie would be the one controlling me – and that would be a hundred times worse. At noon I would be fused spiritually with my father’s murderer, and my body would crave to unite with him. And he, with all the power of his kind, would instantly know where I was hiding.

What had running from Victor achieved?
Nothing.
I was still a slave. I was still bound in service to an evil man. Mikael was dead. Belinda was in danger. Ryan and Alex and Byron were risking their lives to save me. Alex and Elinor and Bianca and Kylie were all upset. I had made life infinitely worse for a huge number of people.

“What’s the time?” I asked Ryan weakly. He stared at me with wide, sympathetic eyes. He knew what I was really asking.
How long until my new master claims me?

“It’s a little after seven am” He said, sympathy thick in his voice. I hated hearing that sympathy from a fellow shifter. Why did he get to be free while I was destined to serve?

I was so tired of running – so tired of resisting. I just wanted the pain to end. And it would, in a few hours, when the bond between Morchard and I severed itself, and I would be tied for eternity to one of the most terrifying creatures in England.

“At least the pain will subside at lunchtime,” I gritted my teeth.

“There’s still hope,” Ryan said. “I managed to track down Thomas Gillespie. I’ve invited him here for that meeting. I still hope to convince him to sell you to me. He’ll be here around noon. We can speak to him together.”

Ryan’s words barely registered through the pain. As the news that I had a slim chance at freedom sank in to my body, I managed a tight smile. Ryan was doing me a huge favour, and he had no reason to. We weren’t friends, we had no blood ties, I wasn’t dating him, and yet he was putting up a huge sum of money and risking his life by inviting Gillespie into his home, all for me. “Thank you,” I croaked out.

Ryan patted my arm. “Just focus on fixing your body. We need you to be on your feet when Gillespie arrives, otherwise he’ll complain about receiving a defective Bran.”

* * *

R
yan ordered all
the women to leave me in peace. He knew I needed to concentrate on healing. As soon as the room was empty, I leaned back against the pillows, closed my eyes, and drew my attention inward, focusing all my energy on the areas of my body that hurt the most.

Bran heal fast, much faster even than other shifters, especially if we are able to retreat within ourselves and meditate. I tried to close off my mind, pushing out all my thoughts to bring in silence, but one face kept popping into my head.

Belinda.

Where was she? Who had taken her? Was it Gillespie, or Morchard, or someone else? Was she hurt? Were they going to hold her ransom? How would they use her to force me to do their will? When would I get the chance to see her, to rescue her?

You can only rescue her if you have all your strength back,
I admonished myself.
You need to stop pining and start healing.

I wanted so badly
not
to care about her. Caring was how I’d got her mixed up in all of this. But now it was my responsibility to save Belinda from all this, and then to get as far away from her as possible, before I messed up any more of her life.