Reaper: A raven paranormal romance (Crookshollow ravens Book 2) (11 page)

“Just neutralise?” Elinor asked incredulously.

“Sure. Neutralise with extreme prejudice.”

“We’re going to need everyone to work on this together,” Alex said. “We don’t know exactly how things will play out. We need to be prepared for every eventuality.”

“But how are we going to get those birds away from the walls?” Byron asked.

“I was hoping you and Clara could come up with something,” Alex said. “Maybe there’s a way to—”

“Perhaps I can help,” an unfamiliar voice spoke from the doorway.

I whirled around, and saw a man poking his head and naked shoulders around the door. Wild strands of hair poked out in every direction, many sections almost appearing striped and dotted with black. Odd, even with my superior hearing, I hadn’t heard anyone approach.

I leapt up and stalked towards the guy, certain he must be a spy of Morchard’s. “Who the hell are you?” Ryan demanded, joining me in advancing menacingly on the newcomer.

“I’m surprised you don’t recognise me. I’ve only been skulking around your ankles for the last few days, tripping you up in the hall, putting hairballs in your coffee—”

“You’re … Chairman Meow?” Realisation dawned on me.

“Sure am, gorgeous.” The man replied, holding up his hands in surrender. He had a dramatic, lyrical voice. “I’d step out and shake your hand if I could, but …” He stared down at his body, hidden behind the frame of the door. “There are ladies present, and I wouldn’t want to frighten them.”

“Chairman Meow?” Bianca frowned. “Wait a second. You mean to tell me Belinda’s cat is a—”

“Cat-shifter, yes.” An older woman bustled into the room, wiping her hands on her floral apron.

“And who are you?” I glared at her. This was becoming ridiculous.

“Miss Havisham, of course.” She had a no-nonsense tone. I looked at her round face and salt-and-pepper hair. She did have the look of Alex’s cat. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t even occurred to me that they might be …

“I cannot believe this.” Elinor moaned, glaring at Miss Havisham. “You were watching me in the bath the other day.”

“I wasn’t looking, dear. I was just waiting for you to jump out so I could have a drink.” Miss Havisham rapped her knuckles against the side table. “Right, sit down, Cole, Ryan. The Chairman and I believe we can help with the rescue. We can provide an ample distraction to those birds.”

“But first ...” Ryan opened a drawer in a cabinet beside the door and tossed the naked cat a set of clothes.

“Nice threads.” Chairman Meow ducked into the hallway.

“You know that something isn’t right with those birds,” Miss. Havisham said, sitting primly on the edge of the couch and brushing imaginary crumbs off the front of her calico dress. “But they are still birds. And the sight of a cat sends them into flight.”

“How are two cats going to lead away all those birds?”

“We’ll get the whole glaring gang in on it.” Chairman Meow smiled, as he sauntered back into the room wearing a pair of Ryan’s pants. They hung low around his thin, muscular hips. “We know every cat in this neighbourhood, and they’re all signed on to help. We’ll give those birds a taste of the wild.”

“Can we trust a bunch of cats?” Byron growled. As a chick, he’d had a particularly nasty run-in with a cat. He’d lost half the feathers on his right side, and now he couldn’t even look at a cat without tensing up.

“Do you have a choice?” Chairman Meow grinned. He reached across the table and swiped the scotch from in front of Byron, slurping it back in one gulp. “Look, I love Belinda, too. She’s my girl Friday. I want to help rescue her.”

“Then it’s settled,” Libby said. “We make our move tonight. Bianca, get on the phone with your client. Ryan, we need some tools, and Cole …” she squeezed my knee affectionately. ”I need you to chill the fuck out. Don’t worry. We got this.”

“
I
’m so sorry
,” I squeezed Tony’s hand as we walked around the edge of the trebuchet. We kept our heads bent close together, so we could whisper to each other. Even though Tony assured me the birds wouldn’t understand English, I was paranoid one of them might be a Bran in disguise, and would report to Victor that we were plotting our escape. The last thing I wanted was to endanger Tony’s life, too.

I’d just told Tony about Victor discovering me, and how I’d dropped the vial. I felt awful. All those birds could do some horrible damage if they ever got free, and I’d just destroyed the only means of stopping them.

“It’s OK,” he whispered back. “There will be more antiviral. Victor wouldn’t just make a single dose, in case this exact thing happened. Don’t worry, Belinda. We’ll find a way to get out of here with all the evidence we need to send Victor away. In the meantime, we can enjoy each other’s company. It’s actually quite nice out here in the courtyard, if you ignore those damn birds.”

His words struck me as a little odd, but I figured he was just trying to cheer me up. It wasn’t working. I’d been on the verge of full-blown, hysterical panic ever since Victor had banished me from the laboratory. He hadn’t come to find me, and I was terrified what he would do to me.

“It’s not OK.” I buried my head in my hands. “I’m such a failure. My shop…my relationship…my finances – everything. And now I’m stuck here and I’m so afraid—”

“Aw, geez, don’t say that.” Tony prised my hands from my face. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him. I rested my head on his shoulder, tears falling from my eyes.

“Belinda, look at me.” I lifted my chin and stared into his blue eyes. Tony leaned in, wiping the tears from my cheek with his fingers. He pressed his mouth against mine, his lips cold like a fish. His tooth brushed against my lips, sharp as a needle.

What?
I flung myself back, wrenching my body from his grip. “Tony, why did you do that?” I pressed my fingers to my temple, unable to process what had just happened. I rubbed my lips, trying to rid them of the cold, fishiness of his kiss.

“You were upset.” He took a step towards me, reaching for my arm again. “I wanted to help you chill out.”

“This is
not
helping—” Tony kissed me again, more forcefully this time. I pressed my hands to his chest and shoved him away. He skidded against a flower bed, massaging his lip.

“Ow. I bit myself. What gives?”

“Tony, you seem like a really nice guy, but it’s not that way with us. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression I was interested. I’m seeing someone.”

“The birdman.” Tony spat the word like it was poison. “Is it that serious?”

I laughed bitterly. “I don’t know. Half the time I didn’t even know if he really even fancied me. Victor Morchard is trying to convince me he was using me, but I just don’t buy it. But then, what do I know? I’ve been trapped here for several days now, and Cole hasn’t stormed in like the charge of the light brigade to rescue me.”

“Then why does it matter if you’re with me?” Tony reached for me again. “Come on, Belinda, you know we’re great together. I feel this energy every time we’re in the same room. We’re all each other has right now. I need you, just as much as you need me.”

“I’m not ready for another man yet.” I walked towards the house, my heart hammering against my chest. “Maybe what this whole horrible experience has taught me is that I’m not ready for a man at all.”

“You mean you’re going lesbian?” Tony jogged after me, his shoes clattering loudly against the marble floor of the ballroom.

I laughed. “At least you always make me laugh. That’s what a good friend is for. I need good friends.”

“I want to be more than friends, Belinda.”

And there it was, his heart laid bare. And he looked so hopeful, staring at me with those wide, blue eyes. But it wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right.

I shook my head. “Please don’t, Tony. Let’s not ruin what we have going here by making it into something more than it is. I’m just not able to be what you want right now.”

“Fine,” he embraced me, and nodded to the stairs. “Goodnight, Belinda.”

“Goodnight, Tony. And I truly am sorry.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” He disappeared down the hall, his head hanging. I watched him leave, sad to have hurt him but glad he’d taken my rejection so well. Then I descended the stairs towards my room.

* * *

T
ap tap
, tap tap.

I was trapped inside a large, cold crypt. Water dripped down the stone walls, pooling in the dark corners. Rodents scuttled across the stone floor. A thin shaft of light from a decorative iron grating illuminated the long stone coffin in the centre of the room. A horrible feeling crept over my body, a feeling that I wasn’t alone in there.

I leaned my shoulder against the door, bracing myself against the stone plinth and leaning my whole body into shoving it open. The door jerked outward an inch, then wouldn’t budge. I shoved it hard, and it juddered back and forth. It was locked from the outside.

Panic was starting to rise up within me. I hammered my fists against the door. “Somebody help me!” I yelled, my voice reverberating off the cold walls.

Tap tap. Tap tap.

The door vibrated under my fists. I leapt back, terror clinging to my chest.

Someone – or something – was tapping at the door, from the
outside
.

I whirled around, but there was nowhere to run. The tapping grew louder, more insistent. I flung out my arms, desperately searching the darkness for some way out. I tripped over something and toppled down, sprawling across the lid of the coffin as it opened and sucked me inside—

I flung my body upright, gasping for breath. My heart hammered in my chest. It took a few moments for me to realise I was no longer inside the crypt, but back in the French bed in Morchard Castle, the sheets soaked with sweat from my dream.

Tap tap, tap tap.

You’re just remembering your dream,
I told myself, pressing my hands against my temples. But no, there it was again, louder this time and terrifyingly real
. Tap tap. Tap tap.
The sound had followed me into the waking world.

It was coming from the window. Something was tapping on the glass.

I slid out of bed, my heart pounding. I knew that it couldn’t just be a tree brushing against the glass, for I’d checked on the first day and found no tree anywhere near the window. I searched around for something to use as a weapon, and saw the heavy ceramic base of the bedside lamp. It would do in a pinch. I tore the lamp out of the socket and held it behind my head as I inched closer to the window.

I sucked in a deep breath, and yanked back the curtains. The lamp fell from my hands and smashed against the floor.

A very familiar black raven perched on the sill, tapping the class with his beak.

“Cole?” I could hardly believe it. There he was; he’d come for me. Emotion rushed through my body: warmth and relief and desperate love.

In reply, Cole tapped the glass frantically, flapping his wings a little. He wanted me to let him in. I unlatched the window and pushed it out as far as it would go, just enough to squeeze my fingers out. “Victor screwed it shut,” I told him, tapping the hexagonal screw on the frame. “I can’t open it any more than this.”

He tapped the glass once, and then fluttered away. I peered through the glass, squinting to try and see anything in the darkened courtyard below. Everything seemed normal at first. Then I realised that the walls were empty. The birds had gone.

Panic gripped me. Had they flown away? Were they right at this moment swooping through Crookshollow, attacking anyone who dared walk the streets?

Cole returned a few moments later, carrying something long and metal in his mouth. He bent down and dropped the object on the sill, then used his foot to slide it under the tiny gap in the window, where I caught it and lifted it into the moonlight.

It was a spanner.

“You think of everything,” Grinning, I bent back over the bed and turned on the overhead lamp, giving myself just enough light to see to my task. The screws were new, and came out easily, although it took some time as the shape of the window meant I could only do a half-turn at a time. Cole paced impatiently across the sill.

Finally, the second screw fell out into my hands. I pushed the window open, and Cole flew inside. He landed on the rug in front of the fireplace, and began to change.

I’d seen Cole’s transformation several times by now, but it never failed to take my breath away. The way his muscles grew and shifted, the black feathers retracting back into his skin. The way his face formed from the raven’s poised expression, a hooked beak one moment, and Cole’s strong jaw the next.

Before the last feathers had retracted into his skin, I dashed across the room and leapt into his arms. His warmth enveloped me as his lips sought mine, devouring me with a fierce hunger. His hands explored my body, skimming my thighs, cupping the edges of my breasts, wrapping around my neck to pull me closer. I sank into him, relief and joy and desire pulsing through my body.

Finally, he pulled away, his eyes dancing. “You’re alive, Nightingale.”

“I never thought I’d see you again,” I buried my face in his shoulder, breathing in the glorious, woody scent of him. Cole wrapped his arms around me and held me close, his head resting on mine.

“This is so dangerous. Why did you come here?”

“We came to rescue you, of course. Which reminds me,” he pulled away slightly. “As great as this is, I have to get you out of here. We’ll have plenty of time to reacquaint ourselves back at Raynard Hall.”

“I can’t wait.”

As Cole moved towards the window, I noticed several long scars running over his back. Where had they come from? Panic seized me. I grabbed his arm and flung him around, so I could inspect his chest. More cuts crisscrossed over his beautiful ink, although these looked a few days old. “How did you get past the birds? Did any of them scratch or bite you?”

“Belinda, no.” Cole held my wrists. “You look so panicked. Don’t worry. These are old wounds, from when we were attacked in Raynard Hall. I didn’t go anywhere near the birds tonight—”

I didn’t even hear what he said after that. The reality dawned on me. Cole had been cut and bitten by Victor’s infected ravens, three days ago now. Even if I could get the antiviral, it would be too late to have much affect … I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force down the hysterics that threatened to overwhelm me. Cole was going to die.

“Belinda, what’s wrong?”

“Do you feel ill?” I managed to croak out. “Like you have the flu?”

“No, I’m fine. Belinda, what’s this about?”

My chest tight with fear, I told him about Victor’s ravens, about the horrible, deadly virus they carried. About how I’d accidentally destroyed the vial of antiviral.

Cole shook his head, but his expression was grave. “I’m not in danger. The healing I did after you were taken obliterated any trace of it from my system. Bran are extremely resilient. I just wish I’d known about this before we came storming in here. Miss. Havisham and the Chairman could be in danger.”

“What?” How was my beloved cat involved?

“They’re providing a distraction.”

“
Excuse me?
”

“Relax, they have it all under control. Chairman Meow is not just any cat. It turns out your beloved moggy is actually a shifter.”

Chairman Meow?
I’d picked that critter up from the vet one day, right after I’d opened the shop. I thought he’d be good at keeping the mice away. He sucked at mousing, but he was wonderful company. I thought of all the times he’d sat on the toilet while I showered, or curled up on my lap while I cried, or slept on the end of the bed while I’d touched myself. And now Cole was telling me he was … a man?

“I … have to sit down.” I slumped on to the bed, balling up the covers in my hands. My heart fluttered as I watched Cole stalk towards the door. He twisted the knob, testing it, finding it locked.

“Could I break this down?” He asked me, tapping on the wood panel.

“Not without waking up half the castle,” I replied. “It’s a pretty thick door. And I think the butler or some other guard is sleeping in the room across the hall. I often hear banging noises coming from there.”

“We’ll take the window then.” Cole leaned out over the sill and called out to someone below.

“This room is three storeys off the ground.” My voice rose, and I gripped the bed tighter.

“Relax, Nightingale. I have a plan.” Cole swept me up in his arms. “Do you trust me?”

“You’re always asking me that.”

“I have to. Neither of us are very good at trusting people. I don’t want to force you to do something you’re not comfortable with, even if it’s the only way.”

“I do trust you. But I don’t want to leave without Tony.”

“Without …” Cole’s face darkened. He dropped me from his grasp. I landed heavily on the bed. “Is Tony the guy you were kissing today?”

“What … how did you know about that?”

“So it is true?” Cole swore. “I was trying to believe Libby when she said there would be some explanation, but it’s true isn’t it? I’ve been going crazy trying to figure out how to get in here and save you, and all the while you’re here kissing
him
—”