Alluring Raven

  Sure, not every creature in this world is evil, but an extremely high abundance of them have gone insane from their power. And somewhere in the land, and I’m sure eventually we’ll discover where, a war is occurring. I’m not sure what’ll happen when we run into any of the creatures, good or evil. Kingsley seems convinced Raven will be able to persuade them to fight for us, that her blood tie to this world will be enough to convince some of the creatures to help us fight the queen. I hope so, but I’m worried. Not only could any creature be working for the queen, but Raven’s father is also banished from the Land of Moonlight for reasons that are unknown to almost everyone except his wife and my parents. The fact that they won’t tell us probably means it’s bad.

  That is, unless Kingsley knows more than he’s telling me, which wouldn’t be the first time.

  “Wait a second…” Kingsley mumbles, surveying the stretch of snowy field in front of us. “I think I see something.”

  I tense, reaching for my sword. “What?”

  “I think I see…” He relaxes, straightening, his grip on his sword loosening. “A forest.”

  I track his gaze and sure enough, just ahead of Harper and Dex, the snowy field fizzles out into towering trees that rise toward the stormy sky. “And that’s a good thing because?”

  “Because it’s not the same damn field we’ve been staring at for over a night now.” He quickens his pace, taking long strides.

  “But we don’t know what’s in there,” I warn as I rush after him. “You know as well as I do that anything can be hiding in a forest.” It’s where the fey queen first discovered that Raven and I, the soon-to-be king, were more than friends. And where the curse happened. Where Raven forgot everything.

  Where I betrayed everyone I love.

  “We’ll be on guard,” Kingsley poises his sword in front of him. “But it’ll also give us shelter from the storm and from being spotted.” He slows down as he nears the line of the forest, while Harper and Dex stroll right on in. “I hate that we’ve been out in the open yet we can’t see a damn thing. For all we know, we could be being watched right now.”

  “I know. But that still doesn’t mean I’m thrilled to be going into an unknown forest.” I pause. “Too much bad shit has happened in forests.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He throws a glance at me and then at Raven. “A lot of good stuff has happened there too, though.”

  True. Back before the curse, Raven, Kingsley, and I spent a lot of time in the forest near our houses, hanging out, getting into trouble, and making plans of our futures. Teasing Raven was one of mine and Kingsley's favorite things to do. Kingsley was usually the instigator, but I’d play along too. Fortunately, Raven would too. She was good at that—dealing with us, our occasional moodiness, and our constant joking around. It’s why we both fell in love with her, even though Kingsley will never admit it. But I know he loves her, has for a while, since before the curse.

  “Are you guys coming in or what?” Harper calls out from the trees. “Seriously, vampires are as slow as fungus demons. And about as attractive as them too.”

  Kingsley’s lip curls. “Okay, I know it was my idea to bring her into this mess, but she’s really starting to get on my nerves.”

  “Well, you did make fun of her skipping,” I remind him. “Pixies pride themselves on their skipping abilities. You should know better than to go there.”

  “She was moving too slow,” Kingsley grits through his teeth. “Skipping is slow.”

  “Skipping is awesome,” Harper snarls. “It’s vampires who are slow… In the head.”

  “That’s it.” He storms forward with his sword positioned in front of him.

  I bite back a laugh as I follow him into the trees, my gaze scanning the area as snow falls from the branches and onto my head. Nothing about this is really funny, but Kingsley rarely gets pissed off. Usually, he’s cheery even during times he shouldn’t be, so seeing him like this, all because a half faerie, half pixie called him slow in the head, is pretty fucking amusing. It makes me wonder why she’s able to get under Kingsley’s skin. Harper has been part of the curse since the beginning, and for the most part, she’s been extremely friendly. So where is this animosity suddenly coming from? From Kingsley insulting her skipping? Or is there more to it?

  Shit, did he fuck her?

  Fuck, I hope not, but that does kind of sound like something my brother would do.

  “Oh good, you managed to find your way through the trees,” Harper sneers as Kingsley and I approach her. Dex is off to the side, leaning against a tree, his eyes half shut, as if he’s about to pass out from exhaustion. “I was worried that maybe your stupid vampire brains weren’t going to be able to figure it out.”

  Kingsley stalks up to her, only stopping when he’s right in her face. “What’s your deal? Because you’re starting to act as bitchy as Nadine.”

  “My deal is you’re completely ungrateful.” She pokes him in the chest then reels around and marches further into the trees, muttering, “Insulting my skipping, saying it’s slow, when I’m busting my ass and risking my life to help you out. How dare you, Kingsley, you ungrateful… Ogre.”

  “Oh, she so did not go there.” Kingsley chases after her, throwing down his sword.

  That’s when it hits me, the realization that their fighting might not be under their own freewill. Because if there’s one thing I can be certain of, it’s that Kingsley would never abandon his weapon if it meant risking Raven getting hurt. And since we’re currently being hunted by the Created…

  Shit, something is going on.

  Something I’m betting has to do with the queen.

  Kingsley

  Harper is pissing me off. Like really, if I could, I’d shapeshift into an ogre and eat her, I would, kind of pissed off. I’m not even positive why I’m so furious with her. I know she insulted me, but typically when that happens, I joke it off. Being calm is what I’m good at. Joking in serious times is what I’m known for.

  So why the hell demons has this little pixie/faerie got me all worked up to the point where I’m considering biting her and not in a pleasant, drink-her-blood sort of way. No, I want to bite her and devour her blood until there’s nothing left. Vampire Rage is the proper term. It rarely occurs unless a vampire has drunk too much blood and become blood crazed, or if they’re starved and hunger consumes them, neither of which has ever happened to me. Sure, I haven’t tasted the sweetness of blood on my tongue for a few nights now, but it takes at least a week before that kind of hunger takes over.

  Besides, Harper isn’t acting like her normal bouncy self either. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think her body had been possessed by Nadine’s mind…

  Wait just a fucking second…

  I slow to a stop. Or well, try to. But my legs have other ideas and I keep trampling through the snow after Harper as she races farther into the shadows of the trees and further away from Rhyland, Raven, and Dex.

  Shit, something or someone has control over my body.

  I reach for my holster and surprisingly, my fingers cooperate. But I painfully realize why when I find my holster empty. I must have dropped my sword somewhere, something I’m not sure I’ve ever done before, even during a duel.

  “Harper!” The echo of my voice causes the piles of snow that have been building on tree branches to fall to the ground. I dodge out of the way as one just about lands on my head, but my movements are more sluggish than normal. “Harper,” I warn as I endeavor farther into the forest, the only direction I can seem to move in. “If you’re messing around with me, you need to stop now. I need to go back.” When my only answer is snow piles hitting the ground, I curse underneath my breath. “Look, I’m sorry for saying your skipping was slowing us down. You actually have a very nice skip.” I resist an eye roll. “It’s beautiful, in fact.” I manage to halt, but my feet won’t let me backtrack. “So can you please, please just forgive me and continue showing us the way to this safe place.”

  “For the lov
e of all pathetic vampires, you must be desperate.” Harper steps out from behind a tree trunk.

  I immediately sense something’s off by the lack of shimmer on her skin, the dimness in her eyes, and the most obvious, the cruel smirk twisting at her lips. Harper is normally about as bubbly as a witch riding a magic high and never looks or acts maliciously.

  “My skip is beautiful? Seriously, that’s the best you can come up with?” She struts toward me, yet another warning something isn't right.

  Harper doesn’t strut. She skips just about everywhere.

  “Who are you?” My fingers twitch at my sides, longing to be wrapped around the handle of my sword.

  “Why Harper, of course.” Her smile magnifies. “Did you hit your head or something? You seem confused.”

  “Don’t try to fuck with my mind,” I growl. “I know you’re not Harper, so fess up and tell me who you are.”

  “Why? So you can shout to your little friends and warn them?” She stops close enough that she can touch me and splays her fingers across my chest.

  I want nothing more than to swat her hand away, but until I can regain control over my body, I’m doomed to endure the touch of this unknown creature. Every muscle in my body winds tightly with my repulsion. I’m not a fan of being touched by a creature I don’t know. I’m not a fan of being touched at all, except for maybe by Raven. But even then, I struggle and I hate that I do—hate the reason I do. No one knows this about me, though. Knows that whenever I get close to someone, I numb myself and turn my mind off. And everyone thinks I’m a fucking vampire slut. But that isn’t even close to the truth.

  Cursed.

  I’m cursed in more ways than one.

  “Are you thinking about it?” Harper whispers as her fingers trace a path up and down my chest, her gaze tracking the movement.

  “Thinking about what?” I grit out, managing to fold my fingertips inward.

  When my fingernails pierce my palms, the pain wipes away the panic and sweet relief bites through my veins.

  Focus on the pain. Not her touching you. There’s only pain. Physical pain. And you can handle that, Kingsley. Don’t lose your shit right now. Numb yourself. You’re good at it.

  Don’t let her see it inside you. The darkness. She might want a taste if she does.

  “Don’t play dumb with me.” She stands on her tiptoes until her lips are a sliver of an inch away from mine. “I was there, remember?”

  I play dumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t, huh? I guess I need to remind you.” Her lips move toward my ear, her teeth grazing my earlobe as she whispers, “Darkness lies where most believe there is light.”

  Vomit burns at the back of my throat as her words pierce my chest. “Where did you hear that from?”

  “Think about it really hard,” she purrs. “I think you should be able to figure it out.”

  Flashes of those awful nights that forever branded me scorch through my mind like searing embers and reality gradually starts to crush down on me. There was only one other creature that knows about those nights, knows what happened to me the few nights everyone thinks I took off because I was upset with my parents. When I returned, I let them believe that was the truth, but it was far from it.

  “Nadine,” I say in a flat tone. “So you’ve learned how to possess bodies now, have you? What a cute little trick.”

  She slants back with a wicked grin playing on her lips—or Harper’s lips anyway. “Took you long enough to figure it out. I’m not sure why since only a few creatures know what those words mean.”

  “I’ve tried to block that time of my life out of my mind,” I tell her calmly. But on the inside, I’m a mess. Nadine is here. Nadine is fucking here and Raven is just over there and there’s nothing I can do about it. “In fact, I barely remember anything about it.”

  “Liar.”

  “Believe what you want, but it’s true.”

  “Is that so.” The evil glint in her eye makes the muscle in my jaw spasm. She scratches her fingernails up and down my arm. “If that’s true, then why do you cringe when I touch you?”

  “Because you’re you,” I reply, loathing her touch, how it makes my bones feel as if they’re grinding together. It reminds me of those nights, of when I was a prisoner…

  No, stop thinking about that. What is wrong with you? You’ve been doing so well at forgetting.

  I must be fucking tired.

  “There you go, lying again.” She increases the pressure of the scratching until her nails split open my flesh and the scent of rust and salt floods the air. “You cringe when everyone touches you. No one ever seems to notice, though. Or maybe they just don’t care.”

  “That’s not true at all.” I dig my fingernails deeper into my palms. “I don’t cringe when your sister touches me.”

  My words elicit a roar from her lips and she jerks back to strike me across the face. Not the reaction I was aiming for, but at least she stopped scratching the blood out of me.

  “You know as well as I do that despite how you and Rhy Rhy act once Raven,” she spits out her name, “is chosen as queen, you do have feelings for me.”

  “Yeah, feelings of hatred.”

  Her fingers curl into fists. “I know you’re lying. There’s no way you can pretend to like me for all those years and it not be true.”

  “You do realize everything about our lives is nothing but pretending and lying, right? Nothing about this is real and you know that. Just like I know you sided with the fey queen. Just like I know you’re a bitch. Just like we both know that all that light and darkness crap didn’t bond us—it broke us. So why are we even here talking about any of this?”

  She leans in, her eyes darkening. “Not everything was a lie or pretend, no matter how hard you try to pretend it was. And what happened those nights to us… you won’t be able to forget them—there will always be a creature who comes along, sees, and reminds you. But the control, or lack of it, can be gone with some help.”

  I want to jerk back, but I can’t budge. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I found a way to get help—to free myself from those nights and the burden of the mark.” A deliberate, malicious smile carves her face as her hands ignite with sparkly light—magic.

  Realization dawns on me. “You made a deal with the queen to help hide your mark.”

  “That’s part of why I made the deal.” She shrugs. “Honestly, though, I knew you all were eventually going to lose this curse so I decided I wanted to be on the winning side and I got some benefits out of it.” She waggles her magic kissed fingers.

  I shake my head in disgust. “You’re such a piece of work.” A pleased smile touches her lips until I add, “That’s not a compliment. No matter what you’ve suffered through, what you’ve done and what you’re doing isn’t okay. And honestly, even before all those nights happened, you were still a backstabbing bitch.”

  Her smile falters. “You’re going to pay for that.”

  A tiny part of me wants to let her—let her destroy me. But my need to protect Raven is much greater than my self-inflicting misery. “What’re you going to do? Curse me to death while I stand here unable to move? Because I’ve got to say, that’s low, even for you.”

  She lifts a shoulder. “Like I really care.”

  “You should.” Rhyland’s voice sails over my shoulder. “But if you need more persuading, try to think about if the roles were reversed. If we attacked you when you were vulnerable.”

  Her narrowed gaze zeroes in on something behind me—Rhyland, I’m sure. I want to twist around to see if he has Raven, hoping to all the vampire Gods he doesn’t, but my body won’t cooperate.

  “That will never happen, though.” Her palms spark with magic, her skin hissing and sizzling. “Because I’m more powerful than you and Kingsley and my stupidly pathetic sister—I’m more powerful than almost any creature anymore.”

  “Yeah, see here’s the thing,?
?? Rhyland says as the sound of boots crunching against the snow rises from just behind me. “Most evil villains who say that sort of shit are usually more fangs than bite.”

  Her brows lift, along with the corners of her mouth. “You want to find out?”

  “Not really.” Rhyland sighs exhaustedly when Nadine smirks. “You’re in Harper’s body and I’d rather not hurt her.”

  “Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we?” She sidesteps away from me and turns to the side, elevating her hands in front of her. “Some come on, Rhy Rhy, lets see how much you’re willing to do to protect your precious Raven,”

  Rhyland appears in my peripheral vision as he steps forward. Relief sweeps through me when I see that he’s not holding Raven and that silver sparks of magic hiss from his palms.

  Rhyland’s gaze briefly flickers to me. “You know, Raven was right. That nickname is fucking stupid.”

  A smile tugs at my lips and the movement makes hope rise inside me. If I can smile at Rhyland insulting Nadine, it means Nadine is losing control over my body.

  I try to move my hand and with a lot of effort, manage to make a fist. After some more wiggling of my muscles, I rotate toward my brother and the evil bitch, whose back is turned toward me.

  Rhyland returns his gaze to Nadine. “You know I’ll do anything to protect Raven, so if you’re here to hurt her, I’ll hurt you, no matter whose body you’re in.”

  “Then hurt me, Rhy Rhy,” she sneers. “Or should I say hurt Harper.”

  Rhyland grinds his teeth as he lifts his hand up, his palm facing Nadine. “I will if I have to.”

  Nadine raises her hand with her palm aimed toward Rhyland. “You can try, but I’m more powerful than you.”

  The more Rhyland distracts her, the more the possession leaves my body. As I regain control, I inch toward Nadine, taking measured steps.

  “That might be true,” Rhyland says with a shrug. “But you’re forgetting one thing.”