by Elias Raven
Shadow & Flame
Elias Raven
The Collective is here…
We’ve set the stage, created the characters, and fashioned a world full of twists and turns. Now it’s your turn to sit back and immerse yourself in this incredible series. Each episode weaves the characters and storylines of five standalone novels together to give you an epic crossover series. We’ve left you breadcrumbs, tidbits of information intertwined throughout our stories. Can you find them? Can you collect the clues we’ve left and become part of The Collective and solve the case?
Season One –
Featured authors in order of appearance-
International bestselling author -Riley Edwards www.rileyedwardsromance.com
International bestselling author - Erin Trejo – www.authorerintrejo.weebly.com/
Best Selling author - Ellie Masters – www.elliemasters.com
Award winning author - Elias Raven – www.eliasraven.com
Award winning author - Chris Genovese – www.eroticmayberry.com
Best Selling author - Carver Pike – www.carverpike.com
Season one releases- April 4, 2017, with a two-week release schedule.
Riley Edwards - Unbroken (part one) 4.4.17 - http://amzn.to/2m4q79L
Erin Trejo - Iron Claw MC 4.18.17 - http://amzn.to/2mnB3C2
Ellie Masters - Learning to Breathe 5.2.17 - http://amzn.to/2mnxbRy
Elias Raven - Shadow & Flame - 5.16.17 - http://amzn.to/2nfHeVr
Chris Genovese - Quills and Daggers 5.30.17 - http://amzn.to/2m4mEIa
Riley Edwards Unbroken (part two) 6.13.17 -Pre order coming soon
Erin Trejo -TBA - 6.27.17 - Pre order coming soon
Ellie Masters -TBA- 7.11.17 - Pre order coming soon
Elias Raven -TBA- 7.25.17 - Pre order coming soon
Carver Pike - TBA - 8.1.17 - Pre order coming soon
Connect with The Collective at
Newsletter - http://eepurl.com/cxCJFb
www.TheCollectiveNovels.com
https://www.facebook.com/TheCollectiveNovels/
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Elias Raven
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design: The Collective
Written by: Elias Raven
Published by: Elias Raven
Shadow & Flame
First edition – May 2017
Copyright 2017 Elias Raven
All rights reserved
Dedication
This novel is dedicated to my online and real world family and friends that have stood by me patiently as this novel has come to fruition. In many ways, this story is the culmination of a dream. I hope you enjoy the world that I have created as much as I enjoyed bringing it to reality.
Thank you all for believing in me.
Acknowledgements
Let me start off by thanking my fellow authors that are involved in The Collective Project: Riley Edwards, Erin Trejo, Ellie Masters, & Chris Genovese/Carver Pike. Working with you all on this project has been nothing short of an adventure. Thank you so much for your tireless work, late nights conversations, and collaborative efforts to make this project come alive.
I would like to thank my Alpha Readers (you know who you are) for all of your help. I would also like to thank my PA, Kendall Blackburn, for all that she did in encouraging me and dealing with me during my creative outbursts. Thank you to Michelle L PA for all of her tireless work that she has done for all of the authors in The Collective Project.
To the entire Collective Beta Team, you rock! Thank you so much for all of your constructive feedback and suggestions that helped to make this story the best that it could be. Your efforts are truly appreciated, and none of us could have done this without you.
A big thank you to my street team, The Ravenettes, for all of your hard work promoting the new book and The Collective as a whole. Your enthusiasm and support have kept a smile on my face throughout the whole process.
I would like to give a special shout out to Riley Edwards for all of her work that she has done for The Collective as a whole. I would also like to thank Ellie Masters for planting the seeds that were the genesis of this story and for her continued support & friendship. You have both gone above and beyond to bring this project to life.
I want to give a very special thank you to my friend and mentor, Author Gina Whitney, for allowing me the singular honor of having two of her characters in this book. If it hadn’t have been for a chance meeting with this wonderful woman and a reading of Saving Abel, I would have never taken pen to paper and written my first novel.
Last, but not least, I would like to thank my fans in The Raven Cave. Without you, this journey would not have been possible.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
A note from the author:
Prologue
My name is Rhianna Raines, at least that's my official, if you speak French "nom de plume" (fuck you) that I go by. Very few people know my real name, and I like it that way.
Well, except maybe my folks and they’re both long gone… So they get checked off the list of possible witnesses returning to the scene of the crime, ha! You could say that we all decided (that would be my girlfriend, Misty, and my band mates: Jezebel who plays bass, Ace my drummer, and the ubiquitous Royston Munt. Our jack of all tradesman for the band who does everything fucking else to make our little enterprise run). That all of us switched to stage names early in our careers to protect the innocent…
Now, let me paraphrase that by saying not one of us is innocent and if anyone tells you different, especially my asshole buddy Royston, I’ll tell him or her they are full of shit! So, let’s cut that crap out of the middle of the sandwich and get on with it.
I will tell you all some really gnarly shit did go down with all of us and our little inner circle of friends. After chewing on it for a while and talking it over with everyone, I decided that it would be ok to share this story with some of it with you, our fans.
I can tell you it's honest and not pretty. In fact, it's as ugly as putting makeup on a pig, and I honestly don't know where this is all going, or how the cards are going to fall, and that's the God's honest truth. I feel more sure about stepping off the catwalk on the Golden Gate Bridge and seeing if I survive the fall, than I do about what lies ahead for all of us. I think that says a whole lot right there. So, with that said, this is how it all began.
My grandmother Patricia M~ raised me as the De Facto proxy parent in my life. That woman has a love of music in her soul that bordered on the spiritual. Music, and everything to do with it, is her holy place.
It's where she goes to dispel the darkness and find her light. She implanted that love into me from a very early age. In fact, she put a tambourine in my hand and tossed me in front of a microphone while still in diapers, all the while blasting Fleetwood Mac's Rumors Album out of
an old Sansui Quadraphonic Stereo.
That’s one of my earliest memories of childhood. She said my first word was Grandma, and my next words were, turn it up!
As soon as I could get my fingers around the neck of a 3/4 Scale Electric Guitar, I was plugged in and ready! I challenge you to name another kid that got her first Gibson SG and Mini Marshall Stack before she was four?
I just know my grandmother would spend countless hours showing me how to play guitar, or her musician friends would come by and give "the kid" lessons daily. Our house was loud and proud and all things music. It made that woman smile every time I plugged in and slammed my fingers down across the strings and learned something new.
Of course, with such a cool grandmother, I was home schooled. She made sure I understood what I needed to get by in this world. What I really loved about growing up was that my education had music woven throughout it. Math was learning how to count in time signatures and scales. She would have me count orchestra members in symphonies.
Her friends would teach me how to read sheet music. Whatever she could do to weave it all together. When it came to English Language and Literature, she would use Dylan and Cohen and McLean, with some Morrison lyrics and poetry sprinkled throughout, as a way of teaching me phrasing and verse. She would then show me how those dudes were influenced by past writers like T.S.Eliot and Dante to name just a few. I was a sponge absorbing it all and feeding off of it.
She had all kinds of eclectic friends that would come and go from her place. If you were into music, my grandma's house in Laurel Canyon was the place to be. She had a huge lot with lots of neighbors that were all part of the music scene. Grandma's house was like going to the Fillmore West in San Francisco every week. We would set up in her backyard and just jam. Grandma's friends always had me come up on stage and sing backup vocals or harmonies or play tambourine. I didn't care, I just loved to play and perform. As I got better with the guitar, I started sitting in for the bands that would visit. She used to tell me over and over again; "It's in your genes Rhianna, just go where the music takes you."
From the stories I’ve heard, my grandmother was quite the groupie back in the day. She used to be a Go-Go Dancer and shake her ass in the cages, or dance on stage at the famous Whiskey A Go-Go on the Sunset strip. She has all kinds of pictures on the walls of her house from back in the day with bands that pretty much defined her generation.
There are pictures of her hanging out with Rivers, Morrison, Joplin, Jimi and Leonard. There were even pictures of her hanging with the folkies like Dylan and Baez.
Now about my folks… Patricia has raised me pretty much my whole life. My parents used to drop me off constantly, like her place and her heart was a revolving carousel for their use and abuse. She loved me fiercely and resented how they treated me, so she didn't mind caring for me constantly. Even then, she was very protective of me. The visits to her house got longer and longer each time they dropped me off. At some point, my folks decided their little love child, born very late in the game, was too much of a ball and chain. They were a full on traveling shit circus of maladjustments and drug addiction and every waking moment was spent numbing brain cells. Yeah, they were those kind of parents.
If I sound like I’m a little resentful about my parents… that would be a fucking understatement, but it is what it is! Anyways, they promised her they would only be gone for a short while and had given my grandmother a suitcase of my clothes and toys and said they would be back in a week, maybe two. They were heading up north to Oregon to see my dad’s parents and handle some shit and thank you for watching me, blah blah blah. I remember my grandmother held me in her arms as they drove off. All I remember was seeing the car pull away and a set of taillights heading down the road.
I never saw them again.
My grandmother didn't tell me for years what had really happened to them. Of course, the week thing turned into weeks, then months. I was still really young and not all the way plugged into the whole, “these are your feelings, and this is how you should feel things.”
We got a few phone calls from my folks that they had run into problems and they would be back soon. Then suddenly everything just went frigging quiet. My grandmother filed a missing persons report at the police station after they completely dropped off the face of the Earth. She called the one cell phone number they had given her every day, but there was never any answer.
About a month later, maybe more, we got a visit from a couple of police officers. My grandmother waived for me to stay inside and spoke to the two officers, one male, and one female. I remember seeing her put her hand over her mouth and she cried on the female officer’s shoulder. I was pretty freaked out by the whole scene. I waited patiently for her to come back inside, and when she did, she was drying her eyes trying to cover it up.
I walked up to my grandmother and pulled on her house coat, and then looked up at her with my baby blue eyes and asked,
"What’s wrong Grandma?”
She put on her best brave face and said the police had come to tell her some old friends had crossed over to the other side in a car accident. I looked downcast when she told me.
"Were any of them the ones that would come play music at our house grandma?" I asked.
She looked at me with the blankest expression on her face when I asked that question, then she got her shit together and replied.
"Oh no Honey, they were friends from long ago. I thanked the nice officers for telling me,” she said smoothly.
My grandmother gave me a big hug and held onto me really tightly. I never got tired of those hugs; they were what sustained me when I was a little girl. Afterward, she left me in the living room watching American Bandstand or Soul Train reruns, and she went into the kitchen and made some phone calls.
I remember a bunch of her friends from back in the day came by that night and over the next few nights bringing flowers and casserole dishes. Sometimes, they would bring her party favors like weed or whiskey. She never did any of it in front of me; it was always after hours when I was sound asleep.
The only reason I figured things out was the leftover mistakes from the night before. She would leave a partially finished joint in the ashtray, or there would be a watered-down glass of whiskey left on the coffee table. I put two and two together as I got older.
Anyways, the scene at the house got busy for a while with all the influx of guests then finally tapered off. There were potted plants and casserole dishes everywhere. I didn't know they were comforting her for her loss. I just knew I had a whole lot of friends to play with and everyone was showering love on me.
During the week, she left me with her friend Mandy, and, with the help of some of her male friends, rented a moving truck to drive to my parent’s house up by San Francisco and moved everything out.
I remember they pulled up and her friend Mandy was holding me, and I saw them unload a whole bunch of my stuff into the garage. I squirmed until Mandy let go of my hand and I ran up to my grandmother and asked her what all my stuff was doing there? She smiled down at me, but I could tell she had been crying again.
"It's ok Honey, they called me and told me they’re up North for a while longer and they’re moving when they get back. They asked me to help them out, and it’s your mama, Baby, so I said sure." She smiled down at me.
"Grandma, does that mean I get to spend a lot more time with you?" I had asked looking up at her then hugging her legs.
"Yes, Baby, you’re going to be with Grandma a long time,” she said back, and then she sobbed for a second. Her friends looked on watching the scene.
"Are mommy and daddy not coming back to get me anymore?" I asked her point blank, looking really sad.
"Why yes sugar, they love you. I'm sure they would be back right now if they could!" she said, and picking me up, she walked over to Mandy and put me back in her arms.
"Can you watch her for a second. I need a drink," was all she said and Mandy nodded and Grandma marched into the kitchen. She came o
ut a few minutes later. I ran back over to her again, and she picked me up. I could smell the whiskey on her breath.
"Pssst…" I said to her.
"Yes Honey?" she replied.
"You've been drinking that stinky stuff again Grandma," I said in my frowny voice.
We both laughed even as she put me down and looked into my eyes.
"Rhianna, Baby, I love you! Don't ever forget that, Baby," she said to me.
I just gave her the cheesiest grin on the planet and ran back over to Mandy while they unloaded the moving truck.
All of my clothes and toys and things wound up in my room. My grandma saved everything that was sentimental and boxed it all up and put in on the wooden shelves in the garage where they sat gathering dust for years.
The rest of the furniture and stuff she had her friends donate to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. It was a "Get that shit out of my sight moment!" for her and all involved. It was like she had closed off that chapter of her life and put up a wall around the memories. She focused solely on me. I became the center of her universe, of her every waking moment. She protected me like a mama bear protects her cubs.
We didn't talk about it till years later when I had gone through the garage looking for some of my old things and found all the sealed-up boxes. It's amazing how you can wall off the mind to hide things you don't want to think about or feel.
Drugs and alcohol are wonderful anesthetics and block us off from our true selves. She had dreaded this day, but when I confronted her, she calmly sat down with me in the living room and explained it all to me. Instead of being angry with her for not telling me, for some reason I understood completely.
Thinking back how they used to be, I got it. How could I be mad at a woman who had loved me unconditionally, and did her best to protect me from my parents and what they had become? She told me everything about my parents, and she did it in as loving a manner as she could. It was her daughter, my mother, she was sharing about especially. As she spoke, the floodgates opened, and we both cried and held onto each other until there was nothing left to cry out anymore.