Watcher: A raven paranormal romance (Crookshollow ravens Book 1)

by Steffanie Holmes

  I shifted as quickly as I could into my raven form, and hopped up onto the windowsill. I didn’t want to leave the safety of Raynard Hall, but I had Byron to think about. We may have a difficult relationship, but he was still my brother, and I knew he’d be close by, watching for me.

  It didn’t take me long to find him. He was sitting on the top of the wrought-iron gate that barred the main entrance to Raynard Hall. I fluttered down and perched beside him.

  “You followed me here,” I said to him in caw-tongue.

  “Of course,” was his reply. “But there’s some kind of magical field around the estate. I can’t cross it.”

  “Raynard likes to keep the place free of vermin.”

  Byron scowled. “This isn’t the time for your abrasive humour, Cole. What’s that around your neck? You look like a carrier pigeon.”

  “It’s a protective charm. It should shield me from detection. I’ll see if I can get one for you, too.”

  Byron inclined his head. It was as close to a “thank you” as I would ever get. “So you went to the fox? That’s a pretty bold move.”

  “I did. And he’s going to help us.”

  “Us? You mean you’re acknowledging that I’m part of this, too?”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  “Such anger in one so young. Go on, Cole. Tell me what the fox plans to do.”

  I explained Ryan’s idea to Byron, and also about the charm I wore. He didn’t speak for some time, and then he nodded slowly, his beak dipping. “That is a good plan, but I see one flaw. You should know that Thomas Gillespie has already arrived. Pax saw them at Crooks Crossing this evening. They’re hiding in the crypt beneath the old church. If he finds me before Raynard arranges this meeting—”

  Car tongue doesn’t have a word for “fuck”, so I just knocked my head against the gate a couple of times. Byron snorted.

  “Don’t be dramatic. Just keep yourself hidden until Ryan can talk him into the trade. And if you could hide me too, that would be appreciated.”

  I stared at him in shock. “You would go rogue?”

  “I don’t really have a choice now, do I, little brother? Now, can you get me past this barrier so I can hide inside with you?”

  “You know we can’t go inside just yet. We have to know, Byron. Our only weapon is the knowledge of what he’s up to. We have to know what he’s doing. Why does Sir Thomas even want a Bran? That’s what I don’t understand. I have a feeling that’s the key to this whole thing.”

  “Fine. I’ll go. You stay here and I’ll report back.”

  “As if I’d trust you with something this dangerous. Let’s go together.” I spread my wings and soared away over the village, trying to keep my balance with the charm around my neck and the pain flaring through my wing and my injured leg still dragging. A few moments later I heard the flap of Byron’s wings behind me.

  We flew to Crooks Crossing in silence, darting high over the forest – where any Bran on patrol would be unlikely to spot us – and then dived low to cross the river that surrounded the next village. The old church was easy to find. It dominated the tiny high street of the village. The only other municipal buildings nearby were a pub, a post office, and a hall covered in graffiti. A couple of hoodlums with skateboards and cigarettes dangling from their mouths loitered in front of the hall. Otherwise, the place was dead and silent.

  After doing a circuit of the churchyard to make sure there were no Bran or other creatures on guard, we swooped down and landed on one of the gravestones. I turned my head toward the church. I could hear voices inside. I gestured for Byron to follow me, and together we hopped down from the stone and dashed across the grass toward the side of the building. We fluttered up to the sill and peered through a stained glass window. I couldn’t see any lights inside, and it didn’t seem to be where the voices were coming from, either.

  “Down there.” Byron pointed to the wall below us. There was a small window at the back of the garden, right down by the dirt. Behind it I could see the faint light of a candle flickering. We fluttered down and peered inside.

  We were looking into a small crypt. I could see niches in the walls marking ancient tombs. In the middle of the room stood a dais upon which sat a stone sarcophagus. The elaborate carvings on the tomb depicted a warrior, possibly a local saint. He held a sword across his chest, and cherubs lounged on clouds around his feet. The lid had been tossed off the tomb, and it lay on an angle across the stone box, giving us a view of what lay inside it. I leaned closer, peering into the gloom, desperate to see for myself, and yet dreading what I knew I would find.

  Inside the open tomb lay Sir Thomas Gillespie.

  Beside me, Byron stepped back, his tail twitching. I didn’t blame him. My chest was tight, all my senses on high alert. I didn’t like being here, either. This was highly dangerous. Seeing Sir Thomas’s serene face staring up out of that coffin brought it home to me. At any moment Gillespie might wake, and he’d sense our presence, and we’d be dead.

  But, as I’d said to Byron, we were the ravens, the watchers. We needed to see, to know.

  “I don’t even want to know what they did with the remains of that medieval knight.” Byron said, shuddering.

  “Knowing Gillespie, he probably ate them.” I replied, leaning in to peer at the rest of the crypt. It was probably early for him to be in bed, (as vampires tended to keep nocturnal hours because it meant less time in the presence of the sun) but he’d spent days on the road, so he must’ve been tired. Gillespie didn’t need to sleep in a coffin inside a dingy crypt like some bad horror film trope. He would have occupied the best hotel suite in all of Loamshire. But coffins and crypts were part of his species’ mythology, and Gillespie was the kind of vampire who took mythology very seriously. He liked to do things old school.

  At the foot of the coffin sat Gillespie’s two human servants; Leonard and Rudolpho. They passed a bottle between them and argued over a card game they played by candlelight. Two rapiers and a shiny pistol leaned against the side of the tomb, within easy reach should anyone threaten their master.

  Gillespie retained a purely human staff, partly for the ease of feeding (a vampire of the old traditions could feed from the same victim for many years without killing or turning that victim, it just took a lot of self-control) and partly because Gillespie honestly believed that his kind were superior to shifters in every way, and especially to the Bran. To them, we were wild, feral creatures, lower life forms born to be controlled by humans and therefore undeserving of his interest. Sir Thomas would rather have no servant than resort to employing a Bran, even with our unique abilities.

  Which was why it was so strange that Gillespie suddenly wanted a Bran. And why I was determined that it was not going to be me. For all the evil Morchard had done – and there had been plenty of that – it had nothing on what that peaceful face below me was capable of.

  “We shouldn’t be here.” Byron said, moving further away from the window.

  “We’re here now,” I hissed back. “There must be a way we could hear what they’re saying.”

  I inched closer to the window, flattening my body against the ground as much as possible, trying to stay in the shadows. The pain flared through my wing, pulling at me, trying to drag me back to my master. It was getting worse, the pull so intense at times that I inched backward toward the castle, before catching myself. I only had a day or so left before it overran me completely.

  Don’t think about the pain, I admonished myself. Concentrate. The vault walls were thick, but I had the hearing of a predator. Even so, I could only catch snatches of the conversation.

  “Cole, be careful!” Byron hissed, jumping back from the window. “You’re getting too close.”

  “... the Bran’s alive … Mikael helping … take care of …”

  Mikael.

  I don’t know how they knew, but they’d found out I was still alive. And if they were talking about Mikael, they must have known he had helped me hide from M
orchard. They might assume Mikael knew more about my disappearance then he really did. They would try to get information about me out of him, and their methods would not be pleasant.

  My chest tightened with fear. I had to warn Mikael as soon as possible. Not even his master would be able to protect him from Gillespie’s wrath.

  “... did you see something move … window …”

  Shit. I peered through the grimy glass. Rudolpho got to his feet, grabbing the pistol and ascending. A moment later he emerged around the edge of the church, his head darting from side to side as he searched among the graves for trespassers.

  “Cole, get out of there. Fuck!” Byron screamed. He took off, soaring across the cemetery, heading for the thick cover of the forest that bordered the churchyard.

  Byron, you idiot.

  Rudolpho turned toward the noise, and saw the crow flying toward the trees. “Fuck!” He cried. “Leonard, come quick. One of the fuckers has been spying on us.”

  I heard footsteps as Leonard raced up the stone steps of the tomb and joined his brother in the grass. They darted between the stones, heading toward the edge of the forest. Rudolpho gestured to the tops of the trees, pointing out where he’d seen Byron enter the trees.

  I crouched low, hiding as close to the shadowy church as I could, waiting for my chance. They were too busy looking in the trees to think about the window. As soon as the two men ran past my hiding spot, I unfurled my wings and took off, my heart pounding. I headed for the trees as fast as I could.

  “There’s another one. Get it!”

  A shot rang out behind me. I squawked in terror, certain at any moment I’d feel the bullet biting into my skin. But I kept on flying, my injured leg twinging as I wrenched my body sideways. They had missed. Wind rushed through my feathers. I’d never flown this fast in my life. I cleared the treeline just as a second shot rang out.

  The darkness closed around me, and I had to weave and dodge to avoid the branches crisscrossing in front of my path. Beady eyes regarded me from the gloom – the nocturnal birds watching me delve deeper into their territory. Anything to get away from Gillespie’s servants and their gun.

  Byron, where are you?

  I heard wings flapping to my right. I looked down, and was relieved to see Byron flying along beneath me, his black body swooping gracefully, completely unscathed.

  “That was close,” he said.

  “Too close.” I replied, narrowly missing a large branch. This was the longest I’d flown on my injured leg, and it was really starting to give me trouble. “You’re an idiot. If you hadn’t have flown up when you did, they wouldn’t have seen us. They will guess it was me spying on them.

  Probably. But it’s too late, Cole. You heard those two idiots talking; they know you’re alive. What are we going to do now?”

  We exited the forest and flew toward Crookshollow. There was no one, or no thing, following us. As we flew through the town centre, I glanced down at the clock on the top of the Halt Institute building. It read 3:06am. “I have to get back to the house,” I said. “Belinda’s going to be getting up and opening the bakery soon. I need to be there when she wakes up. As soon as they’ve left the house, I’ll go and warn Mikael.”

  “It’s too dangerous. They’ll be expecting one of us to go to Mikael. They’ll ambush us. I’ll go.”

  “No, Byron. You need to go back to Morchard before he misses you. Right now they don’t know you’re involved, and we need to keep it that was as long as possible. This is my mess, and I won’t get you killed for it.”

  “You know, for an annoying brat of a brother, you’re actually alright.”

  “Thank you for that heartfelt compliment.” I swooped in low as we turned on to Holly Avenue. The iron gates of Raynard Hall towered over the street, and I knew that behind them was Belinda, tucked up safe in bed, certain I was sleeping beside her. “Now get out of here.”

  “I have nowhere to go, remember?” Byron growled. “Thanks to you.”

  “Fine. Wait here. Just give me twenty minutes to say goodbye to Belinda and make sure everything’s organised with Ryan, and then I’ll be back.”

  “Don’t worry,” Byron called after me. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  13

  Belinda

  I woke up to the sound of my alarm ringing. I reached across to the stack of books to shut it up, but my hand grazed only rich silk sheets. I fumbled around in the dark, searching for the edge of the bed, but instead of my makeshift bedside cabinet, there was a real cabinet, made of some kind of hardwood, holding a designer lamp and an iPod speaker.

  I rubbed my eyes, and realisation dawned on me. I remembered now. I wasn’t in my dingy flat at all. I was in a guest room at Raynard Hall that was more opulent than any hotel I’d ever stayed in, and I’d spent the night with Cole.

  Cole …

  I rolled over, but his side of the bed was empty. The sheets felt cold, and on the edge of the bed I found two small, black feathers. I crawled across the sheets and pushed on the window above his side of the bed. It swung open easily. Odd. I distinctly remembered locking all the windows last night, while Cole was in the shower. I didn’t want anything unsavoury to fly in.

  Cole hadn’t been in bed for some time, and wherever he’d gone, he’d done so in his raven form. But what had happened? Why had he left?

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Was it me? Did last night not mean to him what it did to me?

  I heard a knock at the door. I pulled the blankets up over my body. “You can come in,” I called out. “But in the interests of full disclosure, I’m not wearing pants.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  My heart pounded with joy at the sound of Cole’s husky voice. He wasn’t gone after all. He entered the room backwards, the bottom half of his body wrapped in a towel. I could just make out the wing of one of his raven tats swooping down his lower back. In his hands he carried a tray.

  “Simon left this outside the door,” he said, as he set it down over my lap. I peered over the tray. It contained toast and eggs, sausages, bacon, mushrooms, a glass of orange juice, and a plate containing two of the lemon tarts from last night. There was a folded note next to them. I opened it up – it was the recipe.

  “I want a butler so bad,” I grinned, as I pulled the tray toward me.

  I usually wasn’t that hungry when I first woke up, but the smell of bacon and eggs overwhelmed me. I scarfed down the whole plate like I hadn’t eaten in years.

  “We’d better hurry if you want to get to the bakery in time.” Cole glanced at my phone, then started to pull on his pants.

  “Cole, did you go somewhere last night?” I asked.

  “No, why?”

  “There are some black feathers on your side of the bed.”

  “Really?” Cole glanced down at where I pointed. He picked up the two feathers and tossed them into a nearby rubbish bin. “Sometimes I shift during my sleep. It can be a bit hard to control, especially when you’re unconscious. I bet that’s what happened here.”

  “Oh, OK.” That made sense. I let out a breath I didn’t realise I was holding. It was fine. Cole wasn’t lying to me. I set the tray aside and started to pull on some clothes. “I won’t see you at the bakery today?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not safe. I’ll hide out here, do some research into rogue Bran, see if I can find something useful in Ryan’s enormous library, in case his plan doesn’t work. Ryan and Alex are going to help you. They’ll be watching out for you if anything happens or anyone shows up who shouldn’t. Remember, don’t wander away, and don’t speak about Morchard or Gillespie to anyone. Can you do that?”

  I nodded vigorously. “Of course.”

  “Good girl.” He kissed me, his tongue running over mine. “Mmmm, much as I’d like this to continue, you really have to go.”

  I let the kiss linger for a few more moments, then pulled some clothes on dashed downstairs. I wished we co
uld stay in bed all day, having more of that incredible sex, but it was more important to keep Cole safe. Alex and Ryan were already waiting in the cavernous entrance hall. Alex had a giant coffee thermos and a look of utter despair. “I hate you,” she grumbled as I swung down the stairs. “There is no logical reason to get up this early.”

  “There is if you have loaves to raise,” I grinned. Miss Havisham strutted into the entrance hall, greeting us with a wide yawn and a stretch of her lithe body.

  “I’ve left instructions with Simon to contact Gillespie and set up the meeting,” Ryan told Cole. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

  Cole looked over at me, his eyes intense. “I have many things to worry about right now.” He said.

  “I won’t take my eyes off her.”

  “Thank you.” Cole shook Ryan’s hand warmly.

  Cole swept me into his arms and gave me one last, lingering kiss. Then he helped me into Alex’s car, shutting the door behind me. We turned in the drive and I watched from the back window as Cole’s figure grew smaller and smaller, until he was invisible against the dark sky.

  Stay safe, my raven boy.

  It was only when we were speeding along the high street toward the bakery that I realised I’d forgotten to ask Cole about the window.

  “Are you sure Cole’s going to be OK by himself?” I asked Ryan as I unlocked the store.

  Ryan nodded, a strand of his red hair falling over one eye. Now that I knew he was a shifter, I was noticing him a lot more. He was beautiful, his face strong, his lips full and kissable, his eyes penetrating. A line of stubble ran along the edge of his jaw, and with his red hair all tousled, he channelled the spirit of his cunning fox alter ago. I wondered if it was part of the appeal of shifters, the way they looked a little wild, a little dangerous. “He can look after himself, I’m sure. Cole is a smart guy, if a little headstrong.”