Chronicles of Steele: Raven: The Complete Story

by Pauline Creeden

  “Here,” she said as she offered the glass to his lips.

  There wasn’t anything wrong with his arms, but he didn’t have to even fight the urge to tell her that. He drank slowly from the glass she presented.

  After four or five swallows, she pulled the glass away. His mouth soaked in the liquid like dry, cracked ground and softened. He tested his voice.

  “…Jack.” Dry and gravelly, but at least he could speak.

  She blinked. “What?”

  He swallowed and tried again. “Call me Jack.”

  She blinked again and looked away. A blush rose to her cheeks. “I…I don’t know if I can do that.”

  It was his turn to blink. He pulled the glass from her hand and took another sip from the water before he asked, “Why not?”

  Her shoulders drew up and fell down in a shrug, and she set herself down in the chair beside the bed. After another pause, she finally looked his direction. “I don’t know you well enough to feel comfortable calling you by your first name.”

  Heat rose to his cheeks, and her words pricked his heart. “But you call the doctor by his first name, Darius…even Monroe.”

  “I’ve known Gregory since we were children, Darius is a child, and Monroe is the only name I’ve ever known him by.”

  Jack wanted to whine. “But Colton and Rupert…”

  “Also the only names I’ve ever known them by.”

  “So just because I first introduced myself as Captain Grant, you refuse to call me Jack?”

  She shrugged again and averted her eyes.

  Forgetting himself for a moment, he started to sit up and a sharp pain ripped through his gut. He groaned and winced, throwing himself back again.

  Raven’s hands were on his shoulders and she pressed him against the pillows, her eyes wide again in alarm. Once Jack’s breathing slowed, she pleaded with her eyes and softened her tone. “Please, no more arguing. If it means that much to you, I can call you…Jack.”

  Although she’d said it hesitantly, his name on her lips sent a tingling sensation through his body that reached his toes. Or maybe it was just her hands on his shoulders. He smiled up at her, wanting to have her say it again, but afraid that he was pushing his luck. Instead he nodded. “See, it wasn’t so hard.”

  She shrugged, released him, and sat back in the chair, her shoulders lowered in defeat. “I suppose not. But I’m still not entirely comfortable with it.”

  He couldn’t resist. “Of course, the more often you say it, the sooner you’ll become accustomed.”

  Her eyes narrowed on him and she bit her lip. Then she turned toward the pitcher and poured him a fresh glass of water. “Why didn’t you want me to let the others know you’re awake?”

  Settling himself further into the pillows and lifting the cup to his lips helped him think of a quick answer. “I know that once the doctor knows I’m awake, he’ll begin the prodding.”

  She nodded. “Likely so.”

  He watched her hands as she fidgeted with the hem of her black breeches and suddenly he felt very tired. After stifling a yawn, he closed his eyes and laid his head back. “You don’t have to stay with me while I sleep. It seems as though you haven’t gotten any rest since yesterday.”

  Her eyes softened and that small smile appeared on her lips again. “I’m fine. If you don’t mind, I’ll stay.”

  “I don’t mind.” He smiled up at her, his voice already slurring with sleep. “As long as you call me Jack.”

  Raven walked beside Captain Grant, just as she’d done every day during the two weeks of his recovery. She could still hardly bring herself to call him Jack. He had to walk slowly so as not to undo the stitching in his side. The doctor had had to remove his kidney. He still dressed in his full garb as captain of the guard, even though he’d not yet been cleared for duty. Raven wore a periwinkle travelling dress, as she refused the full bustle of the fashionable for its discomfort and lack of practicality.

  Grant showed her a path down the wooded trail. After a short hike to a small rock cropping, they found a swirling pool of water fed by the river. With a smile, he said, “The water comes in, swirls a bit, and goes back out so that this pool never sits still. It rises and falls with the swelling of the river, too.”

  Instead of offering his hand to her, he simply took hers to help her up the last step. Had they gotten so comfortable with each other? Her heart still trembled at his every touch. Why did he have such an affect on her?

  The afternoon sun broke from the clouds, and the golden light poured over their shoulders. The swirling pool below their feet ran so clear she could see the fish near the rocks at the bottom. Grant released her hand with a gentle squeeze and stood along the edge of the pool. “When I was younger, I used to practice my balance along the edge of the pool.” He slipped a bit and she caught him. “But I guess my balance isn’t ready for that yet.”

  Raven shook her head and laughed, her fingers lingering on his arm where she’d caught him. “It’s difficult to believe that it ever was.”

  He shook his head and came down to her level. His nearness made electricity crackle between them. He laughed. “I suppose so.”

  They stood together for a moment, and she watched the gold highlights in his brown hair glisten in the sunlight. The distraction caused her to miss when his face drew closer until his lips met hers. His kiss came as a surprise, but it was gentle and she allowed him to remain. His lips tasted like cinnamon, and though this kiss felt right, it also caused fear to prick her heart. Overwhelmed, she pulled away.

  His eyebrows knit with worry. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to presume.”

  Her fingers fluttered to her lips, and she gave him a shy smile. “No, it’s okay. But I think it’s time to get back now.”

  On the walk back, her mind was a flurry of emotions. What was this between her and Jack Grant? She’d always felt in her heart that Gregory was the one for her, but as they approached the house, she found Gregory and Amelia walking together from the other direction. It used to break her heart to see them in that way, but now, she felt nothing. Was that healing?

  She shook her head and darted toward the house, leaving Grant in the courtyard. She tossed a glance over his shoulder and shouted, “I’ll see you later, perhaps at supper.”

  Perplexed, Jack continued walking toward the house, the stitches in his side aching from the forced march down the path. He’d rushed things. His fists clenched of their own accord. She had been so receptive to him all week. As sweet as could be…and he had to go and rush things. His heart sunk as he remembered the look in her violet eyes. They were a swirl of turbulent water, just like the pool he’d taken her to. He limped in the house and awaited dinner with a stone in his stomach. The time could not move fast enough and he spent most of it pacing.

  When dinner came, and Duke Darius sat at the head of the table, Jack took his place to the duke’s left. But Raven’s seat, to the duke’s right, sat empty. Jack’s eyes darted toward the door again.

  Amelia served dinner, skipping over Raven’s place, and no one else seemed to miss her absence. They all knew.

  The stone in his stomach had grown larger, and when he met eyes with the doctor sitting next to him, he saw a reflection of his own worries. “Doctor, you and Raven grew up together, right?”

  The doctor nodded, his eyes gaining a distant feel.

  “She’s gone, isn’t she?”

  The doctor nodded again, the heartbreak clouding his eyes. “She’s never been one for goodbyes.”

  Raven sat astride her flesh horse, the emptiness in the pit of her stomach overwhelming her. She needed to leave. She wasn’t ready for these feelings yet. They were beyond what she had ever understood. Was she even sure of them? But as she sat at the north gate that would take her in the direction of Gregory’s empty house, she couldn’t choose where to go.

  “I thought you’d decided to retire from your reaping life?” a voice said.

  Raven startled. Monroe stood at the grey mare’s he
ad, a hand on her bridle. Of course he snuck up on her—the man was as silent as a shadow. “I did, but I have a life to redeem, so I intend to do so before I return.”

  The old man scratched his chin. “What life would that be?”

  She couldn’t help the sneer that raised her lip. “The witch.”

  Monroe shook his head and tsked her. “That doesn’t make much sense. It seems to me that you saved a few lives directly after that one.”

  “How so?”

  He chuckled. “Do you not remember putting yourself in the way of the mechanical man’s blade when it lurched for the boy?”

  “But that made no difference. Grant took the blow.”

  He shook his head. “Seems that your intention was to save the boy, but let’s give that one to Grant, then. How about when you saved Grant?”

  “What do you mean? I’d nearly killed him when he shielded me from the mechanical’s blade. All I did was ensure he didn’t become a second life I had to redeem.”

  “But you saved his life, right?”

  She shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “And you can’t redeem a life that wasn’t taken. You can’t declare Grant both dead and saved. It doesn’t even out by my math. It seems that you saved him…you killed the witch. Even. Square.”

  The wheels turned inside her head, but instead of feeling relieved, she felt confused and lost. “This all seems so arbitrary. If I am redeemed, then why do I still feel so guilty?”

  The smirk on the old man’s face grew into a wide grin. “Are you finally learning, child? Adding a burden to yourself that was never meant to be there doesn’t make you more righteous. It does not make you stronger. The rules the reapers live by are not put there to be followed to the letter. They are good laws, and by following them, we are better people. More human than we would have been without them. But they aren’t what make us truly human.”

  “Then what does?”

  “Love.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Love? That seems too simple. Besides, what is love?”

  “The fulfillment of hope. When you dare to hope that you’ll find the forgiveness you need in one person. When you find the match of your hopes and dreams in that person. When you find your equal and the one who treats you as an equal no matter what you’ve done, no matter what the future holds. That is love.”

  Her voice cracked. “But I thought I found it once and was wrong.”

  “But you think you’ve found it again, so you’re running away.”

  Raven’s heart flopped in her chest. Her throat constricted, and her voice came out in a whisper. “But what if I’m wrong again?”

  The horse stamped a foot in the dirt. The pressure to run came on Raven stronger than ever before, but Monroe pulled back on the horse’s bridle and set a hand on its nose to still it.

  “But what if it is love this time, and you run from it?” he asked.

  The thought broke her heart. “I’d hurt him.”

  “And you’d hurt yourself.”

  “I’ve already left. I’ve already broken what we had.”

  “…no matter what you’ve done, no matter what the future holds, love will forgive.”

  The urge to run away remained strong, but the urge to turn back played tug-of-war…with her as the rope. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Sometimes we redeem ourselves just by admitting we were wrong.”

  She blinked tears, and relief washed over her as quickly as the tears ran over her cheeks. She could do that. And something inside her told her that the guilt she felt would go away if they would just forgive her for what she’d done. She smiled down at Monroe. And he nodded, finally releasing the bridle.

  The mare responded immediately with a lurch forward, but Raven reined her in and turned her back toward the main house. The steady rhythm of the horse’s hooves against the cobbles raced the pounding of her heart.

  FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:

  The Chronicles of Steele: Raven is a stand-alone novel, but Darius has been hanging around in my head, kicking up dust and telling me he has his own story to tell. Be on the look-out for The Chronicles of Steele: Darius in 2015!

  If you want to join me on the next adventure and be notified when the new book is released, please sign up for my spam-free mailing list at:

  http://paulinecreeden.com

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  BONUS FEATURE #1

  Extra: Bonus Scene

  In my first draft of Raven Steele, I was going to write Darius as a point-of-view character as well as Raven and Jack. But as the story progressed, I found that it should just be the two of them, so this scene had to go. It takes place when Raven lies injured after her fight with the guardsmen and asks Darius to get the doctor on his own…

  Darius tried to use the night vision goggles, but they made everything glow green, and it became difficult to interpret his surroundings. He set them on top of his head as he’d seen them on Raven’s. The path faded into nothingness in both directions, no matter how hard he strained his eyes to see in the dark. He shivered. “I don’t know if I can do it on my own.”

  The bloody streaks created stripes from forehead to chin on Raven’s face. Strips of her bangs had stiffened and stuck up at odd angles. Her eyes were closed, and her voice cracked. “You can do it. Believe in yourself and trust me.”

  “It isn’t dangerous?”

  “It is dangerous. I won’t lie to you.” Her eyes opened, and the violet color shone in the faded moonlight. Her tired expression had softened, so that it became difficult to imagine this was the same hard woman he’d seen fighting on the cobblestone road. She whispered, “But you can still do it. Trust in yourself and your strength.”

  “Can I take the sword?”

  She clenched her jaw and winced again. “No, leave it here. If the scent of blood attracts a wild animal, I’m going to need it. Besides, you can do this by your own strength and don’t need a blade to prove it.”

  Darius nodded. The light in her eyes relaxed again, staring at the sky for just a moment before she closed her eyelids. She had to be weak. Could anyone loose this much blood and survive at all? He stood quickly, set his shoulders, and headed down the path.

  “Come on, Nikki.”

  The Great Dane came up beside him, and the soft padding through the leaves comforted him. Maybe they’d make so much noise it would make other animals avoid them. They hurried through along the winding trail, determined to bring help before Raven was hurt again on his account.

  What if she died?

  The thought fell into the pit of his stomach like a cannon ball and refused to move. It felt as though his stomach swung back and forth with his stride as it beat against the sides of his abdomen. If she died, it would be his fault.

  Father hated him. Tears stung his eyes, and he wiped them before they could trail down his cheeks. The path before him blurred, and he tripped on a root, falling to his knees.

  A sob escaped when he saw the rip in his trousers. His pale white knee peaked through the newly opened tear. The temptation to sit in the dirt, pout, and cry overcome him terribly for a moment. But Raven needed the doctor, and if Darius didn’t fetch him, she would die. He shook his head and scolded himself for his childishness.

  “You’re nearly ten years old,” he told himself. “Young men do not sob and have tantrums in the dirt.” He drew himself up and ran through the forest.

  Nikki gave an excited yip and bounded past him as if it were a race to reach the end. The path ahead inclined and began a zigzag up the steep angle. His knees and thighs hurt as he clim
bed. He tried his best to keep the same pace he’d had before. The rocky hill forced him to watch his step. He grew jealous of how Nikki seemed to climb without effort or fear of losing her footing.

  At the top of the hill, he swallowed hard and scanned the rocky ground for some sign of the path, but every direction he turned looked the same. Because of the rocky soil on the hill, the woods were a bit sparser than it had been. It seemed as though the animal trail could go in any direction. As he turned each way, he realized that he couldn’t even tell the way he had come.

  Dizziness added to his confusion as he heard a wolf howl in the distance. He didn’t notice the tears until he tasted salt on his lips. Nikki yipped again, as if impatient for the fact he was not still following. The night-shine of her eyes showed her partway down the hill and he found the track she’d taken.

  But what if it was the way they had just come?

  Darius’s heart sank at the thought. To be honest, he had no idea if it were the same path or not, but he had no choice but to trust Nikki. With a nod, he rushed down the hill after her.

  When the forest finally opened up to the fields, rain began to fall, forcing him to slow to a walk. The clouds opened up suddenly, pelting him with large icy droplets, making the dirt ahead of him slick. He was out of breath and needed to make sure he followed her directions exactly. The muddy path continued through the field in a perfectly straight line. On one side of it grew waist-high brown grasses. On the other, broken stalks of corn browned in the mud, finished and useless. Darius shivered as wind whipped past his damp shirt and vest.

  He blinked the drops of rain from his eyes. Nikki led him straight along the path, and Darius couldn’t help but wonder how the dog seemed to know exactly where to go. When the path became flat again, he picked up a light jog and followed his wet best friend.

  In his entire life, he’d never run so much. His breath came in ragged bursts, more inward than outward. The burning in his chest grew until a fire within threatened to engulf his lungs. When he finally reached the brown, thorny tendrils of the autumn rose bush, he made a quick turn left. Nikki had run ahead on the path between the fields. With a sharp whistle, Darius called her back to him.