“Okay, Mom. Whatever. I’m not in the mood for this. I’ve got the sword now. Let’s be done with it.”
“Who said you could have that sword? It belonged to your father. It’s not yours.”
“You’re kidding me right?”
“Why would you think you can just waltz in here and have it?”
“I’m a warrior, Mother. No one else in this family can even use a sword. Plus, it’s chosen me. What other proof do you need that this belongs to me?”
“I think you should ask your sisters how they feel about you taking your father’s sword,” she said, crossing her arms. Her ruffles shimmered with anger around her shoulders.
Was she kidding? “Mom, haven’t I been through that already? Do you really think any one of them will object?”
“I don’t know.”
“I need this to take care of a very real threat to Aster and her family. Don’t you want me to protect the family?”
“Well, when you put it that way,” she said, frowning.
“That is all I’m trying to do. Now. I need to get some sleep.”
She sighed and flung her white braid over her shoulder as she turned on her heel to leave the room, without another word. I closed the door behind her and sat down on the bed with Benedictus clasped in my hands.
“We belong together,” I whispered. I knew I was talking to an inanimate object, but the sword was deeply spelled. It was almost alive with magic.
This sword could kill a wendigo, and it could take out Vincent. It was my hope to get my job and my life back.
I slid it back under my bed and lay down, clicking off the light.
Finally, I’d gotten somewhere.
Chapter 18
I woke in the morning and immediately reached down to touch Benedictus. With my eyes still closed, my hands only found floor. I snapped my eyes open and leaned over the bed.
It was gone. I growled and slung my legs over the side of the bed. Stomping to the door, I flung myself up and then stormed down the stairs.
When I got to the kitchen, I found the most frightening scene I’d ever experienced in my life.
My entire family was gathered around the kitchen table, drinking tea, with Benedictus sitting at the center of the table among bits and pieces of quilting scraps and knitting needles, tea, and cookies.
“What is this all about?” I demanded, grabbing for the sword. My mother reached up and slapped my hand away. Even with my fast reflexes, my mother could still swat me in her own house.
“I’ve called a family meeting,” she said, standing. She wore a long, flowing, flower-print dress that belied her cunning, conniving mind.
“What? Why?”
“I want your sisters to have a say in whether or not you can just waltz in here and take your father’s most prized possession.”
“Dad wants me to have it, Mother.”
She gasped, her mouth dropping open in shock. “What makes you think that? He never mentioned it to me.”
“I felt his spirit last night. He was all around me, telling me that Benedictus belongs with me.”
“Since when are you a medium?” Margery asked, smirking at me. She was enjoying watching me squirm way too much. Rage blossomed in my gut and clenched my throat. I couldn’t speak. I wanted to slash all their eyes out. And I could too. The warrior in me looked around the room, finding weapons and ways to kill each one of them before they could bat an eyelash.
I took a deep breath and pushed aside the visions of murdering my entire family in a blood bath. Letting out the breath through clenched teeth, I looked each of them in the eye.
“I am working with Raven to deal with a very dangerous creature who was on Aster’s land just a few days ago. The only way to kill this creature is with that sword. A sword only I am capable of using.”
“What makes you think you’re the only one who can use a sword?” Aster asked, holding her squirming son. He struggled out of her arms and went to play with Lenore in the corner.
“You’re kidding me right? You’re going to use it? The pregnant garden witch?”
She made a disgusted noise. And pursed her lips at me. What? Why were they acting like this?
“You think you’re better than everyone else because you can kill people?” she asked.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with being better than anyone else. Do you think I wouldn’t trade this talent for one of yours in two seconds? After all the years of denying my talent? I’d think you would all be happy I’m no longer doing that.”
“You’ve been gone a long time, Olivia,” Iona said. “The family isn’t sure if we can trust you with Dad’s sword.”
“Aside from the fact that he was my dad too, the sword had chosen me. The runes only light for its rightful owner. Do they light for any of you?”
I looked around the room at all of them. They didn’t say anything. Twyla blinked at me and stood.
“Olivia tries,” she said quietly. “Darkness follows her. Darkness will destroy us all.” Then she started to scream.
Everyone ran to her side as she screamed her little blonde head off. She seemed like she was having a walking nightmare.
“It’s coming for me!” she screamed. Lenore ran to her mother’s side, crying.
I grabbed the sword as everyone was distracted by Twyla’s hysterics. Mother looked back at me with a frown.
Almost as soon as I slid the sword into my belt, Twyla stopped screaming and sat down.
“I’m keeping it,” I said to all of them. “If any of you try to take it again, see what happens.” I pointed at each in turn. Mom opened her mouth but Twyla interjected.
“She needs the sword. The only one to protect us. She brought it here.”
“Brought what here?” Mom asked, patting Twyla’s hair.
“The darkness,” she said in a small voice. “Death.”
Chapter 19
I slung the scabbard from the backseat of my car around my waist and slid the sword inside it, slamming closed the trunk lid. My cell phone pinged in my pocket, and I checked it. Raven. His text message came across the screen through the witch network. There was an address and the words, “Meet me in an hour.”
The address was fairly close to Aster’s farm. I got in my car as my mother stared at me from the front porch. I could not deal with those eyes. The judgment and accusations they held were making my bones ache. At least my mother had stopped putting up a fight after Twyla’s display at the kitchen table.
As I drove out of the city I wondered what Raven had found. The last time we’d talked it had been weird. It was always weird between us, and I probably couldn’t count on it becoming any less weird anytime in the near future. The truth was, my feelings for him were stronger than I’d expected. It was bothering me. I wanted the past to be the past.
When I left Portland again, it would go back to the way it had been before. I would stay out of their lives completely and keep my darkness from infecting them. But first I had to find this monster and get rid of it. It was the least I could do before I disappeared again.
I pulled up to the address that Raven had sent me, a narrow country road several miles off the highway. There was a burned out house there, singed black as coal, down to the support beams.
Raven stood amongst the rubble, his hands on his slim hips, looking down. His eyes rose to meet mine. Deep pools of black glinted in the noonday sun.
“It’s about time you got here,” he said, showing his teeth as he squinted at me.
“I drove as fast as I could, Hunter. What do you want?”
“We found the dental records of the teeth in the murder victim from the park. This is his last known address.”
“Do you think he burned it?”
“Most likely. We found these prints in the mud, leading up the hill. Looked like giant pig hooves. At least twice the size of even the biggest pig.”
“You think it’s him? The wendigo?”
“The drawing Margery showed us depicte
d a beast with pig’s hooves. If this is the place, you should be here when I find it.”
“What? You don’t think you can take it by pecking its eyes out?”
“I have magic…and a gun. But heck, when you have an Executioner at your disposal.” He pointed at my sword. “With the Sword of the Dawn, you might as well use her.”
“Don’t get too used to it,” I said, passing him as I walked toward the fern-covered hillside. “Now show me where they found these tracks.”
He followed me and a buzz shot through the air between us. I ignored it and watched as he pointed to the ground.
Deep impressions sank into the damp ground, wet from the recent rains. “See here? It runs up this ridge and disappears. I’ll show you.”
He straightened and guided me on through the dense underbrush of ferns, rocks, and fallen trees. From the curving long branches of the myrtle trees, thick tendrils of moss draped overhead. Pale green lichen crawled up the wide trunks in the thick air of the forest.
The scene reminded me of the summers Raven and I had spent together so long ago. Before everything had snapped like a dried branch and I could never put it back again. Before my father died.
Raven stopped and showed me the last of the tracks. “They stop here.” We stood over a small valley that dipped into the forest floor that was shaded and clear of underbrush and covered in a blanket of dried leaves.
I gripped the hilt of Benedictus and frowned. I didn’t have the heightened tracking skills the Council bestowed on Executioners. But Raven didn’t know that. My lie was becoming more and more difficult to keep.
Sighing, I charged down the hill. I had some natural ability. I could still find this guy. If I were a wendigo, where would I hide? I muttered to myself, looking around in the valley below Raven.
He stared at me, one eye closed. Did he know what was up? I glanced at him, pursing my lips. His big, slender frame loomed above me. The way he examined me made me want to throw a rock at him.
“Are you going to come help me or just stand around all day?” I shouted up the rise.
He shook his head and charged down toward me, smoothly navigating the slick slope. His dark hair shimmered around his face like black feathers.
“Do you pick anything up with your raven senses?” I asked, facing him as he came to a halt before me.
“Not in this form. No.” He frowned at me. “Why would you need that anyway? Can’t you just use your tracking spells?”
“Look Raven.” I fisted my hip and grabbed my sword’s hilt more tightly. “There are some things I haven’t been one hundred percent upfront about.”
“Who? You? I don’t believe it.”
“Fuck off, Raven.”
“What, Olivia? Like you aren’t in the Executioners anymore? Like that?”
“How did you know?”
“I know people, Fanning. You aren’t the only one with connections in the Council.”
“What do you know?”
“I know you banished Vincent Petrov when you were supposed to kill him.”
“I was outmatched,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Outmatched? From what I understand you’d killed vampires just as powerful before.”
“I made a mistake I didn’t have time to correct. So I did the next best thing to killing him. I banished him using an unapproved totem.”
“What pissed them off more, the unauthorized magic or the fact that they had no idea where he went?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Vincent could not be killed by any means I had available at the time. None of my weapons or skills were of any use against him. He was prepared. He had his own trinkets to keep him safe, like an enchanted necklace that protects him from all but the most powerful swords.”
“Benedictus.”
“Yes. If I kill Vincent, I know they’ll let me back in the Executioners.”
“Is that what you want, Olivia?”
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Really? All you’ve ever wanted? I seem to remember a time when you wanted something else. Or was that all a lie too?”
“Do we have to do this right now, Raven? Haven’t you moved on?”
“Have you?” he asked me.
I didn’t say anything. I’d claw my own leg off to escape this trap. I’d thought I’d loved Vincent. It was different from what I’d had with Raven. It didn’t have the tenderness that I’d shared with Raven as a teenager. What I had with Vincent was quick, intense, and overpowering.
“We made the bond,” Raven whispered. “Did you forget?”
“You can’t forget something like that,” I said, turning away.
He came up behind me and grabbed my arm. “Olivia…” I turned back around, pulling my arm away.
“What’s done is done. I left.”
“The bond doesn’t break, for either of us. Until we remove it, I’ll never be free of you.”
“Is that what you want? You want to break the bonding spell we cast the night we decided to be together forever?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So you don’t?”
“Fuck, Olivia. I know you’ve moved on. Your actions with Vincent were compromised.”
“Jesus, Raven,” I yelled, pulling my sword from the scabbard. “It wasn’t the same. It could never be the same. Now, can we please find this fucking wendigo?”
He made a sharp dismissive gesture at me, his face crinkling in disgust. “I’ve had my share of women. Don’t be confused.”
“I don’t need to know that. Why are you telling me that?”
“I don’t want you to get the wrong impression.”
“I have no impression. I have no idea what you want. You’re being just as confusing as ever. You don’t have to live up to your trickster totem all the time, you know. Give it a rest.”
He tilted his head back and laughed. The sound lilted through the forest, when all at once he flashed in a cloud of black and gray smoke. Squawking with laughter, the raven burst from the smoke and flew in a circle around the clearing before landing on my shoulder.
I glared at the bird as its claws bit into my leather jacket. Still holding Benedictus, I raised it menacingly, but the bird only rubbed its beak over my cheek in a clear sign of affection. He then promptly bit my ear.
“Ouch!” I screamed, swatting him away. He flew back to where he was before, twisted in a cloud of smoke to stand there laughing at me. I put my fingers to my ear and they came away bloody.
I growled at him and raised my sword. “You want a piece of this?” I said, moving into my fighting stance.
“Right. You always were fun to play with Olivia. Taking everything so seriously.” He flew toward me in a cloud, wings and man interspersed in a burst of smoke. Suddenly, his arms were around my waist, his face over mine.
I could smell the wild scent of his skin, feel the gentle brush of feathers as he snapped back into human form. His hard body pressed against me. I was tall for a woman, but Raven was at least six inches taller. I could feel the strength in his arms as he crushed me to his chest.
I gasped, the air rushing from my lungs. I gripped my sword limply in my hand as I looked up into his shining eyes. Mirth and danger hid behind the black-colored orbs.
“I could hurt you,” I whispered, nearly tripping backward with shock.
“Is this how Vincent defeated you?” he asked me, pressing against me suggestively.
“Screw you, Raven,” I squealed, pushing at him. I hadn’t used any of my magic to fight him yet. He held me in the pure power of his manhood.
He bent down and crushed his lips against mine. The shock of it made me drop my guard. Desire shot through me as he held me tight to him, his full lips taking claim of mine. His tongue darted between my lips and a gush of lust broke through my boundaries.
Memories of our past flooded my mind and body. All the old feelings I’d drowned for so long bubbled to the surface. It was as if the cells of my body remembered what it was
like to fall into his embrace, the safety of his arms, and the desire of his flesh against mine.
“No.” I pushed him away with a blast of power and slid my sword into my scabbard. “Don’t Raven. I can’t.”
A tear slid down my face as the storm of emotions played across his. He reached out for me, pleadingly. But I turned away, storming up the hill.
“Wait!” he called behind me. “The wendigo.”
I turned around and stormed back toward him, my eyes dried. “We’re done here.” I said, my face only inches from his.
“Olivia. I’m sorry.” His words slid into the background of the forest. I cringed at the thought of the pain in his eyes. He still loved me, still wanted me to be who I was before. But I was not that girl. I would never be her again.
Chapter 20
As I drove away, Raven’s kiss burned on my lips and ached in my body. He could feel the link through our bond. He was trying to get to me. His feelings for me still burned. They tormented him as they tormented me.
I’d learned to shove those feelings down, hard, never looking at them or feeling them, but they were always there, behind my steel walls. But being around Raven, it was becoming increasingly hard to keep my emotions in check. I’d been a weakling the entire time I was in Portland, and I was beginning to disgust myself.
I’d let my mother mess with my hair and clothes. I’d let Raven kiss me. It took me days to find a sword that was right under my bed. And I hadn’t found this stupid cannibal creature yet.
At least I finally had Benedictus. I glanced over at it in its scabbard on the passenger seat. On the way back to Portland, I considered getting a hotel room or renting a yurt in the national forest. But the truth was, I barely had the money to pay for gas, let alone pay for anywhere to stay.
The Council had frozen all my accounts as punishment. All I had in the world was in the trunk of my Camaro. And that wasn’t a lot.
I pulled into my mother’s driveway and slammed my car door closed before hurrying up the steps of the front porch.
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