“Gran,” I gasped. “You have magic.”
She lurched forward, yanking me off the ledge and out the window.
21
Panic explode inside me. At the same moment, a bird hurled itself at us. I hit the wall, my head spinning with pain. For a second, I couldn’t see anything. I was crushed, sliding, hands gripping me in strange places. When my head cleared, I found myself pinned to the wall by Efrain’s body. He was gripping the window ledge above, using his knees to hold me up and pin me against the wall. Dad was lowering himself to the ground with Granny, assisted by some of the other witches’ air magic.
“I’d like this a lot more if you were naked, too,” Efrain said, his voice strained.
“We have an audience.”
“Perfect opportunity for me to show off.”
“Get off me,” I said, pushing him away.
“Isn’t that what the rest of the collective is for?” he said, releasing me from the grip of his knees. “Or do we all participate at the same time? I’m cool either way.”
“There’s a lot more to it than that,” I said, lowering myself towards the ground.
“I’m here to learn,” he called, still hanging from the window.
A minute later, he joined us in bird form. I found Oral on the ground, along with my aunt Willow, who they knew as Dr. Golden. Oral and Malik both stepped forward to embrace me at the same time.
They paused when a commotion started among the coven. “You’re not my mother,” Dad said to Granny. “Who are you? And where’s my mother?”
“Fine, I’m not that old hag,” Granny said, struggling to pick herself up from the ground where Dad had lain her. “Like I’d want to keep this slow old thing. You can have it back.”
Dad grabbed her shoulders. “Where is my mother?”
“She’s gone,” she said, pulling away. “Cayenne told me she was sick so I went out there to that hut, and she was breathing her last breath. I only just got there in time to save her body for a few days.”
“You’re using her body? Why?”
“So I could do the job that this fool couldn’t,” she said, pointing a crooked finger at Efrain. “I told you to get my daughter, not this witch. Do I have to do everything myself?”
“I thought she was your daughter,” Efrain said, putting an arm over my shoulders.
“You got the wrong girl, bird-brain,” she said. “I have to be in three places at once to get my job done. I just borrowed this body. You’re welcome to have it back.”
“You’re a body snatcher?” Efrain asked.
“I just borrow the ones not being used anymore,” she said. “I never hurt anyone.”
“Yvonne,” Dad said, his eyes narrowing. “If you hurt my mother, so help me…”
I exchanged a glance with Malik. Yvonne might be annoying, the way she was always trying to look like a teenager and get in our business. I’d never known her to want to be old.
“She was already gone,” Yvonne—in Granny’s body—wailed.
“If we find out otherwise, you’ll be banished from the coven,” Dad said to Yvonne. “Permanently.”
As her words sunk in, I sagged against Malik. Granny Golden was gone. And I hadn’t even gotten a chance to say goodbye. All the time I’d been looking for her, all that had happened, it had been for nothing. She’d been dead all along. My throat tightened as Malik’s strong, familiar embrace took me in.
“Well, I think I can speak for the entire shifter valley when I say, stay the hell out,” Efrain said. “We don’t welcome body-snatchers. That’s not how we shift into animal form.”
“If you ever show up there as a mouse, expect to be eaten,” Oral said.
“Wait,” I said, pulling away from Malik and facing the coven. “I don’t think she’s lying. Yvonne wants to be younger, not older. And there’s no reason for all this hatred between the valleys. I’m upset about my granny, too, but she’s not to blame. If it weren’t for her taking Granny’s body, I never would have gone looking, and I never would have found my collective. All along, they were just over the mountain, but I couldn’t go over there because they’re shifters. We talk about love and peace, but what good does it do if it doesn’t extend past our own coven?”
“That witch tried to force you to marry a wolf,” Oral muttered.
“Actually, Efrain did,” I reminded him. “And she wasn’t trying to do anything to me. He got the wrong person. I love this valley, and after seeing how other people live, I know I want to raise my kids in peace, the way my parents raised me. But I want them to know people who aren’t just like them, too. All kinds of people.”
“We have many supernaturals in our valley,” Mom said. “Hell, only two of your fathers are warlocks.”
“But why do we pick and choose which people belong? Until the other day, I’d never even talked to a shifter except in passing. And why is one kind of shifting okay and another isn’t? Yvonne didn’t hurt anyone, and I watched you two murder wolves.” I glared at Oral, who dropped his gaze, and Efrain, who frowned.
“Thank you,” Yvonne said.
“I’m not doing this for you,” I said, my fist tightening. “Get out of my granny’s body right now. It’s a sacrilege to use her dead body for your own purposes.”
“Fine, fine,” she said, lowering herself to the ground. She closed her eyes, and after a moment, her body went limp.
I ran to her and knelt. Yvonne had kept her body alive, and now that she had abandoned it, Granny was truly gone.
A tear slipped from my eye and fell onto her withered other hand. “I love you, Granny,” I whispered. “I’m going to make you proud.”
As the coven returned to our valley to prepare for Granny’s burial, I asked Malik to join me as we followed the shifters back to Nelson’s house. He wanted to know what was going on, but I didn’t want to explain until we were all together.
When we reached Nelson’s, the guys hesitated. “He’s not in good shape,” Efrain said, frowning at Malik as if he were an intruder.
I took Malik’s hand. “I need to see him. We all do. Together.”
When we stepped into the house, Malik stiffened. “Cayenne,” he said quietly. “This is a magical dead space.”
I guess they’d picked up the stupid rock I’d thrown. It was okay here, protecting his house, but if they ever put it on me again, I really would curse them.
“I know,” I said. “It’s okay. They won’t hurt us. They know better.”
“That’s some exercise in trust,” he muttered as we headed for the stairs. “I’m surprised you’d come in here after they threw you to the wolves.”
“Since when are you so suspicious?” I teased.
Efrain opened the door to Nelson’s bedroom, and Oral stepped in. “We brought visitors,” he said. “Cayenne.”
Nelson’s voice was sharp. “Why’d you bring her here? I don’t want her to see me like this.”
“It’s okay,” I said, dropping Malik’s hand and approaching the bed. I sat beside Nelson, who looked grey and grim. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t wait to see you again.”
He turned his face away, his jaw tight.
“I guess I owe you some introductions,” I said, standing and pulling my dress together at the top. “Malik, I found my collective.”
“Oh,” he said. “I saw that coming, but I didn’t get a chance to say…that was fast.”
I shrugged. “When you know, you know.”
His forehead creased into a frown. “Does that mean you don’t know about me? Because it’s been years…”
“I know about you,” I said. “I didn’t know before, because you were only part of it. Now that I found the rest, I’m sure about you, too. I’m sure about all of you, as a whole.”
“They’re…shifters?”
“Yep,” I said, nodding at the others.
“I guess you inherited your love of variety from your mom,” he said. My mom was one of the few witches who had married men from outside the coven.
“Does this mean you want us for your collective for more than one day?” Oral asked, grinning.
My face warmed slightly at the memory of what a day that had been. “Yes,” I said.
“Nelson’s hurt real bad,” Oral said, his smile fading.
“I wouldn’t add anything,” Nelson said, his eyes finding mine. “I can’t.”
“That doesn’t matter,” I said, leaning down to smooth his forehead. I pressed a gentle kiss on his lips. “I love you for who you are, not how long your arms are. I’ll be here to nurse you back to health for as long as you’ll have me.”
“Well,” Malik said. “Life’s about to get interesting in our house.”
I grinned at him. “Did you expect anything less?”
“No,” he said. “I’m glad you didn’t ditch me when you found these men.”
“I would never,” I said, standing on tiptoes to give him a quick kiss. “I always knew I’d marry you one day. I just didn’t know who else would be part of our family. But before we settle down, I want to travel, see the world, and go on grand adventures like Granny Golden.”
Malik smiled down at me. “Life with you is always an adventure.”
I took one of his hands and one of Oral’s, and I smiled first at Efrain and then down at Nelson. “And we’re just getting started.”
The End
Author’s Note
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Raven’s Fall
A Their Dark Valkyrie Companion Novella
Eva Chase
Raven’s Fall
A Their Dark Valkyrie Companion Novella
In the realm of fire, Odin’s raven of memory discovers both danger and desire.
Sent by Odin to the realm of fire in a new human body, Muninn—raven of memory—wants nothing more than to get home and back into her usual form. But when three very different men come to her aid after a dragon’s attack, she reluctantly agrees to help them make their escape too.
As the group of outcasts crosses the desolate land, Muninn discovers feelings she’s never encountered before. Compassion, companionship…and desire.
Can she trust these three strangers with her newly awakened heart? And how far must she go to see them through this perilous realm alive?
1
You don’t become a human by parts: an arm here, a knee there. It happens all at once. One moment I was perched next to Odin, clawed feet gripping the rocky ledge and every glossy black feather in order, and the next I was sprawling on an ass I’d never had before, flailing limbs now strangely long and bare, my head totally off-kilter.
The Allfather of the gods looked down on me with an arch of his thick gray-brown eyebrows and started to chuckle.
“Why, Muninn, whatever has gotten into you?”
Before I could answer, the same transformation came over my brother of sorts, Huginn, at Odin’s other side. His raven body, sleek and black as mine had been, shot up into a tall, gangly man in a black shirt and trousers. He stumbled back against the cliff face.
I braced my hands—hands, I had hands now—against the gritty stone and looked down at myself, struggling to focus my thoughts. I’d come out just as thin and pale as Huginn, wiry muscles standing out in my arms and my calves beneath the loose black dress that covered the rest of my human figure. Two small mounds of breasts gave a slight curve to its bodice. The fabric wasn’t half as shiny as my feathers had been. Even in it, I felt horribly naked.
The wind buffeted us, rippling the dress and licking under it over my human skin. It tossed strands of smooth black hair across my face. The smells of the battle raging on in the valley below us came duller to this new nose, but I wrinkled that nose all the same.
My tongue flicked out to taste the lips I hadn’t had until just a moment ago. “What…” My voice came out soft but a little hoarse, an echo of my caw in it. I’d never spoken to Odin from my throat before, only mind to mind.
The Allfather was outright laughing now, with a thump of his spear-turned-walking stick against the ground. His brown eye, the one not scarred over, twinkled with delight.
“Well,” he said in his deep dry voice, “it looks as if I’ve spent so much time in the realm of man that the essence of man—or woman, as the case may be—has rubbed off on the two of you. I can imagine you’ll be of even more use to me when you can shift from form to form.”
When we could shift—yes, damn it, I wanted to shift again. To shrink back into my feathers and stretch my wings at my sides.
I shoved myself onto my feet, swaying as I adjusted to new ways of keeping my balance. The clanging and shouts of the battle continued echoing up. But Odin was much more interested in watching Huginn and I for the moment.
My hands flexed and clenched. I sucked in a sharp breath of the blood-tinged air. My chest felt as if it were gripped by tight talons.
“How do I change back?” I croaked.
“However you changed in the first place, I expect,” Odin said.
But I hadn’t meant to change. I hadn’t done anything. I shifted my weight, twisted my arms, and could find no sense of how to shed this knobby, clumsy body I’d come into.
Odin stroked his silver-flecked beard. “Perhaps you simply need enough motivation,” he said in a teasing voice. With a sweep of his arm, he propelled a wave of air into me. It shoved me over the edge of our perch.
A cry broke from my throat as I plummeted toward the battle we’d come here to watch. My arms wheeled in the air, but no feathers sprouted from them. Swords flashed and muskets sparked in the chaos of bodies below. The ashy stink of burnt gunpowder filled my mouth.
Fly, damn it, fly. I had to fly.
I couldn’t.
The magic Odin had summoned cushioned my fall just enough that I smacked the ground and rolled with a shock of pain but no cracked bones. A cavalry man’s horse thundered past me. My groping hand brushed the gore on a fallen soldier’s eviscerated chest, and I shuddered.
The boom of a musket sounded right over my head. Someone groaned and gurgled. Bodies surged around me with flashes of metal and spurts of blood.
Terror squeezed my throat. I was one of those bodies now, a delicate-skinned human bound to the ground, the heart in my chest pumping blood just as easily spilled.
The jolt of panic shot straight through me—and my form contracted. I flung myself out of the fray in a burst of feathers. With a screech, I propelled myself up to Odin’s ledge as fast as my wings could flap, my raven’s heart still racing with a fear I’d never tasted before.
The town smelled. Every human town did, from dumped excrement and rotting food leavings. My human nose might not have been as sensitive to blood and gore, but tonight I found the putrid essence of mortal waste more offensive than I ever had before when I’d traveled through as a raven.
Maybe that displeasure wasn’t because of my sense of smell at all, but simply because my other senses seemed to dampen in this body. Normally I lived on a plane partway between the present and the past, memories seeping from every mind around me to mingle in a vast soup—one I could stir if I wished with a flutter of my wings, a jab of my beak. In my human form, the world of the present met me more solidly. The memories still drifted around me, but more faded, like wisps rather than a steady current.
The strangeness of it unnerved me, but Odin was still delighting in our newfound shapeshifting ability. He’d wanted Huginn and I to ramble around town in human form to see what we could glean from conversation instead of simply observing from a distance.
> I scratched at an uneasy itch that crept across my shoulders and swallowed the last morsel of bread I’d scavenged—an act also significantly more difficult as a human being. Talking hadn’t been all that hard once I’d gotten used to my voice. I might have spent the many ages of my life before now as a bird in body, but my mind was as honed and complex as any human’s or god’s. The trouble had been in finding any conversation all that illuminating.
The people in this town talked either of the war or of their daily concerns: the food they were going to put on the table, the ache of their shoed feet. They remembered the march of soldiers and a peaceful time before, when they hadn’t needed to mutter about the war at all. None of them had given me any particularly thrilling stories to bring back to the Allfather.
I caught up with him in the town square, where he was devouring some sort of sandwich and nodding as Huginn gesticulated through his own account of whatever he’d learned. My fellow raven, the master of thought, had settled into his new form more quickly. But then, his business had always been the present—and the future. He must enjoy having it made even more concrete.
“Well, then, my raven of memory,” Odin said, beckoning me over. “What tales do you come bearing?”
“The same as always,” I said. “They fear the war, and it excites them. Some think back to times of greater comfort and others to those they’ve lost—with pain or with relief. A few remember battles long ago that they feel were either much less fraught or more. Humans are hardly consistent.”
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