Page 46 of White Raven
Sarah tossed the book back into the box, the pages fluttering before the book snapped shut against the contents. “Fuck her. Fuck this. I wish you’d burn it.” She snapped up from her spot on the floor and before she could storm off, he turned her around and brought her against his bare chest.
“It’s over, love…she’s gone and I’m here. I’ve gotyou.”
“I wanna watch her catch fucking fire all over again for what she did to you, Athan.”
Footsteps clunked up the steps outside the apartment and were followed by a hurried knock. Athan pressed his lips to her hairline and sighed, kissing her before he loosed his hold around her shoulders, and then trudged to the door, opening it to find Rhaena standing with a plastic bag—John Allan’s note inside.
“I fucked up,” she huffed, pushing past him into the apartment.
“Christ,” Athan bit, shutting the door. “What now?”
Rhaena stopped just past the kitchen counter and looked around. “What in the name of Christmas happened in here?” Her eyes darted at every pile of rubble, and every crack in the walls. When neither of them answered, she turned and teetered her attention between them both, slowly raising her finger to point at them. “You two have fucking problems.”
“What happened?” Sarah asked, stepping over the mess to walk towards her.
Rhaena handed her the plastic bag. “I was wrong about Cap. He didn’t know Lindsay Trainor investigated those attacks. I don’t know exactly what she figured out, or what member of your coven she was looking for…or maybeworkingfor…but Foley didn’t have anything to do with it. He’s pretty convinced she was trying to go around him to get promoted. There was some personal shit going on there.”
“What does that have to do with you? And what do you mean ‘working for’?” Rhaena fixed her eyes on him for a moment, seemingly hesitant to answer.
“Well for one, who gave her these cases? Who tipped her off? And as far as how badly I messed up…” She paused, rubbing the back of her neck and glancing over at Sarah. “He knows why I missed a lunar cycle this month. I should have known better. I told him I let you inject me with your blood.”
“You didwhat?!” Athan spat, storming towards her. Every nerve in his body twitched with rage. Every protective instinct to rip the throat out of anybody who’d come after Sarah called itself to war and immediately situated itself on the front lines. “How the fuck could you do that, Rhaena?”
To her credit, she didn’t flinch. She took his wrath like a soldier, standing tall and accepting her mistake. “I didn’t realize he’d react this way. You’re right, though. You have every right to wanna annihilate me. You both do. I wasn’t thinking.”
Sarah moved with impressive speed between him and his partner. “Athan, stop. Give her a chance to explain.”
Athan grit his teeth. “Sarah, she just gave a werewolf who can’t control himself a reason to come after you for yourblood.”
“That’s not even the worst of it,” Rhaena admitted, lowering her head and squeezing her eyes shut. “He had the same reports sent to him from the M.E.; Sarah’s DNA is the onlyone applicable to the samples taken from the wound. I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer. Foley knows Sarah murdered the guy in the subway terminal.”
He could barely contain himself. Athan turned on his bare heel and speared both hands through his hair, gripping it in frustration. “You have got to be fucking kidding.”
“So if I leave to find John, he’s gonna put a warrant out for my arrest?” Sarah asked.
“And possibly Athan’s if he wants to be a grade A prick. Poe’s involvement is enough to incriminate you, Athan. Or at least put you there.”
“Poe’s not here to compare evidence,” Sarah added, facing him as he turned around to look at her. “They can’t really prove it was his bird if there isn’t anything to test that theory. All they really have is me.”
“You’re not offering yourself up again. I did that once, and I’ll be fuckingdamnedif I do it again. In the span of a couple of months, I agreed to help you give yourself over not once, buttwice. The second time…you died.” Athan crossed his arms and stared at the determined look he was beginning to know too well in his mate’s face. “I’ll bite it, and book us both on an uncomfortable flight over the pond before I let this shit happen. And John Allan can come find us himself. Don’t think for one second I’m bluffing, Sarah.”
The tension between the three of them was thick enough to cut with a knife. Sarah drew her attention back to Rhaena and folded her arms across her chest. “Did he actually say he’d arrest me? Did he threaten to come after me for my blood? I don’t mind giving—”
“No. Absolutely not. The last thing we wanted was for you to become somebody’s pincushion, or a fucking piggy bank, remember? Foster warned us about it, and you specifically said—”
“I know what I said, Athan!I know exactly howIfeel about the whole situation. None of that has changed. What you seem to forget is that not only is he yourcaptain…who knows exactly what we are, he also took a bullet when they went after Wren, and could have died doing so. He’s right to think he’s deserving of it, and I’m sure that’s the only thing he’s meaning to get across. He’s never done anything but help us.”
Athan tapped his chest with a finger and took a step forward. “I know I come off as the shy, quiet type, but that all goes out the fucking window when somebody threatens to take, or harm something that belongs tome.” He took both sides of Sarah’s face, feeling that near-instant calm as soon as he touched her. He lowered his face to hers, and whatever anger had started boiling in her seemed like it was also vanishing. Now it was just fire—and not the kind he wanted an audience for. “You. Are.Mine.” Every inch of his skin blazed, and the hairs on his neck stood on end as he slanted his mouth over hers and barely brushed his lips over it. “You’re not obligated to do anything for anybody, Sarah. How doyouheal, if you’re still giving everything you have to everyone else?”
Her voice was strained, and raspy…breathy and soft against his mouth. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do for others? Foster talked about balance. I killed someone. What kind of balance is it if I don’t give back life?”
Rhaena’s groan of agreement was the only reminder she was even still there as he trailed the pad of his thumb across Sarah’s lower lip. “And you still think you’re a monster,” he whispered.
“For what it’s worth…he never actually said he’d come after you. He was upset. But I put you in that position, Sarah. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Rhae. You’ve helped us more than anyone.”
Athan dared a kiss to that mouth, pulling every single ounce of his self-restraint when he let her go, and turned away, heading for the small closet next to the bathroom door. Rhaena leaned herself against the chipped countertop.
