Page 133 of White Raven
Leigh’s eyes were pleading. “She’s not a bad person, detective. Your boy-toy filled me in. While I find it really fucking hard to believe, I’ve still only known who she was when she was with me. Please don’t hurt her. Promise me you won’t.”
Brent stepped to Rhaena’s side, and nudged her with an elbow, and she locked eyes with Brandon, who gave her a supporting smile. Rhaena crossed her arms. “Fine. I promise. Please don’t make me regret it. She’s done a lot of harm, Leigh. My partner is rotting in somebody else’s grave right now because of her.”
Leigh frowned. “Ryan isn’t the type of person to do that on her own. We may have been sleeping together, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get to know her. She’s not some sick asshole. If she’s in trouble, and you won’t help her…then I’m—I’m asking for a chance to help her disappear. You won’t be bothered by her anymore.”
“You’d leave with her, Leigh?” Wren asked. Leigh nodded.
“If she asked me to, yeah. If she cares enough to come back here for me, then I care enough to run away with her. The hopeless romantic that I am. Everybody deserves a chance at the white picket fence, don’t they?”
Rhaena didn’t miss the look Wren and Brent gave each other. It was longing, and…deep. Like they knew something they weren’t telling her. She didn’t push, but instead held Leigh’s desperate stare. “Let’s wait and see what she does. If she comesback, or if she calls you…then…” Rhaena turned her head to look at Brent. “Then we’ll see what choicesshe’smade.”
Brent smirked and nodded. Wren did the same. Leigh exhaled her relief, and Brandon looked on at Rhaena proudly. Flashbacks of that little spat with him at the precinct before everything went to hell in a handbasket, sprang up. Rhaena had made a lot of poor choices. A lot of ill-considered opinions. She’d been wrong about the nature of some and decided against acknowledging that short-fused animal inside her. The mistrustful one that acted impulsively, and scratched gaping holes in the struggles that others may have been going through. That wasn’t her nature, and Brandon and Brent had reminded her of that.
“So…” Wren shrugged. “Now what?”
Rhaena breathed a long sigh. “Now we wait. For word from Sarah and Athan, or from Sykes. Everybody get comfortable. The shit show’s about to start.”
CHAPTER 25
OUT OF THE DARK
Of all the things that he’d gotten himself into over the long expanse of his, usuallyinsignificantlife, Tony couldn’t help but feel a small flutter of excitement over the situation he found himself in now. They were about to dig up a grave, for God’s sake. And not just any grave—the grave of a man thought dead for a verylongtime. Sarah had parked in an abandoned, and really sketchy parking structure a block down the street. As luck would have it, there didn’t seem to be anyone near the gated off graveyard. It was small and eerie, even for him, and the whole feel of everything around him had his skin crawling with warning as they walked faster towards the gated entrance. Tony paused, holding an arm in front of Sarah, who, by all accounts, was hell-bent on bulldozing that iron fence with her bare hands.
“Wait,” Tony whispered, looking around. She stopped abruptly and looked at him like he was mad.
“Are you serious? If you’re wussing out, then take the keys, and go back to the car. Jesus, Tony…what’s scarier thanus?”
He peered over at her. He understood her question, and her reason for wanting to hurry to her mate’s rescue, but she also hadn’t spent centuries with a power-hungry vampire queen. “Dahlia Van Hausen was scarier than us. This doesn’t seem tooeasyto you?”
Sarah looked around, finding no one. “Who gives a shit if it’s too easy? We’re stronger than anything that could come after us out here.”
“Except that one of usknewDahlia for what she was. We just found out your real father’s true identity. Not only is he Poe, himself…he’s also a vampire elder. He’s set this up immaculately. He may have been her rival, but you and I both know that Poe was a genius. We don’t know what he’s capable of, Miss Sarah.”
“Ugh, stop calling meMiss,” she bit, rolling her eyes. “Look, all that concern you’re spewing right now? It would have been a lot more helpful on the three-hour car ride up here. Whatever he wants, we at least know it’s not my head on a silver platter. He’s smoked me out. I don’t think he went through all this trouble to kill his own daughter.”
“Maybe not, but what about the rest of us? Who’s to say he won’t try to take my head for helping you?”
She bristled and threw her hands to her sides. “Would it stop you from saving Athan’s life? It sure as hell won’t stop me. Look, I’m not trying to be an asshole, but I’m going in that cemetery with or without you, Tony. Are you in or out?”
Tony glanced around another time, finding nothing particularly ominous, but the air itself still felt incredibly heavy. He zeroed in on a tall monument just inside the gates. “Is that it?” he asked, nodding towards it.
She stared at it for a long moment. “Yeah…I thought the first time I saw this thing would be under way different circumstances. But I’ll tear the bitch apart if there’s a chance he’s in there.”
He tore his eyes from the tomb and took a hard look at the woman who risked it all to save his coven. To savehim. Tony laid a hand on her shoulder. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”
It was different…seeing her stand in front of him. His pride bubbled in his rotten insides as he silently watched his daughter—his flesh and blood—the only living blood he had left…racing for a grave that had been meant forhim. A grave that so many flocked to—like an unkindness of ravens. A murder of crows. All of them immortalizing his name for the words he’d scribed so long ago—words that led so many in his time to believe him a quack. His raven squawked from the top of the grave marker, urging her to hack it apart. She was more beautiful than any photograph. So dark, and lethal. Her raven-black hair reminded him of her mother. Her tattooed body was a work of art…showcasinga work of art. The only other time he’d seen her was as a newborn infant. He’d held her only once and wrapped her in his own quilt. The only gift, other than his blood, that he had to offer her. Now he saw her as a newborn again…a newbornvampire, rife with hatred, and with unbending love. Much like himself. Rightfully so…and she would hate him even more when she learned the truth.
A man was with her. He scented his vampire blood—and hers along with it. It wasn’t the man he’d hoped for. The man that deserved his due for the betrayal he’d delivered so many years ago. He crept on immortally silent feet, leaving Sarah to uncover the final clues…the final test of the mind he passed down to her. The head that would wear his crown. He traveled, unnoticed, a short block away to the car she’d parked in the shadows of a failing structure. The doors were locked—but there…on the seat. A pamphlet.
“The Poe Festival”
“Weekend Death Tour”
He’d been betrayed, yet again. The festival had long since passed, and Ryan had kept it. Gave her the answers she’d sworn she didn’t. The photo of the monument, erected to mark his place of rest, was featured on the face of the pamphlet…folded toreveal the final clue. The clue that Sarah was to find herself. He pulled the small phone from his pocket, dialing her number.
“Sir?”
He turned, and pressed his back against the truck, sighing as he shook his head. “Was I not kind to you? Did I not care for you as my own? Did I not give you everything you’ve wanted?”
