Page 6 of Shadow's Raven

“I don’t give a fuck what any of you buy,” I snapped.

“Watch. Your. Tone,” Draven warned. “This is what family does. We call each other out on our bullshit and we have each other’s backs. No matter what.”

Well didn’t that just take the tempestuous winds right out of my indignant sails. My posture sagged, the anger waning. I was tired. So damned tired. A slow leak was draining me from the inside.

“You don’t tell us anything, Cas, when you used to be an open book. This whole I-am-an-island garbage is over. Got it?”

Lyric squeezed her mate’s hand again, this time her knuckles whitened. “What I think Draven is trying to say is that you need to lean on us. Whatever this burden is, we’ll carry it with you.”

My head dropped into my hands. They all thought I was moping over Kree. Maybe, at one time, I had been, but that was done months and months ago, longer if I really thought about it. It wasn’t the root of the darkness eating away at my soul.

I couldn’t protect them from this. Keeping it to myself wouldn’t protect them. As much as I wanted to lock them all up in the lower level’s spelled rooms and place a thousand soldiers in front of the door, it wasn’t a solution.

I’d been within a hair of coming clean for weeks, walking an emotional tightrope, trying to balance the weight pressing upon my shoulders with protecting my family from my problems. Truthfully, it was a miracle Talia, who occasionally caught glimpses of the future with her Sight, hadn’t been alerted to anything.

I wasn’t leaving this room without mollifying Draven with answers I did not want to give. It was time to fess up. Way past, as far as they were concerned. Lifting my head, I met each of their eyes before I spoke.

“Ravens.”

“What do you meanravens?” Draven asked.

“It’s not that I’m not sleeping. It’s that I can’t stop dreaming. Every night I dream of them. I dream of ravens.”

There. I’d said it. It was out. No one so much as blinked, their collective breaths held.

Night after night they came to me, ravens with varying shades of eye color. Some were green, some were pinkish-purple. Occasionally it was just one watching me, following me wherever I went in the dreamworld.

More recently, a shapely, dark-haired female started joining these dreams. The first night she appeared, and every night since, she stood with her back to me on a dirt path leading out of a wooded area and down to the river while an unkindness of ravens circled above her head.

They swooped and pecked at her long, silky, jet-black hair. I’d tried to warn her but she merely laughed. The sound was a sensual melody, a siren’s song drawing me in and sparking a yearning arousal. I’d run after her, needing to see her face, to watch her mouth produce that enchanting sound.

She disappeared when I was close enough to touch her, leaving me sick with want. The ravens still circled above, emitting gurgling croaks, and I suspected they, too, were laughing.

Nothing about the female had felt nefarious, yet the encounter had shaken my very foundation. My soul had been affected, clawing at me from the inside; howling, screaming for her return as though it were its own entity and I merely its host.

I decided not to relay this piece of my overnight experiences. I hid my craving for that entrancing female, convincing myself the stranger wasn’t what was most important right now.

The fact I was dreaming of ravens took precedence. For a demon, dreams were more than mere fantasy, especially ones that repeated. I’d be a fool to ignore the portents of danger.

Draven’s big hand splayed on Lyric’s belly, as if the act alone could protect the babe inside. “How long has this been going on?”

“Six months.”

A variety of curses erupted around the table. Even Emile, who was usually the quiet one, got very creative with his f-bombs. We all knew what it meant. Dreaming of ravens was a bad omen. It foreshadowed betrayal, death, or, at the very least, misfortune.

“You should have said something,” Draven gently scolded.

“And what would I have said? Hey, cousin, the night after we found out your mate was pregnant, I started having visions of the harbingers of bad luck?”

“He has a point, Mr. Overlord. You’re smothering enough as it is.”

The look Draven gave Lyric screamed,Deal with it.

They were good for each other, evenly matched in opposing temperaments. Try as I might to stop it, the teeniest tiniest morsel of envy attacked my conscience.

I squelched the slip immediately. I was happy for Draven and I would never begrudge him the joy he’d found with Lyric.

Unlike me, Draven deserved it.

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