Raven (Legends Saga Book 2) (13 page)

Cueing him on,
she experienced the familiar, but always exhilarating, rush of his muscles contracting beneath her. The pull-back right before the jarring launch, that whisked them head long into adventure, stole the very breath from her lungs.

Ireland leaned into
his strides, his hooves cracking a sharp chorus against the pavement. Turning the corner, they found the street bustling with activity. A fact that made that
particular
ride even more invigorating.
The thrill of the forbidden
. Ireland’s head spun, a smile teasing across her sapphire lips, as she watched a man chase his newspaper that the forceful gust of their passing ripped from his grasp. With expert precision Regen dodged and weaved, winding himself between bewildered pedestrians that were bumped and jostled without a clue of what caused it. When the congestion of milling bodies on the sidewalk became too constricting, Regen veered into the street. His gait opened up, full gallop toward a taxi stopped for a red light. Ireland’s breath caught as they went airborne. Metal creaked, buckling the hood in a perfect horseshoe formation. A split second before they slammed into the windshield Regen tucked his front legs, catapulting them in high arc over the cab and its bewildered driver. Ireland couldn’t have stifled her giddy peel of laughter if she wanted to—and she had no desire to do anything of the sort.

Her momentary elation
was squashed by a chorus of screams and gasps up ahead. Standing up in her stirrups, Ireland craned her neck to see over the gathered crowd. A flash of dandelion yellow set her jaw firm, her palms itching for her weapons. Distance being the cruel bitch it was, Ireland could do nothing but watch a well-meaning man approach the ghoul with his hands raised to steady her.

“Now if not sooner, Reg,” Ireland urgently clucked just as the nightgown clad undead grabbed the man by both shoulders and
frisbeed him onto the hood of a passing car.

Cowering at the screeching brakes and panicked screams that followed, the violet
-eyed ghoul disappeared down the alleyway behind her. A spray of loose gravel kicked up under Regen’s hooves as he skidded to a stop at that same alley entrance, his unseen form blocking anyone else from entering. Kicking her leg over his head, Ireland dismounted. Her knees bent to absorb the impact. The second the soles of her boots hit the cement, her corporeal form rushed back. Toes to head in one broad sweep.

“Huh
? Guess it was you.” Ireland gave credit where it was due, in this case to her still invisible horse. 

A
ny frightened animal, with their hackles raised and lip curled in a menacing snarl, still couldn’t hide the fear boiling deep in the reflective pools of their gaze. The same could be said for the creature pacing before her. In life the girl must have been quite the hottie; with her delicate features, supple shape, and ethereal violet eyes. Unfortunately, no amount of skin cream or Botox could wipe away the tread marks where merciless time had stomped across her face in iron-spiked boots.

We could take our time with this one
, the Hessian purred from the dark recesses of Ireland’s mind, his demonic tremor husky with longing.
Imagine, playing with it here in the open. No one would say a word to stop us. Hell, girl, they may label us a hero for ridding the world of its existence.
 

Ireland filled her lungs to capacity and exhaled slowly
, snuffing out the desire that flared at his suggestion. The fluttering twitch beneath her left eye made the strain of her internal struggle visible. Still, she squared her shoulders and overcame it.

“You don’t fit the monster stereotype,” Ireland
pointed out, her fingers drumming against the hilt of her sword. “Maybe it’s the quiet contemplation angle you’re working. Although, I’m guessing the guy you flung into traffic would disagree.”

Full
lips, cracked and weathered by the abrasive sands of the hourglass, parted. The ghoul’s tongue struggled to force words passed her desiccated throat, “P-p-p.” Long, matted locks slapped against her cheeks as she shook her head in frustration and tried again, “P-p-Poe!” Victory brightened her eyes with bursts of silver sparks.

“As in Edgar Allen?”

Dipping her head, the ghoul nodded in a way that would’ve appeared demure if not contradicted by her morbid appearance. Again, she paced. Mostly likely feeling the need to move after centuries trapped in a coffin. Her bare feet cracked at the wear, brown ooze seeping from the wounds.

Ireland widened her stance
, a foreboding chill prickling down her spine. “And you would be—?”

T
he bewildered ghoul cocked her head, as if mystified by the question. “L-l-Len-o-ore,” she managed.

“Lenore?
You’re not quite as fictional as American Literature would have us believe.” Running her tongue over her top teeth, Ireland chose her next words very carefully. “I
really
hate to tell you this—especially since you seem to be having the mother of all bad centuries—but Edgar Allen Poe died over a hundred years ago.” 

Lenore’s indigo eyes narrowed, her hands curling into claws at her sides.

“Easy, blondie,” Ireland warned. One hand rose to halt the ghoul’s threatening advance, the other closing around the hilt of her sword. “Just to be clear, I had nothing to do with his death. Alcoholism was rumored to have played a part.”

A
n animalistic roar tore from Lenore’s throat as she charged with death steaming from her glare.

“I guess talk time is over
.” Unsheathing her blade, Ireland flipped it over the back of her hand before allowing it to nestle into her waiting palm. “Any way I can get you to reconsider this? We had a good thing going on here. We’re practically girlfriends.”

In place of a response, Lenore swiped
at Ireland’s core with yellow dagger-like nails.

A
spinning side-step landed Ireland safely out of the way, yet also invited in the red haze of malevolence that clouded the edges of her vision. “Look, I get you’re pissed,” she snarled through her teeth. “You’ve been in a box! But as far as New York real estate goes, it was surprisingly roomy.”

At the second vicious swing that winged passed her face, Ireland arched back
Matrix-style to avoid getting her nose pierced in the most unsanitary way. Black tendrils of madness crept up the back of her neck, urging her to give in and unleash the salivating beast just beneath the surface.

A pause.

A breath, as she waited for her conscious to weigh in with the moral implications. Only to hear … silence. The fingertip hold of control she clung to slipped away, that red veil descending before her eyes.

“
Ireland is ever the diplomat. Always talking, seeking the nonviolent methods.
” While it was her own throat that reverberated with the menacing growl, the booming voice belonged to another. The Hessian raised the sword before him, turning the blade to admire how it gleamed in the sunlight. “
But you’re not dealing with Ireland anymore
.”

Leaning to the side,
he kicked Lenore away with a well-executed boot to the mid-section. She stumbled back maybe four feet. Her nostrils flared, a deadly hiss seeped from her blackened teeth.

The very definition of casual nonchalance,
the Horseman flipped the blade over the back of his hand and caught it in the other with a liquid fluidity. “
Let’s have it then, beastie
,” he snarled, crouching into a battle ready stance.

A
sly smile curled across Lenore’s time ravaged face, her chin rising with a haughty indignation one wouldn’t expect a corpse to possess. She closed the distance between them with two wide, determined strides. Before the Hessian could plunge his blade, her hand closed around it. If she noticed the deep valleys that it sliced into her putrefied flesh, it failed to register. Instead, she yanked it free from his grasp, as if confiscating the favorite toy from a naughty toddler. His upper body spun for the axe, only to be caught by Lenore’s unrelenting grip to his throat. One hand, its flexing tendons visible through decomposing flesh, was all she needed to raise him high over her head.

“
No manners
,” she rasped and spiked him to the ground with bone rattling force.

Ireland’s head cracked against the unyielding pavement, jarring the Horseman’s essence into retreat. White starbursts danced before her eyes
, hot, sticky warmth trickled from the back of her head and soaked her hood. Blinking hard, she fought for sight in a suddenly blurry, warped world—a seemingly simple act that made her wince in agony. Instinctively, she raised one trembling hand. The axe shifted at her hip. Wiggling free, it winged from its holster—only to be intercepted by the hand of her hovering enemy.

“
Tsk, tsk, tsk
,” Lenore taunted, waving the lethal edge back and forth before Ireland’s tearing eyes.

“Well, shit,” Ireland mumbled weakly and let her hand fall
limp to her side.

Wind whistled passed the
axe blade as Lenore offhandedly flung it through the air, the strength behind her effort embedding it deep into the wall of the brick building beside them.

Ireland knew enough to know she
should
be bothered by this—or at the very least, vaguely concerned. However, as her world spun like a carnival ride around her, she couldn’t seem to muster the strength. She found her lone focus on a shimmer of silver that appeared overhead. A lone star visible in the impending darkness.  

As she watched
with hazy vision, that same star plummeted to the earth in a shower of twinkling lights, tearing through her core and pinning her to the ground. Electric shocks of pain shuddered and nipped through every nerve ending in her body. Choking on the gush of coppery warmth that bubbled up her throat and foamed over her lips, Ireland forced her heavy head from the ground to tip her chin to her chest. To her shock she found her own sword jutting from her gut. Regal and proud it stood, like the proverbial sword in the stone, with Lenore’s bony hand possessively clasped around the hilt.  The new power.
Victorious
.

A jumble of thoughts
and emotions slammed into Ireland all at once. Every pivotal experience of her twenty-four years taking its final bow. Pushing all of them aside, she gasped one final warning to the world, “
Horseman … won’t … die
.”

Violet eyes, brilliant as a neon marquee, swam over her. The once stunning corpse smiled warmly
, impossibly long lashes coquettishly brushing the tops of her grey pallor cheeks.

“
He
is life.” The head trauma could’ve been to blame, or perhaps the veil between life and death was retracting. Whatever the reason, Ireland suddenly had no problem understanding Lenore’s triumphant trill. “
You
are death. An unholy union that shall
never
be.”

Grinding the blade in deeper with a vicious twist of her wrist, L
enore severed the world’s tether to Ireland Crane.

12

Edgar

“
The torture is unbearable,” Edgar breathlessly gasped. “I beg you, my flower, if the love you have for me is true, please do not withhold relief a moment longer.”

“
Regretfully, I cannot.” Lenore giggled, her head tipping with pity. “I will not end your life, no matter how much you beg. This is a lesson you must learn on your own. That at a wedding cake tasting you
sample
each with a bite,
not
by devouring six full pieces of decadence.” 

“If our time together has taught you nothing else,
you should know self-control is
not
one of my stronger attributes.” Edgar offered her a playful wink that quickly morphed into a pained grimace.

“I’m sorry, love
. Here I am making light of your misery whilst you suffer. Shall I take you home and rub your belly like a mother would her constipated toddler?” Lenore hid her smirk by turning her shoulders to acknowledging the carriage driver with a polite nod as he hopped down from his seat to wrench the side door open for them.