Watcher: A raven paranormal romance (Crookshollow ravens Book 1) (4 page)

Please don’t let him get run over,
I prayed to whatever god was listening as I dashed back through the moving traffic.
I think Odin has something to do with ravens.
Odin, please help us both get out of this alive.

Now all the cars behind me were honking. The raven hopped back toward the curb, squawking at the top of its lungs. A cyclist raced around the corner, and the bird barely managed to jump out of the way in time.

Squawk!
The raven cried defiantly, raising a wing in the air and shaking it, almost as if it were expressing its indignation.

“What the fuck are you doing?” A driver called out as I stepped in front of him. Ignoring the honks and insults that were now pouring out of rolled-down windows, I lunged for the bird. He hopped out of the way at the last moment, limping directly into the path of another car.

“Just let me get my raven!” I cried to the driver, who slammed on the brakes just as I lunged for the bird again. This time, he flapped his wings and managed to hop a couple of feet into the air, hitting the car’s radiator before coming crashing down again. As he tumbled across the curb, I managed to grab him, push his wings down, and shove him back in the box.

“Why would you do that, you idiot!” I growled, as I held the box tightly. The raven cooed in reply. Traffic poured through the intersection, drivers holding their middle fingers out of the car windows as they hurtled past. My pounding heart slowed again. I was safe. The raven had lost a few more feathers, but was otherwise safe, too. Everything was OK.

I unlocked the shop, and went straight up the steps at the back of the kitchen to my apartment. Chairman Meow greeted me at the door in his usual way, by wrapping his fat, fluffy body around my ankles and rubbing his face merrily against my legs. He stopped mid-rub as he noticed the box in my hands. His eyes grew as big as saucers. He stood on his hind legs and tapped the side of the box.

CROAK!
The raven snapped back, flapping its working wing madly. The Chairman darted away. He hid behind the kitchen cabinet, his little nose twitching as he smelled the strange visitor I’d brought home. The raven flung itself madly in circles as it tried to hop out of the box again. Chairman Meow flattened his ears against the back of his head, and crouched low on the floor. This wasn’t going to end well.

“Sorry boy, he’s not for you.” I set the box on the table, picked up the Chairman by the scruff of his neck, and locked him in the bathroom. He raked his claws against the door, loudly protesting at my cruel treatment. How dare I deprive him of the most interesting thing to happen all week? He didn’t want to kill the raven. He just wanted to be
friends.

Which was probably true. Despite his name, Chairman Meow was a bit of a pacifist. He liked to chase butterflies around the alleyway out the back of the shop and watch the birds from the window, but he didn’t have much interest in killing anything. Which was somewhat annoying, since I’d bought him from Barry originally because I thought he’d help keep down the mouse population in the bakery. Instead, he liked to watch with saucer eyes from the top of the stairs while the mice made little white flour-trails across the kitchen below.

But the raven didn’t know that, and it was going crazy, flapping its wings and trying to leap out of the box. Blood splattered from the wound in its leg, and I could see a pool of blood in the box underneath it. I needed to clean the wound before I did anything else.

I dug out the first aid kit from the cupboard and set it down on the counter. With one hand, I held the raven down as gently as possible, while I cleaned off the dried blood caked around the wound in the raven’s leg. I noticed that black ring again. One of the local conservation groups must’ve been tagging the birds. I wondered if they’d come looking for him.

It was strange, but as soon as the raven saw me coming toward it with the swab, it relaxed. It was almost as if the bird knew I was trying to help it.

Sadly, I wasn’t sure how much I could do. Even after cleaning it, the wound looked pretty bad, and when I touched the skin around the cut, it felt hot.
Maybe I should take him to the vet after all?

But then I remembered my overdraft, and the fact that the cupboard was nearly empty and the only furniture in the room was an electric frying pan and a couch I’d found on the side of the road. I had 100 quid left to last me the rest of the month. Even the vet visit was going to be a stretch, never mind an after-hours fee.

“I’m sorry, little guy … or girl.” I told the bird. “It’s just your luck to be rescued by a hard-luck baker. But luckily, I have plenty of bread.”

The raven croaked a reply. I almost imagined it saying, “That’s OK. Now, tell me about this bread?”

I wrapped the raven’s leg with some gauze, and left it hopping around on the table while I went downstairs to my storage area. I found a larger cardboard box, poked some holes in the top to serve as air vents, and lined it with paper. Then, I filled a saucer with water, and another with torn up bits of brioche, a few chopped nuts, a dollop of peanut butter, and half an apple. I found an old dishcloth under the sink, and bundled that up in the corner, making a kind of nest.

“Here you go,” I set the box on the ground at the end of the couch and lowered the bird down into it. “I’m sorry it’s not the Ritz, but it’s got to be better than that tree in the park.”

The raven nodded his head in agreement. He hopped over to the water dish and took a drink. I knew that was a good sign. Then, to my astonishment, the bird pecked at the peanut butter, smearing a streak down the side of his beak. He looked up at me, his beady eyes focused on mine, and I swear he gave me a kind of grin.

“So you like peanut butter, huh?” I leaned over and added another dollop to his bowl, then I spread peanut butter on the other half of the apple. That wasn’t for the raven, but for myself. I sat down beside the box and chewed on the apple as I watched the bird explore his new surroundings. “So do I. I already like you better than my last boyfriend. He was allergic to nuts.”

The raven regarded me with those piercing brown eyes. It nodded its head slowly. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was agreeing with me.

* * *

N
ow that the
raven was safely in a proper box, I could let Chairman Meow out of the bathroom. He’d clawed a lovely long gash out of the moulding in his desperation to reach me, but as soon as I opened the door he jumped on top of the shower and started washing his paws, as if he couldn’t care less what was going on outside.
Cats.
There was no sense in trying to understand them.

I set the raven’s box on the stairs and kept an eye on him while I made batches of cookies, cupcakes and some chocolate eclairs for the following day. He let me feed him pieces of bread from my hand, and by the time I had finished he looked much healthier.

I glanced at my watch. 10:07pm. It was later than I liked to go to bed, but all the excitement with the raven had put me behind schedule. I still had food to prepare for tomorrow, but my eyes were already drooping, so I decided to just go to sleep.

I carried the raven back upstairs and set the box down beside the kitchen bench. I refreshed his water, and gave him another small lump of peanut butter. He seemed to have perked up a bit, and was even attempting to stand on his bad leg, albeit unsuccessfully. “You’ll be OK out here for the night,” I told him. “I’m going to shut Chairman Meow in the bedroom with me, so he won’t disturb you. And in the morning, I’ll take you to Barry and he should be able to fix you up good and proper.”

The raven squawked in reply, nodded its head, and settled into the dishcloth. He stared up at me with those wide eyes, and I could almost imagine him telling me, “Goodnight.”

Despite all my problems, for the first night in ages, I went to bed with a smile on my face.

W
ell
, this is an interesting development.

I paced around my large, dark box, my eyes having no trouble penetrating the gloom. I lifted my wing to examine my leg, and slid my beak over the feathers to remove a tiny bit of dried blood. She’d done a really great job cleaning it off. The wound no longer felt hot, now it just throbbed with a dull ache, which wasn’t nearly as bad as the pain caused by the glowing ring, but I could ignore even that for now.

I was alive. It was a miracle.
If things keep going my way, and that cat doesn’t eat me, I may just get out of here with my life.

I couldn’t believe I’d managed to escape from Pax and Poe. And now to end up here, warm and dry, and safe, with the woman I’d been fantasizing about all day … it was almost perfect.

The ache in my bones intensified. The ring around my wing seemed to shrink, constricting around me, reminding me that nothing could be perfect, not while I was a slave.

I hadn’t planned to go rogue. Nothing was prepared. I didn’t even know if Mikael would be able to find the witch … and until he did, I had no way to break the spell that bound me to Morchard. Or that would bind me to Gillespie come Sunday. This pain was just going to keep getting worse, until eventually it consumed me completely.

But I’d just … snapped. And now it was too late. I couldn’t go back. I
wouldn’t
. I would find a way to be free, or die trying.

I winced as my leg twinged. Pax really had cut me up bad. He was a good friend to have when he was on your side, but he was loyal to his master, which meant he was not someone I wanted to see again any time soon.

After Pax had sliced my leg, I’d landed hard on the ground. I’d been stunned for a few minutes, unable to move or even open my eyes. I thought for certain they would have found me and finished me off, but by some miracle I’d fallen straight through the thick foliage of an oak tree, and now that same tree had hidden me from view. As soon as I could move again, I’d dragged myself further under the tree root just as Pax, Poe and Byron had swooped down to hunt for my body.

So Byron had been around, no doubt hanging back while Pax and Poe brought me down. He always was a coward.

“I saw something splash in the water,” Byron had said to the others in caw-tongue. He’d sounded worried. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to direct them to give me up for dead, or if he really did think he’d seen me fall into the pond. Either way, I was grateful. I’d pulled myself as far under the root as I could get, and had tried to fold my body up as small as it could go.

They’d done several low passes through the park, scattering the ducks in their wake. Finally, I’d heard Pax call out. “You must be right. He’s in the water. He’s a goner.” And then they’d flown away, back to the castle to inform Morchard about my death.

I wasn’t dead, but my leg was bleeding quite badly and I knew it was only a matter of time before someone walked past with a big dumb dog off its leash and then I really
would
be a goner. So I’d called out for help, hoping I might be picked up by some well-meaning and dogless citizen.

And of all the people to rescue me, of all the people I could have unintentionally involved in this mess, it had to be
her
. The girl from the bakery with the sad eyes and the stunning body and the pale skin that looked so adorable when I made her blush.

She was beautiful, and she was clearly talented. That Heaven and Hell Cake looked like it belonged in the Louvre. But the bakery girl was so shy she couldn’t even react to my teasing. She just turned an adorable shade of red and completely shut down. She went for walks in the park by herself. She lived in a flat with no furniture. Something was clearly not right in her life, and she didn’t need someone like me hanging around. She didn’t need to be brought into my world, especially not now when it was so dangerous.

As much as I might need someone like her.

I gobbled up the last of the peanut butter, and started on the apple. I was lucky that in Bran form I didn’t need as much food to give me energy as in human form. I was going to need all the energy I could get just to keep moving through the pain.

The desire to stay and find out more about the mysterious bakery girl was overwhelming. But I had to get out of here, for
her
sake. She looked as if she couldn’t deal with any more tragedy in her life, and I would bring her nothing but woe.

I have to leave, and I have to do it now. Because if I see her again, I’m going to stay. And that would be very, very bad. And not just because she was planning to take me to a vet.

I closed my eyes, and started to change.

I
awoke
to a heavy thud in the living room. At first, I thought it must have been Chairman Meow knocking over the dishes I had precariously stacked beside the sink. But then I remembered Chairman Meow was still locked in my room, and I became aware of his heavy, snoring lump pressed against my leg.

Then I remembered the raven.
Maybe he’s knocked over the box, or he’s flown out somehow and set about breaking every last thing I own.
And since I barely owned anything now, I wanted to keep what little I did have intact. I swung my feet out of bed and groggily felt around for the light switch.

As I reached for the door handle, I heard a man curse.

My blood turned cold. There was someone else inside my apartment. I distinctly remembered locking the shop door before I’d gone to bed. The only way up to the apartment was the stairs at the back of the kitchen, unless you scaled the wall and had come in the bathroom window, which would be impossible unless you were Spiderman.

So how had this guy got in? And what did he want?

The last thing I needed was a break-in, but if this supervillain was just after money, why had he come up to the flat? One look at my shabby junk shop couch and chipped dishes and he would head across the road to rob the Kwik-e-Mart. Kwik-e-Mart owners were always rich.

Now I could hear someone moving around.

Fear paralysed me. My hand trembled against the handle. What if he wasn’t here for money? What if he knew I was a woman, living alone above a shop, on a street where hardly anyone else would be after dark? What if he had some other purpose in mind?

What should I do?
My days as a Girl Guide hadn’t prepared me for this.
I know, I’ll call the police.
I kept my phone by my bed. As quietly as possible, I tiptoed back toward my dresser—

—my foot caught on the Chairman’s belly. He howled in protest as I tumbled forward, flinging my hands out to save my fall. I landed heavily against the stack of plastic tubs I’d been using as a dresser, knocking my phone and several empty tea cups off in the process. These clattered against the floor, and the Chairman dodged through the raining ceramics, meowing at the top of his lungs that he’d just hopped down to help me investigate, and that was no reason to pelt him with crockery.

In the other room, the noise completely stopped.

Shit.

The intruder knew I was awake. If he heard me on the phone, I’d be one dead baker. I couldn’t call the police now. All that separated me from the assailant who could be carrying any of a number of terrible weapons was the flimsy door of my bedroom. A door I couldn’t even lock.

I was trapped. The only way out of the flat was in the other room. My bedroom had a single, narrow window, high on the wall, and even if I could loosen the ancient sash wide enough to fit through, it was a two-storey drop down to the street below. There was no conveniently-placed cart of straw or shop awning to save my fall, like there always was in the films.

If I waited for him to enter the bedroom, I’d be screwed. There was nowhere for me to hide. However, the living room had a few more obstacles: the couch, the sacks of flour, the cat trees. Instead of standing here like a frozen target, I’d be better to take my chances in the room beyond, hope that I can duck around him, maybe trip him up with a cat tree, and escape down the stairs before he caught me. It was a stupid plan, but it was the only plan I had. I hoped he didn’t have an accomplice waiting down in the shop.

I glanced around my room, hunting for something I could use as a weapon. My eyes fell on my umbrella propped up in the corner of the room. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. I grabbed it, lifted it above my head, and gripped the door handle with a trembling hand.

It was now or never.
I took a deep breath, and raised the umbrella behind my head, ready to strike. I pushed open the door.

The man was hunched over the couch, standing on one of the cushions and crouched down as if he were playing leap frog. He stared down at the box I’d been using to hold the raven, the cardboard now crushed and torn into large pieces that were strewn across the floor. My standing lamp had been overturned, and I could see long, jagged tears along the upholstery of the couch. The place looked as if a wild animal had been loose inside it.

Which I guess was exactly what had happened. This man didn’t seem to be a typical intruder, the kind you saw on crime shows with shifty eyes and a black hoodie. For starters, he appeared to be naked, his dark skin criss-crossed with intricate tattoos. His shoulders bulged with muscles, and his chest was sculpted like a male model. His face was obscured by a mane of long black hair, curling into ringlets at the ends. As he turned toward me, his piercing eyes met mine.

“You?” I cried in disbelief as I recognised him. It was the man from the bakery, the hot biker bad boy who’d flirted with me and had bought the Heaven and Hell cake. The man who didn’t ask me out, but who had been playing on my mind ever since I’d lain eyes on him. Of all the people I expected to find in my flat, he was not one of them.

He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a strange croak. He looked lost, confused, as if he desperately wanted to explain something but didn’t know where to begin.

“Is this what all the flirting was about?” I snapped, inching my way into the room and along the wall, trying to close the distance between myself and the door. “You were distracting me while you cased the joint? Looking for where I hid my safe? My big flour sacks with dollar signs painted on them?”

“While I was … casing the joint?” The naked biker finally found his voice, and it was still that deep, gravelly, incredibly sexy voice, although now it was dripping with confusion. He held up his hands, showing that he wasn’t carrying a weapon. And I couldn’t see a knife or gun strapped to his, ah, naked body. “Um … I know this looks bad, but I can explain—”

Chairman Meow chose that exact moment to shoot out between my two legs, leap up on to the arm of the couch, pull back his ears and hiss at the stranger. The cat’s back arched and his fur fluffed up as if he’d stuck his tail into a power outlet. I’d never seen him look like that before.

“Woah!” The man held up his hands as the Chairman swiped at his wrist with his claws. “Easy there, boy!”

“Don’t touch him!” I cried out, terrified this guy might be some kind of deranged cat killer.

“I won’t, I won’t, I’m sorry.” The guy slid back along the couch. As he did this, his legs moved and I got quite an eyeful of … everything. And there was quite a lot of it to eye. He was the most well-endowed criminal I’d ever encountered, and I’d had more than the usual exposure to criminal types.

“Just ... stay there and don’t move.” I jerked the end of my umbrella in his direction, as I moved closer to the stairs. “I won’t call the police or anything, I’d just appreciate it if you left.”

“You know, you make one hell of a cake. I haven’t been able to get you … I mean, it … off my mind all day.” He flashed me that heart-melting, devil-may-care smile. But this time, I didn’t find it sexy, I found it terrifying. Had he been following me, waiting under the window until he saw the lights go out? “Look, I’m not here to hurt you. You weren’t even supposed to see me like this. It’s all a bit of a mistake—”

“Are you here to rape me?” I asked, startled by the crassness of my question. “Because just so you know, I intend to put up a fight. I know karate.”

I didn’t, but he didn’t have to know that. People thought all Asians knew karate, and I was happy to play on the stereotype if it would save my ass.

His eyes flashed. “Of course not. I’d never touch you, unless you wanted me to.”

“Hey,
you
can’t get offended. You’re the one sitting naked in my apartment in the middle of the night.” Suddenly, realisation dawned. I groaned. How could I have been so stupid not to see it? “Let me guess, you’re high, right? You have the munchies and you thought you’d break in and try to steal some pastries? You needed money to pay for your next hit? Well, you’re going to be very disappointed when you open the till.”

“That’s not it.” The man held out both hands, palms up. “Please, I can explain. Just stop talking for a second so I can get the words out.”

“Fine, but you’d better start explaining.” I adjusted my grip on the umbrella. “Or I’ll start swinging.”

“And you know karate, right?” The man shot me that adorable grin. “Is that an umbrella? What were you going to do, poke me to death?”

“Look, you’re the one who broke into my house, so if you’re going to mock my choice of defensive weapon, you can bloody well pack up and leave.”’

“I didn’t break in,” he said simply. “You brought me here. And now I
can’t
leave, because I need your help, and also because I’m not wearing pants.”

I snorted. “Excuse me? You came in here because you want
my
help? You’re not making any sense.”

“You went to the park today, after you closed your shop.” He stood up, gripping the edge of the couch as if he were struggling to stand. It was then that I noticed a long, bloody gash across his thigh. The wound looked clean, as though it had been done hours ago, but ugly. No wonder he was struggling to stand up.

He winced as he touched the black ring around his index finger, then turned to face me completely, steadying himself on the kitchen bench, giving me a full view of his sculpted body. Across his chest, arms, thighs and back were stunning tattoos, the most beautiful of which was a black raven in flight across his chest, the wings unfurled and the head pointing to the heavens. I gulped, then nodded, trying not to let my gaze wander from his face. “You picked up an injured raven, and brought it back here. You talked to it, gave it food, and kept it safe from
that
monster,” he glared at the Chairman, who was now curled up in the corner, licking his bottom. “Am I right so far?”

“So you
were
stalking me?”

“No. I am that injured raven.”

I snorted. What an absurd thing to say. He was clearly a grown man. A grown, naked, tattoo, hot, delusional man. He was mentally unstable. He was dangerous.

“It’s true. I know it sounds insane, but you have to believe me. It’s how I know you love peanut butter, but your last boyfriend was allergic to nuts.”

I thought about what he’d said. The broken cage, the way he seemed to know all the things I’d said to the bird, when there was no one else close by. The raven had a damaged leg, and this man had a nasty wound on the same leg. The fact that the raven wasn’t anywhere to be seen ...

“I don’t believe you,” I said, but my words came out sounding more unsure than I’d intended.

‘What other explanation is there?” Hot Biker gave me a tentative grin. “Can we just skip past the bit where I explain everything in detail for now? I need you to put down the umbrella and listen to me.”

“Yeah right. I put this down and you ravish me.”

“For the last time, I would never.” He grinned. “Unless you like being ravished. I know I’d enjoy it very much.”

My heart hammered against my chest. Goddamn, that grin was intoxicating. I leaned the umbrella up against the wall, and took a small step away from it, making sure I could still lean over and reach it if I needed. “There,” I said. “Now, could you sit down, and cover yourself with something? I need to focus.”

“Ah, so you
were
looking.” He looked relieved as he plopped down on the sofa, and used a cushion to cover his crotch.

I wanted to deny it, but I figured there was no use. My head felt dizzy. I couldn’t believe I was even entertaining listening to what this guy had to say. It was that smile, it made me do things I wouldn’t normally do.
I bet a lot of women did things they wouldn’t normally do, for that smile.
“Just explain to me what all this is about, and explain carefully, because I have had a long day and I am very tired.”

“My name is Cole Erikson, and I am a Bran.” he said. “That is a shapeshifter: a human that can turn into a raven. We’re a very old species, maybe even older than humans, although our numbers are dwindling now. For centuries we’ve lived in secret in England, bound to stay here to protect the Empire. For a Bran is not a free creature: he or she is born a servant in a powerful family. Our duty is to spy for our masters, to patrol their land, to deliver messages, to send warnings, and upon their death, to facilitate the journey of their souls into the underworld.”

I remembered a visit to the Tower of London with my mother, from when I was much younger. She and I sat in the courtyard and fed the ravens bread from our ham sandwiches. One of the guides had told me that if the tower ravens were to be lost or fly away, then the crown would fall, and Britain along with it. At the time I thought it was just a story they told tourists, but listening to Cole, I wasn’t so sure.

“Which family do you belong to?” I asked, wondering if he had royal connections. Maybe if I helped him, he could get the Queen to wipe all my debt. Now
that
would almost compel me to forgive him for the home invasion.

“The Morchards,” he answered. “The oldest and richest noble family in Loamshire County. They live on the Morchard Estate, about twenty miles northeast of the village.”

“I know that place,” I said. “We used to go on school trips to look at the castle. They have a whole wing set up with medieval scenes and wax figures from Madame Tussauds. And there’s a—”

“—trebuchet in the courtyard. I know.” Cole sighed. “Victor Morchard is quite fond of his family’s brutal past. He can trace his family history back to the Norman kings. They’ve held that castle in their possession since the tenth century. There’s some fine examples of gargoyles carved by French artists—”

“You didn’t strike me as an architecture buff.”

“It’s part of the business.” Cole said. “When you’re a raven, you spend a lot of time perching on things. You tend to develop a bit of snobbery about architraves and gargoyles.”

“I see. So let’s say I believe that you’re a man who can change into a bird; why do you need my help?”

Cole pointed to his leg. “I thought it was obvious. I can’t go back there. I need a place to crash, and they wouldn’t think to look for me here.”