Chapter 34

“What are you doing in this form again?”

His muscular fingers gripped the raven body tightly, not letting it escape even when it flapped its wings and threw itself around. I had mentally retreated. I was seeing someone I shouldn’t be seeing and breaking a vow to Kris. I had unknowingly gone looking for and found his brother.

There was something else to this panic though. Something that my body felt as a memory but my mind had locked away from me. I had seen him before and I didn’t think that it was just from the vision I had had when I drank Kris’ blood. It felt different. It felt like a betrayal.

“Just kill it and get rid of it, Blayne,” someone complained from behind him. “It probably has a disease.”

He smiled dangerously down at me. “Oh, not this one. She’s a special bird,” he muttered.

Goosebumps rolled over me like an ocean wave.

Who was he to me?

What wasn’t I remembering?

“What are you going to do with it then? Keep it as a pet?”

The man holding me smiled dangerously again. “I might. It would save me a whole lot of trouble keeping track of her.”

I raked my brain to try to come up with any reason I could know this man and whether or not he was dangerous. I knew that Kris thought he was dangerous but I didn’t know why and I didn’t know how to get out of the situation I was currently in. He was taking me somewhere and that was the most important thing to focus on at that moment.

I looked around while the raven had us hanging over upside down in his hold. I could see that most of this lower level of the building had been cleared away to leave a dirt floor but there was also a ramp to a lower level at one side of the building. The dirt held traces of what looked like a fight but they were covering the blood stain with fresh sand and running a rake over everything to get rid of the footprints.

To the opposite side of the building, there was a set of wooden risers behind a metal fence. I assumed that this was where the audience would sit to watch the fight but there was something odd at the bottom of the fence. Some kind of box with wires that wrapped around a corner of the fence. It wasn’t until we got closer to it that I heard the buzz of electricity coming from the fence.

“Fix the canopy so we don’t have any other birds trying to come in here for their dinner. We don’t need Orin mad at us for causing a swarm of vampire ravens or something stupid like that,” the man holding me ordered before he took me through a large metal door.

“You’re not going to help?” someone complained behind us.

The man didn’t stop or even say anything to reply. He just kept walking into an office space after a few turns down a hallway. He shut the door behind him and secured the window before letting me go onto the desk. He sat down and we stared at each other for a moment.

“Did my brother send you to spy on me?”

The raven didn’t respond or move. We just continued to watch him.

“Don’t play stupid with me. I know who you are and I know what you are. Did my brother send you to spy on me?”

The raven negated with a turn of our head.

“Does he know that I’m in London?”

The raven nodded carefully.

The man watched the raven for a long silent moment before speaking again. “Do you remember me, Raven?”

The raven negated for me then the man was pushing his way into my mental space. I tried to keep him out but I wasn’t strong enough.

“Stop fighting me. I’m not here to hurt you. I just wanted to have an actual conversation instead of speaking to a bird.”

“Kris will find you,” I tried nervously as I backed away from him.

“Maybe someday but not today. He’s not quick enough, but I’m more interested in how you got yourself to become a raven again.”

His tone was strange. It sounded for a moment like he cared about me but I was too scared to ask him questions. I just wanted him to stop pushing through my mental protections as if they were made of paper.

Then he crossed the mental space too fast for me to comprehend and took my wrist then tried to put a hand on my head but missed. I fought him with the training I had learned from Kris but in a flurry of movement, he suddenly had me pinned to the ground.

“You don’t have to make this difficult, Raven. I’m not going to hurt you unless you make me,” he grumbled as I fought him.

“What are you doing?” I finally managed to shout at him as I caught my breath.

“I’m just going to access your memories. If you stopped fighting I could show you.”

“I don’t want you in my head!” I screamed using as much magic as I could produce behind my words and managing to send him out beyond my mental space and back into his own mind. Unfortunately, this show of power was too much for the little energy I had in my human form and took some from the raven as well. It took enough that the bird wobbled a little on the table and only stayed upright by holding its wings out to either side of its body.

He smiled past the surprise on his face as the raven watched him.

“Oh, bravo, kiddo. You’ve been paying attention in your training,” he laughed.

I was confused but too weak to do anything more. He just sat there looking like a super villain in a bad movie as I slowly lost consciousness and the raven sank over sideways on the table.