Page 14 of The Raven

Regret Was A Wound That Cut Deep

The Cop

The feeling of being watched cascaded through me. I cracked my eyes open, grinning sleepily at finding Raven next to me, propped up on an elbow as she watched me sleep.

She’d covered herself up with one of my shirts that swamped her toned frame, but she looked fucking edible in my clothes.

“You’re still here,” I said, resting my head on my hand and copying her pose.

“Even ghosts need a rest,” she replied, her tone void of any emotion.

I sighed and scrubbed a hand down my face, waking myself up. “You have questions.”

I knew she would. After she realized that we knew each other aside from the night she was taken from me, I knew I’d be faced with a barrage of questions. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy to answer them, I wanted her to remember our past.

More than I cared to admit.

“Were we friends? I keep getting flashes of images in my head, and I think it’s us when we were younger,” she asked delicately, almost as if she were scared to ask.

I reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, something I always used to do just as an excuse to touch her. “We were more than that.”

“Boyfriend and girlfriend?”

I shook my head. “Soul mates.”

A pang of anguish stabbed me in the heart. Raven had been my first and only love. I used to tell my parents that I loved her from the very first day I met her, when she was five and I was seven, and we moved into the house next door to Raven and her mom.

I loved her even though she gave her love to Eric.

I loved her even when the Vipers took her from me.

And beyond.

“You left,” she said, bringing me out of painful childhood memories.

It wasn’t an accusation; she was simply stating the facts. I did leave her, not that it was my choice.

“My dad was an FBI agent. Still is. We moved frequently depending on what role he was doing and where he was posted. Our home in Hadleigh Peak was the only place we stayed for longer than a few years,” I replied, remembering the moment my dad had told me we were relocating to England.

I loved my father, my mom, too, for that matter, and I’d never once shown an ounce of disrespect, until that day when he dropped the bombshell. I screamed, shouted, told him that I would never forgive him if he made me leave Raven. Nothing I said or did changed his mind.

“In one of the images I saw, you said that it was your fault, and that you were too late. What happened?” she asked, her eyes shining with desperation to uncover the truth.

I deliberated for a few seconds. Lying would hurt me. Telling the truth would hurt us both. But I couldn’t lie to her; she deserved to know the truth, and given that I still had no fucking clue how she was here to begin with, I suspected we were on borrowed time. I had to give her my honesty.

“Are you sure you want to know?” I asked, a little part of me hoping she’d change her mind, a bigger part hoping she wouldn’t.

Her eyes widened, but she slowly nodded her head.

I swallowed. “Can you do that thing with your hands where you see inside my head? It might be better if I show you.”

It was the coward’s way. I should have spoken the truth, but there was too much to say; showing her was the only way I could make her understand everything. Without saying a word, she raised her hands and placed them against my temples. I closed my eyes and allowed the memories to flow.

“Mason!” a high-pitched voice squeals. “You’re scaring me!”

I chase my little bird through the field at the back of our house, something I’ve done often since we moved in next door. Her giggles echo into the warm, sunny air, and my mouth tugs into an enormous grin, the one only Raven pulls out from me.

“Caught you, Blackbird!” I laugh as I grab her around the waist and the two of us tumble into the long grass.

We both laugh and pant as we lie looking up at the blue sky. When our giggles subside, Raven turns to face me. “Why do you call me Blackbird? My name’s Raven.”

I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She never wears her long black hair in a tie, and strands always fly into her face. “Everyone calls you Raven. I want to call you something that means something to me, and only me.”

A smile lifts her lips. “I like that. I want to call you something different.”

“What do you want to call me?”

She thinks about it for a moment, her cute brows furrowed. She’ll turn ten next week, and she’s been my best friend for the last five years. I always boss her around, though, because I’m two years older, and she has to listen to what I say.

“Mase,” she declares.

“Mase? That’s not a nickname,” I reply, pretending to be offended that she hasn’t been more creative.

She lifts a shoulder. “It’s my nickname for you. And you have to promise me that no one else will ever call you it.”

I roll my eyes, even though I secretly like it. My mom and dad have always insisted that my name is Mason, and it shouldn’t be abbreviated in any way. It’s like this will be mine and Raven’s little secret.

“Pinky promise,” I reply, holding my little finger out. She locks her little finger around it, and we shake.

The memory in my head changed to two years later.

“He scares me, Mase. He looks at me like he wants to kill me, and he hates it when his dad shows me any kind of affection,” Raven says, snuggling into my side.

I plant a kiss on the top of her head as I hold her tighter to me, hating that she’s scared of her new stepbrother, but I can’t say I blame her. He’s a scary fucker.

“Grim won’t hurt you, Blackbird,” I reply, wanting to reassure her. Who names their kid Grim, anyway? “I won’t let him hurt you, I promise.”

She meets my gaze and brings her mouth to mine, where our lips lightly press together. Raven has been my girlfriend for a year now, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of kissing her lips.

So much for promising not to let Grim hurt her. Another promise I failed on.

Once again, I allowed the memory to shift.

Tears streak down Raven’s face as the car pulls out of our shared driveway. My heart cracks down the middle as she grows smaller the further away we get. I want to tell my dad to stop the car and refuse to go with him and my mom, but I know he won’t listen to me.

Behind Raven, Grim watches from the porch, a calculating look on his face. Who’s going to protect her from him if I’m not there? Who’s going to comfort her when he torments her? I hate my father for tearing us apart, and I hope beyond hope that Raven believes the promise that I made to her.

One way or another, I will come back for her.

Raven is mine.

Our souls belong together.

I let my mind gloss over the memories of the years we were separated. There was no point showing her those. We were apart, and nothing would change the past.

We wrote to each other to begin with, but over time, letters became infrequent. Life took over. I went to the police academy, Raven trained to be a florist, and opened her own shop.

I should have returned the second I was done with training, but it wasn’t as simple as that. My career took me in a different direction until the opportunity arose for me to return.

By then, she’d met Eric.

Recalling the memory of when I returned to Hadleigh Peak years later, I let the memory play.

As soon as I’ve introduced myself at the police station and dropped all my shit off, I head for Blackbird’s Bouquet, the flower shop Raven owns.

I smile at the name and try not to let myself get excited at her reaction when she sees I’ve come back for her, just like I promised.

It’s been twelve years since I left, since we last saw each other in the flesh, but deep down, I know time and distance hasn’t ruined what we had.

I park my car, and I’m about to get out and head inside when she steps out from the shop.

My breath catches. She’s even more beautiful than I remembered.

Her long, black hair flows down her back, almost reaching her ass, and her gorgeous eyes sparkle with happiness.

She’s grown into a stunning woman with a shapely figure, and I’m overwhelmed with the need to run to her and pull her into my arms.

Until a man steps behind her and wraps his arms around her waist, leaning down to kiss her neck. He’s a good-looking man, with black hair like Raven’s, and long enough to tie into a bun. Light smatterings of facial hair covers his strong jawline, and he wears an affectionate smile on his face.

She spins around and reaches up to wrap her arms around his neck, pulling him down so his mouth meets hers. An arrow shoots me in the chest, and before I let her see me, I put the car in drive and get the fuck outta there.

Raven pulled her hands away, a mixture of emotions playing out on her face. She didn’t speak, just gaped at me as if she were replaying everything I’d shown her.

“Say something,” I said when the tension became too much.

“You came back,” she replied, anguish lacing her tone.

I nodded. “I promised I would.”

“That’s why you said you were too late. I’d met Eric by the time you returned.”

It was my turn to nod as the words lodged in my throat. I rarely regretted things in my life; regret was a wound that cut deep if you let it, but the regret I held for not returning to Hadleigh Peak sooner was a wound that would never heal.

A tear slid down Raven’s cheek. I reached out and brushed it away with my thumb, the need to touch her again all-consuming. If our time was running out, I wanted to take every opportunity to touch her.

Kiss her.

Tell her how much I fucking loved her before it was too late.

“But you stayed in town?” she eventually said, after a few moments of tense silence, the air crackling between us.