Page 103 of White Raven (Nevermore Duet #2)

Athan glanced back at Sarah, who dabbed her eye with a tissue as she smiled, and dipped her chin.

He took a red rose—blood red. His hand remained flattened against the casket and for a short moment, all the images of being locked inside a casket in Baltimore flashed through his mind.

There wasn’t hell raging under this lid.

There was peace. His captain would never suffer through anything again, and somewhere up there, he had to know how loved and respected he was.

“Thank you, sir…” Athan whispered, saluting him.

His hand swiped out, and he returned it to his side as he made his way back to his chair.

The branches of a tree that towered over the funeral tent knocked together as a gentle breeze washed through the congregation, and as he joined his partner, and his comrades… he could swear he felt him answer.

The pipers replayed a single verse as the casket was lowered into the vault.

Every person…human and otherwise…remained still and silent until the very end.

With Sarah latched onto his arm afterward, they all mingled with old colleagues, and he introduced her around, making small conversation with this person, and that person.

Rhaena finally decided that she couldn’t take anymore and prompted them all to start wrapping it up.

Foster approached him, with Sykes and Leigh.

“I can only hope to have at least one soul at my funeral if the time ever comes,” she smiled. She looked nice, too. Sarah snorted, and shoved her in her shoulder.

“I’ll come. If for no other purpose than to make sure they add a few nails.”

“Yeah, well…don’t forget to dance. I might have to come back and haunt you,” Foster grinned. “Hell of a service, detective. He’d be proud.”

“You know,” Sykes said, staring off at Foley’s fresh grave. “I’ve never actually been to a funeral before. You guys set the bar pretty high.” Sarah scoffed, and clutched Athan’s arm.

“The first one, you watched like a creep from across the street. The second, you conducted all by yourself.” Her tone was harsh, but Sykes accepted it with grace. She raised her eyes apologetically to Athan.

“I really am sorry. After all that’s been said and done…I really appreciate the invitation, Kane.”

Athan smirked at her. “I didn’t extend it. That was your cousin.”

Foster nodded towards Athan, urging Sykes to tell him something. Ryan smiled. “Dear cousin, Rhaena…is trusting me to take Ashina back to the west coast. We leave tomorrow with Foster, and the team. Rhaena would like me to ah…‘feed her to the wolves’.”

“Guess you don’t have much of a choice now, do you?” Sarah asked.

Ryan shook her head. “Nope. And I’m happy to do it.

Without an elaborate explanation, I’ve basically become her second in command.

She’s gonna lead her own kind of pack…I’ll take care of our people out west. I promise not to be a thorn in your side ever again.

” Ryan’s lips turned up cunningly in the corner, and she wagged a brow.

“Although, I’ll miss the hell out of the elaborate peep show you two put on in that apartment. ”

“Jesus, Sykes,” Foster griped, rolling her eyes, and tugging her by the sleeve. Ryan grinned, winking at them, and nodded towards Leigh, who stayed back a moment longer.

“This is what you want, Leigh?” Sarah asked. Leigh’s head hung sadly, but she smiled anyway as she raised her eyes to them both.

“I love her, Sarah. I know I don’t need to ask if you understand.

I talked to Wren about it. She’s left her door open to me if anything ever changes…

I just don’t think it will. Sarah, you know what it feels like to be the outcast. We were all outcasts together…

you and Wren found your place. This is mine. ”

“The band of misfits,” Athan smirked. Leigh nodded.

“I’ve done enough damage here. I need a fresh start somewhere else. I hope you guys understand, and…I’m never gonna forget Malcolm Foley. I’m so sorry, Detective Kane.”

Athan extended a gloved hand, and Leigh hesitated, looking him over with a confused expression before guardedly taking it.

They shook firmly. “You were never supposed to be in the middle, Leigh. I knew my captain. He’d never see it as anything other than an accident, and even if it weren’t…

he’d gladly die to protect and serve. That’s what we swore our lives to.

There’s nothing to forgive.” A rogue tear flew down Leigh’s cheek, and she gently smiled through it, lip quivering. “Go chase life, kid .”

Sarah glanced up at him, and the sad smile she wore bled everything she felt for him.

“Always misfits?” Leigh asked.

“Always,” he smirked.

Her pink hair blew in the light breeze as she disappeared into the throng of leftover mourners. Rhaena crept up in her place, holding Foley’s flag close to her chest. “Ready to go?”

“Not yet,” Brandon interrupted, carrying a bottle of scotch Foley kept in his desk, and four short glasses. “Something we gotta do first, guys.”

“What about Wren and Brent?” Sarah asked.

Rhaena tilted her head towards the other side of the cemetery. “They went to go visit Brent’s mom. Said they’ll meet us at the house.”

The four of them stood around a mountain of fresh flowers, and stared at their captain’s military portrait, each with a glass in their hand.

“Everything’s about to change, now…isn’t it?” Rhaena choked. No one said anything, and Brandon put a hand on Rhaena’s shoulder, raising his glass toward the portrait.

“To our captain.”

Rhaena raised hers next. “To my true father. My friend. My alpha.”

Sarah raised hers. “To the protector of our deepest secrets.”

Athan thought back to all the years he’d served under this man.

To all the moments he cowered under his stare, even being a vampire.

To clinking glasses after hard cases and catching eyes through mini-blinds in an office that now sat empty.

To empty sugar containers, and coffee pots.

To every memory he was about to leave behind to start his future.

The good and the bad. He raised his glass.

“To damning glares, and squeaky chairs,” he smiled. They all chuckled as they clinked their glasses together and downed the shots.

Everything was about to change.

The sun was beginning to set.

She was so young the last time she vaguely remembered seeing the parade of flashing lights escorting her mother to the cemetery.

Didn’t even understand at the time exactly what was going on.

It’s a memory that Brynn Trainor was happy to remain a blur in the back of her mind.

Time had stood still in Boston today as Malcolm Foley’s body traveled to his place of rest. A rest she’d once hoped would be fitful, and weary…

until she’d taken Detective Northwood’s advice against her father’s wishes and spent a few hours in that storage unit digging up all her mother’s dirty secrets.

Brynn had spent most of her adolescent life determined to avenge her mother and bury everyone responsible under the law for everything she’d lost when she died.

She blamed the world for the way she was forced to grow up…

raised by a jaded widower, who was too angry and bitter to teach her to be anything but.

He’d been wrong.

Foley might have been wrong too, but only in the sense that he let his feelings for his partner go too far…

and in the end it didn’t even matter. Northwood was right.

She was a traitor. And Brynn wasn’t sure she wanted to know all the details of every blotted-out portion of all these reports.

What she’d seen in that detective’s eyes on the porch that day had said enough.

If Lindsay Trainor had lived and learned from her mistakes, she’d be doing her best to keep her daughter from doing the same.

At least Brynn hoped that would be the case.

She decided to take Northwood’s advice, now that she knew the truth.

To be on the right side of the law. To make something of herself, and not ruin the rest of her life, caught up with bitterness over something she’d never fully understand.

No matter what these people truly were…Brynn was human.

So was her mother. It was all a huge mistake.

Foley didn’t deserve to die.

And he didn’t deserve to die thinking that the only piece left of a woman he loved…

a woman who’d betrayed him…hated his guts.

As Brynn stood at her mother’s grave, she stared at a heap of long-dead flowers, with a small American flag still clinging to the middle.

Every year, someone had placed a very expensive arrangement with the same tiny flag, around Thanksgiving.

It wasn’t until now that Brynn realized… there wouldn’t be another.

She held a fresh bouquet in her hands and knelt down to pluck the flag from the withered bunch.

As she stood, and looked across the cemetery, a dark blue tent flapped in the wind.

Brynn started making her way toward it and apologized silently to the fallen captain through every step.

It must have been a grand service. Now it was eerily quiet, and cold.

She recalled the way Foley looked when she’d hit him in the front yard weeks ago.

He wasn’t even angry. He seemed— proud .

It suddenly felt like a blow to the chest.

It was all just a huge mistake.

Her eyes filled up with tears, and her throat hurt as she laid the bouquet down against his impressive display of flowers. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, letting the tears fall. She tucked the small flag among the arrangement. “Thank you…for loving her. I’ll make this right, okay?”

Brynn sniffled and swiped beneath her eye as she stood…and this time, instead of sneering at the captain, she smiled back at his grave as she whispered goodbye.