Page 20 of White Raven (Nevermore Duet #2)

“First of all, this is news to me, too. And second, just because none of us can reach your new friend, doesn’t mean that I’m the reason she’s not here. I’d appreciate it, Captain , if you’d stop throwing unnecessary accusations in my direction.”

The captain winced at the way she addressed him. They all raised to stand. Foley lowered his voice. “What’s going on, Rhaena?” he asked, looking almost hurt.

“There is something we need to discuss, but it’ll have to be later.

I’ve got a case to solve.” Rhaena turned away from him and faced the medical examiner.

“Can you send the reports directly to me when you get the body back to the lab?” The M.E.

nodded as his team lowered a gurney down the steps and unfolded a body bag.

“I’d like to be included in that. Forward them to me as well, please.” Foley gave a pointed look at the M.E. and then at Rhaena. She turned on her heel.

“Why?”

“Because this is my precinct. And I’m still your boss. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t have these reports the same time you do, detective?” he asked with a tone. Brandon bristled, turning away and heading up the steps. Rhaena narrowed her eyes, and a staring competition started between them.

“No,” she smirked. “Can’t think of anything.

” She squared her shoulders and straightened her spine, following Brandon out.

It seemed odd, after what they’d been through, and what Foley knew they learned about him…

while also being patched up in her own apartment and keeping the secret of his involvement at the Stratford mansion, that there would be this much tension between them.

Foster had covered their asses beyond comprehension with the last case, and one would think that Rhaena and her captain would be happier knowing they weren’t alone in the world.

So why did it feel like the opposite?

A light flurry of snow had started falling outside the entrance to the subway, and Rhaena threw her hood up over her head as she ducked under the tape to leave. Her eyes caught sight of a man’s foot on her way out. He was sitting against the outside wall. One foot was bare, and filthy…the other…

“Umm…excuse me.” She looked around, seeing no one really paying much attention to any of the cold, hungry people.

The man raised his face, his knotted beard catching a worn zipper on his tattered jacket.

She knelt down in front of him. “Is there any chance I can buy that from you?” Her slender finger pointed at the black high-heeled shoe on his opposite foot.

He didn’t answer, the only reply a blank, misplaced stare.

Rhaena looked at the few others sitting and standing around him.

“I don’t suppose any of you have a warm place other than this shithole to sleep in tonight? ”

Not a word from any of them.

Rhaena pulled her wallet from her pocket and dug out a couple hundred in cash.

All eyes were on her then. “Hey! Rookie!” she waved, summoning one of the uniforms. He jogged over towards her.

“Take this and get these people into the closest motel with heat. Make sure they have something to eat as well.”

“You got it.” He accepted the cash, and Rhaena turned to walk back to the truck. Someone tugged on the leg of her pants. When she looked back, the man held up Sarah’s heel. She glanced around to make sure no one noticed the exchange and took it, nodding back at him with a smile.

“Thank you.”

Brandon whistled from across the alley and threw his hands up impatiently. Rhaena stuffed the shoe under her coat and hurried over toward him.

What had she done?

Sarah’s eyes stared off at the wall opposite her bed, wrapped in her old blanket that she toted from every place she ever called home.

Her mind flashed back to the pain of Athan’s attack.

The searing agony that wrenched up her neck.

The terrifying feeling of knowing you were about to die, and not having any idea why…

or from what. That man may have been a bum…

but he was a human being. He didn’t deserve that kind of end.

She could barely make out the small parts where her soul ripped through the chaos to try and speak, and all that she could manage were lines to that poem.

All she could connect with was—her gaze shot to her right—by the window to the cage that sat empty… and wide open.

“Athan…” Her voice was hoarse. Her heart ached. Athan turned from the kitchen, walking towards her with two mugs of coffee and a cigarette in his mouth. “I’m not insane. Poe was there, wasn’t he?”

He handed her a mug and drew the cigarette between his tattooed fingers as he lowered himself to the edge of the bed beside her. “Yeah, he was.” A frustrated cloud of smoke blew through his nose, and he dragged a hand through his damp hair.

“What the hell happened out there? Is this what it was like for you? The night that…”

He swallowed and nodded, refusing to meet her eyes.

“The night I lost control with you. I told you I should have left. After I saw you at the club, knowing that it could take me any second, I should have gone straight to the prison. Or practically anywhere else other than that alley. There’s nothing you can do, and it got hold of you fast. I didn’t have much choice once I figured out what was happening to you…

you’re right to hate me for it. But I figured that if it was gonna happen, then I could limit the death to someone who likely wouldn’t know the difference, was already suffering, or—”

“I don’t hate you, Athan.”

He raised his face to look at her and the sorrow in those eyes matched her own. “I’m so sorry I did this to you, Sarah.”

“But you didn’t.” The denial and the confusion on his face spoke volumes.

“You may have turned me, but I told you to do that. I was already part vampire before I fed from you. You didn’t do this to me.

He did this to me. Whether he meant to or not, I think eventually… I’d become what you are. What we are.”

“Your blood. I thought your blood would protect you from this. The life you gave me…I shouldn’t have assumed that you couldn’t fall victim to bloodlust. We don’t know anything about the kind of vampire you are, Sarah.

This attack tonight? While it likely would have happened anyway, I should have been more prepared in case this was ever a possibility.

You need to at least let me take responsibility for that. ”

Sarah sighed, pulling her mug close to her chest. “If you need it, then take it. But I killed him. Not you.”

“I may as well have.”

She stared off again, lowering her brows and tapping the rim of the mug with her thumb. “May as well have…” she whispered. He leaned closer.

“What is it?”

She peered up at him, narrowing her eyes. “You took something. I feel like I remember you taking something from him when we dipped out.”

His jaw tightened. “I did.”

“You took it for that junk drawer?”

“It’s not a junk drawer, love. It’s a fucking cemetery. The only way I can think to honor them. Might have initially been a habit when I turned his pocket out, but it’s the only thing that helps me cope with what I’ve done.”

“And now, what I’ve done.” She watched his throat bob. “Lemme see it.”

He didn’t ask any questions, or try to tell her it may be a bad idea.

Athan dutifully stood, fetching the pocket-watch and bringing it back to her side.

Maybe it was because of the death that now haunted it.

Maybe it was the iciness of murder by her own hands.

Maybe all of it was in her head, and she was completely losing it.

But the chill of that metal against her palm, she felt in the marrow of her bones.

His cries of pain rang in her ears and flashes of what happened slowly came back to her.

So did the night of her own attack. The black blur.

The force of her head hitting the wall. The life leaving her body.

“Was it Poe?” she asked, closing her fingers around the watch. Athan drew his brows together. “Was he with you that night in the alley? The haze of black I remember seeing?”

Athan slowly shook his head. “No. He’s never been there when I fed from a human. The haze you saw was me. Over the years, I’ve made an art of not being the last thing anyone sees when I’ve already robbed them of so much.”

“Why was he in the tunnel?”

“I don’t know. He was caged when we left earlier for the funeral. I locked him in myself.” Both their heads turned at the sound of footsteps traveling up the steps to the apartment door. There was a pointless knock before Rhaena opened it and she and Brandon stood in the doorway.

“Hey,” Rhaena frowned, holding up Sarah’s missing shoe by the heel.

“We need to talk.” It was the sight of that shoe in her hand that matched the scuffed opposite on the floor by her bed that made Sarah want to vomit.

Made it all the more real. It made that watch in her hand feel colder—almost blistering cold—her knuckles turning white from her grip as Rhaena started forward.

“You found it,” Athan said, rising from the edge of the bed and setting his mug down on the coffee table.

“No…one of the men that live in that tunnel found it. He was wearing it when I left, and I convinced him to hand it over.” Rhaena’s worried tone matched the utterly shaken look on her face.

“Cap was in the subway terminal when we got there. We got lucky with the heel, but…I’m pretty positive he suspects you , Kane. ”

“Well, now that he knows the coven disbanded, he probably suspects them, too.”

Rhaena shook her head, but it was Brandon that spoke up. “If he did suspect them, he probably doesn’t anymore. Forensics tagged evidence before we got there. There was a raven feather next to the body in a puddle of blood.”

“Not the first time we’ve found a bird, or a feather at one of these crime scenes,” Athan argued. Rhaena stepped forward.