Page 23 of White Raven (Nevermore Duet #2)

It wasn’t until she took a few angry steps forward that she realized…

the sounds of all manner of hell breaking loose were coming from Athan’s—no…

Wren’s apartment. Part of her began to panic, and Rhaena reached for her gun, pausing with her hand on the holster when she heard…

laughter? Sure as shit. Her eyes rolled and she dug her key out, opening her door and setting the groceries down on her kitchen table.

She dialed Wren, getting no response, and was almost afraid to know who she had next door.

The last thing she wanted to do was bust up some crazy intimate moment between her and Stratford.

The thought made her gag. At the sound of another glass breaking, Rhaena forcefully shook her head and headed next door, banging on it and pressing a hand to her hip.

“Wren!” Rhaena pressed her ear to the door, and the hysterical laughter continued on the other side. That wasn’t a dude. Her hand wound around the knob, and when she turned, she found it unlocked.

Well…that’s safe.

The door opened, and the smell of marijuana and cigarettes hit her nose.

The hazy light in the apartment swirled in a cloud of smoke.

It was a wonder they hadn’t set off the fire alarms. Rhaena’s hand waved past her face, and she startled, jumping back when someone yelled “Pull!” …

and an empty beer bottle flew across the living room entryway.

Glass shattered and laughter ensued as she made her way past the kitchen and into the living room to find—

“Sarah?”

“Rhae!” Wren snorted, laying on her back on a couch pillow in the corner where Poe’s cage used to be. A cigarette with a long ash hung in her mouth. “Come hit one!”

“Hit one, what? ” Rhaena asked, clearly not meaning one of the many broken bottles scattered around a…

painting? Sarah swayed next to Wren’s easel with a cigarette of her own, in jeans and a black bra with a paper towel taped over her ribs.

Blood and ink dotted the outer surface, and she held the empty roll—now bent and utterly useless—in both hands like a baseball bat.

“What in God’s name are you two doing in here? ” Rhaena yelled over the music.

“We’re giving Conrad a proper send off!” Sarah laughed, drunkenly.

“Come take a swing!” She nodded towards Wren.

“Pull!” Wren threw another bottle and Sarah tried to whack it, missing while the bottle broke against the edge of the easel tray, shattering and spraying glass against the nearly obliterated canvas.

“Conrad?” Rhaena peered, narrow-eyed at the painting, realizing then what she was looking at. “Oh, shit.” It was an effort to hide the smile that threatened to level her composure.

“Come on! Hit one! I know you can!” Wren giggled, teetering an empty bottle between her fingers.

“I’ll be right back,” she grinned, shaking her head as she stepped back out the apartment door, pulling out her phone. Athan answered, and it almost sounded like she woke him.

“If there’s another body…again…it wasn’t me.”

“It’s eight-o-clock. Do you know where your fiancé is?”

“Oh, fuck…is she okay?”

“Oh, she’s more than okay,” Rhaena laughed. “Why don’t you come see for yourself? She’s at your old place. Might wanna bring a barf bag for the ride home.”

“Christ,” Athan snarled, hanging up the phone.

At this juncture, the first and only thing he could ever think to do when it came down to Sarah St. James…

was worry first, ask questions later. And Athan’s tense muscles were at capacity with worry.

He’d fallen asleep next to her while they pored over files, and reports, and waking to a phone call like that was an instant flash of a mutilated girl in a body bag that was made to look identical to his mate.

Sure, she could likely handle herself now that she was no longer human, but the fact that someone they knew nothing about was targeting her now?

Two someones, if they were being logical, and not a single one of them were certain about whatever John Allan’s intentions were, or what he’d do to get to her.

Sarah knew what she was doing. Giving Sykes two days to show herself wasn’t enough.

She left to make herself known. Left while he was sleeping, because she knew damned well he’d never let her go alone.

“Dammit, Sarah,” Athan grunted, pulling a black hoodie over his bare chest and grabbing his keys as he slammed the door and flew down the steps.

He checked every angle of the building on his way to the car, seeing no one suspicious.

His cigarette was barely finished by the time he squealed tires into the parking structure where he used to live.

The last time Sarah had gone through something difficult, she acted out and got herself locked up after Rhaena was forced to give her a hard hit to the gut.

The last time he had to go get her when she was plastered, she was dancing on a fucking pole while every person within arm’s reach pawed at her scantily clad body.

Neither of those instances were anything short of a test of his self-control.

And neither tasted very pleasant on his tongue.

Athan heard the music blaring before the elevator even stopped on their floor.

His jaw tightened and he hurried to the apartment door, swinging it open and nearly catching a contact buzz.

It was like slamming into a brick wall of—good grief.

Walking through that apartment was like second nature.

Everything looked different, but it still felt the same.

He could do it in the dark, and without his keen senses.

But nothing prepared him for the sight of these idiots…

particularly the jaw-dropping one with the hazel eyes that turned towards him as he stepped into the living room.

Fuck, if she wasn’t the most scandalizing— beautiful creature he’d ever seen in his life.

It never got fucking easier. Never got boring.

He’d probably always lose his breath every time he saw her.

That messy cascade of silky black curls that nearly reached the middle of her very naked back.

That lacy black bra that exposed that little place near the middle that he loved to bite.

That spot distracted him from the gaping paper towel she now had on her ribs.

That’s why she came. She tattooed herself for the man she killed.

God, he’d never feel this way about anyone else.

He couldn’t even find it in himself to be pissed at her now.

The neck of her half-empty beer bottle hung in her fingers, while two of them jutted out to hold something that definitely was not a cigarette as she grinned, heavy-lidded and— sexy as hell .

“Evening, detective!” Sarah smiled, raising the blunt to her mouth. Rhaena turned in his direction beside her with a matching one in her lips. Her white blouse was half-buttoned, and she held a…paper towel roll?

“You too?” Athan smirked, crossing his arms. “Conduct unbecoming of an officer, Northwood.”

“Indeed!” she grinned, holding her smoke.

“And I’ve never been more pissed at myself for not breaking the rules sooner.

” She turned the end toward him and reached across the space between them.

Wren looked up from the floor with a completely entertained smile and they all waited for him to make a decision.

“You’re trying to make a two-hundred-year-old vampire crack under peer pressure? What would Jenkins say?” Athan looked up at Rhaena under his lowered brows.

“He won’t say shit, if you don’t go tattle on me,” she snorted. “You’re off duty for the next month. Stop thinking like a detective and for once…just have some fun?”

Sarah sipped her beer and waited in anticipation.

Athan glanced around the place that he used to escape to…

the place that was his first haven since getting out of Dahlia’s reach.

Images of Sarah’s body against his on that leather couch flashed in his mind.

Of Rhaena bent over that kitchen counter.

Of the reason for the dent against the front of the stove and Sarah’s bleeding feet after they’d spent a night devouring each other’s mouths.

What was another memory to add to this place?

He reached for the blunt and turned it, pulling hard on it and enjoying the fire in his throat while Wren howled from the corner in triumph.

“I will be damned! ” The redhead leapt up from her spot on the floor, raising her beer at him. “You officially have my blessing. Thanks for telling me, by the way.” Her middle finger shot up and he exhaled.

“Not still holding out for me, are you Red?” Athan smiled, passing the roach back to his partner. “Stratford will be very—”

“Do fuck off,” Wren barked, Sarah laughing hysterically.

He stayed, knocking a few bottles at a very impressive rendition of Conrad Stratford, and finally feeling a rare morsel of peace that had very little to do with the weed, and everything to do with his company.

Rhaena looked legitimately exhausted after cramming an entire bag of chips down her throat and draped herself across Wren’s odd-shaped sofa.

She was drooling well before Wren joined her on it, tugging a plush blanket over them both.

When that left Sarah and himself being the only ones still awake, they found themselves sitting across from each other, leaned back against the cabinets on the kitchen floor, passing a bottle of whiskey he’d left behind and tapping the end of their cigarettes into the mouth of one of the only empty beer bottles they hadn’t shattered.

“I have to be honest,” Sarah smiled, taking a long swallow of amber liquid. “I fully expected you to storm in here ready to tear the world down after you realized I’d left.”

“I guess I couldn’t blame you for thinking that. It was definitely how I felt on the way up here.” He stared at the grungy paper towel that was plastered against her skin. “Will you let me clean that up?”

Sarah looked down, forgetting she’d even gotten the tattoo, and nodded.

“Oh…yeah.” She had no idea. With the new speed of her healing, she could have done without the towel completely.

He fished out a fresh roll from under Wren’s sink and wet it, leaning back against the cabinet and waving two fingers at her to come forward. “Where? Your lap?”

“Mmhmm…” he hummed, smirking. She dropped her cigarette into the bottle, and it hissed when it hit the stale beer at the bottom.

The hold that everything she’d consumed tonight had on her wouldn’t last much longer with the strength of their immortal bodies, but she still seemed blissfully unaware when she crawled over and straddled him.

Sarah leaned back and he peeled off the tape around the edges, discarding the towel next to him and carefully wiping away dried blood and ink.

An open pocket-watch and a tattered newspaper with the headline: MONSTER!

, revealed itself beneath. His heart wrenched, and he gently smoothed over Wren’s handiwork. “You’re not a monster, Sarah.”

“No?” she asked softly, watching his hand as he cleaned her up. “Tell that to the man in the ice box uptown.”

“No. You’re not, and that’s coming from the ice box whose lap you’re sitting on.”

She snickered. “You’re a nice guy, Athan Kane. Whether you choose to believe it or not.”

Athan tipped her chin up with a finger and met her surprised stare. “I’ve never been a nice guy, Sarah St. James.”

“I don’t see a villain when I look at you, Athan.”

“And that’s why I love every fucking part of you. But he’s there.”

Sarah audibly swallowed. “Yeah?”

He eyed her mouth as she bit down on her bottom lip.

Christ, she’s intoxicating. Every inch of her.

“Yes,” he whispered, leaning closer to her open mouth.

“Show me, then.”

His other hand dropped the damp towel and splayed across her lower back, sliding slowly up her spine that curved with his touch. He couldn’t contain himself when she made noises like the ones coming out of that lovely, scarred throat.

“Put your clothes on. We’re going home.”