Page 87 of White Raven (Nevermore Duet #2)

“I didn’t,” Tony said, apologetically. “I tried. But she found you anyway. I’ve never been very good at a firm tone. Especially not with a kid as young as you were.”

Poe slid his hands into his pockets and studied them all carefully.

“I’ve since learned that vampires aren’t typically as kind as you were.

I suppose in a way…I should thank you. For the instrument of learning.

For warning me of the ways my life would go.

” Sarah didn’t take her eyes from him as he sat down in a wooden chair and gestured for them to take the others in the room.

“Have a seat. I asked you here to tell you everything. And before you walk out of this house…you’ll have the answers you seek.

But I feel I should start from the beginning. ”

Athan’s jaw was ticking, and she heard him grind his teeth.

He hadn’t said a word since he’d finished the last line of her father’s quote.

He was sizing him up. Trying to figure out if he wanted to bury this fucker alive or grovel at his feet.

Sarah found herself much the same, but tugged at his hand as they took a couple of chairs across from Poe.

It was Athan’s turn to take the heat of the poet’s stare.

The smile he wore looked something like… admiration.

“Of all the undead in the world…you are truly a spectacle, Athan Kane. It is a difficult feat indeed to surprise me at every turn.”

Athan looked him in the eye, and without a hint of resignation, he opened his mouth. “With respect? Go fuck yourself, sir .”

Sarah huffed through her nose, not bothering to hide her smile.

Nice. Took the words right outta my mouth.

He squeezed her hand in response, but didn’t take his eyes from Poe’s. Tony only cleared his throat in discomfort.

Poe crossed a leg, leaving his hands settled in his pockets, and smirking at them. “Do you know why I chose to use the name John Allan?”

“Because you’re a deceitful psychopath that likes to play head games, and lie through your stupid mustache?” Sarah seethed.

The mustache twitched as he quirked his mouth.

It made her skin crawl. “John Allan raised me, as you know. He was the reason I was in Scotland on the night that I discovered the darkest realm of the world. When Dahlia Van Hausen found me that night…I was just a scared, misunderstood young boy. I didn’t know if she’d bleed me dry or let me live.

I gambled that night. Gave her his name.

But she said something that wretched evening that changed my entire life. ”

Tony leaned in curiously, completely enveloped in the story.

Poe sighed. “She birthed the very soul of my success. She told me to tell stories .” If it were possible for this man’s eyes to turn a shade darker, they did.

His hate for Dahlia bled into the whites of them, making them shark-like and reflecting the pure evil that she was before they’d torched her on a rooftop.

“She gave a twisted child an even more twisted story to tell. From that day on…I became obsessed with literature…with death. It devoured every part of me. I told the story to anyone who would listen, and very quickly did I make a dark smudge upon my name. They thought me insane. Perhaps I was…but it didn’t stop me. ”

Sarah found herself finding an anchor in where this was heading, and she clung to it.

All the mysterious pieces…they were starting to fit already, and he hadn’t even made it out of his childhood yet.

Poe continued, “I penned every dark thought. Every sliver of truth that the world refused to believe. I still believe she passed a bit of her evil to me that fateful night. Even if she never harmed a hair on my head. It consumed me. Death was always on my mind. Always lurking in every corner. Always taunting me with its song. It followed me wherever I went…even in sleep.”

Athan’s voice sounded in her mind.

Sleep, those little slices of death—how I loathe them.

Sarah flinched, tightening her fingers around his as the words cut through to her soul.

“I was so intrigued by the liquid in those pints and glasses that night in the forbidden tavern I’d dared to enter when I found that seductress drinking blood from that man’s body.

She’d been drunk on his life essence…the rest were drunk from their cups.

I longed for that happiness. When I had grown older, I found myself overcome by the drink.

John frequently displayed his disapproval.

I never stopped writing about the visions in my head.

I even tried to convince myself, for a time, that I had imagined it all.

She said she’d come to reign over the covens in the New World…

but for so many years…she didn’t. That notion alone had me believing that people were right. I had indeed lost my mind.”

He stood, never moving his hands from his pockets, and began to pace the wooden floor. Every footstep echoed like a ghost haunting the space. Even the moonlight filtering in from the window seemed to ripple with every step.

“I went to college. I joined the military. John made short work of cutting my funding, and I in turn…indulged more. No matter what I did, I couldn’t escape her.

Couldn’t escape the dark. Until one night…

sitting in another tavern in Virginia, my mindless rambling attracted the attention of someone who was like her.

I knew him only by the name ‘Reynolds’.”

Tony bristled, and Sarah glanced over at him, then at Athan, who looked like he was putting two-and-two together.

“He, like you…” Poe said, nodding his head towards Tony, who didn’t balk as he stared.

“Was kind to me. Told me he believed me…believed my stories. He said that he had been searching for covens throughout the colonies. Someone to stand against what she’d bring when she finally came to our world.

I was wild with joy. I found a strange peace, knowing that the sickness wasn’t in my head—but was my very life .

He warned the beings like him, with my help.

Shortly after, he left on a ship. A ship that would bring her back sometime later.

He promised to deliver her to the port in Jamestown.

There…the covens would take her down, and any that stood with her. ”

Athan dropped his stare to the floor, and Sarah couldn’t help but look at him. He knew.

Did Decclan leave to come here before Dahlia moved the coven?

Athan barely nodded. Like he didn’t want to let Poe in what he’d figured out. Poe, to his credit, had a knowing look in his eye as he continued to pace and tell his story.

Dahlia sent him ahead to prepare a homestead for the coven. He was gone for over a month before he came back.

“The covens we warned welcomed me. Welcomed my information, and what would today, be called intel .” He strummed over the word as if it were uncomfortable to say.

As if his old-world mind couldn’t like the taste of it.

“They adopted me into their world. Made me a priority. I was safe and protected. Respected. A league I could relate to as my own. I kept their secrets and spun their tales. I never stopped writing about Death. I embraced the idea, as it had become a member of the family by then. Death is a charming lover. Many years went by, but Reynolds did not return. Nor did his elder witch.” He paused at the window, clasping his hands at his back, and staring out into Baltimore.

“I went on about my life, happy to be in company with the vampires. They told me that when I was ready…I could be one of them. That when Death came for her due…I could gamble again, and this time— cheat her . I learned sometime later that Dahlia finally docked in Jamestown, and the covens were prepared. So was I.” He turned his chin over his shoulder and met eyes with Athan—not Sarah.

She stared after him in silence. “I had suspected Death being ever-present for some time. I felt it coming for me. I warned those close to me, but…as per usual…nobody listened. It was nothing new, of course. I had already been dismissed by that time as an imbecile.”

“What happened?” Sarah asked, feeling her arms tremble with nerves.

He turned and leaned back against the window.

“The Black Bird coven was spared. But…you know that already, don’t you?

” He smiled first at Athan…and then his gaze landed on Sarah, who was swept into the memory of being in Athan’s bed, thoroughly ravaged, and about to turn herself into the 12th precinct.

The morning that he told her about what transpired in Jamestown’s port.

“It was you…” Athan whispered. “You were the one that orchestrated that mob.”

Poe shook his head, smirking and returning his hands to his pockets.

“No. Not I, alone. Reynolds conspired to put the execution into motion. Over the years that we waited for her to show herself…I grew fond of the others, and they of me. Reynolds, I was informed, was on that ship. As were you, Athan Kane. Your coven slaughtered my fanged comrades. The only people that had ever believed me.”

Athan leapt up from his chair and pointed a tattooed finger at him.

“You’re full of shit! I was ready to burn with that ship!

I was gonna take her down with me! I hated her.

I wanted to watch her die, and I wanted to die long before they tried to set fire to that boat!

If that was your reason for burying me in your own fucking grave, then you have a thing or two still to learn about a true story , you motherfucker! ”