Page 88 of White Raven (Nevermore Duet #2)

Poe smiled, not at all fazed by his outburst. “You have such a fire inside you. You forget…I knew all too well your hatred for Dahlia. For your unprecedented immortal life. I’ve read your own work, Nathaniel .

” Athan stiffened at the use of his real name, and Sarah recalled the leather journal she cherished so much.

“But all that was much later. Many years after my betrayal, and my plans for vengeance. It was shortly after that incident in Jamestown, that Death finally came for me. I’d received a letter from Reynolds.

Dahlia had set her sights on Boston and was taking her coven with her.

Reynolds apologized for the assault that had ravaged our numbers.

He’d said he’d made a grave mistake and was to deliver Dahlia to me personally.

He had convinced her to possibly consider a place here …

in Baltimore. He’d bring her. And we’d be ready to put her down. ”

“But he didn’t…” Tony spoke up. Athan turned toward his friend, and Sarah urged him to sit back down. “We left for Boston anyway. The only other place Dahlia was considering was New York.”

Poe dipped his chin, confirming it. “The meeting was to take place outside town. Midnight. There was a grove that some brave enough would use for rituals of witchcraft. It was heavily wooded, and perfect. We were to meet there. I informed the still-loyal members of our coven that I was to attend this meeting, and they would bear witness to the execution of the woman that had killed our members. Our family. They were too late.”

Athan swallowed, and Sarah bit down on her lip, trying desperately to hide any sign of sympathy from the man that had fucked up her life.

“He tricked you,” Tony stated.

“He did. I had grown tired of waiting. It was well past midnight. I had been taking drink from a flask I’d brought.

Thought I was hearing things when I’d finally heard a rustling in the trees.

Dismissed it, only to have my head nearly knocked from my shoulders, though I still don’t know from what.

He beat me senseless. I knew my head was badly injured.

It was as if I were trapped, screaming in my own mind.

Imprisoned in a body that I knew would die.

I was stripped naked and beaten some more.

He yelled things in another language. One I know now, but didn’t then.

He said he’d never give her up, no matter who she truly loved.

A man on fire, that was heartsick over the Devil.

If there were any true example of a mind lost…

it was that man. I pitied him. He must have pitied me.

My clothes were bloodied, and soiled. So, he removed his own and dressed me in them.

He begged for my forgiveness and left me there to die. ”

He was talking out of his mind, and was found dressed in clothes that weren’t his own…

Sarah looked at Tony, who was pale with disbelief.

“When my comrades finally showed, it was too late to save me. No one was sure if turning me then would leave my mind in the state it was trapped in. They found a man named Joseph Walker. Pleaded with him to save me, and he took me to Washington Medical College. Every so often, as the hours passed, I was able to voice the name of my attacker. But no one seemed to understand me. Death smiled and laid in wait…and I knew…my gamble was short. She’d won.

I screamed his name throughout the night, and then…

the next morning, before the cock had even crowed…

she tried to steal my soul, even as I begged God for it. ”

Every detail…it added up. Athan knew it too. They all sat in stunned silence, mulling it all over. Sarah turned her face towards him.

“But…you did die.”

He smiled back at her. “Did I?” The wooden chair screeched on the floor as he plopped back down into it and stretched a leg out.

“My darling Virginia…she left me long before. But I had taken many lovers in my forty years. Do you remember…the things you read when you were in Virginia? About how coffins were often fitted with bells?” Sarah nodded slowly.

“One of my former lovers…a woman I once pledged to marry…her name was also Sarah. She’d been turned some time before.

She heard about my demise. Came to pay her respects, I suppose.

She’d gotten word from some of the coven, and they sought to honor me for my service to them.

For my loyalty. But after my burial…as she stood mourning at my grave…

she heard it. I opened my eyes to find myself trapped, yet again…

in the darkness. I rang the bell frantically.

She told the coven, who then got me out.

They turned me that evening. I became their elder.

My mother-in-law…Maria. She sent for my body and had a casket full of rocks transported to my final resting place.

She never knew that I still lived. I was forever grateful to her.

I chose to remain dead. For the world to forget Edgar Allan Poe, and instead…

I became John Allan. A smart businessman, and a father to those less fortunate. ”

He was doing really well. Up until the point that he called himself a father…a father he’d be to others but was never intent on being for her. Sarah shook with rage.

“Oh, fuck you,” she growled, leaning forward, and spitting at his feet.

“What is this? Some well-told story, to get me to feel sorry for you? To pity you? You had a daughter, you prick! You were a father! Why don’t you skip to that part and give me a good reason for your fatherly fucking absence!

” Athan gripped her knee, willing some sort of calm into her down their bond.

Poe stared at the hand she laid over his fingers, and at the large blood ruby shining on it.

“You’re right,” he sighed. “But that was over a century later, little bird.”

“Start talking.” Sarah leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. Poe looked to Athan then.

“It started with you. After I became elder, our coven grew. I was determined to let Dahlia believe she’d outsmarted me.

I started silently taking her down, piece-by-piece, and moved my coven to Seattle, spreading some in Oregon, and encouraging them to continue spreading us across the nation.

The bigger we became, the more her feathers ruffled.

I sent the bird to watch her. I planted spies in her coven.

To report her activities, and that of the man who betrayed me.

Decclan Reynolds. The raven found another . ”