Page 143 of Reaper’s Curse

Is it Raven? Is something wrong with Raven?

I clutched her belongings to my heart and inhaled deeply, taking in her personal aroma. Then I slid her personal items into one of the Killian cloak’s large inner pockets. I would track her. Follow her scent straight to her location.

Wandering back to the garden side of the ballroom entrance, I locked my gaze with that of the prince’s in the royal box above, and I swore I caught a flicker of understanding in Winter’s eyes. As if the prince somehow knew what I was thinking. But he couldn’t possibly.

I stepped closer to the edge of the gala, as if doing so would communicate a sense of urgency to my unbidden ally. The prince’s stare intensified.

At my back, a refrain of crow calls shattered the sky. My heart stopped, and my lungs squeezed. In that instant, I knew my worries were founded.

Raven was in danger.

The rustle of wings grew with the thunder of a storm, moving ever closer, flying directly toward me. A frenzied whirlwind of croaking and cawing black birds flew beyond the open doors and into the ballroom. They crashed through the air and encircled me. Turned my world to black.

The temperature plummeted, the prince’s magic clearly to blame. Frost nipped at my feet, and a winter wind crackling with lightning filled the space above my head.

Partygoers screeched, the sounds of their retreat a chaos of shuffles, thumps, and hollers. The birds flew around me once, twice, three times, then departed the way they had come, back to the sky above the courtyard garden.

In the royal box above, the queen batted Winter in the chest with her scepter, and his magic vanished from the room.

I didn’t have time to witness what kind of fallout would befall the royal prince. I needed to follow the birds. I knew that was what they wanted.

But before I could snap into action, the queen pointed her fancy scepter straight at me and hollered, “Apprehend that male.”

I spun, pulled the Killian’s cloak around me, and sprinted into the courtyard garden in a blur of invisibility, using Raven’s unique scent as my guide: jasmine and lilies, sandalwood with a hint of citrus and vanilla.

Keeping to the darkest of shadows, and moving as quickly as I dared, I followed the trail straight to a door set in the tower. The tower in question. I turned my gaze upward to the moving patch of darkness surrounding the highest window.

Had my request sent her directly into harm’s way?

Tossing back the cloak’s hood (and the gift of invisibility), I cussed under my breath and tried the door. It was locked.

Dammit.

This would be so much easier if I hadn’t lost the Killian key in the scuttle with Cander. I took a step back and flipped the sides of the cloak over my shoulders, preparing to kick the iron-strapped wooden barrier down.

“Where we going, Ace?”

With a jolt, I spun and came face-to-face with Aoes. “What are you doing here? It’s not safe for you to be found anywhere near me right now.”

“Wherever you’re going, so am I,” he replied, his breath a tad too heavy from running. “So shall we get busy knocking this door down or what?”

35

With a thump and a scrape, the monstrous, pale creatures unceremoniously tossed me into a stone room with one door and two high windows covered in bars.

Several feet inside the door, a wall of bars ran from one side of the space to the other, blocking my access to the only exit. Dual tables sat back-to-back on either side of the bars, beneath a slot only big enough to pass through a tray of food.

My gown was tattered and torn, plenty of feathers missing, and I had no shoes. My palms were cut (again) and my knees skinned, but I was otherwise all right. Or all right enough. Physically, anyway. I had, after all, been through an ordeal and was covered in the blood of the reaper I’d watched get cut down in front of me by the Killian.

A blow that he’d intended for me.

I breathed in a centering breath and stilled my trembling hands.

I can handle this. I’ll find a way out of this predicament.

The questions were, where was I? And if not the Killian, who had me and why?

The creatures of monsters and moonlight had bound me, dragged then tossed me into darkness, and brought me here…wherever here was…with the parting words, “Get comfortable. You’ll be here for a while.”