32. Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Two

Raevyn

A snap of wings brought me back to reality with a thud. My head pounded and my body felt like it had been thrown down a hill. I opened my eyes to a dark, low light and what appeared to be a damp brick room. It smelled old, and there weren't any windows as far as I could tell. Just the single light at the far end of the room. I sat up and winced. Had I hit my head?

I felt around my skull but couldn't feel a bump or anything.

"It's from the forced portal."

I shrieked and jumped. The fuck? "Corvus? Is that you?"

"Sorry," he said as he hopped into view. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"How did you get here? And why do you look so small?"

He was about a fifth of his normal size, which probably made him seem more like a normal-sized raven.

He hopped onto my thigh. "Just thought this was more… inconspicuous."

"Yes, probably," I said with a snort. "Any idea where we are?"

"You're at the abbey ruins."

"Near my home?"

Corvus bobbed his head. Shit. This wasn't good. The ruins were a powerful place, sat on intersecting ley lines it had always been a place to boost power. We had always held our most sacred rituals here, including the one where I'd been sacrificed. I had to get out of here. And fast.

But how?

"Come on, hop up."

Corvus jumped up to my shoulder and I stood to look around the room. It was bare except for the small cot I'd been placed on, and there was a single chair and small table that were the only other pieces of furniture in the room.

I walked over to the door and was surprised when the handle turned, and the door opened. I popped my head through the entrance, letting my magic feel down the corridor for any other signs of life. I couldn't sense anything, but I kept my power sitting in my fingertips just in case I needed something to attack with.

I continued down the hallway until I reached to door at the end. I knew where I was now, the walls and bricks of this place familiar from all the times I'd explored this place in my childhood. And, knowing my grandmother, she'd be up at the grand altar waiting for me.

I made my way to the ruins of the great hall and followed the flame lit path all the way to the alter.

"Hello Raevyn," my grandmother hissed, like my name was poison in her mouth.

"Grandmother," I said softly. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"It's time you came home."

Well, that wasn't going to happen. I had started to accept my mother's part in my tragic upbringing but there was no way that I was ever going to have anything to do with my grandmother ever again. Oddly, I thought I'd feel some sort of fear stood here, at the same spot where she'd driven a dagger through my heart, but I felt calm. Probably because I wasn't trying to make excuses for what she'd done anymore. Growing up I had always thought she'd done the things she had for the good of the coven, to strengthen us and protect us, but I knew differently now. There was nothing forbidding about her anymore. She was just a selfish old woman.

"No," I said, answering her question.

"No?" she snarled.

"I already am home." And I was. The guys were my home now and I belonged with them. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

Her eyes flashed with a dark violence, but whilst that may have made me cower once, all I saw was a little old woman. Her power had dimmed, and I could sense a madness scratching at the edges of her mind.

"Now you listen here you little bitch—"

"No, you listen." My power rolled under my skin, and I caught a flash of surprise in her eyes. "You are nothing to me anymore. Because of you, the coven has lost favour with the Revenants. They turned their backs on you and now you're weak. Pathetic ."

Her nostrils flared as her anger got the better of her. "I raised you! I gave you a home even when your mother said she had no idea what your father was. I knew you wouldn't amount to anything, that you'd be a Null or some other abomination. You couldn't even be sacrificed properly!"

"Well, I'm sorry to have been so inconvenient ," I yelled and stepped closer to the altar. I slammed my fists down on the top of it, cracking it clean in half. A roll of thunder snapped in the sky and for the first time, I saw a flash of fear take root in my grandmother's eyes.

"You seem to be growing in power. I knew your mother had suppressed it and hidden it from me. But I couldn't undo the spells she'd weaved."

I snorted a harsh laugh. "And here was me thinking you believed her to be weak."

"She was weak!" she spat. "Just like you are. You're made from bad blood, and I should have killed you when you were born. Your father was—"

"Do you even know who my father is?" I barked a manic laugh. "You have no idea, do you?"

"It doesn't matter," she said fiercely. "You're going to do what I want anyway."

She was crazy. There was no way I was going to do anything that she wanted.

Her eyes darkened and her fingers glowed with magic. "Right now, these men that you think you belong to, are coming to rescue you."

My heart warmed in my chest. They were coming to find me? Wait, no. They shouldn't be doing that. She'd surely planned a trap or something. "What have you done?"

"Nothing yet," she said with a smile and a shrug of one shoulder. "It all depends on what you do next."

A protectiveness surged inside of me over these men. I might not have known them for a very long time, but I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, they were mine to protect, just as much as I was theirs.

My magic grew inside of me, sparking a hum along my skin as the chaos surged in my core. "What do you want from me?"

"Your power."

I frowned. "No. You're not having my power."

"Well, then, I'm just going to have to capture your pretty Revenants and drain them instead."

No. She couldn't do that, could she? Then again, I wouldn't put anything past my grandmother if she was focussed on it enough.

"That's your choice, Raevyn. You have until the next full moon to decide. Either give me what I want, or I'm going to take it all. If you turn yourself in, I won't harm them. Try to do something right for once in your life. I'll send you the meeting point on the day."

There was a flash of lightning, a crack of thunder and then she was gone. My knees broke as I crumpled to the ground. I slammed my hands into the grass beneath me and screamed, hoping it would alleviate some of the anger my grandmother had left with me, but my screams soon turned to sobs. I was going to have to leave them. To save them, I'd have to leave them behind.

"What am I going to do, Corvus?"

He snapped his wings and a dark look flashed in his beady eyes. "I think it's time we break my master out of his prison."

Apollo

I t was time. I could feel it. She was powerful enough and angry enough to help me break out of this prison. And the fact that I would be able to enact some vengeance on the old witch who wanted to destroy my pretty little bird just made it all the sweeter. For too long had I waited. It was time to escape. Time to be free.

Violence simmered under my skin, and I couldn't wait to finally have the chance to seek revenge.

"Corvus, it's time. Bring her to the West Wing."