Ravage by Lacey Andersen (ebook reader online txt) 📕

As I’d walked away, I’d glanced back at them, legs spread, beautiful cocks in the air, and I’d wanted so many things. But I wanted them more than anything.

Well, more than anything but the truth.

I come then, biting down to keep from crying out. The orgasm that wracks my body makes every muscle spasm until I finally sag against the tree I’m leaning against. Then, after my limbs are working again, I fix my pants and go wash my hands in a random bathroom on campus.

When I’m done, night has entirely fallen.

With my needs taken care of, it’s like my thoughts have sharpened. Bron had talked about under the school, just like the ghost had. Some instinct inside of me felt that if I was ever going to know the truth, that was where I had to go.

And luckily for me, I wasn’t afraid of the dark. I just needed to figure out how the hell to find a way under the school. Which, of course, is why I decide to head to the school graveyard. I’ve never been there before, but places like this always have graveyards. Usually for people who die in such a way that they need to be buried right away, like if there might be a curse involved, or something dangerous on the body that makes it impossible to bring them to their family burial ground.

I circle the outskirts of the school, enjoying the darkness, enjoying the way the moon slowly climbs. There’s a crispness in the air tonight that reminds me of home, and I wonder if a mist will sweep these lands the way it does my home.

A strange longing fills me. For some reason, I think back to other times I was away from home as a child. I remember walking among other fae and feeling…alone. How was it that they were sunshine and happiness, and I was the dark? And why was it that their sunshine was better than my moonlight? What made them better than me?

Rayne would say, “Nothing.” He would smile that crooked smile of his and wrap an arm around my shoulders. And then, it didn’t matter that I was so different from everyone around me. Because I wasn’t alone. Not like I am now.

I’m almost in the graveyard when I realize where I’m at. Internally, I scold myself. I’ve grown so accustomed to not having to fear anything that I often slip into my thoughts and disappear. But if I’m going to hunt my brother’s killer, I have to remain vigilant. Thoughts of my brother and my home were better left to when I wasn’t walking alone in the dark.

The graveyard is cloaked in moonlight. It’s small for a school of this size, which means death is rare here, but that’s no surprise amongst the fae. Most of the graves likely belong to other supernatural beings, ones that tend the grounds or the school, whose lives are more fragile than our own.

There are a couple of trees spread amongst the headstones, massive weeping willows. They’re a favorite species of mine, and they tower above the graveyard, covered in long leaves that are like curtains falling from the branches. These trees often attract Black Widows. Not the spiders, of course, but women who murdered their husbands in life. Many of the Black Widows are so poisoned by their choices that they have no rest, even in death, and tend to drift about the weeping willows.

I have a Black Widow back home. She tells the dirtiest jokes.

Opening the small fence around the graveyard, the squeals of the hinges cut through the night and make the hairs on my arms stand on end. I start to walk the well-tended path that weaves through the grounds, but it doesn’t take long to see the shimmering silhouette of a ghost not far ahead. I glance around the shadows of this quiet place, looking for anyone who might be watching me. Anyone who might see a “light” fae talking to herself. When I see nothing, I stretch out my senses and release a slow breath. Still nothing.

I feel my shoulders relax, and I head toward the ghost. It takes a minute of walking to recognize that it’s the young fae woman I’d met the night before. Her dress falls gracefully around her, a color that was probably a pale pink at some point, but now gives her almost the impression of a lady in white. And I have a special fondness for the ladies in white, no matter how much people fear them. Somehow I never imagined even a light fae ghost fitting into a graveyard, but she does. Almost perfectly.

“Hello,” I greet.

Her head jerks up, and she looks back at me with wide eyes, before her expression gentles. “Oh, it’s just you.”

I nod and come to stand beside her. She’s looking down at a grave that reads, “Abigail Moonwood, Beloved Daughter.”

“Is that you?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says, and there’s an overwhelming sadness to her voice.

“Do you mind if I ask how you died?” My ghosts and monsters love to tell their stories, but I’ve never encountered a light fae ghost before. I’m not entirely sure of the etiquette.

After a second she says, “I was poisoned. Though they believed it was some kind of virus. My symptoms were similar to the Blood Plague. But that was exactly what she wanted. She wanted to scare people into burying me quickly and asking few questions.”

“Who did it?” I ask, surprised. Not that such a thing had happened, but that it happened in a school full of light fae.

She’s quiet for a long moment. “My younger sister. She wanted to rule our house, and she wanted my mate.”

My gut clenches. “Was she successful on both fronts?”

Abigail smiles. “She got my house, but never my Jareth.”

“At least that I’m glad for,” I say, and then we’re both smiling.

Leaning down, I wipe away some of the dirt from her