Ravage by Lacey Andersen (ebook reader online txt) 📕

want to kill all of them more than I’ve wanted anything in my life. So why do I fight it? Why am I shaking instead of just releasing my anger?

My father wouldn’t hesitate.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Abigail whispers, kneeling down beside me, her ghostly hand sending a chill through my body when it brushes my arm.

I shake my head, commanding myself to get a grip, to fight this overwhelming feeling of anger and horror at the way my brother was killed. “No.” The word sounds pained, and I swallow before continuing, “This is what I need.”

“But soon we’ll go through the hidden wall. We’ll drop lower through the trick passages, and we’ll find the rooms of forbidden items. Once we go there, there’s no going back. The people who want these secrets to stay dead will know, and you’ll be in more danger than you can imagine.”

“No one knows I’m here,” I counter. “No one knows I’m not just here for schooling.”

She frowns, looking unconvinced. “The Society of the Ravens is dangerous, Emseray. Believe me.”

The Society of the Ravens? The name sounds familiar…somehow. Had I heard about them? Read about them?

Suddenly, she goes rigid. Her mouth opens, but no words come out.

“Abigail!” I don’t care that I shout her name as I stand. Something is wrong. Very wrong.

And then she begins to scream and scream. It only takes a second for her translucent body to catch fire, but then she’s a ghostly shape, burning, the flames lighting the tunnel. Fear chokes my throat. Someone…someone is burning her bones. If she dies this way, she can never cross over. She’ll simply cease to exist.

I shout, “Hellhound, show yourself!”

It only takes a second for the beast to creep out of the shadows. Surprise flashes over the massive dog's face, but its lips curls back to reveal sharp teeth. It tries to leap for me, but with a thought I send its knees buckling. Then, before me, the huge, shaggy black beast, with eyes that burn, kneels before me. My subject, even if he didn’t know it until now.

“I am a dark fae queen, and you shall do my bidding or return to the fires of your world.”

It tries to attack me again. Again it crumbles to the ground.

“You shall take this soul to the world that smells of sunshine. And you shall do it now.”

And then it stops fighting my control. I release it, but the beast continues kneeling before me, and I see on its face the awareness that I am of his kind. That I am a creature of the monsters and the night.

He moves to where Abigail screams and burns, and his teeth grasp her leg with teeth that can even touch the undead. He drags her ghostly form from the tunnels, and I chase after them both, heart in my throat. My senses are overwhelmed with Abigail’s terror, and her screams I know will remain in my memories forever.

As we turn another corner, a blinding light appears in front of me, and that smell of sunshine is overwhelming for a powerful moment. And then the light and the smell and the hellhound and Abigail are all gone. I find myself kneeling on the floor, the torch clutched in my hand. Just ahead of me is the door to the outside, and the rain falls hard.

But I don’t care that I’m back where I started. I don’t care about anything for a long minute, anything except that Abigail was able to cross over before her bones were entirely consumed.

Time ticks by and my shock wears off. I take a shaky breath and rise as realization dawns on me. Whoever was burning Abigail’s bones must have done it because they knew she was helping me. And I had to find out who it was.

Dropping the torch, I race forward to the exit. Shoving open the door wider, I explode out into the night and into the waiting arms that close around me. Fury uncoils in my belly, and I strike out at the mind of my attacker.

But something’s wrong.

13

Lucian

One second I’d switched directions on campus to check out the entrance to the tunnels in my search for Esmeray, the next I heard her scream. Never before in my life has a sound cut me so deeply. I went racing to the entrance, bound and determined to destroy whatever had made her scream like that, and the next thing I knew, a small body was crashing into me. I had one second to acknowledge that it was Esmeray in my arms, and the next a mind-numbing pain slammed into my head.

I’m pretty sure I’m dead.

The world is dark, and I feel nothing. It isn’t scary. It just...is. And then I hear my heartbeat start back up, the sound filling my ears. I open my eyes, coughing and choking, and Esmeray is kneeling beside me, her skin pale, her expression frightened.

“Lucian.” She whispers my name and touches my chest so softly that death was worth this moment with her. “Are you okay?”

I can’t quite speak. My lips seem like they belong to someone else, so I just nod.

“Never do that again! I could’ve killed you!”

There’s a ringing in my head as I start to feel more like myself. I force my lips to work. “You’d never hurt me.”

She sits back on her heels, and I want to touch her so bad. Esmeray might scare other people, but to me she always has such a raw vulnerability beneath that tough-as-shit exterior. “So you’re really okay?”

I nod and groan as I lift a hand to touch the back of my head. I must have hit the ground pretty damn hard when she used her powers against me, because there’s a tender bump in the back.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, and the question holds a strange threat.

I frown and glance at her, trying to read her face. “Looking for you.”

“You knew I was in the