“I told you to get out of the way!”
Ben lunged, clearly intending to use the butt of his gun to pry them apart. Cal jerked, nearly hitting her in the face, and there was a crack as his shoulder snapped back, nearly shaking her loose.
Ben’s head burst in a red cloud of gore, his body falling to the ground with a muted thud as everything that was being held in by his skull slid out loose and wet.
Blood freckled Cal’s chest and neck. He seemed a little shocked by what he had done and there was a tenseness in his body that hadn’t been there before. “Fuck.” He dropped the gun from his hands, as if it had grown hot, staring at the dead body on the ground with an unreadable face.
Then he swung Nadine up in his arms, one hand braced against her back as he lifted her up behind her knees, gripping her just below her thighs to keep from touching the wound. Nadine was too stunned to resist and fell back in his arms with a labored sigh.
Odessa was still where Nadine had passed her before, but now the champagne bottle was half-empty. She blinked at them, obviously drunk, though she attempted to leer at them despite her stuporous state. “Did you kill a deer?” she asked.
“I killed a raven,” Cal said, and Odessa blinked rapidly, taking that in.
“Baby Cal,” she said, her voice shocked and disapproving. “You didn’t—”
“I left my gun.” Cal turned away. “The safety isn’t on. Please get it for me.”
“It’s not supposed to work like that!” she called after him. “You’re not supposed toturnon each other! It’s only supposed to be about the deer!”
Nadine gripped the back of Cal’s neck. She could feel the half-healed scars rising beneath her fingertips. It honestly terrified her how quickly he could turn. At the café he had been so polite and attentive, she might have fallen in love with him a little despite the way he pushed and teased.
Even when he had started pushing against all of her boundaries, she had been nervous but not quite yet alarmed. She certainly hadn’t thought him capable of brutality until she had.
When he’d already been inside of her.
When she had fallen for him, just a little bit.
(sometimes they turn on each other)
Nadine began to tremble, despite the warmth of Cal’s shirt. “You killed your brother.”
“I know.” His voice was grim.
“What’s your father going to do? Wasn’t he the heir? What happens when you kill the wrong person?” Nadine whispered fearfully. “What happens, Cal?”
Cal didn’t answer.
Her fear grew as the lights from the house fell over them in a crisscrossed pattern of gold. In the central courtyard, the woman-deer statue gleamed with unholy, eerie light.
Ravensgate was silent as he carried her over the threshold. Perhaps this was how Caledon Cullraven had brought home Jesamyn after they were wed, Nadine thought. Cal’s boots thudded over the wooden boards, causing them to creak and groan. Portraits of every single Cullraven looked down at them from the stairs, the clothes getting older and the colors more washed out the farther back you went, but all of them equally severe.The ravens and their sparrows.
At the top of the stairs was Nathaniel. His arms were folded over the banister as he looked down at them. In one hand, he carried a pistol, which he held loosely. Nadine watched him tap it against the wood as he looked down at them with those flat, almost-yellow eyes.
“So,” he said. “You couldn’t do it. Just like the last one.”
Cal’s arms tightened around her. “She’s my sparrow,” he said. “I’m keeping her.”
Nathaniel made a harshly incredulous sound. “Is that true?” he said mockingly. “Do you think you’re a sparrow now, my dear? Do you want to fly with the ravens?”
There was an emphatic click as he rotated the chamber of his gun.
“Then let him shield you with his wings.”
C H A P T E R
T W E N T Y
? the serpent consumes its tail ?
