Page 50 of Raven

As I forced myself to leave, I felt like a monster, though I couldn't explain why. I promised myself I'd check on her in a few days, unable to shake the feeling that I was abandoning them somehow.

Walking back into the night, my thoughts swirled with images of Anika, of Tia, of the child that might be coming. For the first time, I truly understood the weight of responsibility, and the fierce need to protect those who couldn't protect themselves.

TWENTY-ONE

Lachlan dropped me off around the corner from where I lived, then I ran and got my bike out of the garage. It felt like such a bad idea, almost like fate, or something was trying to warn me that this was all going to blow up in my face. That feeling in my chest, the one so deep it felt like something dark digging around in there, was getting stronger.

But I had to meet Tia. I just had to.

There was no way but using my bike to get to the Fell. I couldn't use the buses, and while I could maybe have asked Lachlan to drop me close, I'd be screwed for getting home again. Plus, I didn't want to risk him. We'd already risked enough getting Anika and her son to Malcolm's place.

Riding to the Fell was a delicate balance of going as fast as I could without tearing up the roads and bringing attention to myself with the roar of my bike. Honestly, it felt like I was riding through mud and mire as I tried to ride, my heart pounding so hard in my chest, needing to push me on. Even my panther was urging me, pacing inside, wanting me to put my foot down and just get us to his potential mate.

It didn't help that I couldn't use the main roads. It'd be so much faster that way, but that'd mean I'd have to use the mainbridge, and that place was manned at all times. The only way near that bridge was under it, and that meant swimming the river. Not a chance.

So, I stuck to the lanes and the small roads, and sometimes I had to go back and around just so I wasn't seen. I was about three-quarters into the ride when I spotted my first set of sweepers. To anyone looking, they were three guys on bikes, paused at a layby, just chatting. They looked approachable. The kind of guys you could ask for a jump start or maybe a hand changing a tire. They were meant to look like that, but under all that nice guy facade, they were armed to the teeth. They'd be carrying silver and iron, metals—anything that would render Others incapacitated. The easiest way to tell they were sweepers? The cattle wagon hidden not so far away, lights out, tucked away at the end of a lane, ready to take out any Other they captured. I'd bet my bike that a little further down the road, was another set of inconspicuous looking people, ready and waiting.

If they saw me, they'd be on me like a swarm of wasps on a spilled sugary drink, and with the shit already on my head, I'm not so sure I'd have got out alive.

I cut the engine to my bike, turned off my lights and got off so I could push it behind a hedge in a field and use that as my cover as I made my way out of town. I think I pushed my bike a good mile, and fuck did my back ache, but Tia was worth it. I'd have pushed my bike the whole way if it'd got me to her.

I sent out my senses before I emerged from the hedges, making sure I couldn't feel any life close by. What I did feel was farm animals. They had a way about them.

I made it to the second bridge. This was a small, less used bridge. It was old and rickety, and to be honest, I'm surprised it was still standing. The humans didn't bother to check on this one, mostly because they were idiots, and assumed no Others would use it, mostly, because it led us to nowhere. But that wasexactly why we did use it, and why it was easy to get on the road that led to the Fell.

The Fell was a weird one. It was a shared space. By day it was Humans, by night it was open to Others, which, the joke was on us, right? We could use it at night, but we couldn't actually get to it if we were out of curfew, which was fine in the winter months when it went dark around three, but summer? It stayed light until almost eleven and curfew was ten.

Instead of parking my bike in the usual car park, I tucked it in behind the information centre and put some tarp over it. Any human coming this way probably wouldn't find it, or even care, but never say never and the last thing I wanted to do was get into any kind of fight.

My panther roamed under my skin, his fur lining every part of my insides. He was determined to come out, wanting to go and search for Tia. Wanting to protect and claim the child she might be carrying inside. I didn't need to see my face either, to know that the edges of my jaw would be sharp, the definitions in my face would be more prominent. One snap, and I'd shift and my panther would hold nothing back.

Only a fool would get in the way of a shifter and his mate and child. It was like my body was running on the primal instinct of my cat, and while I did have some semblance of control, I'm not sure what that would have looked like if pushed.

There was no one around, though.

Not even Tia, it seemed. I couldn't sense her. I inhaled the moment I took my helmet off, needing to detect her scent to calm something in me, but all I got was the leftover smells from the day. Humans had been here with kids. They left a sickly sweet stench in the air.

A growl rumbled along my throat. My panther was not happy. It was a fight for me. Against the gnawing in my chest and the voice in my head, the one that said, she'd not only not cometo meet me, but she'd never intended to, and all that in the street was some ruse to get rid of me. The mind was a cruel thing at times. More cruel I think than any humans.

I had no idea what I'd do if she wasn't there, how I'd calm my panther.

My mind raced and my panther rushed against me. I made myself walk, heading the way we always went when we got to the Fell together. This was our place. She loved it since I'd shown her it and any time I picked her up and asked where she wanted to go, it was always here.

I fought against the angst in my head as I ran past the stream. It was harder for me in this form than it was for me as my panther. He had paws and claws and the natural affinity to climb. I was clumsy and all arms and legs. Especially in my desperation to make it to Tia, my head was all over the place. That really didn't help and it made me lose my footing. I had to get up there. I had to look, even if I just couldn't scent her.

The clearing was empty. "Shit." I inhaled a breath, stuffed my hands into my pockets, and walked over to the fence where we'd looked out across the world so many times and made so many plans. It was almost like stepping back into a version of us from two weeks ago when we were ready to take on the world together. I could almost be that person again, the one who believed.

She hadn't come.

She wasn't coming.

I ran my hands through my hair and turned my back on the fence, let my backside hit it, then I slid down, taking me down as I sat with my knees up, my elbows resting on them, my head in my hands. I just breathed. I had to breathe because of course my panther was running inside. He wasn't mad, he was pining, needing the mate when I couldn't get up and go find her. Despite what she might want or what she might have said, he didn't givea shit about the rules of life. In his head, all he had to do was go and find her.

Maybe I was late. We hadn't settled on a time. Maybe she'd been here and I'd been too long. It was almost two in the morning. Was she supposed to sit here and wait for me all night? Maybe she thought I'd be the one not to turn up and she'd left.

My panther beat inside me, his solution was to shift, to charge the hell out of there and run right down to her at the college because that would get us to her. He had no clue, no care what would happen if we did that. For me, going to the college wasn't an option, not at this time of night. The only thing I could really do was go home and wait for the morning to come and then try to talk to her then, in the daylight. But that had my panther screeching at me, and hell if I'd never heard him react like this. He set my teeth on edge, my skin tingled along every single fibre. He was pissed. He wanted Tia and there was nothing fucking stopping him.

I raised my gaze to stare into the darkness, and the colours of the world had shifted. My panther was pushing. He'd shifted my eyes. They'd be bright green now, with dark slits down the centre. I had to close my mouth, to press back where my jaws and teeth wanted to shift. "No," was all I managed to growl.

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