Last of the Ravens

Miranda’s head snapped away from him and to the side, as if she’d been alarmed by a loud noise to her right. His hearing was quite good, and he hadn’t heard a sound. She whispered low, mouthing something he couldn’t hear, then a moment later she said in a slightly louder voice, “I will not!” Then she looked at him, and her eyes were bigger than before, her face paler. “It really was nice of you to stop by but I have everything I need and I’ve come here for peace and quiet so…”

“So thanks but no thanks and get lost,” Bren said, taking a step back.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but yeah,” she said, and then again her head snapped around and she whispered so low that a man with ordinary senses would not have been able to hear, “Go away!”

Bren got into his truck, happy to make his escape. Miranda Lynch was pretty and he was most definitely drawn to her in a way he could not explain, but she was also a nut who talked to herself. It had been a while since he’d been seriously involved with any woman. His perplexing attraction to the stranger proved that he was in bad need of female companionship, but the last thing he needed in his life was a blonde with a screw loose.

“You’ve scared him away!” the ghost said. “Call him back, it’s not too late!” The ghost waved a slender hand as if Miranda should jump off the deck and chase Korbinian down the mountain.

Miranda waited until she heard the truck moving away from the cabin before she turned to the spirit. She’d seen a lot in the past four years. Murder victims. Distraught mothers who’d left their living children too soon. Ghosts who didn’t realize they were dead. Those who came back one last time to tell a loved one goodbye. This was her first actual matchmaking ghost.

“I’m on vacation,” Miranda said calmly. “Come back next week and we’ll talk.”

“Not next week,” the woman said. “Good heavens, I’ve waited for you all this time and now you want me to wait another week?” She put hands on slender hips and struck a defiant and elegant pose. “You have to get close enough to touch Bren. Once you touch him he’ll know that you’re the one. Once you touch him…”

“I have no intention of ever touching Brennus Korbinian,” Miranda said as she turned away from the ghost and headed back to her chair. The view from the deck was breathtaking, but it was difficult to enjoy with a ghost at her elbow. Still, she tried. She ignored the woman who chattered away, but she could not help but hear.

“He’s really not so gruff once you get to know him. He is quite handsome, don’t you think?”

Of course he was, but while Miranda couldn’t lie to the ghost she wasn’t about to agree aloud. She certainly didn’t want to encourage the specter in her blatant matchmaking attempt.

“I do wish he would shave more often and get an occasional haircut,” the woman said, perching on the deck railing as if she needed the support, when in fact she could just as easily have hovered on air. “But all in all he’s quite a catch.” She ticked off Korbinian’s selling points. “He’s rich, he’s handsome and he’s very attentive and kind once you get to know him.”

Miranda shooed the woman away with one hand, encouraging her to move out of the way. Her too-solid ghostly image was blocking the view.

“He’s lonely, you know, that’s why he’s occasionally gruff.”

“Move,” Miranda said simply.

The ghost smiled at her, as real and solid as any living person could be. “Tell me that you think Bren is handsome and I’ll depart to let you enjoy the scenery for a while.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“And it must be the truth,” the ghost added. “I will know if you’re trying to pacify me.”

“If I tell you with honesty that I find Brennus Korbinian handsome you’ll leave me alone?”

“For a while.”

Miranda pursed her lips. She really should not allow herself to be blackmailed by a ghost; it set a bad precedent. Still, she wanted her peace and quiet. She wanted an unobstructed view of the distant and magnificent mountains. “Fine. He’s attractive.”

“Very attractive.”

Miranda hesitated only a moment before responding. “Yes, he’s very attractive.”

“What do you find most appealing?”

“Go!” Miranda said, and at last, the ghost obeyed, leaving Miranda with an unobstructed view of a vast green paradise and a niggling sensation in her gut that robbed her of the peace that view should afford.

Since he obviously needed to get laid, as his reaction Miranda Lynch proved, Bren pondered the possibilities as he walked through the familiar grocery store aisles, mindlessly tossing staples into his cart. He hadn’t exactly been a monk, but he’d always avoided keeping a woman too long or promising more than he could give. The downside to being the last Korbinian was accepting that he would never find the one woman he could bond with, the one who could give him children and share his life. She did not exist.

He could marry, he supposed, but there would be no children, and he had never before met a woman he felt he could share his secret with. His body, yes; his secrets, never.

In order to keep his life as he wanted it—solitary—he had to keep his intimate relationships shallow and short-lived. He didn’t want any woman in his house; he didn’t want any woman thinking he could offer more than a night or two. In the past he’d had a couple of relationships that had lasted a few months, but a few months had always turned out to be too long.

Bren had almost finished checking out when he realized that the cashier was flirting with him. She smiled, she commented on each of his purchases, she leaned forward, breasts shown to their best advantage. He hadn’t seen her here before. She had the face and body a man would remember, and thick, long dark hair that had been pulled back into a massive ponytail. Tammy, according to her name tag, was the perfect solution to his current dilemma. He needed a woman who wouldn’t drive him to distraction. One he could have a little fun with and then walk away from without guilt or second thoughts. One who didn’t talk to herself and get under his skin and vacation at the cabin that was a blight on his mountain.

The problem was, this beautiful woman who was flirting outrageously did nothing for him. Nothing at all. Miranda Lynch takes a sip of coffee and he gets hard. Tammy thrusts her boobs in his direction and slowly licks her lips and looks him in the eye with an unmistakable come-hither expression—and nothing. Nada. Shit.

It was a long hike down the winding road to the gas station and convenience store at the foot of the mountain, but it was a pretty, mild spring day, and after just a few hours in the cabin Miranda found she was tired of sitting. She could only take so much vacation, apparently. Her restlessness had nothing to do with Korbinian’s morning visit, she told herself. Nothing at all.

As she walked carefully along the side of the road, Miranda admitted to herself that her friends had been right when they’d insisted that she needed some time off. She constantly pushed herself hard, feeling that with every murderer she helped to catch she was honoring Jessica’s memory. With every burden of grief she eased, she felt as if a bit of her own grief was released. The death of a beloved sister was not in vain if Miranda put the abilities that had been awakened in that accident to good use.

That didn’t mean she enjoyed reliving violent deaths and soothing the tears of those left behind. It was simply what she had to do to honor Jessica’s memory. This was not the life she had planned, but in the end it was the life she’d made. What choice did she have?

Suddenly Miranda realized she was not alone on the winding tree-lined road.

“You’re sad,” the ghost said as she kept pace with Miranda’s easy, cautious stride.

“I thought you were going away,” Miranda said without so much as altering her step. “In fact, you promised that you would.”

“Your sadness called me back,” the woman said. “We don’t have to talk about Bren if that makes you feel any better.”

Miranda sighed. “It does, actually.” She glanced at the amazingly solid-looking specter at her side. The woman appeared to be maybe fifty or so, and her dark hair had a few strands of silver-gray shot through it. She was pretty; perhaps had once been a great beauty. Unlike Miranda she was tall; she was elegant and commanding in a way a woman of five-two could never manage. “Do you have a name?”

“Of course,” the ghost answered simply. “Doesn’t everyone?” It was the same flippant answer Miranda had given Korbinian last night. Had this meddling ghost been listening in? Probably.

“What should I call you?” Miranda persisted. If the woman was going to insist on hanging around, she should call her something.

“My friends call me Dee.” The ghost looked pointedly at Miranda, her eyes amazingly alive and bright. “I believe I can call you a friend, and I promise you that you can call me the same.”

“You’re haunting me,” Miranda argued, though she had to admit that Dee had been less than tormenting. Maybe she’d been a matchmaker in life and had carried that proclivity into the afterlife. Most spirits remained earthbound for more pressing reasons, but anything was possible, she supposed. “Friends don’t haunt friends.”

“I’m only haunting you a little,” Dee said, and then she laughed lightly. “I would not feel pressed for time if you had not been so late!”

“How could I be late?” Miranda asked.

“Two years I’ve been waiting. Two years!” She didn’t sound angry, just frustrated. Dee took a deep breath. Odd, since ghosts really didn’t have to breathe. “But we’re not going to talk about that now. We’re going to talk about why you’re so sad.”

There was no use in arguing the point. “I miss my sister.”

“That’s only natural,” Dee said with sympathy.

Miranda didn’t allow herself to share her feelings openly, not anymore, but since no one else could see or hear Dee, what difference did it make? Ghosts frequently spilled their guts to her. Perhaps there was nothing wrong with her doing the same. “Jessica was my only family, and her death was sudden and unnecessary and…” Miranda fought back tears. “I miss her,” she said again. “Even years later some days I feel so alone. I have some wonderful friends, but still, I feel like I’m isolated from everyone, like I’m separate. Does that make sense?”

“You will have another family one day,” Dee said. “You won’t always be alone.”

Miranda shook her head. Her abilities were a complication, she had found, and romantic relationships didn’t work. The Lynch love curse remained in effect.

“You will,” the ghost insisted in response to the silent reaction.

They continued to walk, both of them silent. Miranda’s steps were short ones to accommodate the steepness of the hill, and Dee simply kept stride, always directly beside. When they hit a stretch of road that was not so steep their speed increased, then as it dipped down they slowed again. Miranda found she was oddly glad of the company, even if her only friend in Tennessee was an interfering ghost who thought the local grump was the catch of the decade. Maybe Korbinian wasn’t a psycho, but he wasn’t exactly dream date material, either. Who was these days?

The road that led to the cabin and then farther up the mountain to Korbinian’s place was narrow. She couldn’t imagine two cars of a normal size passing without tires leaving the road and easing onto the perilously crumbling shoulder. The narrow strip of dirt along the sides of the road was uneven and narrow, and beyond the edge was a slope that varied in height from a few feet to a frightening vast drop. Miranda found it best to stay on the pavement. It wasn’t as if there was any traffic along the road to deal with.

At least, not much traffic. When she heard the approaching vehicle she knew it had to be Korbinian. He’d been gone for hours, so he must’ve done more than grocery shopping while he was out. Not that she cared where he had gone or what he had done. Miranda moved to the shoulder as far as was safe, glancing down to the tangled green and brown growth on the slope below. She took small, cautious steps, waiting for the vehicle to come around the corner and pass. If she was lucky her neighbor wouldn’t feel he had to stop and offer her a ride.

She caught sight of the front of Korbinian’s massive black truck. As soon as he rounded the corner he’d see her and move to the other side of the road, and even if he didn’t, as long as he kept his tires on the pavement she’d be fine. Too close for comfort maybe, but safe enough. The driver came into her line of vision, and she caught sight of his shaggy dark head and stern face. A cell phone was pressed to his ear and he was talking with animation and passion to whomever was on the other end of the line. Passion for work, she imagined, unless that was a girlfriend and they were arguing. It was definitely not a happy conversation.

How come he got a cell signal and she didn’t? Talk about unfair. That was Miranda’s last thought before Dee shouted, “Look out!” and pushed. A ghost should not be able to gather the strength to physically disrupt the living, but this one did. Miranda felt the force against her shoulder as she lost her balance and scrambled wildly to regain her footing. Korbinian’s head snapped up and he spotted her, and he quickly swerved his vehicle to the side. But it was too late. Miranda tumbled off the side of the road.

Bren ended the call without warning, put the truck into Park and set the brake, then threw the door open and jumped out, running to the side of the road and leaving his truck crossways in the narrow roadway with the door standing open. He’d been trying to finish up his business call before he hit the next curve, where cell service ended, and he hadn’t been paying attention, here where he never saw another car much less a pedestrian.

He looked over the precipice where Miranda Lynch had stumbled and disappeared, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her sprawled on the ground just a couple of feet below. She’d been winded and there were leaves and twigs caught in her long hair and on her pale pink sweater, but other than that she appeared to be unhurt.

“What the hell were you doing walking on this road?” he snapped.

Blue eyes looked up at him. He had never known that eyes could actually shoot daggers, but hers did. “I’m fine, thank you,” she said coldly, still not moving.

Properly chastised, he took a couple of steps down the steep slope so he could help her. Loose dirt and fallen leaves made his footing uncertain, so each step was cautious. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

“Thank you for your concern, but it comes too late,” she said, struggling to sit up. The ground here was not too steep, so she should have been able to manage on her own in spite of the loose dirt and leaves. Still, he offered a hand. A hand she ignored as she struggled to stand without assistance. As she had this morning, her head snapped to the side and she whispered, as if there was someone there, “I will not take his hand! The idiot ran me off the road!”

Obviously she’d scrambled her brains, though he wasn’t sure that had happened when she’d fallen. They’d been pretty much scrambled when he’d met her. And still, his body responded to the very sight of her.

She worked her way to her feet without assistance, even though righting herself on the uneven ground would’ve been much easier with a hand to hold on to. So, she was stubborn, as well as scrambled. After a moment Bren found himself working to restrain a smile. The woman would go to any lengths to avoid touching him, apparently. A twig with a few leaves attached had wound itself snugly in a tangled length of blonde hair. One lucky leaf had landed on a tempting swell of pink sweater. He remained steady, hand offered, in case she changed her mind about accepting help, but she was determined to make it on her own.

When she had regained her footing, she shooed him out of the way so she could climb back up to the road. He obliged, taking two long strides up the slope to the shoulder of the road, then turning to watch her try to do the same on her short legs. After taking a couple of steps only to stumble back down the hill a bit, then failing in her attempt once more, she looked up at him—ah, there were those daggers again—and shot out her hand in a silent and decidedly surly request for help. Bren reached out and clasped her hand, taking it firmly in his own.

As soon as his flesh touched hers, Bren felt as if an electrical current had been set loose within him. Before he had the chance to explain away the phenomenon, again the unexpected happened. Clear as day, Bren saw his ancestors, the Korbinians who’d lived thousands of years ago, breaking from human form to a flock of birds so massive they blocked out the sun. As if he were there, he saw a time when his kind was prevalent and united and powerful, when they ruled the skies and the night.

Then he felt and saw this woman beneath him, a part of him as she was meant to be, as she had been born to be. She smiled, a lover’s smile. Her body took him in, and together they found pleasure like none other he had ever known.

He saw himself on the deck of the house where he now lived alone, but in the very real vision he stood there with his sons who, like him, were human and yet more than human. They all transformed to take to the skies together, blocking out the moon as they took flight across this mountain they called home.

She was the one. She was Kademair. No wonder he had been so strongly called to her. No wonder the very sight of her damn near made him crazy. Miranda Lynch was the only woman in this world he could bond with; the only woman who could save him from being the last of his kind as he had always accepted he would be. He’d thought this special woman, who his mother had always told him would come one day, to be a myth, and yet here she was, standing before him with her hand in his.

“A little help?” she said in frustration, and only then did Bren realize he’d been standing there holding on to her for a too-long moment.

He gave Miranda’s hand a tug, pulling her gently up the hill until she was once again standing on the narrow shoulder of the road. She released his hand as soon as she was able, shaking her head mightily, a move that dislodged a few leaves but did little to right the effects of the fall. Bren reached out and gently pulled the largest twig from her hair. She found the move too personal, too intimate, and slapped his hand away.

“You should watch where you’re going,” she said sharply.

His voice was much calmer as he responded, “You shouldn’t be walking on this road. It’s too dangerous.”

“Dangerous? How about talking on the cell phone while driving a monster truck up a narrow winding road? That’s dangerous. What carrier do you have?” she asked, picking that lucky leaf from the swell of her breast. “I can’t get a signal at all.”

“There’s nothing past the next curve,” he said, trying not to see this woman in an all new light, trying to forget the mental image of her beneath him. The vision had been so real he could still feel her; he could smell her; he knew how her flesh felt against his, how her body gave and took. Forgetting was impossible, even though he wasn’t sure he wanted what she could offer.

There was no place in this world for the Korbinians, not anymore. Their time had passed. Logically he could dismiss Miranda Lynch; rationally he knew what she promised would never work. But a primitive instinct he could not deny now accepted this woman as being his, and he wanted her so sharply that he could think of nothing else.

Chapter There

Bren insisted on driving her back to the cabin, and Miranda only protested once, quite mildly. She no longer felt like walking to the store and then making her way back up this mountain road. The fall hadn’t been dramatic by any means, but it had shaken her, just as standing there with Bren’s hand clutching hers, his dark brown eyes boring into her as if he saw something new and striking on her face, had shaken her.

At least Dee was gone. The meddling ghost had better not show her face again, after pushing Miranda off the road. Miranda squirmed in the passenger seat of Bren’s truck, disturbed on many levels. Dee must be quite powerful to be able to move earthly objects. It wasn’t easy for a spirit to physically affect anything at all, much less generate a push vigorous enough to move a living being. If Dee decided to stick around, there was likely nothing Miranda could do to stop her. What if Dee was actually strong enough to tag along back to Atlanta and even to jobs across the country? What if she could never get rid of the matchmaker? Scary thought.

Bren pulled sharply into the short driveway in front of the Talbot cabin, and then he turned to Miranda with accusing eyes and a firmly set mouth. She couldn’t help but notice—again—that grumpy or not, he was very good-looking. Good-looking but not pretty. There was nothing soft about the man, not in his facial expression or the cut of his jaw or the fire in his eyes—eyes that were the color of dark chocolate, she noted as she stared into them for a moment. What she could see—and had seen—of his body was definitely not at all soft. He had a workingman’s body, sculpted and impressive and hard. If she’d met him years ago, before her life had changed so dramatically, maybe she’d be attracted to him. Maybe.

Who was she kidding? If noticing the precise color of his eyes and admiring his body wasn’t attraction, what was?

“Why were you walking down the road?” he asked sharply.

“Exercise,” she said. “And I thought I’d pick up a couple of cans of soda at the gas station.”

His expression was accusing, as sharp and hard as everything else about him. “I offered to buy you anything you needed while I was out.”

She glanced at the collection of grocery bags in the backseat. They’d been jostled when he’d stopped so suddenly, and his purchases were now in a state of disarray. A few cans had escaped the plastic bags, and a box of cereal had turned upside down onto the floorboard. Oh, my. The tough guy ate Froot Loops. “I’m perfectly capable of—”

“Obviously you’re not,” he interrupted harshly. “I’ll be back in an hour to drive you to the store.”

“I really don’t need—”

Again he interrupted her. “I’ll be back in an hour. I can either take you shopping or I can sit in the driveway and wait right here in case you change your mind and decide to take off on foot again.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Try me.”

Miranda sighed as she opened the passenger door and took the long step down to the driveway. She was still a bit shaky, but when she looked back into the truck and once again Bren’s powerful eyes caught hers, she allowed herself to listen to the instincts that had so seldom disappointed her. Brennus Korbinian was a grumpy, annoying, nudist in a place where to be in a state of undress was not at all wise. He didn’t watch where he was going when he drove. He was definitely bossy.

But deep down he was a good person, and yes, whether she wanted to admit it or not, he was attractive, as Dee insisted he was. It had been a long time since Miranda had allowed a man to take her anywhere on anything that might resemble a date, and like it or not, she thought that he considered his offer to run her to the grocery store a date of sorts.

She’d only be here a few more days, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to let a good-looking man take her to the grocery store. It wasn’t as if a week was time enough for what might be a casual interaction to turn into anything more serious. “Fine,” she said. “One hour.” And then she slammed the passenger door and walked toward the front porch, digging the keys to the cabin out of her jeans pocket.

Korbinian stayed in the driveway until she had the door closed behind her. She didn’t look out the front window, tempted as she was to do so, but she did listen as he drove away. Miranda glanced around the main room of the cabin as she brushed a spot of dirt from her jeans. “Dee, show yourself.” The specter had some explaining to do.