Raven's Prince (Raven's Shadows Book 4), page 1
Praise for the Raven’s Shadows Series
The characters are perfectly flawed. It was so refreshing to read a story and not fall madly in love with the “looks” of the two main male characters, Tom and Emmet. It’s their personalities and little quirks that draw you in and make you fall in love.
Raven is a rare breed, and easy to love from the moment you begin the first page. Each character is built to perfection, each “place” is described in a way that shows you where they are. The twists and turns are shocking, to say the least, and just when you think you know what’s going to happen, you’re wrong once again. – Magical Pages Book Blog
The book had just enough mystery and suspense to keep me wanting more, eagerly turning each page to find out what happens next. The ending was unpredictable and totally came as a surprise to me. – Amy Cecil, Author of Ripper and Knights of Silence Series
Raven the main character has gone through many heartaches throughout her short life. Many losses and on her 18th birthday finds out a huge secret that impacts the rest of her life.
She meets Emmett and Tom both having strong feelings for Raven. Both men are different in many ways, and Raven must deal with her feelings for them and deal with the secrets that she uncovers. This book takes you on a ride of murder, mystery and big shockers. – My Books, My World Blog.
The writing is wonderful, the characters grab you and don’t let go, and the story is amazing. This series is fast paced, and the characters are wonderfully developed. I can’t wait for the next instalment to see what happens next! – Amazon Reviewer
The story becomes creepier and creepier. I mean I was reading it last night when I was alone at home for the weekend, and I had to sleep at some point, but I was feeling like something was observing me... yeah this book is going to make you hide under the blanket. It’s not like hell scary just able to give you a bit of a chill.
The story has a lot of twist and turns, some you can see coming and some others, not so much. I was totally blindsided by the ending, even though in retrospect, there were clues. – Amazon Reviewer.
RAVEN’S PRINCE
© Copyright R. L. Weeks 2019
Poem © Donna Owens
Excerpt from Raven’s Witch © R. L. Weeks
All rights reserved.
Published by Vamptasy Publishing
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events and organizations are purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, nor translated into a machine language, without the written permission of the publisher.
Condition of sale
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Cover Design and Formatting by Dark Wish Designs
Edited by Angie Wade at Novel Nurse Editing
Fear is a feeling I am not accustomed to,
until I saw my heart pressed
firmly under your heel.
Mihai, Raven’s Prince
Darkness is essential for one to see the light,
but in my world, there is neither;
only shades of grey
Raven, Raven’s Prince
I choose to feel everything
because through pain comes exhilaration
and a breath of life that I will surely
miss when I’m in a casket six feet under.
Rosalie, Raven’s Prince
Dedication
For Sammie, Dylan, and Tate.
There are few people I would risk everything for. You three will always have my heart, my dear sister and nephews.
Author’s Note
Thank you so much to all of you who have followed Raven’s journey so far. I am excited for this next instalment which sets things up for the final two books in the series. Raven’s Witch and Raven’s Shadows.
Although this book is set in the Victorian Era, I have written it in a more current language while being mindful not to add in any slang from the present day, for readability. This has been done so you can all enjoy the story without having to search through a dictionary every other word to find Victorian slang.
In this instalment the characters of Rosalie and Mihai are explored more, as I love these two and their rich histories and minds that are ahead of their time. Along with Raven and Emmett, these two will continue to be main characters in the two final books. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.
The gift of Sight is one I am fascinated with. I believe we all have the capability inside of us to tap into the wisdom of the universe. I try to portray this through Raven’s vast gifts. I love her abilities and watching her master them.
If you want to find out more about the characters in this book, including character cards which are coming soon, you can sign up to my newsletter, and get updates on the release dates of the final two books in 2019.
If you have any questions or comments please email me at authorrlweeks@gmail.com, I love to hear from you! If you would like to review this book or any of the other books in the series, I always read reviews left on Amazon, Goodreads, and BookBub. They really help me, and I love hearing your opinions.
- Rebecca (R. L. Weeks)
Poem
The bats fly high in the pale moon sky,
As I wait for my Prince to arrive.
Our love runs deep like the blood through my veins.
I long to hold him again, and feel his touch,
Am I asking for too much?
Others try to stand in our way,
But our love will either save or ruin everything,
By the end of the day.
By Donna Owens
CHAPTER ONE
‘A Foggy Night in London’
Detective. R. Jenson walked through Arlington Street – one of the most prestigious neighbourhoods in London – to visit Lady Camwood and update her on the whereabouts of her son. The mansions cast silhouettes over the trimmed bushes and on the paved road. He dusted down his jacket and exhaled slowly.
He spotted Lady Camwood’s house at the dead end of the road and searched his mind for the words to relay what he found to his client. She had hired him to find her son after he went missing over a week ago, and the police had come up empty-handed, which didn’t surprise Jenson. Camwood’s son was a well-to-do young man with a bright future ahead of him, therefore would not be looked for in the poorer, dirtier areas of London.
However, twenty years’ experience had pushed him to look where no one else would. After he searched the lad’s bedroom, he found traces of heroin on the side table and an address, which turned out to be an abandoned building. The police had seen nothing there so left, but Jenson knew better than to give up on a lead so soon.
It only took him a few hours of waiting outside of the weathered, desolate building to realise it was a common meeting ground for drug deals. Several people later, as well as an alias and a change of clothes to go undercover, he tracked down Camwood’s son under his alias, Jam, and found him – well, his body – in the appropriately nicknamed ‘Heroin Alley’.
Detective Jenson passed the biggest mansion on the street, which was two houses down from his client’s home, when a chilling scream from a woman rattled through the night, freezing Jenson to the spot.
He looked at the pristine mansion to his right, standing white against the silhouette of the vast gardens behind it. Another scream rang out, and this time Jenson could tell it had come from inside the mansion.
He tugged at the lock on the tall, iron gates and shouted for help as a third scream, this time from a man, echoed from inside.
“Someone! Help!” he shouted and climbed at the wall. He cursed when his boot slid on a stone, and a rough rock caught the tip of his gloves. He quickly removed them and climbed over the wall using all the strength he could muster. He took his weakness as the final sign he needed to lose some of the extra weight he had been carrying since his divorce. It was always slowing him down.
He lost his footing as he reached the other side of the wall and slipped down onto a flower bed below, crushing the colourful tulips.
He scrambled to his feet, not caring about the pain radiating up his left side, and ran as fast as he could towards the mansion.
He reached for his Lancaster Pistol, the latest in range fashioned by his favourite gunsmith, Charles Lancaster. With that pistol, he felt safe against whoever had caused the screams from inside.
His stomach twisted when he reached the back entrance. The chilling silence meant one thing; the victims inside were already dead. His only focus now was whoever was causing the screams. Three screams, two from a woman or women and one from a man, meant there were two to three victims, and the time in between the screams meant they were all sleeping or in different parts of the mansion, which usually pointed towards murder. The silence thereafter only confirmed this theory.
He tried the handle on the back door. It was unlocked, so the perpetrator must have had a key, or the owners of the mansion had left the doors opened, which was unlikely.
Jenson ran towards the dim light of the living room. It was empty.
Silently, he made his way room to room, listening for footsteps or voices. Pistol at the ready gripped in his clammy hands, he rounded the corner into the next room, then the parlour room, and finally upstairs to the bedrooms. They must have been sleeping as he had first thought.
He froze when he approached the second bedroom. A man’s voice boomed before Jenson could enter. “Turn around and leave, or I will not show you any mercy.”
Jenson gulped. How did the murderer know he was there?
There comes a point in life where one decision could alter your entire future, but when faced with that decision, you may not realise it had been the defining moment.
Jenson had never run from a fight or shied away from danger, and he wasn’t going to start now.
“Put your weapon down,” Jenson said in his most authoritative voice. “I have a gun. I will shoot if you have a weapon.”
The man laughed light-heartedly, as if he had been told a joke. “What if the weapon is me?”
Jenson’s brows furrowed as he contemplated the man’s strange words and accompanying reactions. He investigated the darkness of the master bedroom across the hall and spotted weird markings on the doorframe. He had been so focused on the situation at hand, he had failed to take in details from inside the mansion.
There was evidence of dark magic all around him – perhaps Satanism – and none of them were fresh, which meant the victims were a part of something that, as a devout Christian, Jenson feared.
“Are you going to come in or not?” The man’s voice boomed again.
Jenson shuddered his own feelings about the victims away and stormed into the bedroom. These murders felt different from all the others he had investigated or come across in his twenty years, but it didn’t stop him from walking into the obvious trap.
A man was standing at the foot of a bed. On it, a man was lying down, unconscious.
“What is this?” Jenson asked, coming up with seventeen theories all at once. He looked up at the man, who was wearing a green coat, looking otherworldly.
“You really should have left,” the man said without looking at Jenson. “I would bury you alive with these, but that wouldn’t work at all for my plan.”
Jenson lifted the pistol and pulled the trigger. The man raised his hand, and the bullet stopped mid-air, then he turned and twisted his fingers. In turn, Jenson’s neck twisted, then snapped.
Jenson dropped to the floor, like a puppet with its strings cut. The man looked back at the unconscious boy. “Well, well, Thomas Pride, you, your mother, and aunt are about to choke on dirt.”
CHAPTER TWO
‘The Pride Family Mansion’
Raven
It was the first day on returning to London when I found out the remaining three members of my family had died. I didn’t know them, my estranged cousin and aunts, but no one deserves to die in the way they did. They’d been buried alive, found by the police after my cousin’s pocket watch was found near a tree in their back garden.
The wind whips around me, my hair flicking in front of my face, as I stare at the mansion belonging to my dead relatives.
Their house is larger than ours, white-bricked with black-framed square windows, and cast-iron gates line the front lawn. There is no ivy, no leaves scattered on the path leading up to the door, and no signs of death. The house is pristine, beautiful, and situated in the most prestigious part of London.
A young girl with coppery curls clustered on top of her head and freckles scattered over her nose and cheeks skips past the house, then turns and looks at me.
“Hello,” I say flatly.
I need her to leave so I can find a way to sneak inside the house before I’m seen. She must sense my annoyance, as her nose scrunches up, and she sticks her tongue out at me.
It’s only after she runs down the road and vanishes at the corner when I realise she was a ghost.
Another little girl ghost… It takes me back to the first time I met Tabitha, the dead girl who led me onto the path of my blood-splattered family history and string of murders.
The day quickly fades to dusk, the murky-grey sky turns dark, and the streetlamps flicker on. I duck behind the wall as a few men walk past the mansion, muttering about the recent murders and how they had always thought the Pride family were strange. I hear their voices fade and stand up.
“I hope you’re not planning on breaking in there.”
I slowly turn with my eyes closed. When I open them, I’m faced with the silhouette of Rosalie. “You scared me.”
Her brown eyes narrow in suspicion. “You can’t break in there! It’s not safe, and besides, there’s something else you need to know.”
“What is it?”
She holds her breath for a few seconds. “I found a note on Emmett’s door. It’s from an anonymous person. It reads: ‘You will be the next one choking on dirt.’
I look at the note and decide instantly that I need to cast a cloaking spell on myself – and the house – at the very least so we can’t be found.
⛥⛥⛥
I woke with a weightless thought for the first time since Emmett and I were separated by the veil between the dead and the living. I could die soon, for good this time, and then I wouldn’t have to live with this hollowness any more.
The note on my nightstand lies flatly under the warm glow of a candle. Wax has gone everywhere, and the wick is almost gone. Sleeping, something I seldom do these days, came easily last night. I have felt depressed for the longest time since I was a child, or maybe I had never really experienced much happiness. Some people were born to just die, I guess, and I am one of them.
“Knock, knock.” Rosalie pops her head around my door. “Do you want some breakfast?”
I sit up and lean forward. “No, thanks. Not hungry.”
She doesn’t know how I’m feeling. I was always good at fooling people into believing what I wanted them to think – mostly that I was fine and didn’t want to die.
Rosalie plops herself down at the end of my bed. It’s Emmett’s bed, but he’s not here anymore, I remind myself.
Rosalie glides her hand along the blanket until she reaches my hand. Her touch is warm and soft. “I feel like I was born in a different time too,” she says with absolution in her voice. “Sometimes it’s as if we can see nothing beyond the abyss that is the world we live in… and boredom and pain that inflicts onto our souls daily.”
I internally freak out. Can she read my mind or something?
She continues. “Sometimes, Raven, we must find happiness in the smallest of moments. Death is always going to be the destination, but it is not the destination we should be focused on. The filler before that is what’s important. You won’t be allowed to leave until you’ve actually started to enjoy yourself.”
I feel myself opening a little. I’m not sure if it’s her soft touch, warm gaze, or wise words, but something in her forces my heart wide open for all to see. “I’ve always felt like the world was grey. Like, a personal rainstorm over my head has been following me since I was born.”
Rosalie’s pink lips stretch into a kind smile. “I guess I’ll have to be your umbrella then. Besides.” She pauses briefly. “You’re responsible for how you feel. You’re never going to find moments of happiness if you don’t want to feel them.”
Rage boils inside of me. “You think I want to feel like this?”
Rosalie shrugs indifferently. “If you didn’t, then you wouldn’t have this pessimism all the time. It’s draining on you and on the people around you. Sometimes, Raven, you have been happy. I’ve seen it. Happiness is not a destination. It’s a feeling that comes and goes. I am here for you!” she says fiercely. “Even if it’s to tell you when you’re bringing on most of this yourself. Look for inner peace. Accept what can’t be changed. Say your truths and refuse to wallow in self-pity.”
