Last of the Ravens

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Surprised as he was, the woman’s appearance should not be entirely unexpected. Bren’s father had long considered himself the last of the Korbinians, but he’d been wrong. The old man had been nearly sixty when he’d met Denise Brown, a childless divorced woman more than twenty years his junior. They’d married three weeks after meeting, and Bren had been born less than two years later. Maybe if they’d met earlier Bren would’ve had brothers, but they hadn’t, and he’d been an only child, just as his father had been.

According to Joseph Korbinian, as the population of their kind diminished, so did that of the women they were meant to be mated to. In ancient times when the Korbinians had flourished, so had the Kademair, those women with whom they could bond and mate, those women who had the genetic ability to nurture and give birth to Korbinian children. The decline was simply nature, Joseph had explained to his only son. There was no longer a place in the world for those who could walk as men and also take flight, no place for a rare species that had once served as revered messengers and warriors. In ancient times the Korbinians had been honored, but a thousand years or so ago those they served had turned against them in jealousy and mistrust. After a bloody war the species that walked as man and flew as ravens had lost, and those who’d survived had gone into hiding.

And now all that was left of what had once been a fine and special race was one man. Bren was the end of it, unless he followed his instincts and took Miranda as his mate; unless he made this woman the mother of his children—the mother of the Korbinians. The savior of an entire race. But if there was no longer a place for them in the modern world, should the race be saved? Or should it be allowed to die, as nature so obviously intended?

He couldn’t deny the doubts that warred with these new thoughts. Maybe Miranda wasn’t Kademair, after all. Maybe his father had been right. Bren wondered if he craved what he could not have so much that he’d created this scenario with a convenient and attractive woman.

She didn’t make him wait long. Miranda stepped onto the front porch, displaying no sign of her earlier accident or of annoyance that he had remained in the truck, instead of going to her door. She’d changed clothes and now wore black jeans, short black boots, a deep-teal sweater and a simple but strange little black hat that was slightly quirky and somehow suited her. The narrow brim framed her face, along with that blonde hair, which he now knew was not one shade but a hundred or so, golden and ash and pale brown all woven together. A red purse on a long chain dangled from one shoulder. She’d put on makeup, he noted as she walked toward the truck. Not a lot, but her lips were soft and pale pink, and her eyelashes were darker than they’d been an hour ago. There were no longer any leaves or twigs in her long hair, which had been brushed into a golden sheen.

Bren leaned across and opened the door for her from the inside, and she stepped onto the running board and then climbed in, hair swinging, pink lips seductive, jeans hugging her legs and fine ass just so. The way he felt right now, she could’ve come out in baggy flannel and he’d be turned on.

No, what he was experiencing went well beyond turned on. He’d never felt an attraction like this one—and he still didn’t know if it was a pull he’d follow. Destiny or not, he would not be led by biology or mythology or whatever the hell this was. His life—and hers—was in his hands, and the decisions to be made could not be made lightly.

“Do you need anything besides groceries?” he asked as Miranda closed the passenger door and he backed onto the road.

She sighed. It was a very nice sigh, indeed. “Is there a decent antique or furniture store nearby?”

“There are a couple of them along the highway.”

“I’d like to thank the Talbots for letting me stay here by buying them something for the cabin.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Maybe a couple of lamps,” she responded. “Something decorative, or maybe a small end table. The cabin is very nice, but it’s pretty, uh, sparsely furnished.”

She almost choked on the words sparsely furnished, which gave him an idea of what she was up against. Bren smiled. “Are there ducks and bears?”

Her head snapped around. “Yes! How did you know?”

“The cute-animal theme is a common decorating mistake in these parts.”

She relaxed. He could feel, as well as see, her response. “You sound as if you don’t approve. What, you don’t have dancing black bears and cavorting ducks at your place?”

“No,” he answered decisively. “There are also no deer heads or stuffed bass, no geese in frilly white hats and, while we’re on the subject, no wax fruit in the kitchen.”

“You must have had an enlightened decorator,” she teased.

“No decorator. I did it all myself.”

She studied him critically; he could feel her gaze on him. “Most men are very utilitarian when it comes to decorating.”

Bren shrugged. “You’ll have to see my house and judge for yourself, I guess.”

She clammed up, perhaps no more comfortable with the idea of visiting his home than he was at the idea of inviting her there.

They hadn’t been gone more than fifteen minutes before Miranda knew agreeing to let Brennus Korbinian take her anywhere was a huge mistake. Their simple trip felt too much like a date, even though the antique store he took her to was definitely not a normal stop on any courtship route. The long warehouse was dusty and overstuffed, filled to the brim with a mixture of new and old pieces, some of them treasures, most of them junk.

She loved the crowded, dusty store, and strangely enough Bren seemed comfortable there. He knew the woman who owned and ran the place, an older lady he called Mabel, and the greetings they’d exchanged had been simple and cordial. With the owner of the antique store he was anything but grumpy, though he wasn’t exuberant in his interactions, either. Mabel was helping another couple look for something specific, leaving Miranda and Bren to wander through the lovely mess alone.

They hadn’t been browsing long when Bren asked almost casually, “So, how do you know Roger Talbot?”

It was an innocent enough question, she supposed. In the Atlanta area Miranda had gotten a lot of press, some of it praising, more of it denigrating, the occasional bit meant to be amusing, she supposed. Even though her work often took her out of state, away from home Roger always managed to keep her involvement under wraps. He had not been so lucky at home base. Locally, word of her talents had been out for a while now.

Obviously no one around here would be reading the Atlanta papers, so she was tempted to make up a believable story for Bren, something that had nothing to do with seeing ghosts or solving crimes. He would probably believe whatever she told him, unless he happened to do a Google search on her. Some days she hated the Internet! Nothing was secret anymore. Nothing was private.

Besides, she’d been here before, she’d played that game. She meets a man. She likes him and he likes her. Why spoil it right off the bat with the truth? All goes well and then he finds out what she can do and it all goes to hell.

Miranda picked up a small glass bowl and studied it carefully, afraid to look directly at Bren. She tried to convince herself that she didn’t like him all that much, anyway. If she scared him off here and now, what had she lost? Nothing. “I talk to the ghosts of murder victims at crime scenes and pass the information on to Roger, who uses what I find out from the departed to collect the evidence he needs to arrest and convict the guilty.”

All was silent. Miranda listened intently to the horrendously loud ticking of a nearby ancient clock as she studied the light from the front window breaking through the glass bowl in her hand. Bren didn’t laugh, he didn’t gasp, and unless he moved soundlessly he hadn’t stepped away from her in horror, either.

“Sounds like tough work,” he finally said in a lowered voice. “No wonder you needed a vacation.”

Miranda twisted her head slightly and looked into Bren’s face. No, he wasn’t kidding her. He wasn’t scared or repulsed, either. There was a touch of sympathy in his eyes, but not so much that she thought he felt sorry for her. She hated pity as much as she did disbelief. Maybe more.

He shook a finger at her, and she noted that he had a workingman’s hands, long-fingered and callused and rough and beautiful. “You weren’t talking to yourself this morning or after you fell off the road. You were talking to a ghost.”

“I was. You don’t seem at all surprised,” she observed.

“It takes a lot to surprise me.” He smiled. For a man who didn’t smile often, he did so very nicely. “To be honest, I’m relieved. For a while there I thought you might be a little bit off your rocker, talking to yourself and all.”

“I do sometimes talk to myself,” she said, experiencing the strongest rush of ease she’d felt in a long time.

“Yes, but you probably don’t tell yourself to go away.”

She drew back a little. “You heard that?” This morning when she’d tried to order Dee to go she’d whispered so softly and Bren had been standing so far away…

“Yeah.” He motioned to one ear with one of those long, fine fingers. “I have the Korbinian hearing. You can’t pull anything over on me.”

Heaven above, she liked him. Cheryl’s psycho, Roger’s irate neighbor who was determined to own the entire mountain, a man who’d literally run her off the road and then chastised her for being there. She liked him much more than she should. He was alternately funny and pensive, grumpy and hospitable, and he did look fine in those worn jeans. And then an alarming thought occurred to her, a thought that wiped away all her ease.

“You’re being nice to me so I’ll convince Roger to sell you the cabin!” She put the glass bowl down too hard. “I should’ve known,” she muttered to herself.

“I am not,” he said without anger.

“You are. That’s why you offered to give me a ride, that’s why you stopped and helped me after you ran me off the road.” She threw her hands up in the air. “If you didn’t want me to help you get the cabin, you probably would’ve left me there to fend for myself. You probably would’ve gotten a good laugh and just kept on driving.”

Finely shaped eyebrows arched. “You don’t think much of me, do you?” he asked, calm as could be.

“No, I don’t.” Miranda defensively crossed her arms and took a pose that clearly said Keep away. Clear as it should’ve been, Bren wasn’t listening.

“Do you want to know why I offered you a ride?” He took a step closer and she backed away. “Do you really want to know why I found myself outside the cabin on your first night on the mountain?”

Naked, as she recalled.

Again he moved forward and she moved back, until she found herself trapped in a kind of hole fashioned from an antique wardrobe and a noisy clock. Tick tock, tick tock. “Do you really want to know why I didn’t run from you when you made it very clear that was what you wanted?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He leaned in, cupped her chin and lifted her face, and then he placed his mouth over hers. She was so surprised by the move that for a moment she didn’t react. She simply stood there and accepted; she experienced; she felt. Yes, it had been a long time since she’d been properly kissed, and this simple touch of mouth to mouth was more than proper. It was extraordinary. The kiss rocked her to her toes, it paralyzed her, it shook her to the center of her being and fired up a wave of desire that was strong and primitive and totally unexpected. She heard the ticking of the big clock and the beat of her own heart, she felt Bren’s lips and the wobbling of her knees and a tingle that shook her and took her to a place she had not been in a very long time.

Desire. She couldn’t say the sensation was entirely unknown to her, but it was something she’d denied herself for years, and she had never experienced it so fully, so deeply or so quickly. Bren’s lips moved gently and she shuddered. Her lips parted and so did his, and for a moment she was frozen, unable to breathe, unable to describe the connection and pleasure she experienced. When he removed his mouth from hers it took all the will she had not to grab the front of his shirt and pull him back.

“That’s why,” he said, and then he turned away and left her standing there, shaken and confused and very tempted to chase after him.

Bren helped Miranda carry her purchases into the cabin he had so long coveted. If he had his way he’d buy the place and raze it to the ground. A good look at the interior did nothing to change his mind about those plans.

A couple of decent lamps and a decorative bowl were hardly going to help matters. What the cabin that marred his mountain really needed was a good fire.

“Cozy,” he said beneath his breath as he surveyed the orange sofa and matching overstuffed chair. “Ugly as sin, but cozy.”

Miranda laughed. “Tell me what you really think, why don’t you?”

They had managed to ignore the kiss, at least openly. He couldn’t forget it and he knew she hadn’t forgotten, either. He could almost swear there was an electric current running between them, a current that repelled and attracted at the same time, a current that changed the smell and the feel of the air he breathed.

Bren had known at first touch that she was the one for him. Sexually, reproductively, to the soul and to the bone, Miranda was for him. From that moment he’d felt as if he was being led—hell, dragged—into a life that was predestined and he had no choice in the matter. But just because she was here and they had some kind of ancient connection didn’t mean they had to act on it. Her presence and his knowledge of the possibilities didn’t mean he had to follow his impulses. For a moment the kiss had chased his doubts away and he’d been ready to dive in, body and soul, but the doubts were back. He would not be led, not in a matter as important as this.

He wondered if Miranda felt anything out of the ordinary. She was Kademair, but that didn’t necessarily mean she knew, as he did. That didn’t mean she looked at him and realized he was meant, biologically at least, to be the father of her children. Did she struggle with the possibilities, as he did? Maybe she was blithely and wonderfully ignorant of how momentous their meeting was.

The father of the rebirth of a species or a childless bachelor and the last of his breed—that was his choice. It was not a choice to be made in an instant, no matter how natural one path seemed to him at this moment. The natural path would take him directly to Miranda Lynch’s bed, into her body. With everything he was, he wanted to peel those black jeans away from her skin, taste her, arouse her, claim her in a way he had never thought to claim any woman.

If he were an animal there would be no choice to be made. But he was not an animal, he was a man. Difficult as it was, he would attempt to think rationally. He would try to push back his natural attraction until he was sure of what he wanted.

His well-ordered life could change in an instant. Did he want the dramatic change this woman’s appearance offered?

Miranda showed him where to place the lamps, while she put her sodas and skim milk in the refrigerator, commenting on how rude the cashier at the grocery store had been. It was true. Tammy had not been happy to see Bren return with another woman. Bren had barely spared a glance for the cashier, unnaturally taken as he was with Miranda, but he’d noticed.

“So,” Miranda said while her head was in the refrigerator and she didn’t have to look him in the eye, “why do you want this place so badly, anyway?”

“It’s an eyesore.”

“This cabin might not be up to your standards, but it’s hardly an eyesore,” she said, closing the refrigerator and turning to face him. “Are you really such a loner that you want to have this entire mountain to yourself?”

He didn’t want to answer that question, not yet. Was he still a loner? “Why is your friend Talbot so determined to hang on to it? I’ve offered him more than enough to buy a better place elsewhere.”

“I suppose it has sentimental value,” she said as she left the galley kitchen. “It belonged to his father. Back in those days the cabin at the top of the mountain wasn’t much bigger than this one, he said.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Bren admitted, remembering his father’s cabin, the place where he’d spent most of his childhood. His mother had demanded more, for herself and for her son, and for many years they’d moved between a proper house in Townsend and the cabin on the mountain. The house in Townsend, nice as it had been, had never felt like home.

The conversation about this mountain and the cabin was small talk, but in the air something momentous lingered. A kiss and the electric energy in the air danced between them. Everything had changed, could change, and surely Miranda felt that on some level. Bren wasn’t good at romance; he didn’t know how to woo or chase or smoothly seduce, and he still wasn’t sure what he was going to do about this woman who had worked her way beneath his skin. The possibilities remained endless.

He was straightforward in everything he did, including sex, so he asked, “Do you have a boyfriend at home?”

“No,” she answered quickly.

She didn’t wear a ring, but that was less than conclusive. “A husband or fiancé?”

“No.” She didn’t ask him why he wanted to know. After the kiss she shouldn’t need to ask. “What about you? Is there a girlfriend out there wondering where you are on a beautiful Sunday afternoon?”

“No,” he responded as simply as she had.

“A Mrs. Korbinian?”

“Not yet,” he said, looking her squarely in the eye.

For some reason that answer brought a hint of color to Miranda’s cheeks. She tried to ease the tension in the room with a laugh that sounded all wrong, as she removed her hat and tossed it onto the couch as if it were a Frisbee. “What’s wrong with us? The ghost thing scares a lot of men away, but you…what’s your excuse, Korbinian? Why are you still single?”

“Maybe one day I’ll tell you.” If he stayed here much longer he wouldn’t be able to leave. He had the best of intentions, but if he stayed in Miranda’s company he’d soon be physically incapable of walking away, and the decision he wrestled with would be made. Bren headed for the door, but he did turn to look back at Miranda. She was a hard woman to leave. “Dinner tomorrow, my place, I’ll pick you up at six.”

He didn’t give her a chance to refuse his offer, but left quickly—while he still could.

Chapter Four

Miranda showered and put on her pajamas early in the evening, determined to get the rest that had brought her to the mountains. She would relax if it killed her! She made soup for supper—chicken noodle soup right out of the can, since real cooking wasn’t what she’d call restful. To be honest she wasn’t all that hungry, but she made herself eat a few spoonfuls.

After soup she sat on the deck for a while, enjoying the spectacle of near and distant vistas, but her eyes were drawn too often to the house at the top of the mountain. Korbinian’s house—in no way could it be called a cabin—had been built with an eye to fitting into the environment, so it didn’t exactly pop out. The roof was a dull, dark green; the deck, which ran the length of the house, seemed almost a part of the wooded landscape. If not for the little bit of light shining through large windows, which surely afforded Bren a stellar view, she could almost think his house was a part of the mountain he wanted to claim entirely as his own.

She couldn’t get a good handle on Brennus Korbinian. Yes, he looked at her like he wanted to eat her up, and they were both unattached and healthy in a world where in so many cases that was good enough for everyone involved. Miranda had never understood the appeal in a one-night-stand, but plenty of women—and men—her age did. If she was ever going to consider a casual sexual relationship, Bren would be perfect.

She understood her attraction to him, but why was he paying her so much attention? Korbinian was successful and good-looking, so he shouldn’t be exactly desperate for female companionship. Lack of social skills aside, he should have women lined up at his door, if that was what he wanted. He didn’t strike her as one of those men who had to conquer every woman they met, as if sex was a game and they thought themselves master players. She’d met guys like that, men who moved in too quickly, got too close, smiled too widely and too intimately. Bren wasn’t like that, not at all. In the beginning he had been anything but friendly, and he was very low on the smarmy meter—even though he had hiked to the cabin naked, which she surely would’ve taken as a warning sign if she didn’t instinctively like him at least a little bit.