Relinquished Hood Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  The Seven Ravens

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  ABOUT KENDRAI MEEKS

  Acknowledgments

  Catch a typo?

  The Seven Ravens

  Though his heart ached for a daughter, Fortune blessed the king with seven sons. Until, at long last, the family welcomed a girl. But the infant’s constitution was weak, so much so that the king feared his daughter should pass from this world before provisions were made for her soul. He therefore hastened to have her baptized.

  The king sent his seven sons to fetch the water necessary. Each wanted to be the hero in their father’s eyes, and so they fought over who should lower the bucket into the well. In the melee, the bucket fell in. The brothers then fretted over the king’s reaction should they return without that for which they had been dispatched.

  After several hours, the king grew impatient, and called out in his anger, “Such godless sons as have I! They have forgotten their task and taken to revels, feckless and unworried for their sister’s fate. Fie upon them all! Would that Fortune would make them ravens, that they may caw about the land as the heathen progeny that they have grown to be!”

  Fortune shared his anger, for she perceived as did the king. Hardly had the curse fallen from his mouth than she breathed life into his words. The brothers’ flesh rippled with feathers, and seven birds flew from the well.

  The king regretted his hasty curse, but knew Fortune had done only as asked. He was to blame for his sons’ fates. When the king admitted his guilt to Fortune, however, she too regretted her hastiness. To relieve their common suffering, she ensured that the little princess grew strong in both beauty and kindness.

  The princess knew not her father’s mistake, nor the fate of her brothers, until one day, while walking near the very well where the folly had occurred, she chanced upon an old woman who pointed her long, bony finger. “Woe, maiden, for though thou art tall and lovely, your beauty and breath came at such a price! Seven ravens have you for brothers, and they flew from the hearth of your father, discarded and forlorn.”

  The princess had known that once she had these siblings, but the king grew sad whenever she had asked of their fate, and so she had stopped asking. Now, guilt sprouted in her heart, and she decided that she must find her brothers, break their curse, and unite her family once more.

  She left by night, hidden by the mists, taking only that needed for her journey: her gray cloak, her satchel, and a tiny dagger, given to her by her father, to prepare what food she may find along the way. She walked east, until she came to the very precipice of the sunrise. The sun, careless and distant, burned her flesh. She knew her brothers could not be where neither she could go.

  Next, she journeyed west, until she came upon the great moon in its sky. The children of the moon crawled and uncurled from a forest basked in light. “We smell flesh,” they said, licking maws. “Flesh, which smells to us like prey.”

  Frightened of the moon children, she ran away, to the land which sat in darkness, between the moon and the sun, where only the stars could see her. Here, she found a cave blocked by a glass door, and a key made of bone. But when she tried to use the key, it vanished into air. The keyhole looked familiar, and thinking what a waste it would be to come so far and be stopped by nothing more than lock, she took a dagger from her belt and slice off her own little finger.

  The door swung open. The child she found inside asked after her quest.

  “I come seeking the ravens,” she said.

  “Fortune has led you here,” the boy said, “for this is where they dwell. They have taken to their hunt at present, milady, cloaked by the darkness so none may see their shame. Come into the hall, sit at the table, while I am about my business.”

  The child set out seven silver plates filled with meat, and beside each plate, a golden goblet filled with red wine. For many hours, the daughter sat waiting, her eyes growing hungry with the meal displayed before her. At last, her hunger overcame her. She put the dagger down on the table, before taking one bite from each plate, and a single sip from the vessel beside it.

  No sooner had she partaken of the seventh goblet than a great wind swirled in the cave, and seven shadows came through the door. Frightened, the daughter hid behind a rock, even as each of the birds took a place at the table.

  “Caw! Who has – caw! – been eating at our – caw! – table?” one asked.

  Another said, “This bite is that of a – caw! – human.”

  The biggest of the ravens cried out, “Look, it is Father’s dagger, but was it not Father who cursed us? Surely he is not here. How, then, came it to be here? Would that it was our sister, so that we know we suffer our fates that she had lived.”

  The princess, knowing that her brothers held still love in their hearts, revealed herself. “It is I, come to free you from your curse, and unite our family once more, if Fortune grants it.”

  The little boy smiled, and in a sigh, took on his true form, Fortune. “Use your father’s dagger,” she said, “and into each cup and on to each plate, place a drop of your blood. If your brothers then partake of your offering, and if they have repented, I will again make them flesh, and I will make it known to your father that his legacy has been restored.”

  It was done, and so as Fortune promised, soon the seven brothers stood by their precious sister once more. They made their way back through the land of the darkness, where upon they came to the King’s castle.

  The brothers charged the gate, and within found their father. The King shed tears upon seeing his sons return, made men once more. He opened his arms to welcome them, whereupon they each in turn fell upon him, growing beaks which they used to rend the flesh from his body. Into the night, they chewed long upon the marrow of his bones, tasting the bitterness of their vengeance, until at last, their eyes fell upon the princess. They forced her to consume their father’s heart, whereupon she threw her head back and screamed. But her screams faded, as did her flesh, and soon, where the princess had stood, remained only a single raven.

  Chapter One

  In the past month, I’d thoroughly kicked the asses of a pseudo-slayer and a bitch of a vampire. But today, my ass had been kicked.

  By an Organic Chemistry final.

  “I swear to God, I’m never going to need to know so much about carbonyl compounds, like, ever.” I let gravity pull me back into the cushy confines of the overstuffed armchair.

  Bubbly and blonde, Amy Popowitz, my fearless roommate and only close friend in Chicago, rounded the kitchen island, poking a spoon into a bowl of bulbous black orbs. “Told you Org Chem was Satan’s Bitch.”

  Amy was the type of girl you’d swear was all about sales at Saks and rating the best mani-pedis along
Michigan Avenue, while secretly being the smartest person in the room. At least, book smart. When it came to relationships, she flunked every subject, dating a parade of losers that made the Chicago City Council look like angels. She’d just broken up with her latest flavor, Victor, the week before finals, when he’d dared study for his architecture exam instead of her own flying buttresses.

  I hitched my head up. “Is that why they say the Devil smells like sulfur?”

  “Do they say that?” A stream of whatever gluten free, organic, no soy chia seed sludge she’d learned from Gwyneth Paltrow this week dribbled from her mouth. “I thought it was brimstone.”

  “It is brimstone. Brimstone is sulfur. You seriously didn’t know that?”

  Her face drooped. “What, I’m supposed to be smart about religion now, too?”

  A clomp, clomp, clomp preceded Kim into the room, bringing a scowl to Amy’s face and a smile to mine. I had to admit, Cody’s cousin had grown on me. Once you got over the fact that her combat boots only came off when she laid down to bed each morning, Kim drew you in with her unabashed refusal to be anyone other than herself.

  In Amy’s eyes, this was also Kim’s worst flaw.

  “Geri, I thought I heard you come in.”

  An obviously fake and overly accentuated wink pumped up the level of awkward in the room. Kim was a werewolf, and I was a hood. She sensed me as soon as I got out of the elevator, just as I had picked up on her vibe from down the block. Amy knew that Kim and I were keeping something secret from her. Given that the shewolf only appeared to my roomie as a very butch woman who slept in my room all day and could drink her under the table every night, however, Amy had newborn suspicions on why I wasn’t as interested in men as she thought I should be.

  “How did the last final go?” Kim asked.

  “It went, and for the moment, that’s all I care about.”

  “She aced it. That’s what Geri does with all her exams.” Amy’s confident comment could have been sincere, or, as I suspected was actually the case, was an attempt to win me back from Kim. For a Huey, my roomie threw out more territorial markers than a new alpha.

  Luckily, diplomacy was a skill wolves cultivated from childhood. Otherwise, they’d be in constant honor battles to the death.

  Kim’s grin stretched wide, pride beaming. “Geri’s always been great in school. She was our Valedictorian, you know? And Cody was the salutatorian. It was so cute when they got up to give their speeches and they kissed instead of shook hands.”

  A PDA that almost set my mother on the prowl, if I hadn’t convinced her the Paradise Pack’s son had done it deliberately to piss her off.

  Amy’s eyes went wide as the bowl clanked unceremoniously to the tiled counter. “She kissed a boy in front of a whole crowd of people?”

  The shewolf grinned at her superior knowledge of my past. “They had just started dating at the time. And ‘crowd’ might be an exaggeration. If I remember right, they were the only graduating students that year. Our entire school had less than fifty students all together.”

  “Boyfriend?” My roommate examined me with the eyes of a stranger. “There was a boyfriend? How could you not mention a boyfriend?”

  I squirmed, wishing one of the powers in the hood catalogue was the ability to turn back time and keep werewolves from blabbing. “We broke up right before I moved to Chicago. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you. It’s just...”

  Understanding filled Amy’s eyes. Her expressions softened. “Oh, Geri. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drudge up something painful. But, now that I know, it totally makes sense why my tactics haven’t been working. Here I thought you were all innocent and shy, but you just had a broken heart. I bet he’s a bastard. I bet he’s sorry every day that he lost you, and he can suck on it, for all I care. He doesn’t deserve you.”

  Thank goodness the low rumble coming from Kim across the room was drowned out by the passing of the El-Train a block away. I shot to my feet and pushed five fingers into the shewolf’s chest, hoping to make her realize she was taking a defensive posture in front of a clueless, and over all well-intentioned, Huey.

  “It was nothing like that, Amy,” I interjected, reining in Kim’s hackles. “Our relationship just ran its course is all. He’s actually a really good guy who is still a friend. And FYI, he’s also Kim’s cousin.”

  Amy’s nose wrinkled. “It really is a small town up there, isn’t it?”

  I’d barely gotten out “When you sneeze, it makes the front page of the paper,” when there was a knock at the door.

  Kim shifted from emotionally defensive to cautiously territorial. Someone who had to knock on your door in Paradise was usually trying to sell you something, or serve you. Rarely, a bewildered fudgesucker might chance upon the packlands way out in the remotest part of our U.P. town, but it was rare and upset the pack for days afterward. Yet another reminder why werewolves were not well suited to city life.

  I glared at Kim, gently pushed her tense form away from the door, and attempted to answer without a scene. A reed of a man wearing khakis, a navy jacket, and a brown ball cap stood on the other side. He blinked in rapid succession through coke-bottle glasses tinted pink, alternating his gaze between me and the monarch envelope in his hands.

  “I’m looking for a Grrr... Grrr... Walter Kline?”

  “Gerwalta,” I corrected, offering out a hand. “That’s me.”

  A clipboard I hadn’t noticed tucked under the wing of his jacket swung in my direction, as did a pen pulled from his pocket. “Sign please?”

  “Of course. Have you been asked to wait for a reply?

  No need to wonder who had sent a private courier. A quick read-through, and I folded the message and stuck it in my pocket. Just to be on the safe-bordering-on-conspiratorial side, I’d burn the letter later.

  “Tell him I accept.”

  The courier nodded, tipping the bill of his cap. “Thank you, miss. I’ll make sure he gets the message. Then, I guess...”

  Thank god Amy could always be counted on to instruct us backwoods folks on the manners of mainstream civilization. She rounded me, holding out a bill of modest denomination. “You have to forgive her. She’s not from around here.”

  Another debt I owed the New Yorker, and not just in terms of money. Amy served as my Obi Wan to the ways of living in the city.

  “So pizza guys, waiters in sit-down restaurants, taxi cab drivers but not Uber drivers, and now delivery men?” I asked, checking my list of he-who-shall-be-tipped.

  “Ones who bring hand-written correspondence? Yes. The Fedex guy? No. Unless he’s cute, and they you use it to start a conversation that eventually leads to sex.”

  Kim chuffed. “Surprise, another pick-up-guys tip from Amy.”

  “What can I say? I like to receive big packages on my door step. Just because they’re not one of your recreational activities...” Amy trailed off. “What did the note say, Geri? Anything wrong.”

  “Nothing wrong. Just a follow up on that research project I was working on earlier this term. The faculty who was running it wants to know if I can swing by tomorrow night and discuss my final report with him.”

  As good a cover as any, and not technically a lie. Not that I hadn’t told Amy a few white lies since we’d met the previous fall. I wasn’t about to explain to her, however, that the project I was working on had been a shill operation posing as research into identifying the slayer genome, but was actually some sort of prison where werewolves were being used as lab mice for reasons I had yet to understand. Moreover, I was so not going to tell Kim that either. Cody knew what had happened, and Kim had only been given vague instructions to “protect me from obvious threats” in Chicago without explanation. Pack didn’t need reasons. If the alpha gave an order, they obeyed.

  The shewolf, having closed and bolted our front door, narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to be going back home for a few days. If you don’t feel like going there alone, you’ll need to wait for me to come back.”

&nbs
p; Throwing the back of her hand against her forehead, Amy feigned care. “Oh, no! You have to leave? But we’re having such a great time with you here!”

  The werewolf didn’t pick up on sarcasm easily. Kim, while a bit rough around the edges, was too kindly a soul to assume vindictiveness from tone. “Big family event I can’t miss. I’ll be back on Wednesday.”

  Karmarov’s note suddenly seemed too well-timed. Since I’d come back from Michigan, he’d avoided me like the plague. I suspected it was for my own good, but I had to admit I was getting antsy. The job I took under him was supposed to transition into a summer internship with the sponsoring Chicago-based company. Now that I’d killed one of my coworkers and bashed another over the head with a toilet seat, I assumed the offer had been rescinded. Sending me this note right as the full moon grew nigh and my werewolf-slash-bodyguard would be heading out of town to run with her pack? Had Karmarov worried about being in my presence while I had a predator gifted with superhuman senses staying in my house? If Kim picked up on the scent of vampire on me, even operating only under Cody’s vague orders, who knew how ugly and confused things might become?

  The shewolf’s hand on my shoulder roused me from my reverie.

  “Come home, Geri. Have a little break now that your finals are done. Rick would be happy to put you up for a few days if you don’t want to be at your folks’ place.”

  Rick would put me up for any reason, or for none. Despite the fact that I was a hood and he the beta of the Paradise Pack, Cody’s uncle was almost as close to me as my own father. Temptation to agree to Kim’s proposal danced on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to talk with Karmarov. Since my internship wasn’t to be, I’d have to head home soon enough, anyhow.

  “I still have a few school things to wrap up first, but tell Rick that if my old job at the park is still open for the summer, I’d like to take him up on his offer. I’ll need to save up some money to get me through the fall term.”

  Chapter Two

  With a thud, my overburdened backpack found ground. No luck at the bookstore; turned out both my biochemistry and my genetics textbooks would have new editions next year, making my copies worthless. Well, not worthless, per se. Lots of knowledge in both those behemoths. What they lacked was market value, and if there was anything I needed right now, it was market value. The balance of my bank account resembled the floor indicator of an elevator plummeting toward the lobby level.