Free Raven's Cove - Jenna Ryan by Intrigue Romance

that had lived inside him for more than half his life. “It’s personal, Jasmine. He sees you as having killed him in some way. And whatever the cost, he’s determined to make you pay.”
    * * *
    RATHER THAN LIFT, THE FOG actually sank by midafternoon. Jasmine knew Rogan hadn’t meant to make things worse for her by saying what he had. She also understood he wanted to ease her mind when, during lunch, he suggested a change of sleeping accommodations. What he came up with was an enormous cliffside mansion called Blume House. She suspected it was the place Boxman had mentioned last night. The Blumes being the source of the local legend, Jasmine wasn’t entirely convinced that the mansion-turned-inn could do much to settle her nerves, but as she climbed from Rogan’s truck late that afternoon, she had to admit the place impressed.
    Like everything else in and around Raven’s Cove, Blume House might have been plucked from another era. Another world, actually, the kind where darkness was both a state of mind and a state of existence.
    The faded gray structure wrapped around a massive courtyard like a gothic fortress. Within the courtyard stood a fountain, twenty-five feet across and shaped like a bird’s nest. Two enormous stone ravens spouted water from their beaks. Gnarled branches with pointed tips stretched to the top of the second-floor windows and cradled both the birds and their nest.
    The house itself had an air of despair. Like the man who’d been transformed into a raven, it seemed to be waiting for some kind of elusive miracle to occur.
    Given the nature of the tale, Jasmine thought it might have a very long wait.
    On the porch, she and Rogan opened the creaking entry doors.
    “Better than a bell,” she remarked and let the combined smells of fall flowers, must and furniture polish wash over her.
    The bloodred carpet was ancient, the ebony banister scarred, and somewhere, someone was playing Hayden on a raspy organ.
    She tested the newel post for strength. “For what it’s worth, this would make a fantastic museum.”
    “Try mausoleum or funeral parlor.” Rogan looked around. “As hotels go, it lacks a certain ambience.”
    “It wouldn’t if we were in the Black Forest.” She walked ahead of him. “The cashier at the general store told me the place was shipped across the Atlantic piece by piece from Germany in the late 1600s and jigsawed back together over the next decade.”
    Rogan raised his eyes to rafters so heavily shadowed they quite literally disappeared. “I believe it.”
    Jasmine peered into the first of many rooms that branched off from the great hall.
    “Guess we should have phoned.”
    “I did. I spoke to—”
    “A moron with mushed peas for brains.”
    The female voice came from Jasmine’s left shoulder, so close to her that when she spun, she fell into Rogan’s chest.
    “Sorry. Did I startle you?”
    Whoever the woman was, she looked like a warrior bird. Her midlength hair was black with scarlet tips. She had two visible raven tattoos, black fingernails and God knew what kind of costume on her body. Her coat was a hodgepodge of leather, feathers and rough red lace. So were the boots that skimmed the tops of her thighs.
    To Jasmine’s amusement, after a quick once-over, she smiled and shot out a firm hand.
    “Riese Blume. If you’ve heard of old Rooney Blume, he’s my grandfather and the patriarch of the Cove. Most everyone here has Blume blood to some extent, with the obvious exception of the guests who pay to stay in my home. As luck would have it, mine is the only hotel in town, but I’m a fair innkeeper. More than fair if you can cook. Dog’s cool as per your question to my pea-brained assistant, who went and beaned himself jumping off a rock at a wedding we hosted today out on the cliff, which is why I’m dressed up like a partly transformed raven in skintight hip waders and a feather coat. But that’s not important. Do you want one room or two?”
    “Uh…” was