Free House of Ravens by Keary Taylor Page B

cannot control these members of my House.
They are still individuals.
    I will have to consider myself lucky if they
keep the rules and the balance of the House.

 
     
     
     
     
    I STAND AT THE WINDOW, the curtains pulled
back, the window fully open in my bedroom. The crickets are
especially loud tonight. A short-lived evening rain has left
everything smelling amazing, but the temperatures are rising every
day, and it’s already beginning to feel humid. The beginning of May
has ushered in the beginning of the summer season.
    I love it. The warmth. The flowers. The
sense of adventure it brings.
    But not this year. Everything is so very
different this year.
    Because this will be my first summer as a
vampire. The first summer I cannot go out and lay in the sun, just
because it feels wonderful. The first summer there will be no
swimming in the pool in the sunlight.
    And everything just feels so…dire. The air
chokes my throat in a vice grip. The anxiety that sits in my heart
could kill me. And it’s not just knowing what is to come. It’s this
feeling of death in the air. I’m breathing a curse in and out, and
with every breath, it leaves me coated in anxiety.
    I want to know. I want to understand. These
curses. Nobody seems to have an answer as to how they are created
or where they come from.
    And what is going to happen, when my House
finally faces off with the leader of this Bitten army? What if we
are successful in killing the leader? Is that who the curse is
meant for? If they die, will this feeling go away?
    But what if the curse is for me?
    Too many unknowns, and the more I think
about it, the more panicked I feel. Like a rabid, hairless beast
climbing up my throat, hissing and shaking the whole way it scales
me.
    A figure darts from the veranda below me, a
blur of motion as they move to the edge of the property. I
immediately grab for a stake, ready to yell for the House, when the
figure stops, and I realize it’s Anna.
    And she’s not alone.
    Sheriff Luke McCoy stands at the edge of the
river, waiting for her.
    She places her hands on his hips, leaning in
close when she talks to him. They speak for a few moments, before
wandering down the rivers edge, hand in hand.
    Interesting.
    I actually jump when the door to my bedroom
swings open. I whip around to see Ian looking startled himself at
my reaction.
    “ Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t
mean to scare you. You okay?”
    “ Yeah,” I say, looking back
out the window. The two of them are nowhere to be seen now. “Just…a
lot on my mind. How is Lula?”
    Ian sets his backpack on the floor, and I
hear an assortment of things clang together. I have little doubt
they’re medical tools, so he could check his grandmother over
himself. His paramedic side isn’t going away anytime soon. “She’s
actually doing a little better,” he says as he walks over and sits
opposite me in the window seat. “Her lungs sound a lot clearer. And
she remembered who I was today.”
    “ That’s good,” I say
hopefully.
    He nods. “The guy who handles her will met
with me today, though. Said we’d better get affairs in order, for
when she does pass on.”
    He’s quiet for a little while. He reaches
out absentmindedly, tracing the tip of his finger along the tiny
bones in my foot. It tickles slightly, but my new levels of control
keep me from flinching away.
    “ The house will be split
between Elle and I. We can either keep it or sell it,” he finally
speaks again. “Same with all of her belongings. She doesn’t have
much money, but what little there is, I told the guy to give to
Elle.”
    “ And what about her?” I
ask. “She’s still only sixteen.”
    Ian nods. “I’ll become her legal guardian.
Though, it seems a little unnecessary. She’s already living on her
own.”
    Which kills me to think of her living in
that house, alone. Ian and I both tried to plead with her to move
in with us, but she refused, and we both know that as a human, she
will always be in some