The Raven

Book 1: Florentine series

by Sylvain Reynard

Genres: Paranormal Romance; Supernatural suspense; Suspense

Synopsis

The author of the Gabriel's Inferno Trilogy reveals a beautiful yet deadly underworld where creatures of the night roam and Gabriel and Julianne become the target of a powerful but elusive enemy…

Raven Wood spends her days at Florence's Uffizi gallery restoring Renaissance art. But an innocent walk home after an evening with friends changes her life forever. When she intervenes in the senseless beating of a homeless man, his attackers turn on her, dragging her into an alley. Raven is only semiconscious when their assault is interrupted by a cacophony of growls followed by her attackers' screams. Mercifully, she blacks out, but not before catching a glimpse of a shadowy figure who whispers to her . . .

Cassita vulneratus.

When Raven awakes, she is inexplicably changed. Upon returning to the Uffizi, no one recognizes her. More disturbingly, she discovers that she's been absent an entire week. With no recollection of her disappearance, Raven learns that her absence coincides with one of the largest robberies in Uffizi history-the theft of a set of priceless Botticelli illustrations. When the police identify her as their prime suspect, Raven is desperate to clear her name. She seeks out one of Florence's wealthiest and most elusive men in an attempt to uncover the truth. Their encounter leads Raven to a dark underworld whose inhabitants kill to keep their secrets . . .

THIS EDITION ONLY: Includes Bonus Scenes

Release date: February 3, 2015

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 416

Sample

Primavera
Sandro Botticelli, c. 1482.
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Prologue

May 2013
Florence, Italy

A lone figure stood high atop Brunelleschi’s dome, under the shade of the gold globe and cross. His black clothing faded into the encroaching darkness, rendering him invisible to the people below.

Not that they would have seen him.

From his vantage point, they looked like ants. And ants they were to him, an irritating, if necessary, presence in his city.

The city of Florence had been his for almost seven hundred years. When he was in residence, he spent the moments before sunset in the same place, surveying his kingdom with Lucifer-like pride. This was the work of his hands, the fruit of his labor, and he wielded his power without mercy.

His considerable strength was magnified by his intellect and his patience. Centuries had passed before his eyes, yet he remained constant. Time was a luxury he owned in abundance, and he was never hasty in his pursuit of revenge. Over a hundred years had come and gone since he’d been robbed of some of his most prized possessions. He’d waited for them to resurface and they had. On this night, he’d restored the illustrations to his personal collection, the sophisticated security of the Uffizi Gallery causing him only the most trifling of inconveniences.

So it was that he stood in triumph against the darkening sky, like a Medici prince, looking out over Florence. He smelled rain on the warm air as he contemplated the fate of those responsible for acquiring his stolen illustrations. He’d intended to kill them two years previous, but had been thwarted by a tiresome assassination attempt. The war that ensued between the underworlds of Florence and Venice had kept him occupied since then. He’d won the war, successfully annexing Venice and all its territories. And his prey had finally returned to the city. Now was the time to have his revenge.

He had time enough to plan the killings and so he stood, enjoying his success, as a warm, persistent rain began to fall. The ants below scattered, scurrying for shelter. Soon the streets emptied of human beings.

He clutched the case under his arm more closely, realizing that his illustrations were in need of a dry space. In the blink of an eye, he traveled down the red tiles to a lower half dome before leaping to the ground and sprinting across the square. Soon he was climbing to the roof of the Arciconfraternita della Misericordia, an adjacent, aged building.

There was a time when he would have served the Arciconfraternita, joining in their mission of mercy, rather than treating them as a hurdle. But he hadn’t been merciful since 1274. In his new form, the concept never entered his consciousness.

Some hours later, he flew across the tiled roofs at great speed, dodging raindrops and heading toward the Ponte Vecchio. The smell of blood filled his nostrils. There was more than one vintage, but the scent that attracted his attention was young and unaccountably sweet. It resurrected in him memories forgotten, images of love and loss.

Other monsters moved in the darkness, from all parts of the city, racing toward the place where innocent blood cried out from the ground.

He changed direction and increased his speed, moving toward the Ponte Santa Trinita. His black form blurred against the night sky as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop.

As he ran, the question uppermost in his mind was: Who will reach her first?

Chapter One

The streets of Florence were almost deserted at one thirty in the morning.

Almost.

There were a few tourists and locals, groups of young people looking for entertainment, homeless people begging, and Raven Wood, limping slowly down the uneven street that led from the Uffizi Gallery to the Ponte Santa Trinita.

Raven had been at a party with colleagues from the gallery and foolishly declined a ride home. Her friend Patrick had offered, since her Vespa was in the shop, but she knew he didn’t want to leave Gina’s flat. He’d been nursing a secret crush on Gina for months. On this evening, he seemed to have succeeded in attracting her attention.

Marginally.

Raven didn’t have the heart to separate the prospective lovers. While she accepted that love was not for her, she took secret delight in the love lives of others, especially her friends. So she insisted on finding her own way home. That was how she found herself walking, with the assistance of her cane, toward her small flat in Santo Spirito, which was on the other side of the river.

Little did she realize that her decision to decline a ride home would have far-reaching consequences for herself and her friends.

Her colleagues wrongly assumed her limp was something she’d been born with, and so, out of politeness, they ignored it. She was grateful for their silence, since her limp held a dark secret she was unwilling to tell.

She didn’t think of herself as handicapped. She thought of herself as mildly disabled. Her right leg was somewhat shorter than the other and her foot turned outward slightly, at an unnatural angle. She couldn’t run and she knew it was painful to watch her walking. At least she tried to make her ever-present cane attractive, decorating it with whimsical designs drawn by her own artistic hand. She laughingly called it her boyfriend and dubbed him Henry.

Some women might have been worried about walking the streets of Florence late at night, but not Raven. She rarely attracted attention, apart from the rude stares at her leg. In fact, people often ran into or brushed past her as if she were invisible, making far too much body contact.

This was likely because of her appearance. The polite would have termed her figure Rubenesque, if they could have found it under her oversized clothes. To modern eyes she was overweight, her extra pounds compounded by baggy garments and well-worn sneakers that added little to her five-foot-seven height. Her hair was dark, almost as dark as a raven’s wing, and carelessly pulled into a ponytail that swept her shoulders. In comparison to the many attractive and well-dressed women who inhabited Florence, she was considered plain.

But her eyes were beautiful, large and deep and almost an absinthe green. Alas, no one ever took the time to notice her eyes, hidden as they were behind oversized black frames. Not that Raven would have been comfortable with the attention. She wore the glasses in order to distance herself from people, switching them for reading glasses that actually aided her eyesight, when necessary.

As she approached the Ponte Santa Trinita from the Lungarno degli Acciaiuoli, she cursed the fact that she hadn’t brought an umbrella. The rain was enough to clear the streets and bridge of pedestrians, but not enough to soak her. She elected not to seek shelter and simply continued, limping as she did everything else—with dogged determination.

She watched as a trio of rough-looking men approached the bridge ahead of her from Via de’ Tornabuoni. They were not deterred by the rain, their speech loud and raucous, their steps unsteady. The sight of drunks in the city center was not unusual, but Raven’s pace slowed. She knew too well the unpredictability of a drunk.

She clutched her old, worn knapsack more tightly as she continued toward the bridge. It was at that moment she saw Angelo.

Angelo was a homeless man who spent his days and nights begging for coins. Raven passed him on her way to and from the Uffizi. She always stopped to greet him and give him money or some food. She felt a kinship with him since they both walked with a cane. Angelo was developmentally disabled, which only increased her compassion.

As she walked, her gaze traveled from Angelo to the drunks and back again. A terrible feeling of dread passed over her.

“Good evening, friends!” Angelo’s Italian pierced the rainy darkness. “A few coins, please.”

The cheerful hope in his voice caused Raven’s stomach to churn. She knew the cruel fate of hope when it was misdirected.

She began limping faster, her eyes fixed on her friend, willing herself not to trip and fall. She was almost to the bridge when she saw Angelo lifting his hands and crying out.

The largest man was urinating on him. Angelo tried to move away, but the man followed. The other men cheered.

Raven was not shocked.

Angelo was homeless, dirty, crippled, and slow. Each of these features would kindle any latent cruelty in the Florentine men.

She felt shouts of protest bubble up in her throat. But she didn’t open her mouth.

She should intervene. She knew it. Evil flourished when good people walked by and said nothing.

Raven kept walking.

She was tired after a long day of work and an evening at Gina’s. She was eager to return to her small, quiet flat on the Piazza Santo Spirito. All the same, she was conscious of Angelo’s cries and the laughter and cursing of the men.

The largest man finished urinating with a flourish, returning himself to the confines of his jeans. Without warning, he lifted a booted foot and kicked Angelo in the ribs. He cried out in pain, slumping to the ground.

Raven stopped.

The other men joined in, kicking and cursing Angelo without regard to his screams. Blood poured from his mouth as he writhed on the sidewalk.

“Stop!” The loud cry, in Italian, filled her ears. In an instant, she felt joy at the fact that someone, anyone, had come to Angelo’s rescue.

But her joy turned to horror when the men stopped and stared in her direction.

“Stop,” she repeated, in a much quieter tone.

The men exchanged glances and the largest one said something derisive to his companions. He stalked in her direction.

As he approached, Raven could see he was broad shouldered and tall, his head shaven, his eyes dark. She resisted the urge to retreat.

“Go.” The man waved at her dismissively.

Raven’s green eyes darted behind him, to where Angelo was lying, curled into a ball.

“Let me help him. He’s bleeding.”

The bald man looked over his shoulder to his companions. As if in defiance, one of them kicked Angelo in the stomach. Her friend’s cries filled her ears until finally and horribly, he fell silent.

With a predatory smile, the bald man turned back to her. He pointed in the direction from which she’d approached.

“Run.”

Raven contemplated an attempt to reach Angelo’s side, but decided against it. There was no possibility of crossing the bridge to get home, either. The bald man blocked her path.

She began to back away, her gait unsteady.

The man followed. He flailed his arms and dragged his right leg in an exaggerated impersonation of her walk. One of his companions shouted something about Quasimodo.

Resisting the urge to tell the men that they were the true monsters, she turned around, struggling to move quickly. The sounds of hurried footsteps echoed in her ears. The man’s companions had left Angelo and were pursuing her.

She heard one of them remark on how ugly she was—too ugly to fuck.

The others laughed.

One of them observed that she could be fucked from behind. Then they wouldn’t have to see her face.

Raven hobbled more quickly, searching in vain for a single pedestrian. The banks of the Arno appeared deserted.

“Not so fast!” One man’s sarcasm was treated with laughter as they walked behind her.

“Come, play with us,” another shouted.

“She acts like she wants it.”

Raven increased her pace, but they soon caught up with her, circling like wolves around an injured deer.

“Now what?” the shortest of the three men asked, eyeing the others.

“Now we play.” The bald man, who was evidently the ringleader, smiled at Raven. He pulled the cane out of her hand, throwing it into the street.

Someone else grabbed her knapsack, ripping it from her shoulder.

“Give it back!” she shouted, lunging toward him.

With glee, the man threw her knapsack to one of his companions, over her head.

She made a move to retrieve it, but it was quickly thrown over her once again. The men played keep-away for several minutes, taunting and teasing while she begged them to return her bag. They could not have known this, but her passport and other important documents were in the knapsack.

She couldn’t run. Her disability prevented her. She knew if she went for her cane, they would only pick it up and possibly throw it into the Arno. She turned and began limping away from them, back toward the Ponte Vecchio.

One of the men tossed her knapsack aside. “Grab her,” he said.

Raven tried to move faster, but she was already limping as quickly as she could. The man followed, closing in on her in three steps.

Frightened, she glanced over her shoulder. At that moment, her toe caught on a crack in the road and she stumbled. Pain lanced through her hands and arms as she tried to break her fall.

The bald man approached and grabbed her by the hair. She cried out as he ripped the elastic from her ponytail. Her long black hair fell around her shoulders.

He pulled her to her feet, grabbing her hair and wrapping it around his hand.

She scanned the area, trying to find a way of escape or someone to help her, but within seconds he was dragging her across the street and into an alley. The alley was so narrow she could almost span it with arms outstretched.

She went limp, pitching forward intentionally.

With a curse, he released her.

Raven whimpered as she fell to her knees a second time, her hands scraped and bleeding. A stench filled her nostrils. Someone had used the alley as a toilet.

She coughed, trying not to be sick.

The bald man grabbed her elbow and dragged her farther into the alley.

“Get up,” he demanded.

She tried to pull away, but he had hold of her elbow. She twisted, rolling to her side and kicking wildly. He cursed and she scrambled away, trying to get to her unsteady feet.

Suddenly he loomed over her, grasping her arm and pulling her to face him. Without warning he punched her with a closed fist, breaking her glasses and her nose. Blood spurted, falling in great, fat droplets to the ground.

She howled in pain, tearing the broken glasses from her face. Tears sprang from her eyes as she covered her face with her hand, fighting to breathe through her mouth.

The man yanked her to her feet. He pulled her by the hair and swung her against the wall.

Raven saw stars, pain shooting from her forehead.

The world spun and began to slow as two of the men pushed her chest against the wall, pinning her arms out to her sides. The ringleader stood behind her, his hands lifting her shirt.

Roughly, his fingers climbed her naked skin until they closed over her bra. He squeezed her breasts, making a crude joke. His companions seemed to encourage him, but Raven was no longer able to understand the words they were saying.

She felt as if she were underwater. Her head pounded and she gasped for air, trying not to choke on the blood that dripped down her throat.

The man unzipped his fly and pressed himself against her backside. His hand trailed to her waistband. With a flick of his fingers, he unbuttoned her jeans.

She struggled as his hand slid into her pants.

“Stop! Please. Please.”

A young woman’s cries, slurred and desperate, reached the Prince’s ears. In the distance, he could sense the approach of Lorenzo, his lieutenant, and Gregor, his assistant. Others of their kind were not far behind.

The Prince increased his pace, unwilling to share the source of the sweetest vintage he’d smelled in centuries. The scent seemed almost familiar, so much so that his already heightened desire was coupled with nostalgia. A nostalgia he had no wish to indulge.

His cunning and prudence had served him well, enabling him to survive while others had been dispatched to whatever afterlife abominations such as he deserved. He did not act without caution, which was why he stopped at the edge of a rooftop and peered into the alley below.

The narrow alley was lit by a single streetlamp. He could see a young woman who was being held by three men, one of whom was molesting her from behind, his fly open, his stiffened member rubbing against her. The other men cheered him on, pinning her against the wall like a crucifixion.

The imagery was not lost on him.

It would have been a simple thing for the Prince to steal the victim from her attackers and spirit her away, descending to another darkened alley in order to drain her of her prize.

He closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply, and was seized by recollection: a half-naked woman lying at the foot of a stone wall, her body broken, her innocence taken, her blood crying out to him from the ground . . .

Revenge.

His appetite for food was swiftly replaced by a greater appetite, one that had been quietly fed over the centuries by anger and regret. The illustrations he’d taken great care to steal dropped from his hands unheeded as he leapt from the roof.

“What the—” The man was dead before he could finish his sentence, his head ripped from his body and casually tossed aside like a football.

The other men released the woman and attempted to run, but the Prince caught them handily, sending them to hell with a few swift movements.

When he turned to claim his prize, he found she’d fallen to the ground, the sweet scent of her blood heavy in the air. She seemed unconscious, her eyes tightly shut, her face battered.

“Cassita vulneratus,” he whispered, crouching next to her.

She opened large green eyes and stared up at him through the raindrops.

“A girl. How disappointing.” A woman’s voice broke the silence. “From the scent of her I thought she was a child.”

The Prince turned to find four of his citizens standing nearby—Aoibhe, a tall woman with long red hair, and three men, Maximilian, Lorenzo, and Gregor. All had pale faces and all stared hungrily in Raven’s direction, but not before bowing to their prince.

“How did such a delicacy go unnoticed? If I’d smelled her in the street, I’d have taken her.” Aoibhe moved closer, her posture regal and elegant. “Come, then. She’s old enough and easily shared. I’ve not drunk a vintage that sweet since I fed on English children.”

“No.” The Prince’s voice was low. He moved almost imperceptibly, standing between the girl and the others, obscuring her from sight.

“Surely, Prince, you would not deny us.” Maximilian, the largest man, gestured in the direction of the various body parts of the three dead men. “The others are dead and reek of vice.”

“There’s an unspoiled corpse by the bridge. You can have it, with my compliments. But I have first rights to the girl.” The Prince’s voice was quiet, but it held an undercurrent of steel.

“Your prize is almost a corpse,” Aoibhe spat out. “I can hear her heart stuttering.”

In response to the woman’s words, the Prince turned in the girl’s direction. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was labored.

“What a mess!” one of the other men exclaimed, his Italian accented with Russian. He stepped forward, examining the bodies of her attackers, coming perilously near their victim.

A growl escaped the Prince’s throat.

The Russian stopped abruptly.

“Pardon, my lord.” He took a cautious step back. “I meant no disrespect.”

“See to the perimeter, Gregor. If no one wants the other corpse, remove it.”

The young assistant scurried off into the street.

“Not even a feral would want to drink from them.” Everyone turned to look at Maximilian, his focus on the mutilated men.

His eyes moved to his ruler and narrowed. “I thought the Prince didn’t kill for sport.”

“Cave, Maximilian.” The Prince’s voice was threatening.

“Are you challenging the kill?” Lorenzo, the Prince’s lieutenant, stepped forward.

A noticeable tension hung in the air at the sound of his words. Everyone stared at Maximilian, awaiting his response.

He glanced from the Prince to the bleeding girl and back again, his blue eyes calculating.

“If the Prince never kills for sport, why are these men dead? He could have stolen her easily.”

“Enough!” Aoibhe sounded impatient. “She’s dying and you’re wasting time.”

“The Prince is the one who enacted the laws against indiscriminate killing.” Maximilian stepped forward. His eyes flickered almost imperceptibly to Lorenzo’s, then fixed on the Prince.

Aoibhe stood in front of him, her tall form appearing slight in comparison to his great size. “You’d challenge the Prince of the city over this? Are you mad?”

Maximilian moved, as if to shove her aside.

In a flash, the redheaded woman caught hold of his left arm, wrenching it high behind his back and dislocating his shoulder with a sickening snap.

“Never lift your hand to me again. Or you’ll lose it.” She forced him to his knees, placing a velvet-clad foot to his lower back.

Maximilian gritted his teeth. “Would someone get this fork-tongued harpy off my back?”

“Aoibhe.” The Prince’s voice was low, but commanding.

“I just want to ensure this Prussian knight understands what I’m saying. His Italian is severely . . . lacking.”

“Get off, you miserable wench!” he snarled, trying to shake her off.

“With pleasure.” Aoibhe released her colleague with a string of Irish profanity and more than a few threats.

Max stood, popping his shoulder back into place with a groan and rotating his arm.

“Since I appear to be the only one interested in the laws of the city, I withdraw the challenge.” He paused, as if expecting someone else to speak.

All were silent.

“Finally.” Aoibhe turned her attention back to the Prince, who had moved closer to his prey, his back against the wall. “Your exceptional vintage is on her final breath. If she’s to be had, it must be now. Will you share?”

On impulse, the Prince pulled the girl into his arms and in one quick motion leapt to the roof, leaving his fellow citizens behind.

Chapter Two

Cassita vulneratus.

Raven awoke with a start.

She’d heard a strange voice whispering in her ear. Of course, there was no one else in her small bedroom. She couldn’t remember what the voice said or if it spoke to her in English or Italian. Something told her the language was neither, but it was a dream, after all. She’d been known to dream in Latin on occasion.

She blinked against the streaming sunlight. It was unusual for the shutters on her bedroom window to be open, but open they were. (Not that Raven focused on the anomaly.)

She’d had the strangest dream, but all she could remember was a vortex of swirling emotions and colors. As an artist, it was not surprising for her to think and dream in color. But it was strange that her memory, which was usually as sharp as a knife, was amorphous.

Yawning, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, its narrowness a testament to her single status, and walked to her laptop. She opened her music application and began playing her favorite Mumford and Sons album.

When she entered the bathroom, she didn’t bother looking in the mirror suspended over the vanity. The mirror was only large enough to show her best feature—her face. Even looking at that feature was something Raven avoided.

After her morning ablutions, she wandered into the tiny kitchen of her one-bedroom apartment and began making coffee.

It felt like a Saturday or Sunday, but she was pretty sure she needed to go to work. Seized by a sudden anxiety, she took a few steps to the left, peering into her bedroom. When she caught sight of her knapsack sitting next to the small table that she used as a desk, she breathed a sigh of relief.

She’d drink her coffee and check her e-mail, as was her custom, and figure out what day it was. According to the clock on the wall, it was seven in the morning.

She leaned against the counter. That was when she noticed something had changed.

The old-fashioned nightgown she was wearing should have attracted her attention, since it wasn’t hers. But it didn’t. Instead, she focused on what was visible beneath the hem of her gown. Her right foot, which was normally turned to the side, was symmetrical with the left, something it had not been for over a decade.

She froze. She shouldn’t have been able to walk from her bedroom to the bathroom and to the kitchen without her cane. She shouldn’t have been able to stand on both feet without pain. Yet that was exactly what she’d done.

Raven almost sank to the floor in shock, but she was too busy lifting her formerly injured foot, experimentally rotating the ankle. She repeated the movement with her left. Each foot moved with perfect ease and without discomfort.

She walked into the bedroom and back again. She held her breath and jumped.

Arms held wide, she ran in place, footfall after footfall a mad, enthusiastic triumph over what she knew to be impossible.

It was a miracle.

Raven didn’t believe in miracles, or in any deity or deities who could possibly produce them. She closed her eyes, trying to remember anything from the night before—anything that might serve as a clue for this sudden, momentous transformation. Apart from the whispered voice whose words she could not make out, there was nothing she could hold on to.

Maybe I’m still asleep.

As if to test her hypothesis, she stretched her lower limbs and positioned herself into a wobbly, amateurish arabesque. She held the position as long as she could, revelling in muscle memories long since forgotten. When she finally lost her balance and placed both feet on the floor, she almost wept. Her right foot and leg had done what she’d asked them to, finally. All the damage that had been done to her that terrible, terrible night had been healed.

She heard the Moka espresso maker humming and spitting on the stovetop and rushed to switch off the gas. Opening the small fridge, she withdrew a container of milk.

She glanced at the label, reading it easily. Her eyes widened. She turned the container in her hands, reading the fine print. She blinked, feeling on her face to see if she was wearing her reading glasses.

She wasn’t.

Without her reading glasses, she shouldn’t have been able to make out the words printed beneath the label. But they were clearly visible.

This can’t be happening. I’m delusional.

Raven put the milk on the counter and jogged to the bathroom.

In the mirror, she caught sight of a strange woman and shrieked.

The woman had long, shiny black hair. Her eyes were a sparkling green and she had a lovely oval face with high cheekbones. It was the kind of face, Raven thought, that deserved to be painted. In fact, the image reminded her of the actress Vivien Leigh.

She jumped back in fright.

So did the woman.

She moved to the right.

So did the woman.

It took a moment for her to realize the woman in the mirror was her reflection.

In amazement, she touched her face, her cheekbones, her mouth, with its full lower lip.

Raven knew how she was supposed to look—plain, overweight, and with a leg that didn’t work right. Yet her appearance was that of a beautiful young woman with two completely functional legs.

Was she hallucinating?

But my senses seem to be working. I can hear, touch, see, and smell.

Was her previous appearance and injury a nightmare? She stepped into the hall and peered into her bedroom, which was decorated with framed prints of Botticelli’s Primavera and the Birth of Venus, along with personal photographs. Pictures of herself and her sister, Carolyn, gazed at her from her bookcase, confirming her previous appearance.

She didn’t believe in miracles, the supernatural, or anything that couldn’t be investigated by science. She had to be hallucinating. There was no other scientific explanation.

She tried to remember what she’d done the day before. She recalled going to work, but she couldn’t remember anything afterward. What if she’d been drugged?

Perhaps if she returned to work, her friends could help her. If she was ill, they could take her to a do