Wings of Fate: The Lost Ones
Chapter 33

Move, move, move, move, move, she thought, frantic. Fly, fly, fly, fly, fly.

Frustration made her gnash her teeth -- or would have caused her to gnash her teeth, had she had teeth. She renewed her efforts and forced the blue-tipped feathers of her arms up and down through the shadowed evening and shot like cobalt blue lightening through the sky.

“Everything was fine between us -- me and Logan -- before you interfered.” She said, tucking loose strands of hair behind her ears. “In fact, the morning before he left to look for you we made love in his bed. He’s an amazing lover isn’t he?” she asked in a dreamy voice as she stared off into the forest.

“We are not-”

“We ate our meals together…” she continued over Raven’s denial. “…practiced weaponry together, hunted together.” Bitterness crossed Clarissa’s face. “Did he tell you how long we have been together?” she asked, meeting Raven’s eyes again.

“No,” Raven stressed, “he never mentioned you to me.”

“Shut up!” she yelled, leaning forward. “You are lying! He loved me -- loves me still.” Clarissa sucked in a breath, growing quiet. After a moment she spoke again. “He’s just forgotten, is all, because he’s been distracted. By you.”

“Clarissa, I promise you, Logan and I are not together. I don’t love him. I don’t want him at all. If he’s distracted it’s because of something else.”

“Such as?” the woman asked in a manner suggesting she did not think there could possibly be any other reason for Logan’s ditching her. Raven figured she knew that Logan was distracted by the war. She sensed his inner conflict about the side he was on and was confused and bothered by going against his own men on DeSolar.

But it wasn’t her place to tell Clarissa.

“I don’t know, Logan doesn’t confide in me.”

Clarissa was silent for a moment. “You’re lying. You started lying as soon as I asked you the question. The truth is never that hard to come up with.”

“Sometimes telling the truth is more damaging than prevaricating, Clarissa.” Raven sighed in annoyance. “If you want to know what is going on with Logan, might I suggest asking him?”

Clarissa leaned forward. “I’ve already told you that I know what his problem is, it’s you. He needs to know that it’s not okay to toss me aside and he needs that message to be loud and clear.”

The sunlight in the forest was all but gone. It would be pitch black soon and impossible to replace direction within the trees. Her chance to run was gone. “Okay,” she said slowly, “so why don’t I go back to camp and let him know you’re ticked off?”

Clarissa looked down at the ground for a moment as though considering Raven’s suggestion. “No, I can’t do that.” She finally answered, her head snapping up to glare at Raven as her right arm swung at her with a small knife.

The woman moved so suddenly that it was not until her left arm began to burn that Raven realized the woman hit her, and not until she looked down to see blood streaming down to her elbow did she realize she was cut. Wishing she hadn’t been forced to drop her sai swords back in the glen, Raven used the only thing she had left. She swung out with her right fist and punched the woman hard in the nose.

Clarissa fell back a couple of steps but had barely faltered before she, too, came up swinging. Raven was on her back before she caught her breath from the impact of the punch. Clarissa pounced on her -- gripped Raven’s body tight between her thighs. Raven attempted to force her face to the side as the woman started swinging with her knife but Clarissa wrapped one strong hand around Raven’s throat to hold her still.

Raven panicked at the loss of air. Clarissa clenched her fingers around Raven’s throat causing her to gasp for air, struggling to bring in just a small amount. Dark shadows grew around the outer fringes of her vision. She tried desperately to fight off the darkness -- widening her eyes so much that they began to water -- it wasn’t helping.

Changing course, Raven grabbed at the woman’s face. The knife slammed into her chest and skipped along her face. Raven, feeling the burning sensation of knife wounds all over her torso, lost control. When she launched into pummeling Clarissa in the face the grip on her throat slackened a fraction.

Raven sucked in a small stream of air, her lungs expanding only slightly. In annoyance the woman plunged the knife into Raven’s chest right below her right shoulder bone.

What little air left in her lungs was spent on a scream. She kept at Clarissa’s face with her left hand when her right arm fell limply to her side, the pain too deep for her to raise it again.

Clarissa growled. “You should never have come here. The Queen wanted you but I knew I had to get to you first. You cannot live, I want you gone!” she huffed between the words, her efforts never slacking as she tightened her grip and continued slicing at Raven’s face with her knife.

Raven could barely see and felt the blood pouring down her cheeks -- trickling under her neck. Pulling her left arm as far back as the hard ground would allow Raven punched Clarissa in her ear. The woman responded with a roar. She leaned over Raven’s head and grabbed her hair in a tight fist.

Raven almost cried in relief when the knife stopped cutting her. So relieved the fist around her throat was gone. She sucked in gulps of air -- choking and coughing at the pain of it. So relieved was she that she didn’t even care that Clarissa was now slicing off her hair in clumps, chucking them away as though the touch scalded her hands.

It seemed only moments before Clarissa leaned back, her attention on Raven’s hair over. Raven cracked bleeding eyes up at the angry woman, knowing she was about to die. Clarissa posed, her arms raised above her head, both hands clenching her small, blood-covered knife.

“You. Are. The message.” Raven couldn’t even close her eyes as the woman’s hands swung down towards her. In one moment the knife was a foot above her heart and in the next instant the knife and woman were gone.

Raven didn’t move.

The dead silence of the forest crept up her bruised spine as she waited for Clarissa to reappear and finish the job. She felt broken. Though the cuts on her neck were probably superficial due to Clarissa not wanting to cut up her own hand to get at Raven’s throat, the rest of her head throbbed.

She forced herself to blink her eyes and then reopened them as quickly as possible. She wanted to see Clarissa coming. Footsteps moved over the grass, the slight sound of crackling leaves giving evidence to Clarissa’s location somewhere beyond Raven’s feet.

I should get up, Raven considered. Fear or exhaustion kept her pinned to the ground as surely as she had been pinned by Clarissa’s body.

The footsteps came closer. Closer. Closer. Pale blonde hair, followed by the most beautiful face Raven had ever seen, appeared above her head. Luminescent blue-green eyes stared down at her with a gentle expression. She hardly noticed the woman glowed.

“I have never felt, before, like I was stuck in molasses and completely unable to get where I needed to get in time.” The woman’s voice was soft. It washed over Raven in a gentle wave making her relax deeper into the ground’s surface.

“Where did you need to go?” Raven mumbled around her swollen tongue, ignoring the sharp pains speaking caused.

Compassion shifted across the blonde angel’s face. “To you, Raven. I was trying to get to you. I am so sorry I almost did not make it in time.” The woman glanced over her shoulder at something behind her before turning back to her.

Blue-green eyes traveled over her bloodied face and hair and shoulders before she knelt down beside Raven’s head. “I am not a healer, Raven, I am sorry I am not. I sang for the others to replace you and they will be here in just a moment. Hold on.”

Raven closed her eyes, drifting into the enveloping comfort of the woman’s voice. In her doze she smiled a wide, contented smile, and hardly felt the movement at all.

“Raven? Raven, hold on. We need you so much.” Raven didn’t hear the woman’s words, only the soft quality behind it.

Never had she felt so comforted.

She did not know how long she slumbered there in the forest with her blonde angel but before she was ready to return to awareness she heard loud voices around her and someone forcefully grabbed her right arm.

Raven’s scream rent the night air.

“Let go of her Logan! You do not even know where she is wounded, you cannot just grab at her!”

“I was trying to pick her up so I could carry her back to camp!” Logan yelled.

“It would be helpful if you would let me tend to her first,” a female voice said. Logan released Raven’s arm but her tears fell in an unending stream. Sobs escaped her lips. Her whole body throbbed. Gentle hands roved over her body for a moment and then were gone.

“Angel?” she whispered in agony. “My angel, please, can she be here and talk to me again? Angel?”

“What is she talking about?” Logan whispered somewhere to her left.

“Delirious.” Another female voice answered him.

A warm feeling took over her left side and moved up her torso and down her legs. Raven felt like she was sinking into a nice hot bath, and in moments was covered in the warm liquid sensation. A heavy sigh escaped her lips as she fell asleep.