“Remembered,” Raven murmured, looking between the three of them. They were, quite literally, her soulmates. “Because I left behind a piece of myself when I took something from you. Left so much behind that I couldn’t be born myself.” She swallowed hard, trying to come to terms with that. “I became stuck in spirit form.”
“You did.” There was no missing the sadness in the seer’s eyes. “Half of you, anyway. The other half remained caught between the world you were born into and the world in which your spirit derived. A spirit forever connected to the three of us even after birth.”
“Yet Iwasborn,” she managed, taking another swig of whiskey.
“Yes.” Cian’s expression was grave. “Such as it was.”
“Such as it was,” she whispered, sensing the truth looming closer. Almost as if a veil was being pulled back. Second by second, growing brighter yet darker all at once until she realized the terrible truth.
Shewas, in fact, a traitor.
Chapter Twenty
“IMADE A deal withthe Devil.” Raven’s gaze drifted to Tor, a little lost. “Or should I say a deal with one nasty goddess?”
Almost the moment she remembered, he did too and hung his head. Not because he was ashamed but because of all she had done for him. All she had done for Revna, Cian, and even her sisters.
“You did what you felt you had to in order to save innocent lives,” Cian said softly, voicing what Raven could not. Painting the picture that had led to her birth. “At the time, no one knew Mórrígan was in league with Destiny’s Celtic father, Death.” He shook his head. “So nobody, not even Loki, could have foreseen her waiting for you when you exited Vanaheim only to end up back in Ireland.”
“Nor did anyone know how vulnerable you would be after helping us,” Revna said. “How, as Thor suspected, Mórrígan had found a way to send her own Trojan horse behind enemy lines.”
“Me,” Raven murmured, shivering a little at the memory. The terror she had felt. How almighty the goddess had seemed.
“Yes.” Cian set aside the meat to cool. “If you didn’t agree to be born serving her, she would see me killed. Tor and Revna. All of us. Even your sisters.”
She frowned. “Yet she doesn’t really have that kind of power, does she?”
“No,” Revna replied. “But your newly born soul had no way of knowing that. All it knew was the souls it had touched, your sisters in the Forge then us, should be protected at all costs.” She shook her head. “Nothing else mattered to you.”
Tor sat beside Raven and held her hand as she grappled with that. Despite the havoc being in heat was playing on her emotions, she held herself together admirably as more truths came to her. Not all but enough to answer quite a few things.
“So I suppose it’s safe to assume Mórrígan knows I visited orhauntedCian and Tor after I was born?” Raven homed in on Revna. “And you as well?”
“Yes,” Revna replied. “When you weren’t with Tor, we spent time together as children. Your spirit was as drawn to Cian and me as we were to you.”
Tor could feel how deeply Raven responded to that. How deeply she had cared for people she had completely forgotten. And while her being so close to Cian might have bothered him a day ago, it didn’t anymore. Not when he was as connected to the Irishman as he was Revna. Loving Raven was inevitable after being touched by her. Had Revna preferred women to men, she would have likely fallen in love with her too.
