Watcher: A raven paranormal romance (Crookshollow ravens Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

months, all the pieces nearly in place to ensure both our escapes from this life of servitude. I came to the spot where I was supposed to turn around and head south along the other boundary.
    Instead, I just kept on flying.
    At first I felt nothing but a euphoria. I had done it. I’d actually left. I’d gone rogue. After all these years of thinking and planning for it, it was as easy as flying in a straight line. I glided over the rolling countryside with a strange sense of power. My beak hurt from the un-ravenlike smile that pulled at it. I was a bird in the sky. What could Victor Morchard do to me up here? I was free.
    I managed two miles off my usual flight plan before the pain kicked in. The ring tightened around my wing, making flying difficult, slowing my escape. As I flew further from the castle, waves of agony assailed my body, and within minutes I was panting, my feathers slick with sweat. I barely had the energy to move my wings.
    I have to reach Mikael. He’s my only hope.
    Mikael would still be at the pub. I was four miles from Crookshollow village, and I wasn’t sure I’d make it, but I had to try. My throat constricted, and I wheezed as I struggled for air. I dipped, my right wing collapsing under the tightening ring. I hurtled down, the road rising up toward me.
    No!
    I squeezed my eyes shut, and pushed with my mind, forcing my wings to respond to my commands, not the ring’s. Slowly, too slowly, I broke through the pain, forcing my own muscles to obey me, moving my wings apart, spreading them wide, feeling the wind ripple through my feathers.
    I opened my eyes just in time to see the individual stones in the asphalt hurtle into focus. I jerked my neck back, and rolled over, flinging myself toward the heavens once more.
    That was close.
    I sucked in my air, opening my wings as wide as I could and straightening my neck and back, making myself as streamlined as possible. Ahead of me, I could see the houses on the outskirts of the village, and the gleaming glass facade of the Halt Institute on the northern end of the high street. The faster I could get to Mikael, the less chance—
    I sensed, rather than heard, the other bird behind me. I didn’t have to turn my head to know who it was.
    “Where do you think you’re going, Cole?” Pax hissed in caw-tongue, the language of Bran. His words bit the air like teeth.
    “This is a very stupid thing you’re doing,” added Poe. Out of the edge of my eye I saw his sleek figure slide through the air beside me, moving closer, blocking my escape.
    I couldn’t believe they’d found me this quickly. Byron must’ve reported me missing when I didn’t cross his path on his watch as I headed to Oxford. Probably he’d seen the smashed screen back at the roost, too. Byron was such a stickler for the rules. He couldn’t possibly know that I’d been sold to the Gillespies already, but he probably thought I was having it off with some girl – a fair assumption considering my past behaviour. My thoughts drifted briefly back to the black-haired beauty in the bakery. I wasn’t going to be getting it on with her any time soon.
    Just this once, I wished Byron could have left me alone. I darted my head from side to side, searching for him, but I couldn’t see him nearby.
    I’d known, of course, that Morchard would send the other Bran after me. It was one of the factors Mikael and I were trying to mitigate in our escape plan. Of course, I’d gone and shot the escape plan to shit, and now Pax and Poe flanked me, forcing me to fly lower and lower across the village.
    Rows of brown-roofed terraces zoomed below me, growing closer and closer as Pax and Poe pushed me down, down … I tried to turn against the wind, hoping to give them the slip, but the ring tightened around my skin, collapsing my wing and sending me into an uncontrolled spin.
    I struggled to regain my balance. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pax dive for me, his talons pointing directly at my throat. I spun