Being this close to him seemed surreal, like a twisted dream. His feathers caught the light, glimmering beneath the studio lamps, creating a violet sheen, a velvetlike softness. She itched to touch them, to absorb their midnight texture.
But she wouldn’t dare.
She took a chance, introducing herself. “I’m Allie Whirlwind.” She gestured to the floor where she’d written her name, and he shifted his feet, squishing the blueberries even more.
She waited for him to respond and got nothing in return. Now what? In some early Native cultures, it was rude to ask someone his or her name. And unless it was spoken in an emergency, it was impolite to say a person’s name to his or her face.
Allie decided that a painting coming to life constituted an emergency. “Do you have a name?” she asked. “Or should I give you one?”
Once again, he said nothing. Maybe he didn’t understand English. Or maybe he didn’t have the capacity to talk. She tilted her head, analyzing him. What if he was missing the parts that she hadn’t painted, things that weren’t visible, like vocal chords or—
She dropped her gaze to his fly. What if he was a big, beautiful, winged eunuch?
God forbid. She’d made jokes about boffing his brains out, wisecracks about having raw, wicked, holy-heaven sex with him.
When she looked up, she caught him frowning at her. But she could hardly blame him. If she were in his situation, she would be scowling, too.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
This time, he squinted at her. Rain was still falling violently from the sky and blowing in through the open window. The floor behind him was soaked.
“I can alter my work.” She motioned to the easel. “Give you what you don’t have.” Of course, that would mean doing a series of renderings, an entire study, sketching him from the inside out. But she’d done anatomy depictions before. It was part of her training, what she considered the da Vinci side of her education. “What do you think?”
More silence.
Allie sighed, and he moved his hands, turning them outward, the way they were in the portrait. She noticed how rough they were. Just like the image she’d created, he had calluses on his palms and dirt under his nails. Did he know that he was a farmer?
Probably not. If he didn’t have vocal chords, or a penis or testes, then he probably didn’t have a brain, either.
Then again, that raven had seemed pretty damn smart. Hadn’t Daniel told her how intelligent the species was? How highly evolved?
She looked at the angel again. She could see him taking in air, letting it out. Apparently he had a fully-functioning respiratory system. So how could he be missing parts that weren’t visible? That she hadn’t painted?
Allie resisted the urge to move closer. If she placed her hand against his chest, would she feel his heart?
A sturdy wind blew, rustling his ragged shirt. Although his clothes were damp, she realized that he hadn’t flown into the loft in his present form. As the angel, he was too big to fit through the window. His wings would have gotten stuck. He must have come in as the raven and shifted afterward, the way he’d done before. Yet the rain he’d encountered clung to him. In a scientific sense that seemed odd. In a supernatural sense, it proved how connected he was to the bird.
“Why did you do this to me?” he asked, sending her into a tailspin.
Heaven help her. Not only could he talk, his voice was strong and masculine, the words articulated deep in his throat. But his tone was raspy, too, as though he hadn’t spoken in a very long time, as though he’d been trying to remember how to form the words, how to accuse her of something treacherous.
She winced. “Do what?”
“This.” He indicated his wings.
“I painted an angel for protection.”
“I’m not an angel.”
She curled her toes. She wasn’t wearing slippers, and her feet were cold, chilled by the linoleum. “You’re supposed to be.”
“But I’m not.”
“Then who are you?” she asked. “Where did you come from?”
He didn’t answer. Her question teetered, like a book that was about to fall. Allie grumbled beneath her breath. They’d only exchanged a few brief words, yet they’d reached a standstill, caught in a challenging moment. He was wary of her, and she was frustrated with him.
He rounded on her. “Why do you need protection? Why do you seek an angel?”
She took a defensive stance. Her toes were no longer curled. “Because my great-grandmother is a soul-stealing witch, and after the spell that binds her magic wears off, she’s going to come after me. She already tried to lure my sister. It’s only logical that I’m next. I thought painting an angel might help.” She held up her hands, raising them toward the ceiling. “Angels hail from the Creator.”
“Usen,” he said, referring to the Apache God. “I prayed to Him when a witch took part of my soul. But it was too late. It happened too fast.” His eyes turned darker, deeper. “I think—I fear—that your great-grandmother is the witch who cursed me. Why else would I be here? Like this?” He swished his wings, creating a gusty breeze. “Your power must be connected to hers.”
She blinked, stunned by his words, by his revelation. “You’re him? The man Zinna claimed to love? The man she punished for not returning her affection?”
He nodded, and thunder cracked in the sky.
Overwhelmed, she reached out to touch him, but he stepped back, away from her. She needed to convince him that she could be trusted, that her magic was good. “It never occurred to me that you were him. That I’d painted…” She turned to look at the watercolor, then shifted her gaze back to him. “I didn’t know it was you. I heard about you from my sister. Zinna told her there was a man she’d cursed. But the details were vague.” She paused, recalling the conversation she’d had with Olivia. “I wanted to save you, but my sister said that you would be dead by now. But you’re not a spirit. You’re not like Zinna. You’re alive.”
“I have lived a long time.”
“That was your curse?”
“Part of it.” His voice echoed in the vast, damp room, making a hollow, distant sound. “There is more. A darkness that awaits.”
“Will you tell me about it?” She walked to the window and closed it, shutting out the storm, dodging the water on the floor.
“Yes. But first you should know my name.” He paused. “I’m called Raven.”
Like the bird he’d become, she thought. She suspected that was another aspect of his damnation, something her great-grandmother had done to him. “And what about your life before you shape-shifted? Will you tell me about that, too?”
“Yes. But where to do I start? There is so much that has happened.”
“You can begin with your childhood.”
“My early life was happy,” he told her. “But when I was ten, I was separated from my parents. Soon after Geronimo surrendered, the Chiricahua Apache became prisoners of war. They were removed from their reservations in the Southwest, even those who hadn’t made war with the government.” He paused. “The adults were sent to a reservation or to a prison in Florida.”
Allie knew bits and pieces of Chiricahua history, but not enough to connect her with that side of her heritage. “What happened to the children?”
“The older ones, like me, were shipped to a boarding school in Pennsylvania. They cut my hair and outfitted me with a uniform.” He stopped to touch his shirt,