Ravening

RAVENING: To seek or seize, as with prey.

To hunt.
To devour.

Istanbul harbors the ancient clutch of vampires known as the Ravens, but the city has a thousand shadows and a million secrets. What Geri Kline, relinquished hood, finds there is far more than she bargained for, and nothing she could have imagined. Some legends don't want their stories told, and others would like to rewrite them completely, making you a part of it.

And some just want you dead.

"GODD*** IT, GERI! DO WE LIVE WITH A YETI?”
A hot iron pressed to my feet would not have woken me faster. I found my silver blade in hand and held ready for attack. Luckily, reality caught up just in time.
Any other person might flinch at having their roommate brandish a knife. At the very least, they might give said roommate TEN FREAKING MORE MINUTES TO SLEEP IN ON THE ONLY DAY OF THE WEEK THEY COULD. Amy, however, had danced this dance before.
“Put your butter knife away. Like I said, I’m a New Yorker. It ain’t a gun, I ain’t gonna run.”
The silver blade found its way back into the sheath hidden under the pillow. “And this is why werewolves make better roommates.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Nothing.” The pillow’s warmth had already started to leach away. “It’s Sunday, Amy. Why, in the name of Godric’s Hollow, are you waking me up before nine?”
“Because our bathroom sink looks like the floor of a dog-grooming parlor, and your boyfriend—”
“For the five thousandth time, Tobias is not my boyfriend.”
“Since he’s your shack-up honey, then, I’m laying the ability of our bathroom to be braided at your feet.”
Chances of getting back to sleep: zero.
Chances of me being required to decontaminate the bath: higher than James Franco at a Snoop Dog concert.
I rolled out of bed, pushing sleep from my eyes and eking resolve into my determination. “And for the six thousandth time, I’m not sleeping with Tobias.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”
“Fine, we are technically sleeping together, as in we slumber in the same room. Rarely, when we’re both home and sleeping at the same time. And FYI: He makes his bed on the floor.”
In a discount dog bed I’d brought home as a practical joke and which he actually decided he liked.
The blonde cocked a hip and twirled a braid around her finger. “Send him to my room, then. I mean, really... Minus the fact that his personal hygiene practices are seriously deficient, and that he has some sort of obsession with dumplings that I’ll just never understand, why can’t the two of you get together? I know his wife died, but that was, like, a year ago. Even Puritans would roll their eyes at you.”
Cast the girl in one university production of The Crucible, and suddenly she thought she had a PhD in American history.
How could you explain to your huey roommate that the man who had been sleeping in your room since the beginning of the school year was a widower werewolf who would never love again, and that she stood as much chance of a hook-up with him as grapefruit taking on a semitruck? You didn’t. You just rolled your eyes, sighed, and repeated your boilerplate response.
“Tobias and I are only friends. It’s never going to happen between us, and most importantly, it’s never going to happen between the two of you either. So just let it go.”
Just as I turned to the coat closet to grab the bucket full of cleaning supplies, the front door opened and the werewolf with burning ears came in.
He was suspiciously unshaven.
“Ladies.” Tobias pushed a cardboard tray holding two cups of coffee toward us. I had never thought that werewolves were psychic, but could there be any doubt he’d foreseen Amy’s anger? “Mocha for Geri, soy milk latte with two pumps of mango syrup for Amy.”
Even a werewolf would flinch when a huffy, blonde New Yorker growled.
Amy snatched the coffee away in a fit. She pointed a finger in Tobias’s chest with her free hand. “This doesn’t excuse anything.”
And with that, she went in her room and slammed the door.
Tobias’s confusion drew lines in his forehead. “What was that about?”
A methodical sip of mocha with my eyes open and staring over the rim of the cup at the werewolf proceeded my answer. “Did you shave last night before you left for work?”
“Yes, but I...” Memory called up guilt and invited it to the party. “Sh****...."