Stevie Rae cupped her hands around her mouth and was getting ready to holler for Dallas so he and the other guys could help her drag the body somewhere when the Raven Mocker twitched and opened its eyes.

She froze. The two of them stared at each other. The creature’s red eyes widened, looking surprised and impossibly human in the bird face. They flicked around her and behind her, checking to see if she was alone. Automatically, Stevie Rae crouched, putting her hands up defensively and centering herself to call earth to strengthen her.

And then he spoke.

“Kill me. End this,” he gasped, panting in pain.

The sound of his voice was so human, so completely unexpected that Stevie Rae dropped her hands and staggered a step back. “You can talk!” she blurted.

Then the Raven Mocker did something that utterly shocked Stevie Rae and irrevocably changed the course of her life.

He laughed.

It was a dry, sarcastic sound, and it ended in a moan of pain. But it was laughter, and it framed his words with humanity.

“Yes,” he said between gasps for breath. “I talk. I bleed. I die. Kill me and be done with it.” He tried to sit up then, as if he were eager to meet his death, and the movement caused him to cry out in agony. His too-human eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the frozen ground, unconscious.

Stevie Rae moved before she remembered even making the decision. When she reached him, she only hesitated for a second. He’d passed out facedown, so it was a simple thing for her to move his wings aside and grab him under his arms. He was big, really big—like, as big as a real guy, and she’d braced herself for him to be heavy, but he wasn’t. Actually, he was so light that it was super-easy to drag him, which was what she found herself doing while her mind screamed at her: What the hell? What the hell? What the hell?

What the hell was she doing?

Stevie Rae didn’t know. All she knew was what she wasn’t doing. She wasn’t killing the Raven Mocker.