The Lonely Raven Trilogy, Book One
Fantasy / Romance
Date Published: February 11, 2025
Publisher: Clay Bridges Press
Fallon has received premonitions since she was a child—visions that have driven her to steer countless strangers and acquaintances from looming dangers. But these powers have come at a great cost. After enduring heart-wrenching losses during her teenage years, Fallon has lived a solitary life for over a decade, her only anchor being her childhood best friend.
That is, until a series of intense premonitions draws a group of new people into her life, people who start to feel like family. But something deeper is stirring. The raven tattoo on her wrist has begun to tingle, and a raven has started appearing in her visions. Worse still, Fallon is haunted by the memory of someone from her past, someone she loved, and she believes abandoned her—a person to whom the raven seems inexplicably tied.
As the visions grow more urgent, Fallon must decipher their meaning to protect those she cares about. But the question lingers: Is the raven a guide or a harbinger of doom?
In this gripping first installment of “The Lonely Raven Trilogy,” Fallon must face the shadows of her past to safeguard the future of those she loves—and discover whether the raven is an ally or a threat.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
Bret’s heart stopped for one, cold moment. Dread began welling up within him. “Baby, I have to go sort out something,” he told Bergen. “I’m sorry. I’ll call you first thing in the morning, alright? I love you. No more bad dreams.”
He heard a small, adorable yawn. “’kay, Daddy. Be good. I love you.” And she hung up.
He held his phone and pretended to be looking at it, as if possibly reading a text, giving himself a moment to understand what was happening to him. I’m going crazy, I’m hallucinating, he thought. Someone drugged one of my drinks. He again looked around and again saw nothing.
You’re not hallucinating, the voice assured him. I agree this is
unusual, but you’ve got to listen to... I’m not listening to you, he replied in his head, unnerved
that he could do so, until I can see who the hell I’m talking to! Or whatever this is. He glared at his phone, aware that Tayce had glanced at him a few times since he’d hung up with Bergen.
Step to the side a bit and look around Tayce’s left shoulder, the voice instructed.
He hesitated, then took a small step to the side and looked past Tayce. Standing on the sidewalk, yards and yards away, was a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties. Her blond hair was pulled back from her face, and she was wearing ripped, dark grey jeans and a snug, black t-shirt, the strap of her messenger bag slung across her chest. She was coming towards him, but slowly, and she kept looking back over her shoulder. Even at a distance, he could see her lovely face was troubled. She did not, he thought, look like an addict, a con artist, or a party girl out for a good time. There was an intelligence in her expression. A quietness about her. A sadness.
Her voice in his head was filled with urgency, and now he had the facial expressions to go with it. Bret, there is a blue van around the corner. I don’t know what it’s going to do, but you don’t have a lot of time. All I know is you need to be out of here. Now. I get these feelings. They’re never wrong. You’re in danger. I know it’s ridiculous—trust me, I know. But I’m not making this up.
I just don’t...you’re in my head! He stared at her accusingly.
She stopped her approach and bit her lip. I know. It’s usually not this way. But please believe what I’m saying.
And how did you know I was talking to my daughter?
I could hear the conversation. Her eyes widened in annoyance at the subject change. Irrelevant! Get back inside that club. You
should be able to get Tayce to come with you, but try for the others, too, if you can. Bret, I’m not joking around. Her voice was growing more agitated. She shot a glance to her right. The van’s starting to move. Please. Just go. She looked panicked. He saw her clench her fists helplessly.
Instinct and his love for Bergen took over. Bret walked over and nudged Tayce’s arm. “Hey, come back inside with me a minute, there’s this girl you’ve got to see. Come on,” he pressed, “before she leaves.” He extended his invitation to the rest of them.
Tayce, as the mystery girl had suggested, turned readily to accompany him. The other three were not as willing, busy as they were with conversation and the brunette’s flirtations.
“Jack, come on, dude,” Bret urged, feeling an odd nervousness in his stomach.
“I’ll be right back,” Jack Lane drawled, handing the woman, Cyn, his latest just-lit cigarette. “Gotta go see what Mr. James is up to.”
“You’d better come back right away,” Cyn ordered, as she and Peter-the-bassist fell back into their conversation.
Bret hesitated when he saw that those two weren’t coming.
Go, she commanded in his head. They won’t follow you, concentrate on Jack and Tayce. You’re out of time. Move.
Without further hesitation, Bret guided Tayce inside the club, looking over his shoulder to check on Jack’s lazy progress, feeling nervously ridiculous all the while. The mystery girl, he noticed, was stepping more and more into the shadows, her eyes
not leaving him. He blinked as she began to disappear, almost as if she were becoming a shadow herself.
Back inside the club, amid the bright lights and music, Bret admitted to himself that he felt the brief, overwhelming sensation that he’d just dodged a bullet of some sort. He wanted desperately to peek back outside and see if anything was happening, but Tayce was heading over to one of the bars, and Jack was side-tracked talking with a loud group of people. Bret had the strong feeling he needed to stay in with them for the moment.
He joined Tayce at the bar a few minutes later. “Sorry, that girl just left,” he apologized, continuing the lie.
“It’s alright,” said Tayce good-naturedly, raking his fingers through his long brown hair, pushing it away from his face. “I was getting tired of listening to Jack, if you can believe that, and I could use another drink. Haven’t seen you in a while, man, how’ve you been?”
They sat at the bar talking for some time. They hadn’t seen each other face-to-face in well over six months due to touring and such, and each had long-considered the other to be one of their best friends. As they talked and laughed out loud, Bret’s relief was slowly replaced with a sense of foolishness. What in the hell had he been thinking? Where had that girl gone? If she was so concerned, if there was so much danger lurking, then why hadn’t she come in with them? He’d tried to talk to her again—in his head, Lord help him—and there had been only silence. What kind of a fool was he? Drugs in his drink, surely. Damn.
Nearly an hour had passed when Jack finally joined them,
frowning at his phone, not entirely steady on his feet. “You believe this? My effing bass player left with that chick.” He shook
his black hair back from his face and ordered another drink.
“Yeah?” Tayce raised an eyebrow, feeding the drama.
Jack shrugged. He was fairly drunk and somewhat stoned, but he was aware enough to know that his chosen woman for the evening was no longer around. “I don’t know. I went out just now, and they’re gone. It’s strange, though, when I was standing out there calling his phone, I swear I heard it ringing over by the dumpsters down the alley.” He drank from his glass. “I did not investigate.”
Tayce chuckled, while Jack’s dark eyes scanned the room.
Bret felt the strangeness return to his stomach. “Let’s go look,” he offered, downing the rest of his drink and getting to his feet. “We can give him hell.” He had, truly, no desire to ferret out the whereabouts of Jack Lane’s wayward bassist and latest hook-up, but alarm bells were going off in his head.
He followed Tayce and Jack back outside, and as he looked around, he saw no van, no mystery girl. No sign of Peter and Cyn. The street was empty.
Jack tried Peter’s phone again, and they all heard the definite answering ringtone from the area of the dumpsters. They drew closer, calling for Peter and throwing out joking comments. But they found no one, and eventually, they stood still and just listened.
“It’s coming from inside the dumpster,” deduced Tayce with a puzzled frown.
“Peter wouldn’t throw away his phone,” said Jack dismissively. “He never lets that thing out of his sight.”
“Maybe your chick got mad at him and threw it in,” Tayce suggested.
Jack shook his head. “I’m telling you that he’d be in there right now digging for it if she had.”
There was a long, awkward moment of not knowing quite what to do. A knot was forming in Bret’s stomach.
Finally, Jack turned to leave, swaying a bit, but expertly righting himself. “Well, he obviously knows it’s there. Or not. I’m not fishing it out for him, either way, and I can’t hang around all night babysitting his ass. If he did lose it, at least I can tell him where to look.”
They headed back into the club, and Jack turned towards the VIP room with a replacement woman in his sights, but Tayce and Bret returned to the bar.
“You look like you saw a ghost out there,” Tayce observed, as they sat down and ordered fresh drinks. “You alright?” His brown eyes watched Bret with genuine concern.
Bret was staring into space. He was shaken, and he had to say something. “It’s the weirdest thing. I’ll be honest with you. When we were standing out there earlier, before I asked you to come in with me, I just suddenly got this horrible feeling. Like something bad was about to happen. Don’t ask—it’s never happened before. But it came on real strong, and I had this singular thought that we all needed to be back inside the club.” He shrugged and sipped his drink. “So, I made it up about that woman you needed to see.” He shook his head. “Crazier by the minute, that’s me, man. I’m sorry. The tour is taking its toll on my mind.”
Tayce laughed easily. “Well, whatever. I told you I was tired
of listening to Jack. It was a win-win situation for me.” He drank some of his whiskey. “Strange about Peter’s phone though.”
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