Novak Raven (Harper's Mountains #4)(26)

“I’ll explain it to her,” Weston murmured. “She’ll understand.” He let the silence linger for a bit while he dried a plate and a pot. “The box of trinkets you had under your bed. Did you bring it with you? I didn’t see it in your things.”

“Swear not to make fun of me.”

“I swear.”

“I brought it, but I dumped all my trinkets.”

His eyebrows jacked up high, a look of shock on his face. Slowly he took his baseball cap off and put it on backward. “I have trinkets, too, that I find as a raven. Did you do the same?”

“Yes,” she said on a breath. “They were like my little treasures. Shiny baubles that had caught my eye. I would bring them back after a Change and add them to my collection. I had quite the hoard when I got rid of them.”

“Why the hell would you get rid of them? Doesn’t that go against your instincts? My raven wouldn’t let me get rid of a single one of mine.”

“I got rid of them the day I left the Hollow to come here. I didn’t really want to drag all of the things that tethered me to that place. Those were my past.”

“But you brought the box.”

“Mmm hmm,” she said with a nod.

Weston put up another dish and turned to her, locked his arm against the counter. “Ave, what’s in the box?”

She smiled down at the sudsy water she was swishing around as she washed the silverware. “You know.”

“I have an idea, but I want you to tell me.”

“I didn’t want to drag my history with Raven’s Hollow here, so I dumped the trinkets and filled the box with your letters, and with the ones I never sent you.”

“Because you thought we would talk about them when you got here?”

“No,” she said quietly. “I never intended on talking to you. I came here because the council leaves me alone if they think I’m near you. If they think I’m under the protection of your crew. I brought them just for me.”

“Why?” His eyes were so raw, so earnest. “Tell me what they mean to you.”

“Those old letters you sent me are more important than my trinkets ever were. I didn’t feel so alone when I read them.” She dared a look up at him. “They were my happiness. I brought them because I knew it would be hard out here in the real world. Because I knew I would be all alone, and it didn’t feel as scary if I had a piece of you with me. The letters made me braver.” She shrugged one shoulder up to her ear. “You made me braver.”

“Will you ever let me read the letters you never sent me?”

“No,” she said in an immediate response. “Those I wrote knowing you wouldn’t read them. They were my safe place.”

Weston’s eyes hardened in the instant before he turned away. The muscles of his back flexed when he gripped the edge of the counter. He shook his head. “I should’ve been your safe place. Not your fault. Mine.”

Avery slipped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek along his spine. “We’re okay now.”

“Are you?” he asked in a hard voice. “My mom said your people punished you for your raven being too dominant.”

Avery flinched in shock and froze against him. “It wasn’t punishment.”

“What was it then?”

“It was rehabilitation.” That’s what the council had called it.

“Bullshit.”

When Weston went rigid under her, she held on tighter, clenched his shirt in her hands. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“Would it have been easier if I was still sending you letters?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t because powerful waves of dominance wafted from Weston, pulsing through her body until her lungs didn’t want to draw in air. She was standing too damn close to him right now, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how to convince her arms to release him.

“Tell me what happened. What did rehabilitation include.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Why not?” He sounded pissed now, but he had no right to pry this from her.

“Because you’re taking away my happy moment!” Avery pushed off him and retreated to the bedroom. His loud boots echoed behind her, but when she went to slam the door, he caught it, and the look on his face broke her heart. He looked ill and angry, but not with her. With himself. “Please.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head over and over. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t! Tonight had been perfect, and now he was scratching at shit that needed to be left alone.

“Please, Ave. Tell me why a dominant raven acts as timid as a mouse. Tell me why you always look at the ground and why you hunch your shoulders like you’re trying to be smaller. Like you’re trying to be invisible. Tell me why you always say sorry for every little thing.”

She wished she could Change and fly away from him as fast as she could. She wished she could catch the air currents under her wings and avoid admitting how weak she really was. If he saw her—really saw her—he would leave, and she didn’t want to go back to being alone. But he wasn’t letting her out of this. He wasn’t backing down.

Resentful at being pushed, she gritted out, “Because I’m broken, Weston. Is that what you want to hear? I was born with a broken shifter, and my people are ashamed of me. Ashamed that I exist. Do you know what rank is based on in Raven’s Hollow? The best ravens are the ones who conform to the idea of what the perfect raven shifter is—easy going, submissive, non-combative, doesn’t question anything. But I wasn’t like that. I didn’t Change until I was five. Strike one. And then I was a natural leader. I wanted to organize games at school, I wanted to run for class politics with the human kids. Strike two. I questioned every. Single. Thing. And when I Changed, the other ravens my age cowered away from me because their instincts told them I was a monster. I was bigger, more dominant, and I didn’t believe in all the goddamned rules. Strike three. By middle school, I was being bullied. Not by the human kids, but by the raven kids, but I didn’t take it lying down like a good submissive female was supposed to. I pushed back. And when it got bad enough, and my raven was crawling out of my skin to stand up for myself, I beat the shit out of this little snot boy who wouldn’t stop calling me The Great Mistake, like his parents did. I just…lost my mind and beat him until his face was bloody. Until he stopped moving. Until the teachers pulled me off his limp body. The council called for an official shunning by noon the next day.”