Novak Raven (Harper's Mountains #4)(27)

“A shunning?”

“Yeah. A community-wide shunning. People talked about me as I passed, but not to me. My parents could talk to me to raise me, but no extras were allowed. Affection was a ‘hell no,’ and my parents didn’t fight the order at all because they were good little ravens, too. I learned real quick to submit and pretend my raven didn’t want to attack everyone around me for what they were doing. And the more I pretended to be submissive, the smaller my raven became. The sadder she was. I looked at the ground, ducked my gaze and spoke softly, and apologized for everything until the shunning was lifted. And it took two f*cking years, Weston. Two years desperate to be seen. To fit in. I hated myself, hated my raven. I just wanted to be like everyone else, so I became like everyone else.” Her face crumpled, but she blinked hard, refusing to cry again. “The shunning was lifted, but I would forget myself sometimes, and my dad would bring me to the council for every little thing I did wrong, and they would put me in The Box.”

Weston was leaning heavily against the wall, legs locked, shaking his head in disgust. He asked in a hoarse voice, “What’s The Box?”

“It was a tiny white room under the Council House with a bucket to piss in and nothing else. And I would go crazy in there, stuck in my own f*cking mind, unable to see sunlight, feeling like I’d been buried alive, praying to God someone remembered to let me out. I memorized your letters. I would recite them when I thought I would go mad, just so I wouldn’t feel alone.”

“Fuck, Ave,” he uttered in a heart-wrenching tone. His eyes were black now and as deep as wells. He’d locked his giant hands on his knees like he would retch right here on the bedroom floor.

“So you see, Weston, I hunch my shoulders, say sorry, and look at the ground because I’ve been trained to crave invisibility. Invisibility hurts less.” She approached him slowly, and he straightened his spine, allowing her to place herself between his legs. She rested her palms against his stony chest, and in a ragged whisper she said, “Now don’t make me talk about this stuff anymore. It doesn’t make me feel better to say it out loud. It makes me feel weak all over again.”

Weston nodded, eyes locked on hers. “Okay, Ave. I won’t ask anymore.”

She smiled sadly and left him there. Remembering made her raven want to rip out of her body. It had always been like that. The pain of the Change was her animal’s punishment for what she’d done to her feathered side. This wasn’t like earlier in the woods when she hadn’t been able to shift. Right now, power was pulsing against her middle, making her want to double over with the bone-deep ache of resisting the Change until she made it outside the cabin.

The Great Mistake. Weak, weak, weak. Avery gritted her teeth and pulled her T-shirt over her head, left it in a pile on the porch as she strode for the yard. Her bra was next, but f*ck her pants. They would slide off during the Change.

“Ave,” Weston said from behind her.

She turned just in time for his lips to collide against hers. This kiss was urgent and desperate, unlike their others. It was numbing. It was sucking darkness away from her and filling her with something else. Something better.

He bit her lip, drawing a moan from her, then Weston disengaged and rested his forehead against hers. His eyes were tightly closed, his breath shaking hard. “You don’t have to be invisible here.” And then he eased back by inches, just far enough to pull off his shirt.

Without another word, he jerked his chin toward the woods. His eyes were dark as night, probably the same color as hers, and damn it felt good not to hide from him. He wanted to Change with her. She had kept her Changes private, because she hated the way other ravens cowered away from her, but Weston was strong, dominant, and he didn’t care that she was powerful, too.

When Avery’s lip trembled, she bit it hard. There was no room for falling apart again in the night shadows of Harper’s Mountains. She turned and bolted for the tree line, closed her eyes, stretched her arms out, and then gave her body to the raven.

As she soared up and up, she could hear him, the Novak Raven, beating his powerful wings behind her, and then eventually beside her.

Her raven was huge, but Weston’s was even bigger.

If she could smile in this form, she would.

Their monsters matched.

Rain-dampened black feathers covered his body, and his dark eye was on her as they coasted above the canopy. Always on her.

Lightning flashed behind him, and he opened his glossy beak and let off an echoing, “Caw!” as the thunder boomed.

She answered because it felt right to use her voice around him. Only him. Below them, Harper’s Mountains were illuminated by the storm, and she was taken with this moment. She was here, in the lair of the dragon, with the man she never thought she would talk to again. And he was pushing Avery to own her shit, own her past, unlike the men of The Hollow.

She’d been wrong to question whether the council had anything to do with her feelings for Weston Novak. She wasn’t nothing. The council was. This deep, warm emotion pooling in her chest had nothing to do with their manipulation. It was her choosing to love the man, as she’d loved the boy. She’d told Weston his letters had been her happiness, but that wasn’t the whole truth.

Weston was her happiness.

In a way, he always had been.





Chapter Thirteen