Novak Raven (Harper's Mountains #4)(50)

“Why not?” Weston yelled.

“Because I can’t shift! I don’t have a dragon for you. I don’t have fire. I don’t have the f*cking ability to shield you right now.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I’m pregnant!”

Weston felt socked in the gut. All of his air whooshed out of his lungs and wouldn’t return.

“Harper, you’re pregnant?” Alana sounded like she was crying.

Lexi reached her first, though, hugged her up. Alana followed, and slowly, submissively, Avery padded to the tailgate and slipped under Harper’s outstretched arm.

The girls were new to the crew and didn’t understand though. Harper could die from this. Female dragons weren’t like bear shifters or flight shifters. Harper was going to have to force herself not to Change for the next nine months until she grew weaker and sicker and likely died in childbirth.

“What the f*ck man?” Weston asked Wyatt.

Wyatt gritted his teeth so hard the muscles in his jaw jumped. “You don’t understand.”

“I do! I understand this could kill her. Kill her, Wyatt!” Weston squatted down and clutched the back of his hair, so pissed he didn’t know what to do. He stood and jammed a finger at Wyatt. “You were supposed to protect her!”

“Beaston said she won’t die in childbirth. Not after we lost Janey.”

“Beaston,” Weston repeated. “Everyone relies so f*cking heavily on my dad, but visions don’t work like that!”

“Yours don’t,” Aaron murmured. “Maybe Beaston’s are different.”

Harper was crying, and she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He was f*cking this all up but, goddammit, he loved Harper. Loved her. She was one of the few he trusted, one of the few people in the world who was more important to Weston than air. He didn’t want her to die. He didn’t want to watch her wither away. “Fuck!” he yelled.

“Wes, I want a baby,” Harper said in a heartbroken voice. “I felt empty after I lost Janey, and I need this. I have a lot of grizzly shifter blood in me, some black bear, too. My grandfather did the math, and I’m at about a fifty-fifty percent chance of survival, even without your dad’s prediction.” She released the girls and rested her hand on her still-flat stomach. Tears fell down her cheeks, and Wyatt rubbed her back. “I’m going to do this. I’ll be strong enough. I know I will. We’ll have a baby in the crew, and I’ll be back to my fire-breathing badass self afterward, but right now, he needs me more. Do you understand?”

“He,” Weston said, his eyes burning.

“Beaston called me the vessel for the next male Bloodrunner Dragon. A fire-breather like me. A brawler like Wyatt. He’s seen it.” Harper’s voice tapered to nothing as two more tears streaked down her cheeks. “I already love him so much.”

Weston scrubbed his hand down his face and strode over to her, pulled her hard against him. A sob wrenched from Harper, and she clung to him tightly, clutching his T-shirt in her fists. Wes shook his head and pulled Wyatt to him, too, cupped his dumbass head, and held him for a moment before he shoved him away. Wyatt chuckled thickly and wiped his cheek on his shoulder, sniffed once, and got pulled into a back-cracking hug from Ryder.

Avery stood near him, smiling and clearly touched as the girls wrapped themselves around Wes and Harper. Whatever came next with the ravens, the Bloodrunners were down their biggest weapon. The second the world realized Harper couldn’t shift anymore to protect her child, enemies would come out of the woodwork. Vampires, wolves, ravens, unforeseen dangers. But that had to be okay. Weston would fight with his life to protect what they’d built here, to protect his alpha, to protect Avery, and the others in this crew would, too.

“Oh, Harper girl,” Weston murmured, rocking his alpha slowly. “You are going to do this. You’re so strong, of course you will. You’ll give our crew a better treasure than even the mountains. Rest now, Dragon. The Bloodrunners have you.”

****

“I don’t think they’ll attack,” Avery murmured.

“Hair band,” Harper said, holding out her hand. She was sitting in the rocking chair behind Avery who sat on the porch. She was French braiding Avery’s hair into two long pigtails.

She handed back the black hair deal she’d been fiddling with. “Ravens aren’t made for war. I really don’t think they’ll come here to fight.”

“Why don’t you think so?” Weston asked from where his head rested on her lap. Over and over, he was throwing a baseball up to the rafters of the porch of 1010 and catching it. The Bloodrunners were all spread out over the porch, recovering from the emotional charge of Harper and Wyatt’s big news.

“I don’t think they’ll physically wage war on us because they are scared of other shifters. Not just nervous, but terrified, of dragons and bears especially. I think that’s why they visited the shop instead of confronting me in Harper’s Mountains. Threatening three flight shifters I can see, but threatening the predator shifters in this crew?” Avery shook her head. “I think Benjamin was bluffing. I can’t see any of our people rallying to fight. They have no fight experience, and all the females have been trained to be scared. They aren’t equipped for battle, and almost all of them are submissive.”