Novak Raven (Harper's Mountains #4)(51)

“Almost all of them?” Alana asked from where she rested her back against the porch railing beside Aaron.

“Yeah, some of the males are dominant, but raven dominant…not fire-breathing dragon dominant. Caden is one of them.”

“Caden?” Weston asked, catching the ball and sitting up.

“Yeah, the guy you smashed against the wall.”

“Caden Edwards?”

Avery frowned, her head jerking back and forth with each braid Harper wove into her hair. “Yeah. Do you know him?”

Weston narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Yeah, he was engaged to my mom for a year before she ended it and chose my dad. We’ll just say he didn’t handle it graciously. She had her parents’ support, though, so it made it easier for her to leave Rapid City.”

Avery huffed a stunned breath. She’d had no idea Caden had been engaged to Aviana Novak. How the hell had that been hidden from the flock? “Yeah, he’s been an * for as long as I’ve known him. He was the council member who would put me in The Box when I needed ‘rehabilitation.’ Even if I struggled. I heard about the days the flock was located in Rapid City, but after Aviana left, the ravens all relocated to the Blue Ridge Mountains outside of Damascus. They named the community Raven’s Hollow, and the rules became really stringent. The council, led by Caden, sequestered us off from other shifters and most humans after your mom left. The council got scared all their strong-minded ravens would pack up like Aviana had done, and our shifter species would fall apart and slowly go extinct. They made the rule that women couldn’t get jobs anymore after what happened with your mom pairing up with a bear shifter. Aviana’s parents were already low ranking, but when Aviana picked your dad, they were put at the very bottom of our community and shunned. When I was ten, I remember they left in the night. I didn’t blame them. I wished they had taken me with them. The only interaction the ravens have with the outside world now, other than the internet, is the public school system, where we get to go to classes with human kids. Caden has been trying to get a school just for raven shifters approved, though.”

“What a boner biscuit,” Ryder muttered, drawing his legs up around where Lexi sat on the porch in front of him.

“Total boner biscuit,” Lexi agreed, chipping away at her half-gone nail polish.

It didn’t sit well with Avery that Caden had history with Weston’s mother. Not when there had obviously been some long-term plot to lure him back to Raven’s Hollow. She had the sick feeling they weren’t just drawing him there to put some new genetics into the community anymore. She would bet her first paycheck that Caden had been behind the plan to use Avery as bait in the first place. Who else in that community would have a reason to connect so directly with Weston and Aviana? No, she didn’t like this at all.

Maybe she should call her mom and see if she could get more information from her. She owed Avery.

Aaron jerked his attention to the front gate of the property and froze. Eerily, Alana and Wyatt did the same. Weston, Ryder, and Harper were next, and now Avery could hear it—the soft hum of an approaching vehicle. Dread filled her veins as she stood with the others, preparing to face whatever was coming.

Blue and red lights flashed through the trees.

“Sheeyit,” Ryder muttered. “What do we do?”

“Hold steady, crew,” Harper murmured. “We have no beef with the cops here, and we’ve done nothing wrong.”

But every instinct screamed for Avery to flee. Something was wrong, and she naturally feared law enforcement. Why? Because the ravens worked very hard to keep human law out of Raven’s Hollow, and it had been ingrained in her since birth to avoid flashing lights like the ones on the police cruiser bumping and bouncing through the gate of Harper’s Mountains.

Weston pulled her behind him protectively, his hand gripping her hip. She ran her hand up his back, to steady herself as much as him, and every muscle was hard as a rock, tensed and ready.

“Should I Change?” she asked, panicking as two uniformed police officers got out of the vehicle.

“No,” Harper said sternly. “It’ll only cause more trouble if one of us runs.”

A second police cruiser coasted through the gate, and now Avery couldn’t breathe. They were here for her. She knew they were.

“Evening,” one of them said. “We’ve had several calls about an Avery Foley being kept here.”

“She’s not being kept here. She lives here,” Weston said calmly.

“That’s not the story we’ve heard. There was a missing person’s report filled out five weeks ago in Damascus.”

“No, I’m not missing,” Avery said, stepping in front of Weston. “I’m here because I want to be.”

The officers shot each other matching frowns. “If that’s true, then we’ll sort through it, but we’re going to need you to come down to the station and answer some questions.”

“She can answer them here,” Harper said. “She already told you she’s here because she wants to be.”

“Bloodrunner Dragon,” the officer said.

“Harper, please.”

He inhaled deeply and rested his hands on his hips, right near his holstered weapon. “Harper. We don’t want any trouble, but we have an entire community convinced she’s been taken from them and brainwashed. The calls have been relentless, and then there is a video that has caused some concern. The detective handling her case is on his way from Damascus right now, and in order to clear all this up, we have to bring her in. We don’t want any trouble. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Weston Novak, we’ll need you to come in as well.”