Novak Raven (Harper's Mountains #4)(61)

Mom had lied and betrayed Aviana, betrayed Avery, but she didn’t have any control over her life, and there was something incredibly tragic about that.

“You will change your clothes, or you’ll go in The Box.”

Avery closed her eyes against the fear in those two words. She blew a breath onto the window and drew a little raven in the condensation just to feel closer to Weston.

Voice trembling, Avery told him, “I’m coming home, but I won’t be cowering anymore. You will just have to get used to me.”

“The hell I will!”

“You will!” she yelled. “You should’ve a long time ago. You should’ve loved my raven, not trained her to be nothing. To be invisible. Mom, stop crying. Stop it. Dad’s a shit. He always has been. Leave his ass. Leave him. Why did you marry him in the first place? And don’t tell me for love because I’ve never seen him say a single supportive thing to you.”

Dad gripped the steering wheel so hard it creaked, and his profile turned beat red.

“I married him for the same reasons you have to marry Benjamin.”

“I’m not marrying that douchebag. I would literally rather sit my bare vagina on a cactus than walk down any isle to that prick.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Dad bellowed. “He can provide for you.”

“He’ll hurt me.”

“So what? So what? If you weren’t such a mouthy woman, he wouldn’t want to. You have no one to blame but yourself. No one.”

She opened her mouth to tell him to go f*ck himself, but ahead, the gates to Raven’s Hollow lumbered, heavy and made of wrought iron. Two giant decorative ravens faced each other in the center, like great warriors guarding something precious. But raven shifters had never been warriors. None of them had but Aviana Novak, and her son, the Novak Raven. Everyone else had gotten so messed up and just dug deeper and deeper until they didn’t remember how to be okay anymore.

The gates opened, and Avery’s gaze followed the two men who stood somberly beside it, ready to close the iron barrier back against the outside world.

“Why am I here?” she asked softly, tears burning her eyes. “Why did you work so hard, lie so much, and put my friends in danger to bring me back to this place?”

“Because,” Dad said hoarsely. “The Novak Raven can’t lift our rank anymore. Only Benjamin can. He is in line to take Caden’s place. He has no heir. Any revenge he wanted on his mate will pass down to Benjamin.”

“Caden had a mate?” Avery asked, confused. First she’d found out Caden had been engaged to Aviana, but now he’d bonded to a mate? He’d always seemed to hate the fairer sex.

“Aviana was his mate,” Dad gritted out. “She’s the f*cking queen of our people, but she’s been sitting on the throne of the Gray Back Crew this whole goddamn time, completely unreachable. Protected from Caden’s wrath by Damon, by Beaston, by the shifters of those mountains. She had a duty to Caden. She should’ve bore a son for him, not for some f*cking grizzly. Weston should’ve been Caden’s heir, but because of the actions of his mother, his bloodline is tainted. She failed as a mother and a mate.”

“She was a great mother, and she was never Caden’s mate,” Avery ground out. Romance-less marriage contracts didn’t a mate make. That was like calling Mom Dad’s mate. If she was, he wouldn’t be able to treat her like he did.

And oh, she could see it now. She could imagine how Caden had obsessed over Aviana Novak over the years, waiting on a chance to exact revenge on the woman he felt like he owned. Benjamin saw Avery the same way. That they had to have the women who didn’t want them back was a sure sign of their monstrous egos. Something was seriously wrong with the men in this community.

Dad drove up the winding mountain road, past the houses that were dimly lit. It all looked so eerie in the dark. This wasn’t home anymore.

“Caw!”

Avery lifted her gaze to the tree branches above the road.

“Caw! Caw! Caw!” The branches were heavy with ravens welcoming her back to Hell.

Chills rose all over Avery’s body. The whole town seemed to be Changed. What if Weston got too close to the gates? What if he was seen? His raven was massive, much bigger than any raven here. He would be recognizable.

Weston knew how to take care of himself. She’d never seen him falter, never seen him hesitate. Even last night, he’d broken into the hospital within six hours of her being there and gotten away with it. She’d heard the nurses talking about how the redheaded man had gotten away. They hadn’t even mentioned Weston.

He could be a ghost when he wanted to.

Dad didn’t even bother to take her home to change her clothes. Instead, he stopped directly in front of the council house and got out.

Avery clenched her shaking hands. Her palms were sweating just thinking about what waited for her inside.

Dad opened her door and murmured, “I’m sorry, Avery, but you will have to be reconditioned to accept life here.” The apologies of an *.

She stood slowly, her legs and arms heavy as lead. Mom was staring at Dad like he was a monster, and she had the right of it. He was so deep in his belief The Box was okay because it wasn’t physically hurting her that he’d lost his sense of right and wrong. Or maybe he’d never had it in the first place.