Bastien closed the distance between them. He raised his hand. She flinched, expecting the worst. Instead, he cupped her cheek. His grip was rough and demanding. He forced her chin up, but she kept her eyes closed.
“I don’t expect much from you,” he said. “But I do expect a certain level of loyalty.”
Her chest tightened. The beast inside her thrashed as a cage closed in around it. Raven wanted to feel the sky all around her, the winds rippling over her wings. She yearned for freedom in all forms, but Bastien’s grasp was like a heavy chain. His fingers dug into her skin until she wanted to whimper pitifully.
Somehow, Raven kept the sound locked away.
Bastien’s breath washed over her cheek. “Have fun with him while you can because the moment we get home, I’m going to make you forget all about him. I am going to erase all evidence that you were ever touched by anyone other than me. You won’t be able to look at yourself without thinking about the ways I’ve had you.”
The beast roared in her head. Her skull shook with the force of it. She brought up her trembling fists but couldn’t bring herself to shove Bastien away.
“If you betray me like that again, I will make sure you’re with child before we even leave here.”
Her stomach soured. The reins that had been pulling her forward suddenly turned into a noose. If she could not find her way out of it, the rope would strangle her for sure. The beast told her to burn it, but this wasn’t a real rope. Fire couldn’t free her from this situation.
Nothing could.
Adrien knew he was on enemy territory, but he wasn’t about to leave Raven alone. He pulled a folding chair from the back of his truck and walked the rest of the way toward the Montoya house. With a snap of his wrist, he opened the folding chair, plopped it on the ground, and dropped onto it.
So long as no one patrolled the grounds, Adrien would have a full view of the house all night from his vantage point in the trees. His cousins would have called him crazy if they knew where he was. Just in case, he put his phone on silent so no unexpected calls would give away his location.
He checked the skies overhead for the big beast that was Raven’s fiancé. Adrien hadn’t sensed any love between the two of them. If anything, the fiancé had treated Raven like a possession. Just thinking about it turned Adrien into a furnace. Fire burned hot in his chest where it could reach up his throat and tickle the roof of his mouth.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Now that he was here, he wasn’t sure which room belonged to Raven. It wasn’t like he had snuck into her bedroom while they’d been dating. Doing so at that age would have been a death sentence. Alice Montoya would have dropped him dead on his mother’s doorstep.
Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but he did know that Alice never would have tolerated teenage idiocy like that. So, he let his eyes drift shut and strained his ears. His beast granted him a bit of power. His hearing intensified, everything around him becoming too loud for a heartbeat. Adrien breathed through his nose and pushed past the sounds of the woods around him.
He couldn’t hear what was being said, but if anyone raised their voice, he would know. He sat like that for the rest of the night, until exhaustion threatened to tip him onto the ground. When the sun rose, Adrien gathered his chair and trudged back to the truck. It wasn’t the lack of sleep that made his feet heavy but the doubt that still churned in his mind.
By the road, he glanced back as if he might be able to see through trees and walls. He had no idea what Raven might have endured through the night. The only thing he knew for sure was that no one had screamed or shifted inside the house.
He climbed onto the truck bed and asked nature to refrain from snowing while he took a quick nap. He dreamed of Raven and of beating the shit out of her asshole of a fiancé. The dream should have been cathartic, but he woke with a restlessness that he could not fulfill. His shoulders were tense, as if the fiancé would strike him at any moment.
The truck coasting toward Adrien didn’t belong to that awful shifter. No, this truck was familiar and the sight of it set Adrien on edge. It pulled up beside him. The window rolled down to reveal Callum Barnes’s scrutinizing gaze.
“What’s up, old man?” Adrien asked as he raked a hand through his hair. He tried to be as casual as possible.
Since he was parked this close to one of the Montoya estates, Callum likely knew what he was up to. Knowing Callum, the older dragon shifter wasn’t going to be happy. He still hated the Montoyas as much as Alice hated the Barnes. Not for the first time, Adrien wished he could put the two of them in the room to solve their issues together while everyone else got on with their lives.
Callum didn’t bother hiding his suspicion, but he didn’t ask Adrien about the obvious. “How’s your ma doing?”
Adrien needed to visit her. He’d been too distracted by his beast’s desires to remember that he had human duties. If he let the beast consume his life, then he would have nothing to return to when he finally won his mate’s heart. His mother might not go anywhere, but he knew that she wouldn’t be able to hide her hurt if she thought her only son was giving her the silent treatment.
“I’m going to see her later,” Adrien said. The visit hadn’t been on his docket, but it was now.
Callum narrowed his eyes. Adrien was about a moment away from telling his uncle to shove his own head up his ass. Instead, Adrien found words that would hurt.
“How’s Ember? She and her mate decide to start a family yet? Do you think they’ll give the kids Cash’s name?”
Though Callum had been on his best behavior for Ember’s sake, everyone could tell that Callum still didn’t approve of her mate. At the mention of Montoya children, Callum’s lips flattened. Callum needed to get laid, but Adrien wasn’t going to be the one to say it. He would let Callum come to that conclusion on his own.
Adrien gave Callum a weak salute and hopped out of the truck bed. “Places to go, people to see. Say hello to Teagan for me when you see her.”
Adrien really knew better. Meeting Raven’s awful fiancé had given Adrien a taste for blood that he could not quench. Even though Callum hadn’t done anything wrong yet, Adrien couldn’t stop pushing the man’s buttons. Everyone in the family knew that Callum and Teagan barely spoke anymore. Everyone also knew that it pained Callum because it was the one obvious result of his shitty parenting.
It was a wonder that Ember had turned out okay. Jensen, too, since Callum had practically raised him.
Adrien wanted to be a father, but he wasn’t sure if he could be better than the men in his life. His own father had gone off and died in a useless fight. From what he’d been told, it’d been a territory scuffle. The brothers had thrown themselves against a small clan with the hopes of gaining a little more land for the farms.
And so, the two of them died because of their greed. That left Callum, who’d failed just about everyone he’d ever loved. Though the statement was brutal, it was true. Adrien still held his own grudge against Callum. His uncle had made time for Jensen, but not for him. That had hurt more than Adrien had ever let on.
Callum didn’t have time to comment on Adrien’s sharp tongue. A shout split the air. Adrien turned toward the Montoya estate and stilled. Behind him, Callum growled.
Well, Adrien thought. So much for hiding my intentions from Callum.
Adrien was on the balls of his feet when Callum jumped out of his truck and caught Adrien. He locked his arms around Adrien’s chest. Adrien kicked and stomped on Callum’s feet, but to no avail. The man wore steel-toed boots and had a pain tolerance to match.
“If you don’t put me down this instant, I will shift and knock over your damn truck.” Adrien clenched his teeth.
“You need to stay out of their business, son.”
Adrien’s beast filled him with fire. “I’m not your son.”
He flung his head back. It connected with Callum’s nose. Callum groaned, but didn’t release Adrien. Fine, if that wasn’t going to work, then Adrien
had other ideas. He threw his weight around, hoping to knock Callum off balance. If they fell, there was a chance Callum would loosen his grip enough for Adrien to escape.
Adrien didn’t want to shift on an open road. There was no telling who would come by. If they saw Callum and Adrien fighting, then rumors would start spreading. Rumors they could deal with. If they saw Adrien shift and fly away, well…that would be one hell of a problem.
“Their business is their own,” Callum growled in his ear.
Adrien refused to stay out of it. His beast told him to run, so he had to run.
“I can’t even bring myself to say sorry.” Adrien threw caution to the wind.
His beast flooded his body. Scales unfolded across his skin. Callum let out a startled shout. Adrien spread his wings and prepared for flight.
“You might not be sorry, but I am.”
Something sharp pierced Adrien’s spine. He let out a sound of dismay. Callum had struck in that moment between man and monster, when Adrien’s scales weren’t yet locked together. The needle had found purchase and now a foreign substance crept through Adrien’s system.
This time, when he fell asleep, his thoughts were filled with fear.
7
Quincy’s one good eye remained unflinching when Bastien threw the first punch. In the span of a heartbeat, Quincy took one step back. Bastien’s punch met empty air as Quincy flashed a toothy grin. When Quincy’s gaze shifted to Alice, the Montoya matron sighed and rolled her eyes.
Raven took a step back and bumped into a nearby table. She caught the wobbling lamp before it could hit the floor and turn all the eyes in the room on her. When she looked back to the fight, Bastien had straightened and was acting as though nothing had ever happened.
“Really?” Uncle Quincy asked. “This is the one you decided to share your genes with? I know you found your husband with that clan, Alice, but it seems as though that’s the only halfway decent man they could come up with.”
Though Raven wanted to hate her uncle for all that he’d done lately, she couldn’t help but laugh. Bastien’s attention darted to her. Just the weight of his gaze smothered her laughter. She swallowed and wished she could disappear.
“Are you finished insulting me?” Bastien fixed the collar of his button-down shirt as if he were some sort of proper man and not a monster in cotton. “I wouldn’t have felt the need to challenge you had you not waltzed in here with intent to abuse me.”
Quincy smiled, showing teeth once more. “I might be old, but I could devour you in one bite. So could Alice. Watch where you fling your shit because we are not going to endure such crass behavior.”
That’s pretty ballsy coming from a man like yourself, Raven thought. If only River were here to hear the things Uncle Quincy said.
Uncle Quincy stepped up to Alice. “Be careful who you hand your last faithful child to.”
Raven’s beast snarled. Faithful was a strong word for the way Raven felt. Fearful? Yes. Tired? Yes. Faithful? Not in a hundred years. Her faith had dried up and vanished so long ago that she no longer remembered what it felt like to be safe in her mother’s company.
Alice Montoya relied on her strength far too often. So much so that her children knew no peace. They only knew how to be on constant lookout. River had escaped to the arms of a lover, and Reece had given himself over to the quiet of the raptor sanctuary. Now, Raven was left alone in a state of near-panic for the rest of her life.
She never once thought that her uncle would come to her rescue. Not that he wanted her to grasp the kind of happiness that she yearned for. Quincy merely wanted to sell Raven to the best buyer. Bastien, in his obvious opinion, was not the best buyer.
Raven gave herself over to a daydream, a fire that would slowly eat its way through the room until everything she hated had been turned to ash. How many times had her mother scolded her in this foyer? How many times had she fought for her mother’s attention in the living room just so River could have an evening of peace?
Raven opened her mouth, ready to unleash that fire in the form of words.
No one can have me, damn it.
“You can’t press everyone’s buttons and expect them to stay calm,” Alice said, snidely. “One look at your face, and I want to throw punches. Are you surprised that a prideful man like Bastien wanted to do the same after you spat on him like that?”
Raven sighed, her fire sputtering and dying.
While the others argued back and forth, she slipped out of the room. She grabbed a set of keys and got behind the wheel with no real direction leading her forward. The road opened at the end of the driveway. Without thinking, she flicked the blinker and followed its suggestion.
At least here, alone in the car, it was quiet. No one watched her. No one talked about her like she was a baby farm. Her skin crawled at the thought until she shook it away.
Here, she was alone.
That didn’t last long, though. Two trucks nearly blocked the road ahead. She slowed and noticed two men fighting. The one bucked and shifted. Raven gasped as Adrien’s dragon tossed its head in the air. In the space between breaths, the dragon collapsed. She watched Adrien’s head turn sideways and his eyes drift shut. He hit the ground so loudly she could hear the impact inside her car.
She hit the gas and sped toward the fight as the other man stepped toward Adrien’s unconscious body. She nearly hit Adrien’s truck as the brakes squealed. Heart racing, Raven spilled out of her car and stumbled toward Adrien. She dropped to her knees beside him and threw up her hand to ward away the man.
The man turned out to be Callum Barnes. Raven’s blood chilled. Callum had a syringe in one hand and a very confused look on his face. She might have been safer in the house with Bastien and her uncle, but Raven felt nothing but relief. Even though she looked into the face of the most feared Barnes shifter of the previous generation, she knew she was in the right place at the right time.
“Don’t hurt him,” she said. Her voice shook more than she would have liked. The command came out as a plea.
Callum sighed and threw his hands in the air. “I didn’t hurt him! I stopped the fool from getting hurt by you and your family.”
Raven hesitated. They weren’t far from the house. From here, they might have heard her scream when Bastien tried to hit Quincy. This predicament was her fault. Adrien heard her and tried to go to her rescue. Callum had stopped him for his own safety.
“Adrien, you fool.”
“You’re telling me.” But Callum wasn’t looking at Adrien when he spoke. His eyes were on Raven.
Her face warmed. She looked away.
Adrien bolted up out of a dead sleep. His shoulders rose and fell while his heart raced in anticipation of a fight. Yet, when he looked around, the scenery had changed. He wasn’t on the side of the road anymore.
He was back at his own place. Someone had dumped him on his couch. The air smelled different, though. It was sweet and…familiar. His shoulders slumped, and he did a slow circle. Upon turning around, he found a very wide-eyed Raven wielding a spatula in his kitchen. She froze, glanced side to side, then offered him a chocolate chip cookie with the silliest grin on her face.
Adrien’s fight or flight response crumbled into nothing. His heart melted. He dropped back down onto the couch and gave in to a fit of laughter.
“What a weird day,” he said with tears streaming down his face.
When he looked up, Raven was standing over him. She wore a mask of skepticism and disbelief. “Is this how you react to being drugged and kidnapped?”
Adrien accepted her cookie. “Kidnapped? I’m in my own house.”
She took the seat beside him, too close. Not close enough. Adrien wanted to pull her into his lap and taste the chocolate on her lips. But he managed to keep his hands to himself.
Honestly, he was relieved to see her safe and sound. The last thing he remembered was her terrified scream. Callum had stopped him from rushing to her. Somehow, she’d found him. Having Raven here, where he
knew no one could hurt her, set Adrien at ease.
Her gaze wandered. At first, it seemed like she couldn’t bear to look at him for more than a moment. Then he watched as she took in everything that made up his home. Her attention flitted from object to object. A half-smile reached her lips when she noticed an abandoned project in the corner. Her face became pensive at the sight of a black notebook on his desk.
Adrien should have said something, but he enjoyed watching her struggle with the notebook’s existence. The emotions swirling through her eyes revealed more than she likely wanted him to know. It was as if she went through all five stages of grief in an instant.
Adrien leaned in. “That’s not a book of phone numbers from all the girls I’ve been with.”
Raven startled. She shook her head and tried to tell him that wasn’t what she’d been thinking, but they could both hear the lie for what it was. Instead of trying to convince her otherwise, Adrien stood and retrieved the book. He pushed it into her hands and motioned for her to open it.
At first, Raven seemed skeptical. Then, when she opened it, she laughed.
“Do you believe me now?” he asked.
She snapped the book shut and waved it in front of him. “Is this seriously a ledger of all the money your cousins have borrowed from you? That seems a little miserly, doesn’t it?”
Adrien grinned and leaned back. “I never ask for money. I keep track so I know who needs help. That’s when I start leaving money or food lying around their places. A lot of the income from the farms goes right back into the farms.”
Raven lowered the book and ran a hand over its cover. Her lashes lowered and covered her eyes in shadow, but the smile on her lips told him all he needed to know.
“I don’t worry about everyone quite as much as I used to. This notebook is old. I pulled it out because I was thinking about all the times Ember and Teagan had to ask for help.”
Adrien wished there was some way to show his uncle that he needed to be a better man. For a while, Adrien thought that the ledger would do the trick. He realized quickly that Callum would only see the numbers. Callum would leap to the same conclusion that Raven had.
A Star Crossed Fate (Great Plains Dragon Feud Book 4) Page 6