Novak Raven (Harper's Mountains Book 4)

by T. S. Joyce

  NOVAK RAVEN

  (HARPER’S MOUNTAINS, BOOK 4)

  By T. S. JOYCE

  Novak Raven

  Copyright © 2016 by T. S. Joyce

  Copyright © 2016, T. S. Joyce

  First electronic publication: July 2016

  T. S. Joyce

  www.tsjoyce.com

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover Image: Kruse Images & Photography: Models & Boudoir

  Cover Model: Matthew Hosea

  Other Books in This Series

  Bloodrunner Dragon (Book 1)

  Bloodrunner Bear (Book 2)

  Air Ryder (Book 3)

  Blackwing Dragon (Book 5) – Coming August 2016

  Contents

  Copyright

  Other Books in This Series

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Up Next in This Series

  New Release Newsletter Sign-Up

  Want More of these Characters?

  More Series by T. S. Joyce

  Chapter One

  Twenty-six dollars.

  Twenty. Six.

  It might sound better if Avery Foley imagined her dwindled life savings in pennies instead of dollars. Twenty-six hundred pennies.

  She frowned as she shoved the dollar bills and change into her wallet and relaxed back into the booth of Alana’s Coffee & Sweets. Since it was the only place open this early, the newspapers were delivered to this shop first. She knew because she had woken up early every Sunday for the past five weeks and watched the delivery van make the rounds on sleepy Main Street. The weekly newspaper meant new job listings. It meant maybe she could keep her freedom for a little while longer because Bryson City was her haven.

  The Bloodrunner Crew kept her safe, and they didn’t even know she existed.

  Avery perked up at the white delivery van headed this way. In the back of it, there was a stack of newspapers with hope written between the lines of the classified section. A buck fifty for the newspaper just to see the job listings, and there was her breakfast money right there. But if she could find a job, all her troubles would be over. Well, until the council found out what she’d done.

  When the stink of fur and dominance hit her nose, Avery gasped and slammed herself against the booth wall. Don’t look it in the eyes. She clenched her shaking hands under the table and averted her gaze when the curvy woman with the soft brown eyes and the scar on her lip poured a cup of coffee in front of Avery.

  “I-I don’t want any,” she stammered. “Anything. Don’t want it. I’m fine.”

  “Now, miss, I’ve seen you come in here every Sunday for three weeks, and I’ve never pushed you to buy anything. I’m not starting now.” The woman pitched her voice low. “I saw you counting your money. Breakfast is on me.”

  Avery’s words were clogged in her throat as she panted and pressed her cheek against the cold glass. “You’re one of those…those…”

  “Shifters?” There was a deep frown in the woman’s tone. “My name is Alana. I won’t hurt you.”

  Liar. Liar. She is a liar. She was too dominant to be a lesser shifter like Avery. Alana was a big cat, at least. “W-what animal?”

  “It’s not polite to ask that,” Alana said softly.

  Avery’s breath came too shallow, too fast. She would pass out if the monster didn’t leave soon. How had she not smelled her before? True, Alana had always stayed behind the counter when she’d come in, and it was across the shop. And true, Raven senses weren’t as heightened as other shifters. And true, the scent of vanilla overpowered everything in here, but Avery had made a grave mistake in letting her guard down.

  Avery dared a glance at the woman. She was pretty with skin the color of smooth, rich chocolate, and petal-pink lipstick painted her full lips. Her hair was in curls, and the front waves that framed her face were highlighted the color of honey. Too bad this was just a pretty shell that hid a terrifying beast. “Are you a Bloodrunner?”

  “Yes.” The woman’s dark, delicate eyebrows were furrowed, as though she couldn’t figure Avery out. And she wouldn’t either. That was one advantage to being a flight shifter. Feathers didn’t carry a smell like fur did.

  A freaking Bloodrunner! It was one thing to use their presence as safety. It was another to cross paths with them. They would kill her if they knew what she was. That’s what predator shifters did. They were violent and unreasonable and snuffed out anything less dominant than them. It was their way.

  The porcelain of the plate Alana pushed toward her made a grating sound against the bright green table. On it sat a bear-shaped pastry. She should’ve known. A freaking grizzly bear. Avery closed her eyes so she could pretend she wasn’t under the stare of one of the most terrifying of the shifters right now.

  “If you need anything else, you just ask, okay, sugar?” Alana asked.

  Avery whimpered and nodded once, hard. Alana’s dominance pressed heavily on her shoulders as the woman stood there staring a few moments more, probably deciding whether to eat her or not.

  But then she left. Just like that. Alana was polite as she poured coffee for the seven seniors across the café, and she was double polite to the newspaper delivery guy, whose nametag read Trevor. And she had given Avery free coffee and a pastry. And said pastry did smell mouth-wateringly delicious.

  Perhaps it was poisoned. Predator shifters were very good hunters.

  Avery poked it. Still warm, and the frosting coated her finger. Carefully, Avery lifted the pastry to her nose and sniffed it, but it didn’t smell of anything other than dough and cherry filling—her favorite. When she nibbled a crumb off the corner, it was like heaven in her mouth.

  Eyes on the delivery man filling the newspaper dispenser, Avery bit into the breakfast carefully. It tasted as good as it smelled. She hadn’t eaten a thing since the dollar quesadillas at five o’clock yesterday at Drat’s Boozehouse.

  “Keep one out for me?” Alana asked Trevor.

  “Sure thing,” he said with an easy smile.

  Everyone seemed so nice here. Nic
er than the community Avery had come from, but that was because she was a low ranking member. Low ranking members were scorned, punished, and pushed to marry up to lift their family’s station. She wasn’t angry about it. That was just how raven shifters worked.

  Which was why she was here, avoiding the hell out of Benjamin and pretending to be something she was not.

  Her phone vibrated against the table, the device clattering toward the ledge. Avery picked it up and answered right away. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hey sweetie,” Mom whispered, which meant Dad was still in the house. Why wasn’t she calling when he was out?

  “Are you okay?” Avery asked, lowering her voice to match her mother’s. The last thing she needed was the Bloodrunner overhearing anything personal about her.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Mom murmured. “I need to tell you something, though. The council…”

  Dread blasted through her chest. “Yeah?”

  “They are talking about paying you a visit to make sure your courtship is going ahead according to plan.”

  According to plan? “No, no, no. Mom!” Avery glanced over at Alana, who was walking back into the kitchen. She cupped her hand over the speaker and whispered, “He wouldn’t know me anymore, and he wouldn’t understand. He was raised with predator shifters. He’s the son of Beaston! I don’t actually plan on meeting the Novak Raven.”

  “You mean your fiancé?” Mom whisper screamed.

  “What else was I supposed to tell the council? They weren’t going to let me go, Mom. And Benjamin is…” Terrifying. “I can’t make a nest with him, can’t build a life. I won’t survive it.”

  Mom’s deep sigh tapered into a helpless noise that said she was crying again. “I know. I just wanted to warn you. Get your story straight, honey. They’re coming sooner rather than later, and your father will back them up.” Because Benjamin’s name would raise their station, and that was the most important thing to Dad.

  A good daughter would’ve done her duty. A good daughter would’ve dug her family out of their hole. A good daughter would’ve married up the second she came of breeding age, but what had Avery done? Lied about a courtship with a raven shifter she’d only met once, years ago.

  “Should I just come home, Mom?”

  “No. Benjamin will have you if you come back.”

  “But the backlash will fall on you and Dad.”

  “Then convince the council you are really in a relationship with the Novak Raven. They’re scared of his family. Scared of his crew. Scared of his father. As long as he doesn’t marry another and register her to his crew, the council won’t dig too deeply.”

  “And what do I say when they get here and the Novak Raven isn’t with me?”

  “Tell them he is out of town, or busy with work, or anything. Baby, it would be different if it was anyone other than Benjamin who asked to court you, but I’ve heard things. Awful things, and he was so mean to you when you were kids. I want you safe.”

  “But our rank—”

  “Fuck our family rank if it means you get hurt.”

  Avery drew up like she’d been slapped. Wow. She’d never heard Mom say “fuck” before. She was timid like all female raven shifters, but there had been a shift lately. Mom had become stronger-willed, more outspoken, and that change had come about the day Benjamin had come into their home uninvited and demanded Avery’s hand. Dad had been all for it. Mom had sat there quietly with this horrified look on her face as Dad promised him Avery would give her newly betrothed as many children as he wanted and Avery would be a good, submissive, and doting mate to a man with empty eyes.

  Bile crept up the back of Avery’s throat at the thought of how happy Dad had been to give her away to a brute.

  “I’ll figure it out, Mom, don’t worry,” Avery promised.

  “Hannah!” Dad yelled in the background.

  “I love you, honey. I have to go,” Mom rushed out in a whisper. And then the line went dead.

  Avery sighed miserably as she watched the glow of her phone fade to black.

  Alana slapped a newspaper onto the edge of her table so hard Avery startled and dropped the phone onto the seat beside her.

  “I’ve circled the jobs that haven’t been filled, and here is a list of a few more that my friends in town have said will go in next week’s newspaper.” She jammed a red-painted claw at the purple sticky note stuck on the classifieds section. “Maybe you can get lucky and sneak in there before the jobs are posted.”

  For some reason Avery couldn’t explain, her response to Alana’s abrupt arrival had caused her to grab her own boobs in fear. Fantastic. Cheeks on fire and heart hammering against her sternum, she released the fondle-hold on herself and rasped out, “Th-thank you.”

  Alana nodded and strode off.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” Avery asked in a rush.

  Alana turned at the counter and gave her a crooked smile, the deep scar on her lip stretching with it. “Because it sucks being the new girl in town. Maybe this can make it easier.”

  Stunned, Avery dragged her gaze away from the bear shifter and studied the jobs she had circled. Slowly, she plucked the sticky note off the newspaper.

  Alana’s Coffee & Sweets (barista, part-time)

  Sugar’s Ice Cream Parlor (cashier, part-time)

  Dante’s Traditional Pizza Pies (dishwasher, part-time)

  Big Flight ATV Tours (scheduling manager, full-time)

  Chills blasted across Avery’s forearms when she read the last one. She was a firm believer in signs, and every instinct in her body said this was a big one. Big Flight? How fitting for a raven shifter to work at a place with such a name. Working in a tourist town for an ATV tour company sounded fun, and it was the only full-time position, which she desperately needed if she was going to secure a rental cabin around here.

  This could work. She could stay out of the Bloodrunners’ path of destruction while maintaining her independence and securing a job, a house, all of it. She could have the life she’d always wanted.

  All she had to do was convince the council she was off the table for a match and make sure the Novak Raven never found out about her.

  Big Flight ATV Tours was her ticket to freedom.

  Chapter Two

  “Excuse me,” Weston Novak said to the woman in front of him. He handed her the purse she’d let slip from her shoulder and onto the ground. “You dropped this.”

  The woman in front of Weston turned and seemed to look right through him. It was her eyes that made him stop walking. They were hollow and so sad, so hopeless, that a heaviness settled over him. She began walking again without taking the purse he offered. City lights illuminated the night on the other side of the bridge they were walking on, and the recent rain made the asphalt under his feet shiny and reflective. No cars were driving on the bridge, and up ahead, the woman’s long, floral sundress whipped around her ankles. Why wasn’t she wearing shoes?

  Weston’s fingers moved on their own, rifling through her purse. Stop! He pulled out a wallet and opened the button, flipped through a plastic sleeve of pictures. There was one of a smiling man with a beard and thinning hair, and one of a little blond boy. There was another picture of all three of them, and the woman’s beaming smile was genuine. She was happy. So what had changed? Why did her eyes harbor a thousand ghosts now?

  The next plastic sleeve held a folded newspaper article. Weston pulled it out. Why couldn’t he stop himself?

  Slowly, he unfolded it and read the headline and first few sentences. It was an obituary.

  No. Weston looked up at the woman. Her shoulders were shaking, and she was wiping her cheeks on the thin sleeve of her dress as she walked away. She’d lost her little boy.

  “Ma’am,” Weston warned as she climbed onto the railing. Shit. “Ma’am!” He bolted for her. She was sobbing uncontrollably now, chanting the little boy’s name, chanting how sorry she was.

  This couldn’t be happening! He reached her in time and grabbed her hand, b
ut his fingertips went right through hers as though he was an apparition. No, no, no.

  “Look at me!” he yelled. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll make sure it’s okay. Just come down. Let me take you home!”

  Balanced with her back to the churning water far below, she was looking at something right over his head. She couldn’t see him at all.

  “Jean!” he yelled, reciting the name from the obituary. She’d survived her child. No parent should go through this. Weston scrabbled at her legs, her arms, anywhere, desperate to be solid. To pull her back down and hold her and tell her everything would be okay eventually, even if it was a lie. Even if he knew she would never get over this, she had to live. “Jean, please look at me!”

  Jean’s face fell, and tears streamed down her cheeks like rivers, and then she did. She lowered her gaze and looked right at Weston, right into his soul. “Thanks for being here,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to do it alone.”

  And then she launched herself off the bridge.

  “Noooo!” Weston screamed, bolting upright in bed.

  His skin was cold and clammy, and his legs were all tangled up in the sheets. Desperately, he kicked out of them and rolled over, buried his face against the pillow, and yelled as loud and as long as he could. His voice grew hoarse, but it didn’t help release the vision of Jean from his mind. She was a stranger, and he hadn’t been able to help her. She was probably alive still, but he’d done this over and over, tried to fix the future, and every time, he somehow made it worse. If he tried to save Jean, she would still take her own life, and it would be even more gruesome. His visions were non-negotiable. They existed for no fucking reason other than to torture him with fates he couldn’t change. With people he couldn’t help. He punched the mattress over and over as hard as he could. Then stood and ripped the lamp cord out of the wall and chucked the lamp at the doorframe. It shattered, but still didn’t erase the prophesy.