by T. S. Joyce
Weston reached for the handle, but she was faster. She locked it in a rush.
“I’m not taking your shit anymore, Weston. Maybe that was the girl I used to be, but I’m not her anymore.”
Avery pulled out of the parking spot and gassed it onto Main Street. When she dared one look in the rearview mirror, Weston was standing there with his hands out, his eyes wide and shocked as if he didn’t know what just happened. Welcome to the fucking club, Novak.
Tears blurred her vision, and she squeezed her eyes to clear them as she gripped the steering wheel. She didn’t know what she would do, but she couldn’t stay here and keep her pride.
And right now, pride was all she had left.
Chapter Seven
What the fuck just happened?
Either Avery was very good at twisting things, or he’d been completely wrong about what had actually gone down when they were fifteen. Weston debated bolting for his truck, but Ryder was yelling at him again as he stomped out of Drat’s.
“What the fuck, man?” Ryder yelled. “You know her? And you didn’t tell me?”
“We were pen pals,” Weston gritted out as the other Bloodrunners filed out of the bar.
Ryder’s face was as red as his hair right now. “You had a fucking pen pal? Dude, we grew up together. We told each other everything. Why would you keep that from me?”
“Because she was mine! She was just for me. I didn’t want any of you giving me shit over her because I was having a hard enough time figuring out what she was to me. My mom and Avery’s mom decided we would be good pen pals. I could learn about raven culture, and she could have someone outside of their community to talk to. Something was wrong with Avery. Something big, but no one ever told me. Her mom just said she needed something outside of Raven’s Hollow to hold onto. And that was me. But then…”
“Then what?” Harper asked softly.
Weston shook his head for a long time, stared off in the direction Avery had gone. “I don’t know. I thought she betrayed me.”
“Didn’t sound that way to me, man,” Aaron said, his arm around Alana’s shoulders. “She didn’t sound like she was lying at all when she was telling you off.”
“You should go after her,” Harper said quietly.
“Yep,” Weston said grimly, jogging for his truck. He didn’t know where she lived, but there were only a few main streets, and if he drove reckless enough, he might be able to catch her before she turned off onto a side road.
He slammed the door beside him and sped out onto Main Street. The needle on his speedometer was gracing sixty before he even hit the edge of town. This place was a speed trap, and he was definitely running the risk of being pulled over, but screw it. He had this overwhelming urge to right whatever wrong he’d just done to Avery.
Bathed in darkness, the Smoky Mountain woods blurred past. A mountain jutted straight up on his right, and a winding river was on his left, which didn’t leave much place to pull over. He squinted his eyes and scanned the dark road up ahead, hoping for the soft glow of taillights, but there was nothing. He was alone out here. Shit. She was probably going sixty to get away from him.
He connected a call back home and hoped Mom and Dad were still up. They’d always been night owls.
“Hello?” Mom said in that sweet voice of hers.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No, what’s wrong? You sound upset. Do you want me to get your father on the line?”
“No, no, I called for you. Remember that pen pal I had when I was a kid?”
Mom went quiet. After a few breaths, she murmured, “Avery Foley.”
“Yeah, her. She found me.”
“Oh, Weston…” She already sounded like she pitied him, so he pushed on.
“Ma, I remember meeting her when we were freshmen in high school, but right before that, everything had gone wrong. Right? Her mom told you about the council?”
Mom sighed. “Weston, it was too complicated to explain it in a way you would understand. You got the condensed version.”
“But I’m not a kid anymore, Ma. Tell me. Tell me everything because I’ve been really angry at this girl for a long time, and then she shows up and she’s acting hurt by my rejection. It makes no damned sense. What happened? I want to know everything.” He remembered the hurt on Avery’s face. “I need to know everything.”
The shutting of a door echoed through the phone, and his Dad murmured, “Is that my raven boy?” in the background.
Static blasted across the line as though Mom was covering the phone, but Wes could still hear them. “Yes. Avery found him.”
His father didn’t respond. Or perhaps he did, but just silently. Weston could imagine him, dark eyebrows arched in surprise, inhumanly bright green eyes wide, mouth set in a grim line. Dad had never liked the idea of Weston being pulled into raven culture, and Avery had done just that.
Weston gripped the steering wheel tighter as he hugged a curve. “Ma, tell me.”
“I used to be friends with Avery’s mom, Hannah, back before I left my people to find your Da. I kept in touch with her because it was nice to have a friend who was like me. You have to understand I left everything I knew, my culture, my family, everything, just on the off-chance that Beaston would be the man I hoped he’d grown into. I was in a crew of predator shifters, and ravens are naturally timid. It was hard, feeling stretched between both worlds, and I didn’t want you so immersed in Damon’s Mountains that you didn’t know where I’d come from. Where you…came from. You were going to grow up a raven, a flight shifter, in a crew of bears and dragons, and I didn’t want you feeling alone. When Avery’s mom got pregnant after I did, it felt so good to go through that with a friend who understood my raven side. And hearing stories of Avery as she grew up, I thought more and more that maybe she could be a comfort to you someday if you ever grew unhappy with being different in the Gray Backs.”
“But I wasn’t different. No one ever treated me differently.” Sure, his friends teased him about being a flight shifter, but that’s what friends did. They gave each other shit.
“But you were. You were quiet like your dad, and you came to me one day, wondering about ravens. And Avery’s mom had mentioned letting you two be pen pals for years before you questioned your heritage. So it felt like the right time. For you, and also for Avery.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something was wrong with her raven. Not…wrong to a Gray Back, but wrong for Raven’s Hollow. She is dominant, Weston.”
Dominant? She didn’t feel dominant, but maybe she was for a raven. Maybe that’s why she could talk well on the phone and converse so easily with customers. Maybe that was why she was able to tell Shelly to get off him tonight. “Why would dominance be a bad thing?”
“Dominant ravens aren’t supposed to exist, especially in a female. They like the flock as steady as possible, but Avery shook up everything. She was a late Changer, and soon after her raven emerged for the first time, her parents were stripped of their rank. In an effort to make Avery’s animal more submissive, the council required the community to…”
“To what?”
“Weston, I don’t know all the details, and that’s something Avery will have to explain to you. It doesn’t feel right talking about her like this.”
“But when I was a kid, you told me she was untrustworthy. That she had betrayed me. You told me she was willing bait to take me away from the Gray Backs. From you and Da. She doesn’t sound like bait, though, Ma. She sounds like a victim.”
“Wes, her mother went to the council about our friendship, told them everything about me. Every discussion, every admission, ever insecurity I had leaving our people. And when I got pregnant, they implored Hannah to get pregnant, too. They hoped for a girl.”
“What?” Weston’s thoughts were churning. He hadn’t known this part. “What are you saying?”
“Avery was conceived in the hopes that she would be a female who could seduce you back to Raven’s
Hollow. And I know them. They would’ve sequestered you away from Damon’s Mountains, brainwashed you, turned you into one of them. I want you to live the life you choose. Not one someone chooses for you.”
Wes scrubbed his hand down his face and stared blankly ahead at the road winding under his tires. Why him? Why go to such effort to draw him back to a culture he didn’t connect with? “When I was a kid, you told me her mom had betrayed us to the council for all those years. You told me the council had been reading my letters to Avery, picking them apart, using them to manipulate our friendship. But if the council hates dominant ravens, why the fuck would they even want me there? What’s the point of all the manipulation?”
“I don’t know,” his mother said helplessly. “Hannah let it slip one day while they were planning their trip to Saratoga to let you two meet for the first time. She mentioned the council was allowing her to come unchaperoned, and I was confused about what they had to do with anything. She said it as a joke, but when I pushed, she clammed up. And then two days before they came to Saratoga, she broke down crying on the phone and told me everything. She told me how she’d told the council everything about me, and how they’d guided her conversations. About how they’d pushed for you and Avery to have contact. I felt played. I felt stupid. I’d put you, my only boy, my only raven, in the sights of the council, one I had worked so hard to escape myself. Over and over I asked why they wanted you, but Hannah wouldn’t tell me. Or maybe couldn’t, I don’t know.”
“If you were so angry, why did you let us meet? Why did you still go through with it?”
“Because you asked me to. Don’t you remember, Weston? You are so loyal, but you give few chances. You said you wanted to look her in the face and ask her why she’d played games. Why she let the council read your letters. Why she pretended to care so deeply for you. You wanted to see her eyes when you asked her why she hurt you.”
“But I didn’t. I remember sitting at the restaurant, and she was smiling like she didn’t even know she was doing anything wrong, and I was so angry I couldn’t speak. I thought I would cuss her out in front of everyone.” None of this made any damn sense. Clearly, the council had played a big part in Weston and Avery’s relationship growing up, but how much? “Ma?”
“Yeah?”
“Is it possible that Avery didn’t know she was bait for me?”
The sigh she gave off said she didn’t think so, but she allowed, “If she didn’t know, there was a huge amount of manipulation she missed. It would mean there was a mountain of secrets she was sitting right on top of, unaware.”
“But there’s a chance?”
Silence.
“Ma.”
“Yes, there is a chance she was unaware. Weston, I have to tell you something.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know if I should.”
There were brake lights up ahead, but they were at an angle. And as Weston slowed and pulled behind the beat-up old car, it was apparent why. Avery had pulled over onto the side of a steep embankment, and her driver’s side door was shoved open. There was her little white sundress, soaking on the ground in the mud. Weston leaned forward, scanning the trees branches in the dark woods. She must’ve got desperate and Changed in there. Shit.
“Mom, tell me quick. I think I found her.”
“I don’t want to tell you to trust her because I don’t know her. I don’t know her intentions, but you’ve always been good at reading people. If you think she’s a victim, she might be really and truly trying to break away from Raven’s Hollow. And if that’s the case, she’ll need help. A lot of it. They make it really hard for raven shifters to leave the flock, especially females. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Weston threw his truck in park and leaned back against the headrest. “I understand.”
If Avery really was here with good intentions, she was in trouble from her people.
Chapter Eight
She couldn’t do it. Why couldn’t she Change? The raven was right there, scratching at her skin, cawing to be released, but Avery’s body wasn’t working. Maybe it was the alcohol, or that she was so angry and hurt.
Sobbing, she drew her knees up to her chest as the water drops that made it through the thick tree canopy drip-dripped onto her legs and head. Of course it would start raining right now.
She’d been so fucking hopeful. So determined to make things work here so she wouldn’t have to return to Raven’s Hollow with her tail feathers tucked between her legs. She’d wanted to live outside of that awful place and make a life for herself that she could be proud of, but tonight was the night. It was the night she had to take stock of where she really was, and that was in a muddy hole, chin deep and still sinking.
She was out of money, sleeping in her car, fucking hungry, and Weston hated her. She hadn’t had a decent balanced meal in way too long. And to top it all off, her damn car broke down. It just puttered and sputtered until the gas pedal wouldn’t work anymore and her muddy hole had finally swallowed her up completely.
“Avery?”
She gasped and startled hard. She hadn’t even heard Weston approach through the spattering of raindrops on leaves. “Don’t look at me!”
She had heightened night vision, and right now, Weston’s eyes were green like forest moss. Concern flitted across his face. Instead of turning away, he pulled her up out of the mud and asked, “Did you already Change, darlin’?”
She was shaking now, from cold, adrenaline, and something more. Darlin’? She liked the way that word rolled off his tongue. Weston’s gaze was locked on hers, and for the first time since she’d come here, they weren’t full of hatred. Her white cotton sundress was mud-splattered but draped over his arm, and without a word, he knelt down and held her panties out, waiting for her to step into them.
Mortified, she dipped her feet into them quickly, but he was slow and methodical as he gently pulled them up her legs, the knuckles of his thumbs brushing her bare thighs. When he stood, his attention dipped to her breasts and held there for a few seconds before he forced his darkening eyes back to hers and rushed to pull her dress over her head. Slowly, he spun her and zipped the back, dragging his fingertip up her spine as he went, sending a delicious shiver up her body.
He released her too soon, and she stumbled forward slightly without his strong hands on her. Not ready to face the mess that was her car, Avery sank back down to the forest floor and rested her back against the rough bark of a tree. “How did you find me?” She wasn’t exactly right off the road. She’d run for a while to get here.
“Uuuh,” Weston drawled, taking a seat next to her—right next to her! “My dad was a tracker.”
“Beaston?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah.”
“He terrifies me.”
“You’ve never met him.”
“He terrifies all ravens.”
“Yeah, well he terrifies most predator shifters, too,” Weston said with a soft chuckle. “Not me, though. He was just Da to me. He taught me to track. And not only through woods. I can find people who don’t want to be found.”
“You should’ve been a private investigator.”
“Tracking down cheating housewives doesn’t exactly call to me,” he said grimly.
“Right.” Avery’s voice was hitching with those uncontrollable breaths that came after a good cry.
“I have to ask you something,” Weston said low. “I’ll only ask this one time, and whatever you tell me, I’ll try my best to understand. Please, just…tell me the truth.”
“How could I tell you anything else? You can hear lies.”
Weston smiled sadly at her in the dim light. “Did you know?”
Avery’s breath hitched again on the inhale. “Did I know what?”
“Did you know the council was using you to get to me?”
Avery searched his face to make sure he was being serious, but the hardness was back in his eyes. “Why would the council try to get to you?”
“Avery, I know. I know everything. I know about why you were born.”
“Why I was…? Weston, tell me what you’re talking about.”
“The council encouraged your mom to get pregnant when my mom was. They were friends, and the council wanted you to lure me to Raven’s Hollow. Did you know about that?”
“No,” she whispered, horrified.
“Did you know the council was reading the letters I sent you?”
Avery shook her head slowly. This wasn’t real. “Of course not. I hid them behind a loose brick in the fireplace in my room. Those were my letters, not for anyone else. I even brought them here with me so that no one would ever find them.”
Weston’s chest was heaving now with every inhale. “Avery, yes or no. I can’t… Did you know you were bait for me? Please.”
“No! No, no, no,” she murmured, her face crumpling. Was the moisture on her cheeks rain or tears? She didn’t know, nor did she care. He was being mean again. The council had nothing to do with her feelings for Weston. Nothing at all. She was born to bait him? Avery covered her face with her hands to hide from him because now she knew why he was staring at her. He was trying to gauge if she was putting on a show, and she hated this. She wanted to tell him to fuck off again. She wanted to spit in his face or maybe slap him with her fingers clawed.
But something horrifying was happening in her chest right now. Such a sick feeling of rightness slid over her as she really considered what he’d just said.
Did her mother have her to be a lure for Weston? Was that the reason for her existence? Her father hadn’t ever given a single, solitary shit about her, especially when her broken raven had got him stripped of his rank. But mom was different. She loved her. She had her because she wanted a baby to care for…right?
“Can I borrow your phone?” she asked, her voice trembling like the raindrop-battered leaves around them.
Without a word, Weston pulled his phone out of his back pocket and laid it in her outstretched palm. She dialed home from memory and waited the three rings it took Mom to pick up.