Novak Raven (Harper's Mountains Book 4) (21 page)

“Me and Ryder bought a whole box of spy stuff and put the cameras all around Willa’s Wormshack. She’s a Gray Back like me, and really funny. You would like her. If she caught us, she would just laugh, so that’s why we picked her to spy on first, but all we got is three straight hours of video footage of her working with her worms. She sells them to bait shops and for people who make fancy gardens. She makes a stupid amount of money at it, but that’s not why she does it. She loves worms. Like…she LOVES worms. We did catch funny audio of her talking to them, though. She called them her babies, and named one of them Dingleberry. And I swear she thought of kissing one when he wiggled extra cute in her hand. Ryder and me were laughing so hard.” Avery’s voice hitched with emotion, and another tear streamed down her face. It was so cold in here, chilling her blood, freezing her bones. She wanted to be out of here, but she was supposed to stick to the plan. Only she couldn’t do this without Weston here. She needed his letters. “The spy cameras are so small we’ll never get caught. Never get caught. Never. Never. So small, we’ll never get caught.”

She’d drawn her knees up to conserve warmth and was clutching the spy camera like a life-line. When the time came, she needed to be ready. Ready to let the letter go, ready to accept that she was in The Box again, ready to move.
Come on, Avery. You can do this.

She dropped her chin to her chest and sobbed because the letters weren’t keeping the walls from closing in. Not like they used to. She’d had the real Weston, and now the letters had lost their potency.

“So small, we’ll never get caught,” she whimpered.

“Darlin’.”

Avery’s sob froze in her throat. That had sounded like Weston. It was just the whisp of a word, but it was his voice. She smiled as another tear dripped off her chin and onto her Big Flight tank top. Weston was here, and even if it was just in her imagination, it counted. He’d come when the letters stopped working. “I knew you would come.”

“What?” The breathy voice was so faint, so soft, but she would know it anywhere. Her mate. Her Weston. Her Novak Raven had kept his promise.

And when she looked up, she sighed in relief. He was there, barely, on his knees right in front of her. His body flickered and wavered, and the air around him seemed to move, but his eyes held hers. Black like his raven’s and full of emotion. He was so handsome, even in the harsh light, but he looked confused. Strange. His confusion made no sense because this was all part of the plan.

“You said you would be here with me, and you are.” She opened her hand and showed him the spy camera so he would remember, and recognition flickered through his troubled gaze. “I’m stronger now,” she reassured him. And she was. She hadn’t lost her mind or clawed at the walls. She hadn’t gotten so lost in the letters that she’d forgotten her job here—to protect the ones she loved. She was scared and shaking, but she could
do
this.

He reached out, and she gasped as his fingertips warmed her skin. He seemed so real. So solid. Weston grabbed her wrist and pulled. “Avery, I can save you. I can get you out of here. Look, I can touch you. Come on.”

But that wouldn’t work. She’d already gotten video of the room, the claw marks, and the bucket in the corner, and the lightbulb swaying in the frigid draft, but she needed concrete evidence against Caden. Against his abuse of power and control over an entire race of shifters. As tempting as it was to try and let Weston save her, Avery’s job wasn’t done. Not yet.

“Weston,” she whispered. “This is the way it’s supposed to be. I can do this.” The two tears dislodged and streamed down her cheeks, but those were the last two she would allow since he’d come just as he’d promised. He was here with her. “You make me stronger.” She smiled because she knew that somehow, someway, she was going to see him soon. “Wait for me.”

Weston flickered out of existence, but his rushed words remained, filling her head and her heart. “I love you, Ave.”

“I love you, too. Wait for me.”

Footsteps sounded on the basement stairs, and Avery rushed to hit the button on the camera, hiding it in the shadows right between her drawn up legs, like she was huddled up and scared.

She wasn’t scared, though. Not of Caden or Benjamin or anyone else. Not anymore.

Now, she was angry. Such raw fury roiled inside of her, she felt as if she could breathe fire like the Bloodrunner Dragon herself. Inside of her, Avery’s raven was ready to blast out of her skin and make an escape. She was ready for battle. Ready to get hurt, ready to fly, ready to succeed, ready to leave this place and never look back.

The door swung open and Benjamin entered. He left it open a crack. So tempting to flee now, but she had to wait.
Not yet, raven. Not yet.

She was shaking still from nerves, from anger, from seeing Weston. Benjamin smirked. “Scared Avery. You aren’t so cocky now that you’re back where you belong, are you?”

Where she belonged? The Box? No, this puckered asshole was mistaken. She belonged with the Bloodrunners.

“I don’t want to marry you.”

Benjamin leaned against the opposite wall and crossed his arms over his chest. He was tall and lanky. If Weston stood like that, his muscles would bulge out. He could squish Benjamin like a blood-filled tick.

“You will want to marry me eventually, Avery. I’m a patient man. If it takes six fucking months down here, you’ll come around.”

“Why do you want me?” she asked, trying to hold the tiny camera steady between her shaking fingers.

“You know why.”

“Because I beat you up when we were kids?”

“You
humiliated
me.” Benjamin’s blue eyes flashed with disdain as he twitched his head to shake his jet-black hair out of his face. He would’ve been a handsome man if hatred hadn’t made his eyes so cold. “Caden was my mentor from birth, Avery. I was born to lead our people someday, and you made me look weak. I was in the hospital for three days because of you. I
hated
you. Every taunt from the males in our class, every Get Well Soon card from the females who saw me as pathetic—that was your fault. But as we grew up, I began to see you differently. I wanted to punish you for what you’d done, sure, but there was something more. You’re the prettiest trinket here, Avery. The most dominant female raven, and you’ll be the most fun to break.” Benjamin’s lips curved up wickedly. “Do you know who you remind Caden of, Avery?”

She shook her head, then murmured, “No,” so the camera could catch the audio.

“Aviana King.”

“You mean Aviana Novak?”

“I mean Aviana King!” he screamed, his face turning red. “Caden told me everything. She was too independent for her own good, too. She fancied herself above the flock, like she didn’t need us. Like she didn’t need Caden. She left him for a filthy bear shifter. A filthy Gray Back. She left Caden with no heirs, no nest, no mate. And then you came along. A late Changer, and when your animal finally got her shit together and showed herself, she came out dominant. The first and only fucked-up female since
her
. Since Aviana. Every time Caden put you in here—he was punishing
her
. Every time he heard you scream to let you out—it was
her
screaming. Every tear, every pathetic sob, every heartbroken sound—that was his revenge until he could get to her offspring. Her pride and joy. Her only son. Her only raven child. You were his revenge until he could reach the Novak Raven.”

Avery swallowed the bile that crept up the back of her throat. “But he didn’t,” she whispered.

Benjamin cupped his hand around his ear. “What’s that?”

Avery cleared her throat and made her voice stronger. “He didn’t get the Novak Raven.”

Benjamin’s lips curved up into a predatory smile. “Wrong again. You never stopped being the bait, Avery. I’ve read all his letters to you. We all have. Weston Novak fell for you when you were kids. He was so fucking predictable. All we had to do was give you a few weeks with him to revive the bond and then bring you back. Your mom messed up by telling Aviana about the council’s involvement ten years ago, but Caden is the best hunter in the whole flock. All he had to do was wait patiently until you convinced the Novak Raven to forgive you. He just had to wait until he could draw Weston out of the protection of his people.” Benjamin lifted his chin and looked down his nose at her. “You brought him straight to us, just like you were born to do.”

No. They didn’t have Weston. They didn’t! He was strong and smart, and he wouldn’t let them. But Benjamin looked so triumphant. So sure.

Fuck! Now Raven!

Pain blasted through her as she pushed her Change. It was death in an instant, and then there she was, her black-feathered phoenix. Avery struggled out of the neck of her tank top, costing her a precious second. The camera was right in front of her on the tile, and Benjamin was looking at it with a deep frown. Now that dumbass was starting to get it. He was the fucking bait. Not her!

Avery snatched it up in her beak as Benjamin rushed to pull off his shirt. Stretching her wings, she flapped furiously for the door. That crack was her salvation. Stupid Benjamin, so scared of locking himself in here with her. Caden would’ve never made that rookie mistake.

“Caw!” Benjamin cried out from behind her when she tucked her wings and shoved the door open with a vicious jerk of her beak. The camera loosened, but she held on tighter. She would not let go, she would not fail, she would not let her mate down. She would not let her Bloodrunners down. She would not let herself down. As Avery flew past, she checked the other two rooms in the basement. If Caden had Weston, he hadn’t brought him here. Fuck, where would he be keeping him?

Benjamin was right on her tail feathers. She could feel him getting closer, so she blasted up the stairwell and into the first floor. Frantically, she searched for an open window, open door, something. She made two desperate passes through the dining room and living room.

The house was locked up tight, though. The bedroom doors were closed, and the windows were covered with blinds that would tangle her up. She ducked sharply out of the way of Benjamin’s outstretched talons, flittering this way and that to avoid him.
There!
The small window above the kitchen sink only had two thin curtains over it, no blinds. Her raven was big, and the window was small. It would be close. She could get trapped and bleed out on the glass, but there was no other way. Benjamin would get her if she stayed in here, and she was running out of time. She had to find Weston. She had to help him.

He was her heart, her blood. She couldn’t live without him.

Avery gained speed, flapping furiously as she angled toward the window. She clamped her beak onto the camera and hoped to hell she kept it secure. And then like a torpedo, she dove for the window, Benjamin right on her tail. She tucked her wings as tightly as she could and smashed through the window. The pain was blinding, not only on her face, but when she opened her eyes and the glass was raining all around her, something sharp and excruciating radiated through her right wing.

The camera slipped out of her grasp, and she watched in horror as it catapulted toward the ground. Determined, she dive-bombed, but something hit her on the back like a cannon ball, and she blasted into the dirt.

Before she even could right herself, Benjamin was on her, pecking, slashing, raking his nails across her breast feathers. Fury rocked her. All these years, they’d trained her raven to be small and submissive. Fuck that. This was where Avery took her raven back and let her be as aggressive and dominant as she wanted. This was where Avery gave her raven permission to be a War Bird like Weston was.

With a battle screech, she rolled him over and slammed her beak into his neck, into his eye, against his skull. He fought, but not like her. And the second she gained ground, dominated, hurt him, she stretched her wings, ignoring the horrible pain that arced like electric currents through her body, and she hopped to the camera sitting in the middle of the sea of glass.

Benjamin was flapping in the dirt, righting himself, but he was shaking his head hard, as though she’d knocked him straight into confusion. Good. Fucker deserved that and worse. One of his eyes was bleeding bad, and the other flashed with hatred and pain in the glow of the kitchen light, but Avery couldn’t conjure a single solitary fuck right now. She needed to get to Weston.

Camera in her beak, she flapped her wings hard and was nearly immobilized by the pain. Something reflective flashed right by her face, scaring her, and when she banked to the left and arched her gaze, she could see it. A huge shard of glass was lodged in her wing, right at the base, glistening with blood and moonlight. But something else flashed in the reflection of the jagged glass as she flapped upward into the sky. Something orange and glowing.

Avery searched desperately across the tree line. A bonfire had been built in the woods of The Hollow. Bonfires were only for special occasions. They signified Change, or were built when a severe punishment was being decided on.

She wanted to scream in agony with every beat of her wings, but she could hear it now. She could hear the collective
caw, caw
of the flock. Something awful was happening. And as she struggled over the last line of trees, Avery saw him. Weston leapt into the air, human and naked, covered in crimson gashes, muscles flexing as he reached for a dive-bombing raven. He grasped the bird and slammed it to the ground, and mid-jump, his raven exploded from him and continued to battle. A hundred ravens swarmed around him, pecking and slashing. They surged onto him in a ball of violence as he thrashed and fought. He couldn’t even spread his wings, so he was falling with the rest of them.