Aviana searched Easton’s eyes. This made no sense. Why had he bitten her? To Turn her? Creed had forbidden it. “What will Creed do if he finds out?”
“Any minute now, any minute now. Your first Change shouldn’t be with the monster who broke you.” Easton lifted her in his arms like she weighed nothing at all and strode through the house. He yanked open the front door as she clutched her shoulder, but he hadn’t answered her question.
“Easton! What will Creed do?”
“Kill me, as I deserve.”
“Oh, Easton, what have you done?”
Creed wouldn’t find a bear in her, though. There wasn’t room for one. A raven had claimed her since birth. Easton didn’t know it, but he never had a chance of Turning her into a bear. “Stop,” she whispered as he blasted past the woodpile. “Easton, stop. I have to tell you something.”
Confusion and regret marred his features as he set her down. His eyes were bright and resigned, and his body had gone rigid. He wasn’t going to hide her injury. He was marching to his death to find her help. She couldn’t let him do that.
“You didn’t Turn me,” she murmured, searching for the right words that would fix this. “I told you to be yourself with me, and you were. I was surprised, but it’s okay. The bite is okay. We both got lost in the moment.”
“What do you mean I didn’t Turn you?” Easton’s eyes drifted to her arm, the opposite one he’d bitten, and back to her face. He canted his head and frowned, then looked at her arm again. The healing slice under her arm was what was drawing his attention. He took a step back and angled his face away from her, eyes never straying from hers. “What’s on your arm, Ana?”
“A cut.”
“From what?” Easton’s voice came out a low rumbling growl, more animal than human.
She exhaled slowly, shakily, then whispered, “Someone threw a knife at me.”
“Who?”
She closed her eyes, and twin tears escaped down her cheeks.
“Who, Ana?” he yelled, frightening the birds roosting in the trees around them into the air and making her jump.
“You.”
Easton paced, hands linked behind his head as he shook it. “Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“Show me my raven! Show me what betrayal looks like. Feathers, feathers, show me your feathers. I suffered out there alone! All those years. Years and years. Show me the bird who watched me break and then left me.” Agony filled Easton’s eyes as he leaned against the woodpile and slammed his head back. “Please, Ana. Do it fast.”
Aviana’s shoulders shook with sobs of agony. She hadn’t known he saw her that way. She’d tried to help, not hurt him worse. Closing her eyes, she let the raven have her body. The Change was instant, and she beat her powerful wings against the pain in her shoulder. Harder she pressed against the air currents until she sat on the lowest branch of the closest pine, staring at the man who owned her heart. At the man who was looking at her with such heartbreak in his eyes. Chin at his chest, he whispered, “You can’t love me, raven. You don’t know how.” Easton stepped forward and yelled. His yell turned to a roar that shook the trees, and a giant, silver grizzly burst from his skin.
He could’ve reached her from here, as big as he was. He could’ve charged and ripped her from the branch, but Easton did something much worse instead. He lifted those glowing green eyes to her and exposed his crippling sadness. Her heart burned, as if he had reached into her chest cavity and yanked it out between her ribs.
He turned his back on her and walked away through the trees, moonlight shining off his gray back.
And just like that, Easton—her Easton—was gone.
Chapter Eleven
Easton buttoned the fly of the too big jeans he’d snatched from a laundry line of a cabin fifteen miles back. He didn’t mind nudity, but here, it was different. Here, a layer of protection felt necessary.
With a steadying breath, he scanned the clearing where he’d grown up. It had taken him all night and part of the day to travel here as a bear, and now the sun sat high in the morning sky, casting the rubble of his childhood home in light.
The yard was overgrown, and young saplings had sprung up here and there. The wild grass had recovered from the winter and already came up to his thighs. He ran his hands over the top of the waving grass as he approached the charred rubble of the house he’d grown up in. The faint scent of smoke still clung to the burned lumber after all these years. Only the porch stairs remained intact, and moss and vibrant green overgrowth had blanketed all but the seared ends of the wood. This had been where he had burned Mom and all of her belongings, just like she’d asked.