Gray Back Broken Bear(28)

“Are you hurt?”

“It’s nothing I don’t deserve. Willa? Can I ask you something personal?” Easton’s bite had been bothering her all night.

Willa sat beside her on the porch stair. “Shoot.”

“If a bear shifter bites a woman, what exactly does it mean?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Willa reached across her and ripped Easton’s jacket to the side, exposing the bandage over her shoulder. Willa ripped into that, too, and stood. “You don’t smell like a bear.”

“Because I wasn’t ever human,” she said in a pathetic whisper.

Willa was scary as shit when she was mad, her eyes glowing green like Easton’s did when his bear was riled up. “What’s going on?”

Aviana’s face crumpled, and she wiped her hand across her leaking eyes. “I’ve known Easton most of his life, but not as a girl. I’m a raven shifter.”

The blood drained from Willa’s face as she stared at her with those terrifying, glowing eyes. Her voice pitched to a whisper as she asked, “You’re Easton’s raven?”

Aviana sniffled, and her lip trembled as she nodded. “He’s talked about me?”

Willa approached and sank down heavily beside her. “Yeah. He’s mentioned you.”

“He didn’t know I was a shifter when we were younger. He thought I was just a crow, and it took me a long time to get brave enough to find him. I wanted to wait until I thought he was ready before I told him who I really was, but last night, he bit me. And when I didn’t Turn, he started piecing it all together.” Aviana sagged against her. “Willa, he was so mad. He said I left him, but it wasn’t my choice. Nothing was my choice. I love him. I always have.”

“Holy hairy testicles, Crow.” Willa draped her arm around Aviana’s shoulder and rested her cheek against the top of her head. “That isn’t just a bite on your shoulder. It’s a claiming mark. Easton’s marked you as his mate.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Aviana said on a breath, sitting up straight and searching Willa’s dimming eyes. “He did it before he found out who I was.” Easton was probably filled with regret now. Her heart sank even lower. He wouldn’t want to keep her now. Not after last night.

“Willa! Easton!” Creed yelled through the trees.

“Aviana, listen to me,” Willa said urgently, grabbing her hands. “You can’t let Creed see that mark until you find Easton. You both will need to explain everything. He’s on thin ice with our alpha, and he disobeyed a direct order to claim you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I need to find Easton.”

“Yes. Think, Aviana. Did he say anything or give you any clues? Where would he have gone?”

“Willa!” Creed bellowed.

“Uuuh,” Aviana whispered, panicked. “He’s been holding onto my trinkets lately.” Memories. Flashbacks. She didn’t know what went on in Easton’s head. Not anymore. Home. Den. The divot in the windowsill she used to drop her treasures. Aviana gasped. “He might have gone to his parents’ cabin.”

“Are you okay to travel with your injury? You aren’t healing like you should.”

“Ravens don’t heal instantly like bears. I can do it if I fly in a straight line there.”

A twig cracked on the trail that connected Easton’s singlewide to the rest of Grayland Mobile Park.

“Hurry,” Willa urged.

“You won’t tell your alpha?”

Willa looked determined. “Let me handle Creed. You just get Easton back here.”

With a burst of desperation not to be seen by the dragon-blooded alpha grizzly shifter stomping this way, Aviana Changed into her raven and flapped her wings, ignoring the pain on her left side. Up and up she flew until Willa was only the size of an ant by the pile of Aviana’s clothes below her.

The world was green beneath her, covered in pine forest and bisected by rivers that snaked back and forth in gently rolling serpent shapes. Occasional cabins dotted the landscape, but not many lived in this wilderness. She circled once over her family’s dilapidated cabin just to get her bearing, and then caught an air current going due east. Many miles separated her childhood home from Easton’s, and she hadn’t returned since the day Dad had packed them up and taken her away from the boy he saw as a threat to his only daughter.

Still, the way was as familiar to her as her flight feathers. A million times she’d flown this journey when she was a young crow, visiting the broken boy in the woods.

She landed on the gnarled branch of the tree that had always been her landing place before. Now, the branch wasn’t thin and covered with tender pine needle shoots. It was aged, thick, and the bark was rough under her grasp.