4. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Ava was seething.

How dare he? That Raeth had body-checked her, forcing her to the ground before landing on top of her. He'd pinned her below that—admittedly delicious—male body and then had the audacity to not even respond when she began to choke the life out of him. Her growl echoed off the walls of her quarters.

She renewed her concentration on the task at hand: delicately frosting the cupcake in front of her. Squinting, Ava squeezed the frosting bag in a perfect outward spiral, creating the perfect center of a rose. After piping triangular spring green leaves on each, she felt the angst begin to fall away.

Twenty-three more cupcake roses and she reached the calm she sought.

And then she devoured two cupcakes in one sitting.

Ava had taken up baking far before there'd been cupcakes or frosting or perfect leaf-shaped cream cheese mints. Decorating her creations had evolved into a hobby—and she liked to think that everyone in the den appreciated her efforts.

When she placed the remaining twenty-two cupcakes down on a table in the great hall, all hell broke loose. Her packmates, wolf form and human both, leapt into the melee to nab one. Shoved away from her creations by the ensuing quarrel, she chuckled as Riaz and Cortana joined her.

"Gluttons, the whole lot of them."

Riaz elbowed her gamely, the move as loving as it was familiar. "You started it."

"Needed to do something to work off my stress."

Though Remmus wasn't with the alpha pair, she didn't take it to mean that he had left the premises. Aidan had assured her that the Raeth was essential to their HVAC recoding process, and that meant he'd have to stay close in the interim. Since he'd had to audacity to be injured, they hadn't been able to speak about their next mission. At some point, she'd have to track him down.

When a scuffle broke out between two younger wolves, Riaz strode away from them, leaving Cortana and Ava staring after the dominance battle that was quickly turning bloody. The alpha wouldn't intervene, but he would ensure neither party lost their life if it escalated too quickly.

"Ava, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"

She glanced at her alpha. "Since when do you need to ask?"

"Since the question is difficult," Cortana admitted. "Will you tell me why you hate them?"

"Raeths?"

The vampire nodded.

After her behavior today, she owed her alpha an explanation. They had known each other for months, but every time Ava tried to work up the courage to tell the vampire, she second guessed herself. Now was as good a time as any.

Gesturing toward a nearby picnic table, Ava prepared herself to reveal the story that would undoubtedly change how Cortana viewed her. The other woman remained silent as she fought for the right words, and finally let them spill in a hush of tense breath.

"When I was a child, maybe seven or eight, I nearly drowned," Ava began. "I slipped on rocks while I was gathering berries for my mother and ended up in the river during spring melt. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't swim my way out or pull myself up on shore.

"Every second felt like years, and I knew I was dying. As I began to lose consciousness, I felt myself being lifted and dragged out of the water. Someone had locked an arm around my waist and was pulling me out. I can remember the grit of the shore on my hands and my face as I collapsed there, thinking the only thing that mattered was air."

Cortana chuckled, the sound almost sad. "Understandable."

"When I finally managed to catch my breath, I looked over and saw a boy beside me, a couple years older than I was. Platinum blonde, refined features that—at the time—I thought meant he was of good breeding. Unlike my tattered hand-me-downs, he wore clothing of quality."

A hint of a smile played on her lips. "The first thing he did was chastise me for playing in the river, and of course, I was infuriated and told him I was finding berries and had slipped. ‘Maybe don't get berries, then,' was his reply.'" Ava scoffed. "It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

"Ciru and I became as thick as thieves over the course of our first summer together. He taught me how to hunt game and forage—without almost dying—but it was clear he simply needed a friend. He never spoke about his parents, and when I asked him about them, he became so tense that I thought he would faint. Though he lived in a home with them, I knew they often abandoned him for long stretches of time, leaving him to fend for himself.

"A year passed, then two. Ciru was my closest friend, and I was his. My cousin, Zina, often joined us on our adventures. Everyone confused us for twins, except for Ciru. He always knew, even when we began playing tricks on him."

Around them, the sounds of the den roughhousing died down. When Ava looked up, she was relieved to see Riaz was taking the kids out for a run. Riaz hated what'd happened to her as a child, and every time he heard the story, he'd internalize her pain. If she could spare him from it, she would.

"Ciru sounds like a good friend," Cortana said softly. "What happened?"

Ava rolled her shoulders to ward off the chill that'd crept up her spine. "Looking back on it now, I can see the discrepancies, but I've never fully understood them. Ciru was starved for affection. His home life, though he spoke very little about it, had left him wanting. I knew his family were more likely to offer him the rod than a hug because of how eagerly he accepted any form of affection from either me or Zina."

Ava, though, was the one who held his heart. Stolen glances, a sweet kiss on the forehead, a fish caught and offered to her: all tokens of affection that she had lapped up like a hungry wolf.

But all hadn't been well with him—that much was woefully apparent.

"Often," Ava continued, "he'd wear thick clothing in the middle of summer, refusing to remove it even when he became drenched in sweat. He'd never take off his shirt when we cooled off in the pond or waded into the river. When he failed at a hunt, he'd instantly leave, not returning until the following day.

"Once, when he accidentally slipped on a wet rock and took me down with him, he apologized profusely and disappeared before I'd even gotten to my feet. I knew his parents were the cause, but I'd never met them. When I brought it up, he'd adamantly refuse to introduce us."

Desperate for information on her closest friend, she'd stealthily tailed him back toward his home one day. He'd caught her well before they reached his cottage and sent her straight home. That day was one of the few times she'd ever seen his temper erupt.

Fortunately, the tough times were few and far between, and the nights when Ava snuck out of her homestead to curl up with him under the stars were her favorite. Their tree, a giant oak that'd been around for more than a hundred years, stood tall and proud only a mile away from her village.

"Regardless, I trusted him."

It was the beginning of the end. She could still remember the first shrieks startling her awake one morning. She had been a young teenager then, fancied herself an adult as most do, but the moment the horror began, she'd sought out her mother. The screams would forever haunt Ava's waking moments and terrorize those spent in sleep.

"We had no time to prepare," she recalled. "They simply appeared. One had begun dragging people out of their homes, another slayed them in the town square. My father went out to confront them while my mother attempted to hide me. Knowing they'd eventually come into our home, my mother hid me beneath a pile of wool blankets outside."

Ava's mother had been a stoic figure, determined to stand against the threat. None of the fear she must have felt showed on her mother's face.

The blankets had laid roughly against Ava's skin, the weight beginning to constrict the air in her lungs. A small gap in the blankets allowed her to peer out and notice her mother creeping to the front of the homestead to grab a weapon.

That was when she saw the first killer. The woman's hair was long and black, pulled into a severe braid that hung below her waist. Maniacal brown eyes were wide with infinite darkness and her mouth was stretched wide in a grin that spoke of the cruelty that lived beneath her skin.

Her mother saw the other woman a second too late.

"Fast, too fast, the crazed woman who'd been slaughtering our village had cuffed a hand around my mother's neck and began dragging her to the village circle where several other townsmen were huddled. That's when I saw him. Ciru."

Despite the blood-soaked ground around him, he had casually leaned against the trough in the middle of the village square.

Ava had nearly cried out to him, tried to warn him away, but something in his expression gave her pause. Ciru hadn't given signs of shock or fright, he hadn't been distraught or angry, frightened, or sad. He had been apathetic. Disinterested.

Bored.

Ciru had been watching the murderous spree of her village with indifference. He watched her screaming mother without showing an ounce of empathy. His face was a mask of absolute nothingness.

Ava could still remember her heart racing.

"I kept trying to figure out why he was there. He didn't live in our village, and his parents hadn't traded there. He'd visited only once and that was under the cover of nighttime. At most, he watched the village from afar, never coming too close."

Swallowing against a throat gone dry, Ava recalled the moment it became clear. "The woman said, ‘This is how Raeths kill their prey. We coerce them into submission, taking as we please. Watch, my son, see how blood spills until life is drained. See how humans meet their end by our hands.'"

Shocked, Cortana sucked in a sudden breath. "Ciru was a Raeth?"

She nodded. "Ciru did just as he was instructed: he watched. He watched when my mother screamed my name, then as she took her last breaths. Every person they dragged forward was bled dry at Ciru's feet while he watched impassively."

Ava had made no move, frozen with fear and knowing she couldn't leave without being seen by one of his parents. His father, a tall man with blond hair and piercing blue eyes, had the type of face that convinced women to throw themselves at his feet, only for him to bury them.

"After that, the village became eerily quiet. The last person they dragged before Ciru was my cousin. There was surprise in his eyes, his mouth dropping open in the first hint of emotion since the killings began." Ava's jaw tightened. "His mother backhanded him and told him not to show weakness."

As his parents had begun to drain the life from Zina, Ciru had looked away, his expression blank again. His eyes speared around the town square as if he was looking for her, searching everywhere until finally, he found her.

Underneath the pile of blankets, hidden away from the pair of psychotic killers that were his parents, Ava's heart had skipped a beat.

Ciru had seen her. His eyes had searched hers, something below the surface that seemed on the tip of his tongue but was never spoken. He didn't look away from her as her cousin met her end on the edge of his mother's knife, not even when the younger girl had cried out to Ciru to save her.

Nor when he made no move to do so.

Sighing, Ava's fingers skimmed along the picnic table, needing the reassurance that she wasn't still beneath those blankets, struggling to breathe and watching her world burn around her. Glancing up, the raw emotion in Cortana's features urged her to finish the story.

"The best friend I'd known for five years, the boy I'd thought was my first love, was the son of monsters and a monster himself."

Ava spoke the words that she believed with all her being. Only one question remained in her mind: why hadn't he revealed her hiding spot to his parents?

When his parents had laid their hands on him and all three disappeared within a split second, Ava had known they weren't human. Raeths. The word became synonymous with murderers in her mind.

From that moment on, she'd spent every second of her life trying to claim revenge for her village and her family.

"I've been searching for them—that trio—for eight centuries, Cortana. It's one of the reasons why Aidan volunteered me for sorting out the HVAC systems with Remmus. There are hundreds of clanless joining the established Sovereign networks—many in Nina and Zeke's territory, but I can't go and check them out if I'm petrified of Raeths. I have contacts at every major pack in the world, sending me information about clanless Raeths who might fit the description, but the changes brought on by the Heat mean I need to go straight to the source."

Ava took out her phone, flipping to the three pencil drawings of Ciru and his parents that she'd updated only a few weeks ago. She showed it to her alpha.

"I have these to keep their images fresh in my mind."

"I can't imagine the pain you must've gone through, Ava." Cortana reached across to squeeze her hand. "And as a child, no less."

"Aidan—and Riaz—have been phenomenal alphas. They know where my boundaries are and push me when I need to be pushed. They've been helping me along on my quest for vengeance all these centuries. Any time they interact with a clanless Raeth—which is rare—they clue me in."

Something darkened in the vampire's expression. "But Ava, Raeths can join clans, and leave them, at will. They might have been clanless then but be part of a clan now."

"I investigate any Raeth I interact with," she replied. "Last summer, when you called on Toni for help with our wildfire problem, I did my due diligence. As soon as you said a Raeth was going to taxi her back and forth, I sent a message to Aidan. He has already assured me that our new friend Remmus couldn't be Ciru. He was born into Nina's clan. He wasn't clanless at any point in time, nor did he have clanless parents."

"That's a relief."

"It is indeed." At the sound of Riaz' laughter, Ava glanced up. "Look what the cat dragged in."

The beaming alpha strolled over to them, the pair of wolves behind him nipping each other playfully. All had settled after their dominance battle, and they'd become the best of friends once more. They weren't yet a century old, and they'd likely continue to develop throughout the next decade or so. This wouldn't be the last of their challenges.

"If it isn't my two favorite people," Riaz greeted. "Good talk?"

Nodding as her alpha sat down beside Cortana, Ava pulled out her phone and glanced through the blueprints for the St. Louis facility one more time. When they went back—and they would need to—she wanted to be prepared.

"You did well today, all things considered."

She knew Riaz well enough to know there was something he wasn't saying, and it wasn't the fact that she'd choked the Raeth when he'd steamrolled her out of the way of a bullet.

"But?"

"But having him underfoot in the den is going to be vastly different than tolerating him for an hour."

"I realize that."

A glint in his eye. "Then you realize that, for the good of the Accords, you can't commit murder?"

"If I accidentally choke the life from him again, will a written apology suffice? I'll use the good cardstock." Ava grunted. "It's unlikely he'll be missed. He did very little at the Citizens' facility."

"Ava." Her name was said like a chastisement. "Ignoring the fact that he saved your life, which you're too stubborn to admit, he then saved all of us when he put up that shield and got us the heck out of dodge."

She rolled her eyes. "He didn't save my life."

"See? Too stubborn." Riaz cleared his throat. "Regardless of your dislike for his kind, we still need his help—not only at the St. Louis facility, but also for the recoding process at every single one of our dens. If you have to work with a Raeth, isn't it better to do it with one who already has a soft spot for you?"

That calm she'd chased whilst baking was all gone now.

"Really? A soft spot for me, Riaz?" She turned a scandalized glare on him. "He's the world's most outrageous flirt. The ‘soft spot' is just him being annoyed that I'm a woman and I'm not interested."

Scoffing, she stalked off toward the gym, abandoning the empty cupcake trays and her alphas along with them. Ava had already been wearing yoga pants and a loose t-shirt, the most comfortable clothes that just so happened to be what she needed to kick some serious glute.

Minutes later, she was in her element. Claws tingled at the end of her fingertips, begging to come out and shred. Her wolf howled beneath her skin as she growled at the punching bag.

Around her, packmates steered clear, knowing instinctively that she wasn't in a mood to be sociable.

The turmoil churning in her gut hadn't been squelched even after twenty minutes of butchering the bag and several bleeding knuckles. She glanced around for a suitable sparring partner.

Across the room, Riaz was casually standing in the middle of the gym, chatting with another one of his betas. Gadriel, a red-haired wolf with enough charm to talk an eagle off their eggs, was one of Ava's good friends and functioned as comic relief when Riaz wasn't feeling up to the job.

The two were engaged in animated conversation, but Ava knew her alpha wasn't here to chew the fat. Riaz was always around when his pack members needed to be talked off a ledge or kept from doing anything reckless.

It was the wrong day to pull that nonsense around her.

Feeling ruthless, she collided with him with the force of a freight train, knocking him off his feet. They tumbled end over end, crashing haphazardly into a weight set along the far wall and barreling into a group who were stretching in yoga poses. They scrambled out of the way when Riaz let loose a playful snarl. Ava took the sound as permission to express her stress.

Over the next half hour, the pair of them took turns beating the snot out of one another—in good fun, of course. Ever since they'd met five hundred years ago, Riaz had been one of the best at fielding Ava's aggression.

In the moment, there was nothing she appreciated more.