Weston scrubbed his hand down his face and nodded at the back of Lexi’s head, as if she could see him. He bumped Avery on the shoulder and said low, “I’ll put your things in the bedroom. You can get into dry clothes if you want before dinner.”
Avery looked down at her dress, dripping on the wood floors. She would probably make perfect footprint puddles when she walked. She nodded jerkily and followed him into a bedroom with a bathroom door on the opposite wall. The queen-sized bed looked warm and inviting, and the lamp on the bedside table had been turned on. It smelled like cleaner in here, and she hoped Lexi hadn’t gone through too much trouble. Anything was better than the back seat of her car.
Her stomach gurgled again, reinvigorated by the scent of seasoned meat and vegetables. Heat flashed up her neck and landed in her cheeks as she covered her stomach with her forearms in a pathetic attempt to make it stop growling.
“It’s okay,” Weston whispered, setting her bags on the antique white bench at the foot of the bed. He approached her slowly, his boots scuffing the floors where her mortified gaze stayed. Gently, he hooked a finger under her chin and lifted until she met his eyes. And then, with determination written all over his face, he promised, “I’ll never let you get hungry like this again.”
When her eyes filled from that beautiful oath, she wanted to hide from him. She wanted to look away, to bury her face against his chest until she gained control of herself again, but he wasn’t having it. His finger stayed under her chin, and when the first tear fell, he cocked his head sharply, like her raven people did when they were confused. Weston brushed a knuckle across her cheek and wiped away the moisture.
A soft, accidental sob broke through, and she leaned into him, pulled his palm against her cheek, and nuzzled it. He rocked them back and forth as she broke down as quietly as she could, his hand still cupped against one cheek, his heart pounding against the other. He smelled so good and felt so warm, so strong, so immoveable and invincible, and she believed him. He wouldn’t let her go hungry again. Even if they were just friends, Weston took care of his people, and he’d just declared she was now under his outstretched wing.
“I’ll never, ever do anything to betray you,” she forced past her tight throat. Because he should know where her loyalty lay, and it had always been with him. Always.
“Truth,” he murmured, a smile in his voice. “Come on, Ave. Get dressed, and then we’ll eat until we pop.”
“We?”
He eased away and nodded. “Unless you want me to leave.”
“No!” she said too fast and too loud. Avery cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “I mean, that’s all right. I would like you to stay.”
Weston chuckled a deep, reverberating sound that vibrated over her skin and made her feel like the whiskey had. And then he left her alone to dress and wonder how the hell she’d gotten so lucky.
Chapter Twelve
Weston shot her yet another secret smile, and for the hundredth time tonight, Avery’s cheeks lit on fire. She rinsed the soap suds off the plate and handed it to him to dry. “You know, male ravens at the Hollow don’t do dishes.”
“Well, male ravens of the Gray Backs did lots of dishes. Ma would’ve kicked my ass if I foisted the chore off onto my sisters.”
“I like your mom.”
Weston snorted. “You would.”
“No really,” Avery murmured, scrubbing another dish. “She was my hero growing up.”
“My mom?” Weston gave her a baffled look and turned to put the dry plate into a cabinet.
“Yeah. She was a badass. She escaped our people and married Beaston despite what it did to her family’s rank. She was female, but she’d taken her life into her own hands and shot two middle fingers at the council and lived her life the way she wanted to. My mom had this picture of her and Aviana taken right before your mom left our people. I kept it in a box under my bed with my favorite trinkets. I brought it with me to Saratoga with plans on asking your mom to sign it for me, but she was angry with me when we arrived. I didn’t know why at the time, but it makes sense now. She thought I was hurting her boy.”
“I’ll explain it to her,” Weston murmured. “She’ll understand.” He let the silence linger for a bit while he dried a plate and a pot. “The box of trinkets you had under your bed. Did you bring it with you? I didn’t see it in your things.”
“Swear not to make fun of me.”
“I swear.”
“I brought it, but I dumped all my trinkets.”
His eyebrows jacked up high, a look of shock on his face. Slowly he took his baseball cap off and put it on backward. “I have trinkets, too, that I find as a raven. Did you do the same?”
“Yes,” she said on a breath. “They were like my little treasures. Shiny baubles that had caught my eye. I would bring them back after a Change and add them to my collection. I had quite the hoard when I got rid of them.”
“Why the hell would you get rid of them? Doesn’t that go against your instincts? My raven wouldn’t let me get rid of a single one of mine.”
“I got rid of them the day I left the Hollow to come here. I didn’t really want to drag all of the things that tethered me to that place. Those were my past.”
“But you brought the box.”
“Mmm hmm,” she said with a nod.
Weston put up another dish and turned to her, locked his arm against the counter. “Ave, what’s in the box?”