For the Blood of a Crow

by T. S. Joyce

  His eyes went to something behind her, but when she twisted around, all she saw was a tree. He had his sunglasses firmly in place when she gave her attention to him again, and the chills on her neck were back.

  Well, the entire Clan was probably gathered in the clubhouse watching the footage of Ramsey’s interviews, so the chance of anyone seeing her on Rike’s motorcycle were pretty slim. And she did like riding on the back of Harleys. She’d grown up in her dad’s MC. They were so powerful. And she trusted Rike to get her where she was going safe. He’d been riding motorcycles before he left Riverbend, and he was still alive, so he must be a good rider.

  “This is a bad idea,” she murmured. “You leaving your Alpha to the interviews and messing with a Wulfe.”

  He grinned and offered his hand to help her on the bike. “Bad decisions are the best decisions. That’s where you go from existing to living.”

  Huh. Well, it did sound fun to deviate from the normal her life had morphed into. Every day was the same, but not today. Not right now. Maybe she could have one secret night with the boy she used to know and the man she wished she could.

  Feeling utterly reckless, she slid her palm against his and allowed him to pull her up behind him. No hesitation, she held onto his hips and leaned against the back rest. And then she grinned like a loon as Rike revved the engine and blasted back onto the main road. He didn’t ease her into it either. He accelerated hard until she was breathless and laughing, holding onto his waist tighter. His thin black shirt flew back behind him, giving her a peek at a massive crow tattoo that probably took up his entire back.

  This man was dead-sexy. He was danger and strength, power and sex-appeal. His massive triceps flexed with every turn, his big tattooed hands high up on the bars as he guided the Harley through Darby and onto the highway that would lead back to Corvallis, then beyond to Wulfe territory—Stevensville.

  The longer they rode, the more relaxed she became. It was the soothing rumble of the powerful engine under their seat, the cool breeze whipping the flyaway locks of hair around her face. It was the steady strength of the man under her hands and sunshine on her face. It was freedom from all her worries for a little while.

  What would it be like to live a life where she wasn’t under the scrutiny of her dad or wasn’t on a specific timeline to pair up with Samuel? Where she could work and breathe and relax and play and have nights off that weren’t spent at the clubhouse doing the same thing over and over. Rike was a mighty temptation because he meant escape from reality. Escape from the life that was laid out in detail right in front of her. Every step she’d taken over the past decade and a half had been thought out and guided, and she’d never veered from what the Clan wanted of her. After the night Rike had left, she’d quit fighting everything. Her life had turned to numbness and now she could suddenly feel again. It was overwhelming, but she couldn’t yet tell if that was a good thing, or a bad thing.

  Rike pulled off the highway at the exit for Corvallis.

  “Wait, I need to go back to Stevensville.”

  “I want to show you something.”

  Alarm bells blared in her ears, and her instincts went on red alert. No, no, no, getting a ride with him was one thing, but if he was thinking she was here to hook up, he was sorely mistaken. As the minutes ticked by, she worked herself up to bawl him out, but he pulled onto a ghost town road and up to a cracked brick building with a roughly painted crow on the sign out front. Under the splattered red crow was a small outline of a moose, also dripping red. Huh. Rike pulled around to the garages on the side and straight in front of the last one on the right.

  Pulling his sunglasses off, he gestured to an old El Camino on a lift. “This is my work station. It bothered me that you thought I was doing illegal jobs for a living. I mean, I’m not saying outlaw shit doesn’t happen here from time to time, but this is how I pay my bills. I’m helping some rich dude supe this thing up right now. Those three motorcycles are getting worked on by me tomorrow. Tune up,” he said, pointing to the first. “Engine trouble and new tires on that one. This whole area up in these mountains is a hub for bikers. Lots can work on their own bikes, but when they can’t, or they don’t have the tools or the time, they bring them to me and the boys. Cars, too. We are a fully functional shop, not just a coverup for drug running. Do you want to see inside, or do you want me to take you to Stevensville now?”

  Huh. He was giving her a choice, not bullying her into a night she didn’t want.

  “I’m not here to hook up,” she said.

  “I won’t let anyone bother you,” he promised. “I’m protective of girls. You’ve never been safer than you are right now.”

  Wow. She clutched onto his shirt. You’ve never been safer than you are right now. The steady, relieved feeling those words gave her was important.

  Blackwood monster he may be, and heaven help any man who crossed him, but she was safe with him.

  She took his offered hand and dismounted. He smelled good, like cologne.

  “Did you just sniff me?” he asked, settling the motorcycle on its kickstand. She stood there, clutching her across-the-shoulder purse and shifting her weight from side-to-side. “Maybe.”

  He chuckled, the first laugh she’d heard today. His lips curved up easy, and his dark eyes crinkled at the corners with smile lines that his father had never gotten.

  He wasn’t Lucian.

  He was just Brandon. No…Rike. It was the name he’d picked for himself in adulthood because he was different than the boy Brandon she’d known.

  “How did you get the name Rike?” When the smile fell from his lips, she regretted the question.

  “I got it the day after I killed Lucian. He beat my brother until he wasn’t recognizable, and after I avenged Ethan, I visited him in the hospital. Does talking like this bother you?”

  “Talking like how?”

  “Completely honest about the things I’m capable of?”

  “No. It would scare me if your explanations were full of lies. I would rather you be honest about what you’re capable of.”

  “It scares me,” he admitted low.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve never talked to anyone about this other than Ethan and Ramsey.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you knew me before I was me. And you still talked to me, you hugged my side, you kissed my arm, and you got on my bike. Not once today have you flinched away. You stand your ground with me, and that’s different than most people. I intimidate strangers, but you aren’t a stranger and you aren’t scared of me. So you get honesty, because a part of me is testing you to see what will make you run away. When I visited my brother in the hospital the next day, his face was so fucked up he could barely form words. He said he wanted to rename me for our new life. He tried to call me Striker because he’d watched what I did to Lucian, but it just came out Rike. And so it stuck.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seventeen. I don’t remember much before then. I don’t know why. My animal hides everything from me. I used to hate it and lie in my bed at nights trying so hard to remember anything. Anything at all. But there’s nothing there. Just empty space. And over the years, I learned to focus more on the here-and-now instead of some past that will never return to me.”

  “Does Ethan remember?”

  Rike nodded his head thoughtfully. “He says its best if we don’t revisit the past.”

  Huh. Well Bailey sort of agreed with Ethan. Maybe it was a blessing he didn’t have memories. Only problem, though…he’d lost all memories of her.

  And there was tragedy in that, because for the rest of her life, she would be cursed with his memories. He had no memories of her so she was the keeper of the good parts of his childhood. And he was saying he didn’t want to know, so she would remain the sole keeper of them.

  This is how they would move on. He would keep building his life here, she would pair up with Samuel, and they would only have today when they were both present
. This would be their shared memory she didn’t have to be the only keeper of.

  She wanted to make it a good night. “I want to see inside before we go to Stevensville.”

  His smile returned and, God, when that man smiled, everything else faded away. He still struck her just like he had all those years ago.

  He cut the engine and dismounted smoothly, and then he nodded his head toward the clubhouse. “Follow me, Little Wolf. You’re the first of your kind to ever come in here.”

  She shouldn’t have feelings about that, but a possessive part of her liked being the only wolf to get past this door.

  He opened the door for her and watched her with an unreadable expression as she passed through. For freak’s sake, that man smelled so good. And the wolf inside her suddenly did something awful. Something unforgiveable. Out of control of her own body, Baily brushed his hand with hers. She froze right along with Rike.

  “I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “I didn’t say you did,” he said, his voice too gritty to be polite.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Didn’t ask for apologies either.”

  Eeep! “Um, do you live here?” she asked.

  He narrowed his eyes down at his hand and gently rubbed his thumb against the tips of his fingers. “No. I have a place a couple blocks up. Only the Alpha and the Second are supposed to live in the clubhouse. People crash here when they get shitfaced and can’t ride their motorcycles home, but other than that…wait…” He frowned again. “I guess I’m supposed to live here now.”

  Bailey had been staring at the big room in front of her, equipped with pool tables on the left and what looked like a fully stocked bar along the back wall, but at Rike’s revelation, she jerked her attention back to him. “You’re the Second of Red Dead Mayhem?” she asked too loud.

  “Rike?” came a bellowing voice from behind a partly open set of huge wooden double doors.

  “Shit,” he murmured. “Yeah, it’s me,” he called back. He took her hand, but it wasn’t a romantic gesture. Instead he dragged her toward the double doors.

  “Wait, if your Clan is here, I shouldn’t be seen by—”

  “Holy shitshacks, the lone crow brought a girl,” a large man with a thick gray beard said from his place at the head of the table. He was leaned back in a chair that resembled a throne, riding boots kicked up on a table that still had a price tag hanging off the underside.

  There were five other men whose attention drifted from the flat screen television mounted in the upper right-hand corner of the room to her.

  Bailey read his patch. Dante. He snarled up his lip as he sniffed. “Smells like wet dog.”

  “You’re a bird,” she growled. “Don’t pretend you have a heightened sense of smell.”

  “The fuck are you doing in Ramsey’s chair?” Rike demanded. “Get off it.”

  Dante held up his hands in surrender and slowly got up. “It’s a brand new throne, Second. I figured testing it out wouldn’t hurt so long as it was before his royal highness sat his royal ass in it.”

  “Do you want to die today, Dante?” Rike asked nonchalantly, glaring at him with his head cocked to the side.

  “Nah, Blackwood,” Dante said, easing into the next seat over. “I think enough damage has been done in this room in the last week.”

  “Dante, shut the fuck up,” a dark-haired man said. “We can’t hear the TV. Rike, we need booze. I’m out of beer.”

  “Get it yourself, Kasey,” Rike advised him coolly.

  “You’re the bartender here.” Kasey poked out his bottom lip and pouted. “We’re helpless.”

  “Uh,” Bailey spoke up. “You have a nine-millimeter in your holster and a knife at your hip that could fell a water buffalo. Pretty sure no one’s helpless here.”

  “You want a beer?” Rike asked her, a mischievous grin transforming his face as he looked down at Bailey.

  “I would love a margarita.”

  “Oh God, another one!” Dante yelled. “We just got one of them frilly girls a few weeks ago!”

  “A frilly girl who turned into a moose and nearly killed you,” Kasey said. “You’re still taping your ribs.” He cut up laughing but then bent over in a coughing fit, gripping his own ribs while the others laughed.

  “Vina nearly killed you, too, you dumbass,” another man said. He had bruising all down the side of his face and neck, and one of his teeth was missing from his smile.

  Okay, she was supposed to hate crows, but they were kind of funny. “I’ll make you all drinks,” she offered.

  “Atta girl, be our beer wench,” Dante muttered, turning his attention back to the live coverage of Ramsey’s interviews.

  Bright side, Ramsey hadn’t changed into a crow and pecked everyone’s eyes out. Yet.

  “Bailey, you don’t have to make them drinks,” Rike murmured, following her out of the meeting room.

  “How many margarita glasses do you have.”

  Rike snorted. “Enough to serve those assholes.” The smile in his voice was seven shades of sexy.

  “We don’t have a bar in the Wulfe clubhouse.”

  “You hang out at a clubhouse?”

  “Yeah, I told you, my dad is the Alpha. I grew up around them.”

  “And you haven’t paired up yet?”

  “False. I’m promised to the Second. The Clan decided on it two years ago.”

  “God, you wolves are so strange with your customs.”

  Bailey turned suddenly and grabbed his hand again, this time on purpose. She traced the long, silver scar across his left palm. Danger. She should not be doing this. This was a horrible mistake. But…today was a good day. A bright day. A different day, and she only had this one day to be with him, so she felt reckless. Slowly, she opened her right hand and showed him the matching scar.

  His eyes went wide before he traced it. “Where did you get that?”

  “From you,” she said simply.

  “And I got this…” He looked at his own scar.

  “From me. Wolf customs—they’re not all bad.”

  “We were handfasted?”

  She tried to smile. She did. Bailey tried to smile and show him their past was a long time ago and it didn’t hurt that she was the only one who remembered their love story. “We were just kids, and it was a game. Nothing more.”

  She turned away from him and made her way behind the bar.

  “Except that’s a lie. I can hear it in your voice. I can see it on your face. Even now, you can’t look me in the eyes.”

  Bailey sighed in irritation at his annoying ability to observe every freaking thing like the freaking obnoxious crow he was. She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. It was another lifetime.”

  She could feel Rike watching her while she rooted around for the tequila she wanted. She found the margarita glasses and margarita mix on her own, no thanks to the big, sexy, silent giant who pulled up a barstool and didn’t help direct her at all. For him, she popped the top of a beer and slid it loudly across the counter. “That’ll be three thousand bucks. I’m a very expensive beer wench.”

  And there was that smile again. He chuckled, a rich sound, and shook his head. “You’re somethin’, that’s for sure.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Woman, I don’t even know if I was complimenting you or not.”

  Bailey shrugged and poured too much tequila into the margarita glasses. “You got any of them colorful umbrellas?”

  “Are you trying to piss the boys off first thing?”

  “Kind of.”

  Rike sighed and rubbed his dark beard. “No to umbrellas, but one of the Crow Chasers threw a girls’ night party in here a few weeks back, and I’m pretty sure there are some leftover penis straws,” he said, pointing to the cabinet.

  “Perfect,” she said brightly.

  “Oooooh!” the boys said in unison from the meeting room.

  “In your fuckin’ face, bitch!” one of them crowed.

  “Go, Vina!”

&
nbsp; “Damn, maybe she is fit to be queen.”

  “Hahaha! Look at that reporter’s face. She doesn’t even know what to do with Vina’s answer.”

  “Look at Ramsey’s face. He looks like the cat that ate, like, forty canaries.”

  The boys were cracking up, and the smile was back on Rike’s face. “Okay, now I don’t feel so bad for leaving my Alpha to deal with the reporters. Sounds like Vina’s got this.”

  “Oh, Damn,” Dante said, his voice echoing across the room. “Vina’s eyes look fucked. Ten bucks said she stomps all their nosy asses by the end of the day.”

  “Fifteen,” someone else said.

  “Fifteen says she controls herself,” Kasey said. “She’s a queen.”

  Rike shrugged his shoulders up to his ears, and dragged his attention away from the open meeting doors. “At this point, our reputation can’t get much worse. If Vina goes moose, well then, I wouldn’t be able to stop her even if I was there. Word to the wise…be Vina’s friend, not her enemy. She’s a fuckin’ terror when she’s Changed.”

  “I like her already,” Bailey said, cutting limes for the margarita rims. No salt for anyone because she was a lazy beer wench. “No worries about me meaning anything to her either way, though. This is the first and last day I will ever come here.”

  Rike frowned. “Why?”

  “Because I’m a wolf. We hate your kind. Hate. Them. If I was found out here, I would be shunned, killed if my dad wasn’t Alpha.”

  “What’s their problem? We have no beef with the Wulfe Clan.”

  “That you remember.” She sucked down a few sips of the margarita on the end. Whoo, that was strong. And perfect. “You want to know why the wolves here hate the crows so much?”

  “Yeah, my curiosity is pretty fuckin’ peeked.”

  Bailey pointed toward the darkest corner. “Lucian Blackwood.”

  Rike stared at her, unblinking for a few seconds and then twitched his chin at something behind her. “Lucian isn’t in the corner. He’s hanging out with you.”

  Chills rippled up her arms, and the hairs on the back of her neck electrified again. She danced away from her spot, but now Rike was laughing. “I’m just kidding…probably.”