For the Blood of a Crow

by T. S. Joyce

  Were the wolves hunting her? Or protecting her? He didn’t give a shit either way. He would kill anyone who got too close to his key tonight. His knuckles tingled to hurt the wolf she was promised to. It was an instinct that made no sense, but it existed anyway. Just like him.

  He pulled his Harley right up to her little red Ford Ranger, and within two feet of her toes. Brave Little Wolf didn’t back up an inch. And now she looked angry. That fire in her eyes was sexy.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged. “I liked hanging out earlier. I want more.”

  “How did you find out where I live?” she asked louder. Whooo, her eyes were getting bright. Sexy wolf.

  “I broke into the bakery and read your file.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “I think we’ve both come to the conclusion that my bloodline screwed me out of sanity from the time I was a sperm.”

  “Brandon! Rike, whatever your name is! You can’t be here!”

  “And yet…” He gestured to the woods and then to himself with a sweeping motion.

  “Do you have a death wish?”

  “I have a BJ wish.”

  Bailey took her whole bag of groceries and smacked him in the chest. Surprised she’d grown the lady-balls, he laughed as he went off balance on the motorcycle.

  “You’re horrible,” she muttered, stomping toward her door. “Leave before they kill you.”

  “Who?” he called, still grinning so big his cheeks hurt.

  “You know who! They’re all in the woods.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I left the Clan.” Slam! The sound of the door closing was deafening in the wake of what she’d just said. She’d left the Wulfe Clan? What the fuck?

  In a rush, Rike cut the engine and settled his ride on the kickstand. The wolves were coming. He could see their eyes bouncing toward him and hear their snarling, but he wasn’t scared of wolves. Actually, he wasn’t scared of anything. He was missing that instinct. That, and he knew what he was capable of. He’d killed his own father with his bare hands. That burned a soul. He was a killer. And now he was jogging up the stairs of this girl’s house, knowing full well he could ruin her life. No, not could—would ruin it.

  Blackwoods were poison to good women.

  And Bailey was good. He could sense it in her. Down to her heart, she was good. She was a lantern that attracted insects like him. She drew in the hungry shadows.

  The wolves were close. Growling, running fast, covering ground over the clearing. A howl ripped through the air. It should’ve chilled Rike’s blood, but his blood already ran cold.

  A massive black wolf with glowing gold eyes sailed over the porch railing and skidded to a stop in front of him. Rike turned to him, wicked grin ready, because fuck yes to a fight tonight.

  But just as they both bunched their muscles to face off, a tiny, firm hand grabbed his bicep.

  “Sanctuary!” Bailey snarled in a gravelly, feral voice. She addressed the other wolves gathering around the porch, too. “You know better than to come onto my land.” Her voice shook but not from fear.

  Rike could feel her fury. Sexy, sexy, sexy.

  Bailey, that little fair-skinned angel-turned-hellion stood in front of Rike. “This is my territory.”

  Samuel peeled his lips back from white teeth, his eyes blazing the color of the sun. He probably intimidated some, but all Rike saw was a good brawl. Rike wanted to fuck with him, so he leaned forward and rested his cheek against Bailey’s. And through a smile, he repeated her words, “This is my territory.”

  Everything happened at once. Bailey whispered, “Fuck,” in a panicked voice just as Rike yanked her behind him. She Changed into her wolf right in his grasp as the black wolf tensed and leapt at him. The wolves gathered around the porch didn’t move toward the house. Only Samuel was stupid enough to charge Rike.

  He caught him by the teeth and yanked his mouth open as he rammed the snarling animal against the side of the house. Nails clawed at Rike’s stomach as he slammed the wolf twice against the siding with a thundering crash. And then as he prepared to rip Samuel’s jaws apart with his bare hands, something white and as fast as a coiled snake hit the black wolf and latched onto its neck.

  Bailey.

  Rike was so shocked at the powerful force of her body, he lost his grip, and Samuel snapped his jaws closed on his wrist. Pain seared up his arm, and the howling of the wolves started up again. Bailey shook her head and clamped down on Samuel’s neck even harder, and the scent of blood blotted everything else out. Rike had a flash of memory, an awful, awful memory from a night when everything smelled like blood. When Lucian had brought the war with the wolves to their front yard, and he and Ethan and Mom had paid the price.

  Blinding pain burned through his head. Rike went to his knees as the wolf ground his teeth against his wrist bones. He would’ve been vulnerable if Bailey’s smaller wolf wasn’t ripping into the animal’s throat. Samuel let go of him with a snarl and snapped his teeth at Bailey so fast Rike almost didn’t have time to react. Almost. Crows were faster. Left fist closed, he hit the wolf straight in the muzzle as he tried to latch on to Bailey’s face. The animal was blasted backward so hard he crashed into the railing, wood exploding around him.

  Bailey positioned herself between Rike and Samuel as the black wolf stood again and shook out his fur, peeled his lips back from bloody teeth. It was Rike’s blood that asshole was tasting.

  Bailey was smaller, and Samuel was Second. She’d said so, but if she’d quit the Clan today, she didn’t fit in the pecking order anymore. She could fight whoever she wanted and, apparently, she wanted to fight the Second.

  Thata girl. Fight everything.

  Rike’s head hurt so bad. The ache of his dripping arm was nothing compared to the piercing pain behind his eyes…

  The yard of an old farmhouse had been littered with the bodies of wolves. With the bodies of Mom and Ethan. With Rike. Lucian was standing in the middle of the carnage laughing. Laughing. Howling at the moon, arms covered in gore, and that old sonofabitch was laughing. Mom. That was their mom lying by Ethan. He recognized her. She wasn’t moving. Mom? Every inch of his skin hurt, and he couldn’t move. Ethan could, though. He was dragging his shredded body toward her, trying to reach her. He was murmuring things to comfort her. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t moving… On the porch, a woman was hugging a fair-skinned, green-eyed girl. His girl. His Little Wolf. Bailey was crying and staring at him as if she couldn’t look away. She chanted over and over, “This is my fault. This is my fault.” Her heartbreaking words and Lucian’s laughter were the soundtrack to this hell. And mom still wasn’t moving…

  Bailey’s snarl brought him back. Focus. She needs you to focus. Think about the memory later.

  Drip, drip, drip. As he knelt on the porch, warmth pitter-pattered from his fingertips, making soft sounds against the wood under his knees.

  Bailey’s tail was lowered, the tip of it touching Rike’s chest as if she needed the reassurance he was right at her back. Her fur was white as snow with no variation in color. Her hackles were raised like a mohawk down her back, and her ears were flat. Rike couldn’t see her face, but he bet she looked fearsome right now if the growl rattling her chest was anything to go by.

  Samuel took two menacing steps toward her, face scrunched up with hatred. “You’ll choose a Blackwood,” he snarled in a monstrous voice. It was messed up that wolves could talk in animal form. “Traitor.”

  Bailey’s growl grew louder in warning. Samuel was getting too close to her.

  “I dare you to try it,” Rike challenged him. “I won’t fail this time. I’ll rip your fucking face in two.”

  A massive cream-colored wolf lumbered up the porch stairs, his eyes a light green like Bailey’s. Darius Wulfe.

  The snarl died in her throat, and she lowered her head, exposed her neck. An apology.

  “You’re free,” her father growled.

  Bailey winced at his words. Rik
e could see her profile perfectly now. Long muzzle, black nose, bright green eyes that squeezed shut as her father’s words had slapped her. You’re free. He might as well have said “you’re no daughter of mine” for the pain on her face.

  Through the haze of the headache, Rike felt a stirring in his chest. A protectiveness. Something strong. Something that felt solid. Tangible. Something that hung in the air between him and Bailey.

  He hated her father for putting that look of pain on her face.

  “Leave,” Rike demanded. “Leave now, or you’ll find out just how much like Lucian I really am.”

  Wulfe held his glare for a few seconds and then twitched his head at Samuel. The black wolf followed him off the porch, and the Clan trotted away into the dark.

  A howl of pure agony ripped out of Bailey, lifting the hair on the back of his neck. He wanted to cover his ears because it was the saddest sound in the whole world.

  As he clenched his fists against the rage roiling inside of him, something else hurt now. Hurt bad. Something that rivaled the pain in his head, the building ache in his chest, and his bitten arm.

  The old scar on his palm was on fire.

  He’d never been scared of pain, but this one…this pain…it was terrifying.

  What had he just done?

  Chapter Eleven

  Bailey’s howl died in her throat as the wolf hid. The animal didn’t want to exist in this pain, so she didn’t, simple as that. She tucked herself deep inside and left Bailey to her human skin, on hands and knees on the porch.

  She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. Dad wasn’t bound to her by blood. He wasn’t her biological father. He was just her maker. Just her maker. Bailey blinked hard, forcing the moisture to stay in her eyes.

  Her clothes were in tatters around her flattened palms on the scratched-up porch. “This is the worst moment in my life,” she whispered, dragging her attention to Rike, “and you’re seeing it.”

  He was on his knees, sledgehammer fists clenched at his sides, his white T-shirt clawed up and staining crimson, blood dripping from his arm, chest heaving, eyes black as the night sky above.

  “I remember…”

  “Remember what?” she whispered.

  “I remember you were a witness to the worst moment in my life, too.”

  Oh, she knew what moment he was talking about, but she had to make sure. “Lucian?”

  He dipped his chin once. “My hand”—he dragged those demon eyes down to his palm and then back to her—“it burns.”

  “It was my fault. If I hadn’t asked you to bind yourself to me, he would’ve let my people live.”

  “Lucian was a psychopath who killed and hurt without reason or logic, Bailey. Nothing was your fault. The blood of all those people are on the man who killed them. My fuckin’ head hurts. Everything hurts.” He closed his eyes tightly. “Everything.”

  Body tingling from the Change, she crawled to him and, as gently as she could so she didn’t hurt his skin further, touched him with her fingertips. Bailey hesitated, eyes locked on his to make sure it was okay, and when his eyes dipped to her lips, she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his heaving chest.

  She’d only meant to comfort a man who was in pain, but as his breathing steadied, she felt his fingertips move softly across her ribs and then around her back. There was barely any pressure to his embrace, as though he thought her as fragile as a glass egg.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For the worst moment of your life, I’m sorry.”

  “I had everything figured out, Rike. Every day was the same, and I knew what to expect. I was going to be the mate of the Second and be under my dad’s protection forever. I was going to live and breathe and die, just like the person I was yesterday. I had a steady life. And in one day of seeing you again, I’ve thrown that life away. And now I don’t know what tomorrow will look like.”

  “Bailey,” he murmured, hooking a finger under her chin and lifting her gaze to his. He shook his head slowly and searched her face. “You’re not supposed to.”

  And then the tears fell. Two streams of warmth trickled down her face and gathered at her jaw line for a moment before they joined the pit-pat of his bleeding arm on the porch.

  She was angry, hurt, and her heart was breaking in her chest for what her dad had declared. She was free of him. That’s what he’d meant. Rike was right. She wasn’t supposed to know what tomorrow would bring, but right now, she’d just said goodbye to a future she’d planned for so long. She’d had to say goodbye to her maker, the only father she’d known. She was going to have to be tough like her mom, and she didn’t know if she had it in her, so right now, in this moment, all she could do was tip her forehead against the strong line between his pecs and lose it.

  She should’ve been ashamed by the whimpers and the sobs that escaped her lips, but Rike was right about something else, too. She’d witnessed him in his worst moment, and there was a feeling of utter safety in falling apart in front of someone who had already broken in front of her.

  Rike scooped her up suddenly and cradled her against him tightly. She should feel vulnerable curled in his arms, completely naked like this, but she didn’t. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight like she used to when life had been scary as a kid. He’d always, always, made her feel better when there was trouble in her Clan, with his father, or with hers.

  He did the same for her now as he rocked her gently and kept his lips pressed against her hair. And then he did something that changed the course of the rest of her life.

  He hummed the song his mother used to sing to herself when she was cooking. His voice was low and gritty, and he missed some notes, but he remembered, and that made it the most beautiful lullaby she’d ever heard.

  And now she understood what he’d meant about his hand burning.

  Her scar was catching fire, too.

  Chapter Twelve

  “It hurts,” she whispered, clenching her fist hard, as if that would make it better.

  Rike was holding her so tightly against him she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe. Or maybe that was just the weight of the world crushing her chest. Maybe she would have to get used to no air.

  One day, and she’d thrown her steady future into a fire.

  One day, and she’d left her people.

  “I’m scared,” she admitted, sobbing softly.

  “I’m going to keep you safe.”

  “But what if—”

  Rike’s lips crashed onto hers. And she could feel the bloodlust still humming from his body. Feel his intimidating power. Feel his relief, his confusion, his need to escape.

  She wanted that, too—the escape.

  And, God, it felt so good, his hand gripping her hip, his kiss rough, his tongue forceful against hers. Yes. This was good. She could forget her whole life, just like he’d done, if she just stayed right here with him.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, held him tight.

  Never leave again.

  His hand drifted up her spine, cupped the back of her head firmly, keeping her in place. His skin felt like heaven on hers. Her breasts tingled as she rocked against him.

  Rike stood smoothly, taking her with him, and didn’t break the kiss for even a second as he shoved the front door open. He kicked it closed so hard it rattled the house, and they went down to the floor, right there in the entryway.

  “Don’t think,” he grunted, his lips dipping to her throat. “Just get lost with me.”

  When he bit down on her neck like an Alpha on a submissive wolf, Bailey arched her back and cried out at how right it felt. Mine, he seemed to say with his teeth.

  Yes, yes, yes.

  He was rolling his hips against her now, over and over with powerful thrusts, faster and faster, all his muscles flexing under her searching hands.

  Screw taking things slow. She’d only ever wanted this with him.

  His weight on top of her was such a comfort. It kept all her piec
es from shattering apart. His hands were fire against her skin, and every nerve ending tingled with ecstasy. His touch, this right here, was addictive. She wanted more and more and more.

  “Rike, please,” she murmured as he sucked hard on her throat. Mindlessly, she begged, “Please, please, please.”

  He lifted his hips slightly, and the sound of his zipper filled the night. So fucking perfect. His lips were back on hers now, taking her air, but she didn’t care. Take it. Take everything, just let me escape for a while.

  His fingers found her clit and slid down her wet folds to her entrance and back up. With every stroke, she was getting wetter and wetter and more desperate for him to stop the torture. He pushed his finger in, and then two.

  “Fuck, Bailey, you’re so tight.”

  Bailey nipped his neck and growled, “Get my body used to you.” Oh, she knew he was big. She could feel his length grinding against her.

  With a grunt, he pressed the swollen head of his cock into her and then withdrew. Little by little, he pushed into her deeper until he was inside her fully, and then he pulled back and rammed into her. She cried out with how good it felt, and his moan was so sexy. He stayed in her, bucking hard and shallow, right on her clit. It was happening so fast, felt so good, that the pressure built inside of her like a wildfire.

  “Rike, I’m coming, I’m coming,” she panted.

  His lips were on hers, urgent as he slammed into her even harder. Bailey’s orgasm was explosive, and she screamed out. So good. Soooo good.

  “Again,” he snarled, slowing down.

  Again? “I don’t think I can,” she said breathlessly. Her body was still pulsing hard.

  Rike was smooth against her, rolling his hips, filling her, stretching her, over and over. He pulled her hand down to his hip. “Feel me sliding into you,” he murmured. His muscles flexed with every movement toward her.

  Oh, God, that was sexy. And then he put his hand on her throat and squeezed gently, stared right into her soul with a wicked gleam in his crow-black eyes. “Stay lost. Don’t come back yet.”