For the Blood of a Crow

by T. S. Joyce

  “Hi,” she said softly, waving her fingers.

  Hey, he mouthed.

  I have a crush on you, she mouthed back, careful to enunciate the words.

  He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe she was here.

  “Poop. Scrotum. Poontang. Rike!” the Warmaker said, shoving Rike in the arm. “Have you listened to a single thing I’ve said, man? I’m throwing you important information, and you’re just making disgusting googly eyes at your mate. You two are gonna make me puke.”

  “Want to make googly eyes with me?” Karis asked.

  “Yes,” the Warmaker said. And they did. And it was gross, but Bailey laughed anyway.

  Rike excused himself and made his way to Bailey, locked his arms on either side of her hips, kissed her so hard he pushed her back by inches. And then he rubbed his beard against her cheek and whispered in her ear, “I saw your text earlier. I’d already decided to come back to you, but your words meant a lot to me.”

  She grinned against his cheek and gripped his T-shirt. “Then say it back.”

  “Mmmmm,” he rumbled and nibbled at the sensitive lobe of her ear.

  Giggling, she said, “I won’t be seduced. I’m immune to your sexiness.”

  “Bullshit,” the Warmaker called. “I can smell your pheromones from here.”

  “What the hell are pheromones?” Kurt asked, hugging his half-empty beer bottle and looking disturbed.

  “It’s the little sexy scent you give off when you want to bone someone,” the Warmaker said with a face that said Kurt was the dumbest man in existence.

  “No, it’s not,” Ava called. “It’s the smell you give off when you want to attract a mate, not just for sex.”

  “Both wrong,” Ramsey said, looking at his glowing phone. “Pheromones. A chemical substance produced and released into the environment by an animal, affecting the behavior—”

  “Dude, you can’t internet-search it!” the Warmaker said. “That’s cheating.”

  “I’m a crow. We don’t play fair.”

  “He has a point,” Ten said, squeezing an empty plastic water bottle noisily. “They don’t, but they never claim to.”

  “—affecting the behavior of others in its species,” Ramsey finished. “Which doesn’t apply to these two love-birds because they aren’t the same species.”

  “Wanna go make some cross-species pheromones?” Rike asked Bailey.

  “Heeeeeell yeah,” she sang as he pulled her over his shoulder like a cave man. “Your butt is cute from here,” she slurred slightly. “Round like a rump roast.” Why were her words coming out all growly and weird? The others were laughing. Probably because she was hilarious. She tried to slap that fine backside, but missed on account of all the bouncing around as he walked. Great gonads, her man was strong.

  “Have fun making the hanky-panky,” Vina called.

  Ramsey’s laugh echoed through the clearing as Rike chuckled and toted Bailey around the corner of the building.

  He didn’t put her down until his long strides found his motorcycle parked right up front, at the end of a row of Harleys. Settled on her feet, she offered him a drunken smile as he clipped a helmet to her head.

  “You’re so fuckin’ cute,” Rike said. “I’ve never thought anyone looked cute in a helmet, and here you are killin’ me.”

  She gave a happy sigh and leaned her whole body on him, chin on his chest as she stared up at him. “You’re the most handsome boy ever.”

  “You’ve lost your mind.”

  “I’m serious, Rike Blackwood. I would totally lay your eggs. ’N hatch a fluffy baby crow.”

  “That’s…” He was trying to control laughter. “Babe, that’s not how crows have babies. There’s no eggs.”

  “I would sit on the couch for four months with it under my legs ’n hatch it.”

  “Oh my God.” He was looking away now, his lips pursed as though trying not to crack up. “Get on the bike, woman. We’ll have a discussion about crow reproduction when you aren’t three sheets to the wind.”

  “I’ve never understood that saying,” she muttered, getting clumsily onto the bike. “And I’m not that drunk. I’m mostly tipsy and a lot happy.”

  He got on the Harley in front of her and pulled her arms around his waist. “Say that last part again.”

  “I’m happy,” she drawled out.

  “Truth,” he rumbled. And with a last squeeze of her hand, he started the bike, the roar of the engine filling the night air and vibrating the seat under her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rike didn’t rip out of the parking lot like Bailey had expected of him. Instead, they just cruised the back roads toward Stevensville.

  “Rike?” she asked at a stoplight.

  “Yeah, Little Wolf?”

  “Can I stay with you tonight? At the clubhouse? I don’t want to go back to my house. Not tonight.”

  “Anything you want. My place is your place.”

  She hugged him tighter for that and rested her cheek against his back as he revved the engine and hit the throttle. Her place had always been with him, even on the days he hadn’t remembered her. She’d never had a shot at moving on. Her wolf had chosen him, and his crow had chosen her, and this had always been their fate—to be together.

  The woods blurred by on either side, and above in the clear sky, the stars twinkled and winked at the moon. She could go for a Change tonight. Clear skies and warm breezes were her favorite.

  Boom!

  The Harley skidded sideways, the wheels lurching across the road, the machine stuttering and weaving dangerously.

  “Shit, hold on!” Rike yelled.

  There was a deafening clank under the Harley, and Bailey screamed as they pitched forward and laid down the bike. She expected severe and instant pain, but Rike shielded her from hitting the cement with his own body. She rolled off him and hit the grass hard as he grunted in pain and skidded in front of her.

  She landed bad on her arm, and it twisted. Crying out in pain, she came to a sudden stop. Shocked, she laid there for a few seconds, staring at the dark woods, wondering what the hell had just happened. Rike! She turned, and he was there, up on his feet, his arms shining with blood from road rash. He was staring at his Harley, and in the blue moonlight, she could see the anger on his face. The smell…gasoline. The sound…drip, drip, drip. Was it gasoline or Rike’s blood making that noise?

  Rike ripped a strip of something from the front tire and held it up. The moonlight glinted off the nails on the cream-colored length of rubber.

  Someone had done this to them.

  Rike looked over at her and then up to the woods behind her, and for the first time in her life, she saw fear in his expression. “Bailey, get up and walk to me. Babe, can you walk?” he asked, dropping the strip of nails.

  But now she could smell more than the gasoline. She could smell wolf, feel hot breath on the back of her exposed neck.

  Terror seized her. She was a fighter, but she’d never left her neck open to a predator shifter before. She knew better.

  “Rike,” she whispered, her voice shaking.

  He pulled a long knife from a sheath at his belt, and the fear left his eyes. “If you take her from me, Lucian’s legacy will live on, and I’ll murder every last one of your Clan. No one will escape this time. Take her from me, and I’ll annihilate every wolf in existence. Test me, Samuel. I fucking dare you to sign all your death warrants.”

  The knife gleamed in his hands as Rike stalked forward.

  Breath, breath, hot breath. There was a low snarl that vibrated against her sensitive skin there. And then she felt it. The sharp points of canines sank into her flesh, millimeter by millimeter. Slowly, the pain intensified until she closed her eyes and waited for death.

  It wasn’t fair. She’d only just gotten him back. She’d only just learned what happiness was again. It wasn’t enough time. She wanted more. She wanted everything.

  She opened her eyes to show Rike how brave she was. So
she could die a good death, and he could be proud of how she went. So he wouldn’t have a harder time when she was gone. But when she did, the man she loved wasn’t in Rike’s face anymore. In the moonlight, with his pitch black eyes and empty smile, he looked exactly like…Lucian.

  The teeth on her neck froze when, behind them, howls lifted into the air. War. Everyone had said they were tired of war, but here was another. The Wulfe Clan was declaring it against Rike. Against a single Blackwood. They’re memory wasn’t long enough. She’d been there when Lucian had killed all those wolves, and she’d seen how he’d done it. He’d morphed from human to crow, back and forth in a blur, murdering the Clan one by one before they could even figure out which direction he was coming from. Lucian had been born a murder machine. And now she watched in horror as Rike tossed the knife into the air and his massive crow exploded from his skin. She already knew what she was about to witness. Destruction the likes these wolves had never seen. Lucian had been a monstrous legend, and Rike had inherited those same killing skills. The old Clan had underestimated a Blackwood Crow, and the new Clan had repeated the grave mistake.

  Rike caught the knife in his talons and blurred through the night. The teeth were ripped from her neck, scraping her deep, but the pain was the least of her worries. When she turned, Rike was human again, smiling as he held the knife to Samuel’s thickly furred throat.

  With a gasp, Bailey winced away as blood sprayed across her face. There was a thud as the enormous black wolf’s body hit the ground, and then Rike was gone, Turned crow again and blurring toward the wolves that were charging from the woods.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. She had to stop him. Not because she was defending the wolves. They’d dug their graves the moment they decided to hunt them tonight. But for Rike. He couldn’t kill an entire Clan and be okay. She couldn’t let him be turned into the devil in his veins.

  Ignoring the agony in her shoulder, she let the wolf shred her human skin with a howl of pain. And the second she could move, she got up and bolted for him. She had to dodge the bodies of two wolves. Wolves she knew. Wolves who had been initiated into the Wulfe Clan within the last three years. Up ahead, she could see him, Rike, Turning from crow to man to crow to man, blurring with his movements, killing with no hesitation, no mercy. She watched him snap the neck of a wolf like it was nothing. His eyes were as empty as an old covered well.

  No, no, no, no. She pushed her body, running faster and faster, and just as he settled over another wolf to kill, she leapt at him, blasting him backward, her paws on his chest as he landed hard in the ferns.

  His hands went straight to her neck.

  “It’s me,” she snarled out in the wolf voice of hers. She’d always hated the feral sound of it, but she was desperate. “Rike. Rike, look at me. It’s your Little Wolf.”

  His face had been twisted into something she didn’t recognize, but it transformed with recognition in an instant. He released her throat, his eyes wide. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s oka—”

  Slam! Aaron, the Third in the Wulfe Clan, hit her like a Mac truck and she blasted sideways into a tree. There was a ripping at her back, and when she turned to fight, Rike was nowhere to be seen. He was buried under the remaining Wulfe Clan.

  “No!” she snarled, fighting desperately to get away from her attacker to reach Rike. As seconds ticked on, and she couldn’t help him, her panic pushed her to make mistakes. Mistakes that got her bitten worse and hurt. Shit! Aaron was going for the kill with her. She could see it in his eyes, and hear it in his death-chant growls. Rike! Again and again, she pulled her attention off of the wolf she fought to try and see him, but he was under a blanket of destruction. The wolves had been smart to separate them, and now they were both vulnerable apart. Rike!

  “Caw, caw, caw!”

  “Caw, caw, caw!”

  Crows filled the night, diving and ripping. The roar of bears rattled the earth. Something enormous came charging through the trees…a moose? Oh fuck, Vina was crushing wolves to dust under her powerful hooves. The animal sounds of battle were deafening, but Bailey was in her own fight with Aaron, the Third of the Wulfe Clan. He was relentless and she was hurt, but she was ripping into his skin just as much as he was into hers.

  “Stop!” someone bellowed. Ramsey?

  There were gunshots into the air, one after another, and then Aaron yelped and fell off her, limped away with a new hole in his hind leg. The Warmaker was standing there with an old Peacemaker aimed at the pile of wolves Rike was fighting.

  There was a shift, a change in the battle. The wolves took steps back, tails lowered, ears twitching, looking around at each other in confusion.

  “You want to know why you have the instinct to mind me?” Ramsey yelled, looking like fury as he stepped out of the shadows. “Because your goddamn Alpha isn’t here! Who sanctioned this? Who approved of you starting a war with Red Dead Mayhem? You morons. There are a pile of dead wolves I had to fucking step over just to get here. And that carnage is from one crow. One. You want war? None of you will survive.” He jammed a finger at Bailey. “This wolf is ours now. You couldn’t handle her. We’ll do better.” He looked up to the tree branches, sagging with crows, and jerked his chin. “Let’s go.”

  They lifted into the night, beating their wings and crying out, “Caw, caw.”

  “My advice is you stop hunting my people,” Ramsey warned as he walked away. “Next time no one will stop the Blackwood crow from annihilating you.”

  Bailey looked to her man. She’d been so afraid he was going to be seriously hurt under the pile of snapping, snarling, bloodthirsty wolves, but other than the road rash on his arms, he seemed to be fine.

  But just to make sure, the second the other wolves disappeared into the forest, she limped over to Rike and nuzzled his face. He grabbed the fur on the sides of her cheeks and held her there, his lips pressed roughly to her forehead. “Thank you for stopping me,” he gritted out. “No one else could’ve.”

  And then he eased her over his shoulders, held her legs in place on either side of his bare chest, and silently walked out of the woods.

  Tonight had been bad. The wolves had pushed him to the edge, and she’d seen a glimpse of what he could turn into. But he’d stopped…for her. He’d come back…for her.

  She was still alive because he had given into the berserker that dwelled in his blood just enough. And then the others had come.

  As long as she lived, she would never forget the crows diving straight into war to defend her and Rike. To help them. Or of Vina’s massive moose slashing at the pile with relentless hooves. Or Ramsey claiming her directly into his Clan.

  This wolf is ours.

  Damn right she was.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rike ran his fingers along the lace of the dress. He’d bought her size in white to match her wolf. He’d never been much on traditions, but his girl deserved a good surprise. For weeks, she’d been by his side, keeping him steady. Lucian didn’t come around when she was with Rike. Probably because Bailey was light and goodness, and dark things like Lucian couldn’t handle her.

  Rike could, though. He held onto that realization on the nights his thoughts got too dark, or he remembered the feeling of fighting and killing. He looked at her, and she made him happy from his bones out. Happiness didn’t happen for evil men like Lucian. So…Rike chose to believe her. And her mother. He wasn’t Lucian, and he was going to work his whole life to deserve the love Bailey gave so freely.

  He’d watched her hurt in the quiet moments late at night when he was holding her as she tried to cry silently. Leaving her Clan had been hard. Being shunned by the people she’d always known had been hard. Being hunted by her Clan…well, that would bring anyone to their knees.

  Not his girl, though.

  Tough mate. In the daytime, she kept her head held high, and found beauty in everything. She was this bundle of positive energy and infinite smiles that fed his soul.

  Vina leaned in the doorway
and tapped on it with the cap of her pen. “You ready? She just called and said she is bringing the cupcakes.”

  “What cupcakes?” he asked.

  “Oh, I needed to know exactly when she was coming, so I sent her on an errand for snacks for after the club meeting. That we aren’t having because we’re having a handfast ceremony—” Vina suddenly choked up, and her eyes filled with tears.

  Shit, he was so bad with girl tears.

  Vina dragged in a long, stuttering breath, lifting her chin high. She bit her trembling lip. “I’m fine,” she rasped out. “I just really love this stuff.”

  Rike chuckled and pulled Ram’s mate in for a hug. “Thank you for helping me plan this.”

  “It’s my honor. I get another girl in the Clan, and Rike, she’s amazing. Just watching the change in you…in your smile… You made me really happy when you asked me to help you plan this day for her. You done good. Oh! God, we have to go,” she exclaimed, pulling out her phone and checking the time. “T minus five minutes until she gets here. I put a tracker on her car.”

  Rike laughed. Of course, Vina did. “Fuckin’ outlaw,” he muttered, following her out of his room and to the stairs.

  Rike made his way out the front door, smoothing the wrinkles from his black T-shirt and black jeans. He wasn’t much for suits, but he’d worn his best wallet chain and new black boots. It was fitting, him in all black, and his beauty in all white. He was a demon but, somehow, he’d caught an angel.