For the Pride of a Crow (Red Dead Mayhem Book 3)

by T. S. Joyce

  “Hey!” Bailey said. Whoo, her eyes were blazing bright green and her cheeks had turned the color of a cherry.

  “I’m not talking about you, Bailey. You don’t count.”

  Ooooh, Bailey threw down her Slim Jim, and Ramsey was about to get bit. Rike was holding her back but just barely. “The fuck, man?” Rike defended his mate. “Yeah she does!”

  “Aw seriously? This is on you!” Ramsey yelled at Kade. “Here for thirty fuckin’ seconds and already you have one of my people pissed at me.”

  “Because you were an ass!” Bailey yelled. Whoo, her face was getting cherry red.

  Ramsey lunged at Kade, but Ethan shoved him back. “Look, look, look, look,” Ethan said, gripping Ramsey’s shirt. “Kade is me and Rike’s step-brother, so yeah, he’s with us. He’s family.”

  “I used to be family!” Ramsey yelled ripping out of Ethan’s grasp. “Me! I was your family. Remember that? Remember how fucked up you were after Lucian died? Who took you in? Who stuck their neck out for you? Who was there for you two every time you fucked up? And then what did you do? You lost faith in me and Challenged me.”

  “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “It was me, Ethan! You Challenged me!” Ramsey yelled, his face turning crimson. “You fought me. You hurt me!”

  “You weren’t the only person I cared about in Red Dead Mayhem!” Ethan blasted out, his voice going gravelly. “I loved you like a brother. You get that, right? If Rike was going crazy and hurting the people he loved with a broken bond, what would he ask me to do?”

  Ram shoved Ethan in the chest, and Ethan reacted instantly, grabbing his black T-shirt in an iron grip. “Huh? What would Rike have asked me to do?”

  “Put me down,” Rike answered for the Alpha.

  “It would gut me for the rest of my life if I did it, but I wouldn’t ask him to live with a broken mating bond, and I wouldn’t ask him to hurt all the people he cared about. I wouldn’t ask him to keep that as his fucking legacy. I would call him out. I did the same shit for you. Kasey killing Grant was the last straw for me, and I reacted. I made a decision I have to live with, and I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. But I didn’t know you would end up with Vina, or get better, and I didn’t want to watch my friends kill each other one by one just to keep you on the throne.”

  Ethan shoved Ramsey away and ran his hands through the longer hair on top of his head. “I came here to ask forgiveness, for me and for the Clan I stole from you. I’m asking for their place back under you because I can’t be the Alpha you were to them. I know what I’m capable of, and I have Lucian in my head telling me to kill. Kill, kill, kill, that’s all I fucking hear from morning until night, and I can’t put other people under me if I think there is even a chance of me going crazy and taking them with me. Vina has you steady. She has you healthy. She has you back to being a mother-fucking beast and completely capable. Please, just…put Red Dead Mayhem back together.”

  The silence was so thick Leah could barely draw a breath.

  Ramsey looked from face to face and, finally, he twitched his head. Slowly, one by one, all the bikers made their way quietly to stand behind him except for three.

  Leah.

  Ethan.

  And Kade.

  The snarling wolf shifter came to stand on Ethan’s other side, arms crossed over his barrel chest. Then he peeled the Lone Wolf patch off his leather cut and threw it on the ground between the toes of Ethan and Ramsey’s boots. “We need permission.” A long snarl rattled his throat again, and he shook his head. “Or not,” he growled. “I’ll fuckin’ fight all of y’all, and we can take the entire territory.”

  “Should I pull my pocket knife out now?” Leah whispered to Ethan.

  “No,” he whispered back. “No one will hurt you.”

  “Well duh, I’m adorable. I meant so I can protect you and Kade.”

  Kade let off a single, empty laugh. Leah leaned forward to look at him on the other side of Ethan, but Lucian caught her attention. He was on Kade’s other side, grinning at her with that gory face, no teeth, and blood dribbling down his chin. Tic Tac Toe, four psychos in a row. They were definitely the worst Clan in the whole world.

  “I think this is a bad idea,” Ethan said low to Kade.

  “Bad ideas are the best ideas,” Kade said.

  “I’m going to be a terrible Alpha.”

  “Even better. Perfection is for suckers.”

  “Did you miss the part where I have a ghost telling me to kill everything?”

  “Sounds like a party to me.”

  “Why do you want to pledge to me?” Ethan asked in a baffled tone.

  “Because I’ve watched you for a long time. You were born with bad blood, but you try to stay good. And maybe I need to learn to stay good, too. If you got a ghost problem, I can help.” Kade tipped his head toward Leah. “And she can help, too.”

  “You change into a wolf for three days at a time and you’ve chewed through half of Ma’s house. And listen to yourself. You can’t stop snarling.”

  “You’re a Blackwood Crow who sees dead people,” Kade retorted simply.

  “Touché,” Leah whispered.

  “I feel like this is a terrible idea,” Ramsey said, frowning thoughtfully at them. “I like it. Permission granted. You can set up a Clan in the same territory. Stay off our toes and we’ll stay off yours.”

  My toes are painted purple, Leah mouthed to Bailey.

  Bailey pointed to her black leather boots, and her lips formed the words, Mine, too.

  Leah loved having a best friend.

  Everyone started dispersing after that, and this was the part where her new biker Clan was supposed to mount their motorcycles in unison like badasses and ride into the sunset as everyone else watched them in awe. But what really happened was she tripped on a rock on the way to Ethan’s bike and he barely caught her and Kade sauntered into the woods without saying goodbye. Ethan yelled, “How the fuck did you even get here?” after him, but the werewolf didn’t reply. And then as Leah was trying to buckle her helmet, she pinched her chin-skin in it so hard, her eyes watered from the pain. And then finally Ethan drove them out of the lumber yard in a cloud of the other Clan’s dust and exhaust fumes. She coughed a lot.

  Ramsey had said this was probably a terrible idea, and he was probably right.

  But as Leah hugged Ethan tighter around the middle and watched Lucian’s grody ghost blur by, she was already planning out a Clan logo in her head.

  Because every questionable decision deserved matching T-shirts.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Son of a biscuit eater,” Leah whispered. She winced at the cut on her finger where red welled all along the gash and spilled out the side.

  The front door opened just as she was reaching for a clean rag in the kitchen drawer beside her.

  “Leah?” Ethan called.

  “In the kitchen!”

  She hissed as she gripped the rag around her finger. “I might need stitches,” she said as he ambled in and set his tool belt on one of the bar stools by the island.

  His dark eyebrows furrowed as he made his way to her. “What did you do?” he asked as he peeled back the rag.

  “I swear I put that knife over there by the sink, but I just leaned onto the counter to take off my shoes and the knife was right there.” She frowned at the blade. She didn’t remember setting it on the island at all. It was weird.

  Ethan shook his head and laughed. “Good grief, woman, I need a camera on you to see when you injure yourself.”

  “Ha, ha,” she said sarcastically.

  “I don’t think you need stitches. It’s already slowed down on bleeding. You humans sure have fragile skin.”

  “Well, turn me into a crow and maybe I’ll bleed less.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. Not for crows. We’re one of the only shifters that can’t Turn anyone.” He pulled a first-aid kit out from under the sink.

  “Good call on putting one of tho
se in every room.”

  When he glanced up from ripping into a disinfectant wipe, he stunned her. His eyes were bright blue. They were even brighter with his dark hair hanging in front of his face. His smile was so easy to see when his beard was short like this.

  “You’re the most handsome man in the whole world,” she murmured dreamily.

  “You’ve apparently started drinking early today.”

  “I mean it. Ouch!” she yelped as he cleaned her cut. “I’m serious. I have the biggest crush on you, and I think you’re so cute.”

  Ethan pulled her bleeding finger into his mouth and sucked on it gently, offered her a wicked smile and, ooooh, it didn’t hurt anymore. It felt good. His tongue against her skin was really nice. He guided her backward with a firm hand on her hip. When he kissed her wrist, up her arm to the inside of her elbow, her body caught on fire. With every kiss, every touch, the kitchen lights grew brighter and brighter until she had to close her eyes against them. She melted into him with a soft whimper.

  Ethan’s lips found hers, and as he moved against her, his tongue stroking her bottom lip with every pass, he unfastened her jeans and shoved them down her legs.

  She wasn’t even clumsy as she kicked out of them, and in one smooth motion, he lifted her onto the counter. Sometimes his strength surprised her. To her, he was just Ethan, but he was a powerful creature that was so much more than human.

  When he gripped the back of her hair and tipped her chin up, sucked hard on her throat, her whimper turned to a moan.

  “Noisy woman, telling me what you like,” he murmured on her skin. “It’s so damn sexy.”

  Oooh, she could feel his teeth on her neck. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders to keep him there and squeezed her knees against his hips.

  Roughly, he dragged her forward. Thank you whoever built this house and made the countertops Ethan-dick height.

  The jingle of his belt sounded, and she writhed against him. His lips crashed onto hers, and he cupped her sex before pushing two fingers into her. His movements were decisive and powerful. They were urgent, as if he needed her right now, right this moment. And she got it. She was there, too.

  His fingers slid into her deeper, and the palm of his hand pressed against her clit. Desperation took her as she ground against his hand and set a faster pace. She didn’t want slow tonight. She wanted him rough and hard.

  Ethan pulled his fingers from her and guided her forward, slid the head of his cock into her. He eased out of her, and then gripped her hips hard as he pushed his thick shaft deep into her. “Oh my God,” she gasped as he rammed into her again.

  She held on as tight as she could. The harder she held him, the deeper he stayed and the better the friction between them.

  “Fuck, yes, Leah,” he ground out as he scraped the papers off the counter behind her. He shoved her back but cupped her head before it hit the counter. He climbed up onto the counter with her.

  By the time he pushed her legs back apart and rammed into her again, she was lost. She was utterly gone to the world that existed outside of her and Ethan and their bodies slamming together.

  When she cried out, “Harder!” he lowered to her chest, wrapped his arm around her back, and bucked into her so deep and so fast she couldn’t keep up. All she could do was let him take her like he wanted. Powerful man, pounding her faster and harder until she was screaming his name, her body shattering around him.

  Ethan shoved up her shirt while pulling out of her, took himself in his hand, and stroked himself hard.

  Leah was still mid-orgasm, so she reached between her legs and pushed a finger into herself to draw out the aftershocks.

  “Yes,” he growled out, jerking himself off while he watched her hand between her legs. “Uuuuh,” he groaned as the first warm jet shot out of him and sprayed her stomach. “Fffffffuck.” Streams of cum covered her until he knelt over her panting and twitching. “Mine,” he said.

  Ethan leaned down and kissed her throbbing lips gently and then trailed down to her claw mark scars and kissed those, too. When he eased back, he said it again. “You’re mine.”

  And God, what a feeling that was. To belong to someone. For him to belong to her in return.

  She’d waited her whole life to feel like this.

  She smiled up at him in awe of what he’d given her.

  For the first time in her whole life, Leah felt whole.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ethan had made her a secret garden. Okay, it was more like he had tamed the weed jungle behind the house and set up some lawn chairs, a fire pit, and one long, plastic lounge chair so she could lay out in the sun on her time off work. But she was calling it a secret garden.

  Leah leaned over and grabbed a canned margarita from the ice bucket and popped the top, shoved her bright red sunglasses farther up her nose, and took a swig. She felt fine as fuck right now in her matching red bikini she’d gotten in town on clearance for $7.99.

  “None of this makes sense,” she muttered to herself, glaring at the crossword puzzle she’d filled out.

  “That’s because you’re terrible at those, just like you are terrible at everything else in life,” Lucian said.

  With a yelp, Leah startled hard and spilled her canned margarita down the front of her chest.

  He had appeared out of nowhere and was standing just across the firepit, not moving or blinking. His eyes were black and his beard was shorter, like Ethan’s was now. They looked so alike, it was unsettling.

  Wiping the sugary yum-juice off her teats with a purple beach towel, she said, “You aren’t really one to judge. I haven’t heard a single good thing about you.”

  The ghost didn’t react. He just kept standing there staring at her with those pure black eyes.

  Ethan would be home any minute, thank goodness. Lucian was upping his creepy points lately.

  In fact…

  “What are you even doing here? Ethan isn’t here,” she murmured as chills lifted on her arms.

  Jerkily, the ghost made his way to the chair beside her and sat down.

  The chair creaked.

  What the hell? Leah froze in terror. Why would the chair make a noise under his weight? He was a ghost, not a solid person. “You’re not real,” she said in a trembling voice.

  A slow, feral smile spread across Lucian’s face, and he reached out his fingertips toward her. “Feel.”

  Over and over she shook her head, too terrified to move.

  “Feel,” he gritted out, his face twisting with fury.

  “This isn’t real, this isn’t real,” she chanted as she reached her shaking fingers toward him. She would just go straight through him. Straight through him. He wasn’t real.

  But when her fingers landed on his, there was cold, clammy skin.

  She shrieked and kicked off the ground, shoving herself backward, panicking. Leah fell over the furniture and landed hard in the dirt. Terrified, she struggled for purchase on the ground and then sprinted for the house as fast as her legs could carry her.

  Lucian’s laughter followed her, rattling around inside her head and blocking out every other noise. She glanced back, horrified to find a huge pitch-black crow flying straight for her. And when she turned around, she ran right into a solid brick wall. Ethan.

  “Ethan!” she shrieked. “He’s here. He’s real!”

  He grabbed her shoulders and steadied her. “Who’s here?”

  “Lucian. He’s! I touched him and he made the chair creak and I think he moved the knife last night and—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, look. Nobody is here, baby. It’s just you and me.”

  She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t breathe. Scanning the yard, she gripped onto his shirt and shook her head. “No. No, he was right behind me and he was real. I touched him.”

  “Okay,” Ethan murmured, pulling her against his chest. “It’s okay, I promise. Everything will be okay.”

  “You don’t believe me,” she whispered, “do you?”

&
nbsp; “Shhhh. Stop that. We’re a team. I do believe you. I do.” He pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and connected a call. “Ma? Hey, do you mind if we crash at your house for a couple of days?”

  Leah could just barely hear the voice on the other end.

  “Of course. What’s going on?”

  Ethan sighed heavily and searched the yard, hugged Leah tighter. “Lucian’s getting stronger.”

  ****

  “Woman, how many nail-polishes did you pack? We’re only gonna be over there for a couple of nights,” Ethan muttered, taking his eyes off the road just long enough to cast a frown at the dozen or so colors she was lining up in her lap.

  “Well, what if me and your mom want to do matching manicures and want a different color on each finger?”

  Ethan laughed and rolled his eyes heavenward. He did that a lot, but he always did it while he was smiling, so she was pretty sure he thought she was cute.

  Leah chirped up, “Bailey and Rike are going to be there tonight, too.”

  “How do you know?”

  She explained matter-of-factly, “Because Bailey told me Ramsey got mad and kicked her and Rike out of the clubhouse for a night because she accidentally spilled glitter glue on the bar top downstairs when she was making the new club members presents. It was pink glitter glue. So now we get to have a giant slumber party.”

  “Hmmm,” he said in a distracted tone. “Did you really mean it when you gave me squeeze cheese?”

  “Heeeeeell, yeah! You’re my boo, and I’m going to have your babies. Keep that squeeze cheese can forever.” She scooped the nail polishes into her overnight bag and rested her head on the seat back. “It’s a token of my love.”

  “You really love me?”

  “Of course, I do. Can’t you feel it?”

  “Yeah,” he said in a baffled tone as he slid his hand over her leg. He gripped the steering wheel of her dad’s old truck tighter and stared at the road passing under the headlights. It was raining, so they’d taken the truck instead of the Harley. “I can feel it. I just don’t understand how you can.”

  “It’s easy. You’re good to me. Sweet and steady, and you never make me feel ignored. You’re hot as a fire and have muscles and tattoos and ride a motorcycle. I never had a type before really, but then you came along, and it’s you. Only you. You’re my type. But your insides are even more handsome than your outsides.”