Page 22 of Queen Crow
Jesus H. Christ.
The Coyote looks over at Lips and pulls his shirt up a little to show me the scar on his stomach. “They’re lucky the Boar’s the one doing the shooting; the Jackal used to insist on it being in your gut. The Wolf and I have matching scars, twinsies.”
And now there are three murderous looking guys standing around us, poised and ready to rip someone to shreds at the very idea of Lips being in that ring while bleeding from her stomach, thanks to the Jackal’s obsession with her.
Luca wins his fight in under a minute, efficient and brutal, walking with barely more than a limp to grab a seat afterwards and bind up the wound.
Lucy takes a little longer, but there’s none of her usual showmanship, she just takes the guy out and gets out of the ring, sitting with Luca and allowing him to wrap her up as well.
I lose interest in the rest of the fights, mostly because none of the men are who I would want sitting at the table with the Twelve, but they’re also not a threat to us.
None of them are a ticking time bomb.
Chapter Seven
As if there hasn’t been enough fighting and bloodshed for us all this week, there's an argument the afternoon after the Game about who is taking Lips and I over to the Coyote's bunker for the information debrief.
I end it by calling Aodhan to come pick us up to leave the guys behind.
Harley and Morrison accept this easily enough, bickering on their way back to sleep off their hangovers, but Ash is relentless in his anger at this entire mess we're stuck in for now.
I'm fairly certain that Lips bribes him with sexual favors to leave us alone, but I refuse to question or comment on it. Some things are better left alone.
We stand out on the front steps together, muttering between us away from the meddling ears of the guys, and I spot the tour bus still sitting like an eyesore in front of my garage, the one that’s full of Ash’s cars. There’s scratches down one side, as though it side-swiped a building, and one of the back lights has been busted.
“When exactly is Morrison planning on moving that ugly thing? It’s bringing down the value of the entire neighborhood sitting there. What the hell happened to it anyway?”
Lips winces and then looks over at me for a second like she's assessing me. Not in a way that pisses me off, not at all, because it's a very protective sort of look, like she's planning out killing everyone who has ever dared to look sideways at me, as a tribute to our friendship. It's why she has always, and will always, be the best friend I could ever have hoped for.
"We haven't gotten it completely unpacked yet. I'll get it sorted as soon as we have a second to breathe."
I nod as the Impala's lights hit the front gate, Aodhan leaning out to key in his code and use his thumbprint for the two-factor security I now have. "There's no rush if it's your things; if it were Morrison's, I'd be marching back upstairs and waking the petulant asshole back up."
She scoffs out a laugh, the rough tones of it singing to me after months of not hearing it in person. "Even Ash got pissy at how messy he was on the bus. There was an incident with a jacket being used as... you know what, you don't want to know. I'll sort the bus out, I just need to figure something out first."
I'm not sure what she could have to figure out but I nod and step forward to the Impala, stopping only when Aodhan gets out and frowns at me for daring to think about opening the car door for myself.
Lips makes this ridiculous cooing noise at us both, like we’re adorable or something, and I glare my most severe glare at her. It bounces off of her, probably because she became immune to them in our freshman year of high school, and she slides into the backseat, laughing.
Aodhan raises an eyebrow at me, his wolfish grin melting my panties as he opens the door for me. I lean forward and press a quick kiss onto those lips. “I need new friends. After all of the boy bullshit I’ve put up with for her—”
“You threatened your brother’s dick for two years! You told Harley last week that if you caught him looking at my ass again, you’d stick your knife through his eyeball,” Lips calls out, and Aodhan laughs as I slide into the front passenger seat.
“Of course I did! But that’s beside the point, I did that to them, not to you! I feel betrayed.”
She rolls her eyes at me, pulling out her phone and very probably texting those idiot boys to moon over them because she’s just as obsessed with them as they are with her. “I didn’t say a word! I’m happy you’re out here, living your best life and breaking Ash into a million pieces with your obsession with two men he has sworn to hate forevermore.”
I turn to look at her in my chair. “Did you really just say ‘forevermore’ to me? Who the hell are you and what have you done with Eclipse middle-name-redacted Anderson?”
She glares at me, her best Mounty crime lord glare, as Aodhan slides in and tries his best to ignore the two of us sniping at each other. “Blaise keeps rubbing it in his face, I can’t help that his dramatics have sunk in. Honestly, I’m so fucking sick of hearing about the two of you and having to remind Ash that Aodhan is off-limits. He needs a goddamn hobby or I’m going to kill him… or myself, really.”
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. “You need to spend less time with them, you really are getting dramatic. Besides, we can find him a hobby. It would be nice if it was of the killing-our-enemies variety.”
Aodhan gets us out onto the road and flying down the highway in no time, his hand on my thigh only disappearing when he shifts gears. I spend the time looking through the security footage of Senator Blakeley, keeping an eye on Lips’ oldest brother now that we know he’s got a price on his head.
The more I look into him, the more shady people I find gunning for him. I know he wants to clean the streets up and rid the world of men like Grimm, but he’s certainly making it hard to keep him alive for the rest of us.
I send a group of Atticus’ men to DC to neutralize some more threats. I’m sure he’ll hate that, but it only makes it a better plan.