Page 29 of Queen Crow
“Who else do we want to win? I only know about blondie and the dickhead, the rest of them just look like wannabe gangsters and biker assholes,” Harley says as we pull off the highway and start down the small winding road to the clearing.
I sigh dramatically, mostly because it’s very frustrating to me that we couldn’t hold off replacing the Bear until another round of the Game, giving ourselves another chance at picking out new candidates. “There’s only six people left so other than our two, there’s a couple of the Boar’s men and one each from the Fox and the Ox. None of them raise red flags, other than the fact that we don’t own them, so it’s not anything worth worrying over. We just need our two to win.”
He nods and scans the busy dirt road, leaning forward in his seat as if that will suddenly clear the path to where we’re heading. There’s too many people eager to see who’s going to win this thing and take their seats at the table, too many people who want to see where the power is going to shift in the Bay.
There’s been a lot of interest in who is going to end up running the skin auctions and the drugs now that they’ve been taken down. While I don’t have as strong a stance on drugs as Lips does, there’s no way on this Earth that we’re going to let the auctions start up again.
Not any of us, and for sure not the Butcher, the man responsible for killing the Vulture and shutting them down in the first place. If the third winner even shows an interest in taking them over, he’s dead. It’s that simple.
The Bay will not be known as the place to buy girls anymore, if it’s the last goddamn thing I do.
When we finally make it to the clearing, Harley jumps out and comes around the car to help me out, waiting as I lock away my phone and check all of my concealment spots for the weapons I have on myself now. I’m also in Kevlar and wearing enough rings that if I have to take a swing at someone they’re going to feel the worst I have to throw at them.
Lips has certainly rubbed off on me.
Then we walk through the forest together, using nothing but the moonlight to light the way.
There’s men all around us, joking and talking among themselves, but falling silent if we get too close to them. Harley stays close to my side, glaring around at everyone like he’s going to rip them limb from limb for breathing too closely to us.
When we get to the edge of the clearing, there’s a check-in point, the same as last time, and even though there’s no doubt of who we are, the guy standing there waves his UV torch over us anyway.
The Wolf on my wrist glows.
So do the snarling Wolf jaws across Harley’s cheeks, and I enjoy watching the men around us gulp at the very sight of it, the mark not only showing he belongs to the Wolf but that she favors him.
He’s hers to keep.
The guy waves us through, swallowing a little roughly but otherwise his confidence is unshaken. Harley smirks at me, and I have to rein in the scoff I want to give him.
“Nothing better than the whole fucking lot of them knowing she’s mine. Nothing better than them all shaking in their fucking boots about the little Mounty girl of their nightmares, and she’s all fucking mine,” he murmurs, and I elbow him gently.
“Sure… yours and Morrison’s and my brother’s. Good thing she’s just as fucking besotted as you are, you sap.”
He grins and flicks the little platinum cage swinging around my neck, the forest-green diamond clear for everyone to see. “Must run in the family then, right? I wonder how he knew that blood diamonds literally make you squeal like you’re about to… gross, never mind.”
I laugh at the way his nose scrunches up in disgust right as we come up to find the large crowd gathering to watch the chaos of tonight’s events unfold. We find Morrison standing off to one side with the other higher ranking flunkies, and we walk over to join him.
Ash is standing with Lips, both of them looking as though they’ve been dragged through the forest floor on their knees, the mud spatters reaching their chests. Ash is in a pair of dark jeans, biker boots, and a black tee that’s stretched tight across his chest, like he has something to prove here. Without a doubt, Harley and Morrison will be giving him shit about it later.
Lips is wearing her usual Mounty wear, complete with her beloved cherry Docs that have definitely seen more than their fair share of bloodshed and gore.
I really should force a new pair onto her.
There’s murmuring around the clearing, a shifting unease rippling through the men all standing around, and then Aodhan appears, stalking through the trees and looking as dirty as the others.
His eyes meet mine and he doesn’t smile at me, not here in front of all of these witnesses, but when he inclines his head at me as a sign of respect, my heart flutters in my chest.
He’s never seen me as anything but an equal and in this space, he’s happy to show it to every last man, woman, and child of the Bay.
It’s not fair of me to hold that over Atticus, not after everything he’s done to help me over the years. The list of his sins in my name gets longer and longer the more I learn about his life as the Crow, but there’s some part of me who will always crave this. Crave the open acknowledgement that I’ve built a name for myself and an entire ruthless empire of my own.
For myself and my family.
One by one, each of the remaining members of the Twelve arrive until we’re all standing around the clearing, just waiting for the final Game to start.
Aodhan comes to stand with me, his hand slipping into mine discreetly, and I appreciate it because a moment later the flare goes up, signaling the beginning. The last time we were here, I was so busy cataloging everything happening around us, trying to make out who was here and who could be an asset for us, that it didn’t really soak in what was happening.
Lips was once buried in one of those graves, told to dig her way out, and kill anyone she came across to win her spot. Aodhan and Atticus too, of course, but there’s something so much more horrifying to me about Lips doing it.