Crowned Crows of Thorne Point: A Dark New Adult Romantic Suspense

by Veronica Eden

  Holy fuck.

  Wren was powerful in a suit Friday night, but like this, in nothing but workout shorts clinging to his hips? His domineering broad frame nearly blocks the path between the hedges and my heart beats faster for an entirely different reason.

  “Fuck you.” The bitten off words leave me before I can think, my teeth bared.

  A deep, amused sound rolls through him. Unlike Colton, it’s not playful. On Wren it sounds dangerous like a live wire dancing too close to a body of water. It pierces through me, setting my blood on fire. I lick my lips and swallow at the rush of heat and want that bowls me over.

  “Mouthy, are we?” The humor drops away as the hint of a sinister growl edges into his tone. “That won’t do.”

  He herds me with ease, using his massive body to his advantage. I have no choice but to stumble until the hedges poke into my back. He follows, keeping me caged with his grip on my arms, bringing his hard chest close so he can feel each rapid heave of mine.

  The scent of him encompasses me—a crisp aftershave and the musk of his sweat. The alluring combination is heady and leaves me lightheaded. Or maybe that’s the rush of adrenaline from being chased and caught. My pulse flutters in my neck as we stare each other down.

  “Why are you trespassing?” Wren demands, warm breath fanning over my cheek.

  “Trespassing? Come on, you have half the damn campus here every weekend.” I shudder when he pins me to the hedge, feeling his growl at my backtalk. “Back off.”

  “No.” His clipped response orders me to obey.

  I struggle against his grip just to prove I’m not like the obedient woman who sat on his lap last weekend. The curve of his mouth brushes against the side of my face and he nips my skin. I startle and fight against the throb of desire in my clit. Why does he make me feel like this?

  “Answer the question,” he grits out.

  “And if I don’t?”

  When I tip my chin up defiantly he takes it as invitation to graze his nose down my throat, inhaling. My swallow is thick and the exhale I push out is shaky from the feel of his lips teasing my skin. The chill in the air has been chased away.

  Towering over me again, Wren grasps my jaw firm enough to let me know he’s the one in control right now. “Just answer the goddamn question, Rowan.”

  Another burst of heat races down my spine to coil low in my stomach. His icy eyes are hard and expectant. I’m not getting out of this without doing what he wants first.

  “You said you’d help. It’s almost been a week.” I hate how wobbly my voice becomes. His expression doesn’t change and I sigh. “I came to make sure you were looking for Ethan.”

  His sharp jaw shifts. “Curious little kitten. You’re not the only person who has our favor. Others actually pay the price we require.”

  My head jerks, the branches behind me catching on my braid. His hand goes to the back of my head to untangle my hair from the hedge.

  “It’s already been two months since he left and I have no idea where he is. Can’t you—” I shake my head. “Just drop the other stuff if it’s not life and death.”

  “On the contrary. I’m very good at multitasking.”

  I frown at his arrogance, giving him a disbelieving once over. How is this pompous asshole my last shot at finding my brother?

  My attention lingers for too long on the barbell in his nipple. A smoky chuckle from him snaps me out of it, but the look on his face says caught you. Heat flushes my cheeks and he speaks against my ear.

  “You think you could handle me, kitten?” He pulls back, looking me up and down with a feral smirk. “I’d break you in half.”

  The words should piss me off but they don’t. God, they don’t. Instead they steal my breath and make my knees weaken with the desire to fall to them before him.

  Wren knows it, too. Those blue eyes burn into me as he traces his lower lip with his tongue.

  My breath hitches when his weight presses me into the hedge. This time it’s a sweet sort of pain when the branches poke me because his lips hover just over mine. He drags his big palms down my sides, grasping my waist. Those gym shorts do nothing to hide the hard length digging into my stomach.

  A strained gasp escapes me. Jesus. Maybe he would break me.

  There’s barely an inch of space between his mouth and mine. I want him to close it. My tongue darts out to swipe my lip in anticipation.

  The faint buzzing from before returns somewhere overhead, then drifts away. It makes him stiffen.

  Cool air runs across my overheated body when he takes a step back. Confusion clouds me and I almost reach out to pull his warm, firm muscles against me once more. I stop myself at the last second, thank god. There’s hope to salvage my tattered self respect. Because the next words out of his mouth snuff out the last of the fire simmering beneath my skin, leaving me cold.

  “Time for you to go.”

  “I—are you serious?” I fold my arms and his brow arches slightly.

  “Deadly.”

  My brows pinch. “You’re a complete dick.”

  “I am. Let’s go.”

  Wren takes my elbow and steers me out of the maze. He knows the way, like he’s walked the overgrown pathways a hundred times.

  I can’t believe I was ready to kiss him.

  “Are you going to press charges for trespassing?” I sass, giving in to the urge to be bratty.

  His profile is an immovable statue, but there’s a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. “No.” He rakes his teeth over his lip. “But don’t think I’ll let it slide if I catch you a second time, kitten.”

  The itch to challenge him more rises up, but I shove it down for now.

  Outside of the hedge maze, his friends wait for us. Jude and Levi seem bored, but I think it’s an act because their attention remains locked on Wren’s controlling grip on my arm. Colton has his phone out and a small drone hovers above his head.

  I gasp. It emits the same buzz I heard. That was how they were able to track and herd me.

  Colton winks and gives me the lopsided smile I’m beginning to recognize as his signature flirty one. “You give good chase, babe. That was clever with the stick, but…” He waves his phone at me. “Well, let’s just say next time we play, we’re doing it for real.”

  “Shame we couldn’t catch you.” Jude tilts his head so his sleek hair swoops over his forehead. His hands are the ones that shot through the hedge to spook me. “Bet it would’ve been fun.”

  The fingers above my elbow tighten. It’s an almost possessive hold on me.

  “Take her home.” Wren releases me with a shove that sends me stumbling before I catch my balance.

  “Hey! You can’t just order me around,” I shout at his stupid sexy retreating back. I can barely make out the tattoos, but I see black bird wings and a skull. It spans his shoulder blades and wraps around his neck. “What about my brother? What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing,” Wren says curtly without turning. His hand flexes into a fist at his side, veins prominent in his forearm. “Not until you learn to do as you’re told. Otherwise, I’ll demand more payment than you’re willing to give. I’ll start with every secret you have, and that’ll just be the beginning.”

  I stiffen as a wave of indignation crashes over me. Fighting the way he wants to control me—against the danger he exudes gives me a rush, but it can’t happen. I won’t let it.

  Almost kissing him earlier was a mistake. I need him to find my brother and that’s it.

  The heavy implication of his words hit me. He has to be bluffing to see if I’ll fall into his trap. It didn’t seem like he knew I was lying about my secrets.

  An arm drops over my shoulders, drawing me out of my fuming thoughts. Levi has left and only the other two remain.

  “Come on.” Colton squeezes me in a half-hug that calms me down. He sweeps his arm grandly toward the row of expensive cars in the terrace. “I’ll let you pick which ride we take.”

  I perk up at the thought
of the motorcycles zipping through the streets. “Can I drive?”

  Jude barks out a laugh. “Not a chance. Levi would carve you up for touching them.”

  “Seriously?” I purse my lips and drag my feet as they lead me over. “You guys suck. I hate you all. But especially him.”

  “Nobody really likes him, so it’s cool.” Humor laces Colton’s tone. “I don’t even think he likes himself most days.”

  The pang that hits me in the chest takes me by surprise. I smother any sympathy. Wren Thorne is just a jerk on a power trip.

  Once the Crows help me find Ethan, I don’t have to see him ever again.

  Eight

  Wren

  After a shower, I still feel the phantom shape of Rowan’s soft curves against my body. I scrub my skin with a towel until it’s raw, getting an unrelenting rule over the attraction to her. Nothing breaks my control, but she tempted me tonight.

  She’s business. Nothing more. I won’t forget it again.

  When I rejoin the guys in the main lounge, I ignore the pointed stares from Levi and Jude and an unsubtle cough from Colt.

  “Ask for his,” Jude says with a smirk.

  I know that look can’t mean anything good. Whatever’s about to come out of Colt’s mouth is either going to get my fist to his stomach or get him thrown out of here for the night. I understand how their minds work from knowing them all so long.

  “Ask for my what?” I drop onto the couch at the opposite end from Levi.

  “Your go to softener.” Colt spreads his knees wide, slouching on the cushions. His hand rests on his crotch, gripping suggestively as his voice lilts. “Y’know, you’re all hot and ready but the timing’s not right. Gotta pull it back with something. What’s your softener?” He appears thoughtful for a beat. “Mine’s thinking of my mom’s tiny pomeranian taking a shit. For such a small butthole, it produces so much.”

  I roll my eyes and throw the pillow beneath my arm without answering. It catches him in the face and a low chuckle rolls through me.

  Levi snorts. “Told you. That’s what you get. I swear, you’ve got a death wish.”

  “Not as much as you do, you angst ridden knife boy,” Colt shoots back with an unrepentant crooked smile, squeezing the pillow between his hands.

  Levi grins wide and menacing, producing one of the blades he always keeps on him with a lightning quick flick of his wrist. The corner of my mouth kicks up and I shake my head. Only when I’m with them can I catch these fractions of normalcy where I forget for a minute that the darkness is waiting to drag me back under.

  They’re all I have left. These three are the ones who keep me from completely succumbing to the empty shell of myself.

  “No permanent marks, Lev.” I glance between him and Colton with a sly smirk. “What would he have to lure the girls in if you carve up his pretty face?”

  “My charm, obviously.” Colt remains cocky, unfazed by the threat of bodily harm by his best friends. He’s used to the way we bust each other’s balls. “Plus, my tongue will still work and they always scream when I use it, so.”

  To drive his point home, he wags his tongue at us, playing with the silver ball piercing. Jude laughs at Colt’s smug expression.

  “Guess I’ll have to start with that.” Levi cocks his head, tracing the tip of his blade over his lip. “I’ll pin it to my wall for a souvenir.”

  Colt claps a hand over his mouth, then over his dick for good measure. Levi chuckles, darting his tongue out to taste the knife. Colt flattens his brows and flips Levi off as best as he can while protecting his favorite parts of himself. A rare genuine laugh punches out of me.

  “I know you love those more than you love anything, but that can’t be sanitary,” Jude says.

  A muted notification bell from the corner of the room snags my attention. The code has stopped scrolling on the monitor.

  My amusement fades. “Did your search finish?”

  “Yeah, looks like it.” Colt bumps his fist against Jude’s shoulder and goes to his chair, throwing himself into it so he spins around. What he finds snuffs out his cocky mood. Squinting at the screen, he rubs his jaw and hums. “I can’t find him in the usual network as Dolos.”

  Colton is our eyes and ears when it comes to all things tech. The internet is his domain, so he chose an alias of the Greek god of trickery and cunning deception.

  I rise from the couch to watch over Colt’s shoulder with my arms crossed. The programming language means nothing to me, but it helps me feel ready in the face of the unknown.

  “What does that mean?” Jude asks.

  “That either Ethan Hannigan is very good at covering his tracks—” Colton pauses to toss a skeptical look over his shoulder. “—highly unlikely, the dude is a journalist not Jason Bourne. Or, someone else has wiped his digital footprint. And if that’s the case, they’re good. Like, as good as me good, because these search parameters should’ve pulled him no problem. There aren’t any recent credit card hits, no ATM withdrawals. It’s damn near impossible to operate one hundred percent on cash alone and avoid detection on some camera or another these days. I can’t even find when he left Ridgeview, but Fox told me he split last year.”

  An undercover freelance journalist digging into secrets has just as much at stake as an undercover cop. People kill for less.

  A troubled feeling settles in my chest. “Try a different strategy. I want to exhaust our available resources before we need to pull strings on this.”

  “Got it.”

  “That just leaves the sister,” Jude murmurs thoughtfully.

  I go still, cutting my gaze to Jude. My first instinct is to keep Rowan out of this, but she’s willful and challenging. She’s like a curious cat. Twice as stubborn, too. It stirs my need to control, to dominate. The temptation creeps in again, stroking alongside my attraction to tease it back to the surface.

  My fist closes around the phantom feeling of gripping her waist. Part of me wishes I didn’t send her away and gave into the desire to taste those plush lips, swallow her gasps. The way her body responded tonight… Maybe she could handle me. Breaking her would be a sinful pleasure.

  Christ, she needs to get out of my head so I can think straight.

  “We need more eyes on her to know more.” At my command, all of their heads snap up. I point at Colton. “Rearrange yours and Levi’s schedules. Take her classes.”

  Colt’s brows lift, but he doesn’t argue, pulling up a new window on the computer to do my bidding. Levi levels me with the same inquisitive stare he had in the gym earlier tonight. He can look at me until his pitch black eyes burn holes through my skin.

  This is for her own good. She’s lucky we felt generous tonight. If it had been anyone else trespassing, there would be very different consequences. We open the Crow’s Nest on weekends, but every other night it’s ours and ours alone.

  “And what about our guest?” Jude nods to the hall that leads to the room the frat boy is in.

  “That,” Colt says enthusiastically, “turned up a ton of results. You’ll love who his dad is golf buddies with.”

  Jude folds his hands behind his head. “Who?”

  “William Barlow,” Colt supplies with a waggle of his brows.

  Levi scoffs, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “The dean of Castlebrook College. Figures.”

  I exchange a glance with him and stroke my chin. It’s not a huge surprise that our delinquent captive is family friends with another man whose family dates back to the founders of Thorne Point. Connections get people everywhere in this city. William Barlow is well versed in mutual back scratching when problems arise for the young heirs.

  “What do we know?”

  “I’m so glad you asked, big guy.” Colt cracks his knuckles and taps his keys to pull up several windows of information, one a profile on the dean. “I did some mining and it turns out, Castlebrook has had some of its own heat lately. It’s against their chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha. Investigation’s still in progress and the fraternity
was put on probation. There was a hazing incident—the guys chased chicks dressed like bunnies across campus and—”

  I lean over and smack the back of his head when I sense his attention shifting. “Focus.”

  “Right.” Colt clears his throat and adjusts himself. “Softener thoughts.”

  “Pi Kappa Alpha. That’s the fraternity most of the school’s star rugby team belong to,” I say.

  “Same chapter as our friend.” The way Levi says friend is chilling. “What a coincidence.”

  “There’s no such thing,” Jude says.

  The two of them argue about whether or not coincidences are ever real for a minute while Colt motions me closer.

  “You know I like patterns,” he says.

  “Yes?”

  He points to a list on the left of the screen, mouth set in a disappointed frown. “If I trace transfer students between Castlebrook and here, the influx of female students is enough to make me wonder.”

  “Never a good thing.”

  He flashes me a brief smirk before it falls. His expression grows serious as he enters a keyboard shortcut. “A new girl transferred here in the last few weeks, accepted right before the probation. When I reversed the pattern there was only one female student who left Thorne Point.”

  It speaks volumes. People from all over the country do everything they can to scrape their way into Thorne Point University, but to leave is nearly unheard of. Especially to transfer to the rival school.

  With my gaze narrowed, I take in what Colt’s screens show us. “So what’s the dean doing about all of it?”

  “Hosting a dinner, apparently.” Colt hums as he hacks through the dean’s email through some backdoor he left the last time we needed to use him. Colt explained it to us once, but we don’t get how hacking works. “Highlighting outstanding members of the chapter. Looks like a networking thing. It’s this Friday at his residence on campus.”