by T. S. Joyce
FOR THE BLOOD OF A CROW
(RED DEAD MAYHEM, BOOK 2)
By T. S. JOYCE
For the Blood of a Crow
Copyright © 2018 by T. S. Joyce
Copyright © 2018, T. S. Joyce
First electronic publication: June 2018
T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoyce.com
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America.
Cover Image: Wander Aguiar
Cover Model: Jonny James
Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten(Ten)
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Up Next in this Series
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Chapter One
Rike Blackwood was hovering. He couldn’t help himself. His Alpha, Ramsey, had said Vina was queen, so…she was queen.
And it wasn’t just blind loyalty that made him want to help her with whatever she needed. Vina was a good queen for Red Dead Mayhem. She’d fixed Ramsey…kind of. He was still a fucked-up monster, but that was the way of things for crows. No shifter got away with “normal,” as was apparent from the thousands of people gathered in the small town of Darby, Montana, who were trying to catch a glimpse of a crow shifters. It was fame that none of the Clan had ever wanted. Now that the public knew about them, life would be even harder.
“Rike, can you see if the caterers need help bringing stuff inside?” Vina asked him low, her soft brown eyes rimmed with the glowing whiskey color of her inner moose. She was stressed. He could feel it coming off her in waves, and it made him want to find the reason for her discomfort, and kill it. He had no idea how Ramsey could look so calm and collected as a tall man with a toupee threaded a small microphone under his black Harley Davidson T-shirt and clipped it to the fabric at his throat.
“Anything you need,” Rike murmured to her, squeezing her shoulder gently. “He’ll be okay. Look at him. His eyes are blue, and he looks steady enough. Just stay close to him and keep him pointed in the right direction.” He turned to leave, but stopped. “Oh, and Vina?”
“Yeah?” she asked in a rush, her cheeks flushed, as she brought her clipboard with the mile-long to-do list to her chest.
“Keep him from killing an interviewer on live television today, okay?”
“Ha!” she said way too loud. A few people turned and looked at them with matching frowns. “Okay, I’m sure I’ll be really successful stopping the King of Crows from doing anything he wants to. Murder included.”
But she was looking at her mate like he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. That was love right there. Good girl falling for the bad boy and having his back always. God, Rike wanted that someday, but such things weren’t meant for trouble like him. He would ruin a girl. So this was it. He would watch Ramsey accept his happiness, and it would be enough. And when Vina gave him sons? Rike would pledge his fealty to them, just like he had their father.
Rike gave her a reassuring smile. “You pulled him off a kill in an Alpha Challenge, V. You have much more power than you realize. I’ll be back in a minute. Come get me if you need anything.”
“Okay,” she whispered, nodding jerkily. She looked so nervous, and his urge to protect the first lady of Red Dead Mayhem intensified. He needed to get out of here and do what she’d asked of him.
This was going to be a long-ass day. Maybe the longest of his life. Three days ago, Ramsey had promised to start press interviews here if they gave the Red Dead Mayhem Clan time to prepare. The onslaught of the public, who had recently gained knowledge of shifters’ existence, had hit the MC like a hurricane. The attention was suffocating.
He made his way through the chaos of light stands, back drops, and wires the work crews had constructed like one massive booby trap. There were interview stations and a mass of reporters prepping and primping for their five minutes with Ramsey. Inside of Rike, his crow scratched to escape, fly past all these intruders and shatter a window on his way out to the tempting blue sky.
Just a few days, and this would be over. A few days, and the public would pull back. He hoped.
“Hey,” Trigger Massey greeted him from the corner where the entirety of the Two Claws Clan stood. He and Colton, the Warmaker, stood protectively near Ava and Karis, who were sitting on a love seat looking at something on a cell phone. They looked up and surprisingly gave him genuine smiles. Off to the side, Kurt stood with his mate Tenlee and the New Darby Clan.
“The fuck are you doing here?” Rike asked. He had some murderous feelings about these two Clans. Mayhem had been at war with them not too long ago, and Tenlee was the reason Ramsey had broken in the first place and had demolished Red Dead Mayhem with zero effort. She’d hurt Ram, and Rike didn’t forgive easy.
“Not here for trouble,” Hairpin Trigger murmured, pushing his cowboy hat back to expose his dark eyes. “Just here to show your Clan support.”
“Why?” Rike asked, frowning. He scanned the bear and mountain lion shifters.
“Ava was the one caught on camera during her Change. Sure, you assholes deserved for her to go after you, but we’re in a different spot now—both of our Clans,” Trigger said. “This public attention aimed at y’all is just as much our fault as yours. So…”
The Warmaker crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his chin. “So we have your backs if you need it. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less. You need heat taken off Ramsey? We’ll be here all three days of interviews. Point the cameras at us.” Colton gave a wicked smile. “We’re pretty good at fuckin’ shit up, too.”
Rike snorted, but tried to cover the laugh with a cough. Assholes didn’t need to go around thinking he liked them.
“Hi, Rike,” Tenlee said softly, waving two fingers.
Rike couldn’t muster a smile. He’d watched an unreturned mating bond to this girl ruin his best friend.
“She’s the reason we’re here,” her mountain lion shifter mate, Kurt, said. “She wants to support Ramsey and his new mate. Wants to support your Clan.”
Rike swallowed hard. Fuck, it was hard to be gracious. He didn’t get over things easy, and war meant loss on all sides. He could hold a grudge until the
day he died. Maybe in a few years, he would hate them less, but not now. Not this soon. Rike nodded, and without a word, he made his way toward the kitchen where a dozen caterers were buzzing around like bees near a hive.
Humans, humans everywhere. He wanted to squash them like bugs. Their instincts sucked, and they kept bumping into him. He was twice the mass of most of them, so they bounced off him like ping-pong balls, but still…he didn’t like anyone touching him.
The fucking Two Claws Clan becoming allies? Ha. Not likely. “Ooof!” he huffed out as a little torpedo socked him right in the gut.
On instinct, he reached down and squeezed the shoulders of the tiny human to steady her from bouncing right into the wall like a rubber ball. All he could see was a messy bun of platinum blond hair and tits that were popping out of a chef’s uniform. One of the buttons had abandoned ship apparently. Good God, the cleavage on this girl.
She looked up at the same moment a wave of power ricocheted off his skin and burned his hands where he touched her. He staggered back a step, stunned by the pain. Her eyes locked onto his, and his heart stopped. Familiar. She seemed familiar. And not just the way she looked either, but something about her. Something just above his senses.
Her eyes lightened second by second as they stood there. Her barely-there eyebrows were drawn up.
“Wolf,” he murmured before he could stop himself. Where the fuck had that come from? He was a crow. No heightened sense of smell, so if she did reek of predator fur, he shouldn’t be able to tell.
The girl flinched back as though she’d been slapped. “How dare you,” she whispered, anger flashing across her glowing green eyes. Her nose wrinkled up like the muzzle of a pissed-off wolf, and her little teeth, while white and perfectly straight, had sharp canines. Pixie nose, high cheek bones, eyes slanted just slightly. She was beautiful and fierce all at once, and Rike couldn’t look away. She had him in a trance.
“Witch?” he whispered.
The woman’s face relaxed, and she dashed her attention around them. Her gaze paused behind him where the Two Claws and New Darby Clans had been.
“We’re not like you,” she said low. “We’re not out to the public. Tell your Alpha to keep his beak closed about any Clan outside of his, or there will be retaliation.” She walked past him, slamming her shoulder into his ribs. Angry little hellion. She was so damn cute. So damn familiar.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“You should,” she called as she walked backward. She glared at him. “We were married once.”
And then she turned back around and disappeared out a side door, leaving Rike to wonder what the hell had just happened.
Chapter Two
Bailey Wulfe scrambled to the window and stood on an old wooden pallet to see inside.
Brandon Blackwood. He was here, in the same building with her. The Wulfe Clan would punish her if they knew she’d even talked to him, but she hadn’t been able to help herself. She’d even given him hints. He didn’t remember. Didn’t remember her. Bailey’s chest hurt. Stupid boy.
He stood inside, staring at the door she’d just escaped out of with his hands at his sides, palms up, like he was as shocked as her. On the other side of the room, the Two Claws Clan and the New Darby Clan were frowning at the tatted-up giant as if he’d lost his mind.
And he had. Didn’t even remember her. That was so messed up.
It’s not like she had common features. She was albino, for fuck’s sake. A Turned white wolf from age six. He’d got that part right—wolf. He was the polar opposite of her. He was olive-skinned with tattoos covering every inch of his massive, muscular arms, making him look even darker. White wolf, black crow, they’d been screwed from the beginning.
They. Didn’t. Match.
No matter what their mothers had hoped.
And now he was Red Dead Mayhem, the most volatile Clan of crow shifters in existence. The years had hardened him from the boy she’d known. When they’d been handfasted, he was only fifteen. Tall and lanky with no ink marring his skin. His smile had been easy, and his eyes had stayed soft brown way more than the pitch black of that sickly bird inside of him.
Oh, she had felt how messed up he was now. How tainted. It had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up just to be around him. He’d grown into a beast. Six foot four, at least, and probably two-hundred-sixty pounds of gym rat. Why on God’s green earth did a man need that many muscles? So he could squish people like grapes when he was mad at them? No body to bury, just smoosh them out of existence? He made her look like a shrimp. She tried to growl, but her wolf refused. Fantastic. Her animal was all drawn up, panting like a Pomeranian wanting its head scratched. Did she have no instincts at all? Thick black beard, and the sides of his head were shaved. Tattoos up his neck to his hairline with a messy black crop on top. That man got a lot of girls, and didn’t need one more ogling him. And Brandon looked just like his dad—Lucian Blackwood.
He’d been a demon.
The Blackwood bloodline was so obvious in this towering man. He was bad news, and his insides smelled like they matched his monster of a father, too. A wave of sadness washed through her. All these years, she had wondered if he was okay, and it turned out he was morphing into the same problematic member of society the last four generations of men in his family had. It was tragic, really, that he got none of his mother’s goodness.
She was an angel.
When he turned toward the window, she ducked slightly so he wouldn’t see her spying on him. When he passed, she stood up on her tiptoes again so she could see, but he was facing a wall, his expansive back to her, his hands linked behind his head. He was just staring at the space in front of him.
His arms flexed against the sleeves of his black T-shirt as he scrubbed his hands down his beard, and his shoulders heaved as he sighed. And then he strode into the kitchen, blasting his fist against the door to swing it open. She could hear it bank against the wall from where she was at the window. Beastly man.
“Bailey!” her boss, Donna, called. “What are you doing? I asked you to bring the rolls in.” Whoops. Donna was hanging out the side entrance, her gray locks piled up in a hairnet, her eyes all squinty and mad behind her horn-rimmed glasses.
“Sorry!” Bailey called and bustled off to grab the huge containers of little sandwich rolls from the back of the catering van. Donna ran Hot Buns Catering, and Bailey was one of her three employees. They’d had to hire outside help for a job this size, so it was chaos working with a whole new team on such a large event. Three days of shifter interviews, and this town had never seen this many people. They were paid by the news stations to keep their people fed while the public tried to get the dirt on shifter life.
She’d literally gotten sick when she’d received the call for this job. She still couldn’t believe shifters had been exposed to the public. It was all Two Claws and Red Dead Mayhem’s fault, too. Brandon, she realized, was partially to blame. He was a part of this.
Freakin’ outlaws. And, yeah, it wasn’t like she could really judge since she was a member of the Wulfe Clan. There were some beasts in her Clan, too, but they didn’t make a living off illegal business. There was no way in hell the MC ran legit income through their club. They were probably into guns or drugs. That made the most sense. The club was out in the mountains where running drugs was pretty damn easy.
Okay, she could admit it. She was mad! She was angry that Brandon was a part of that. She was disgusted because he’d had a shot at a steady life once. Steady for a shifter, at least. He could’ve stuck around. He could’ve let her save him, but he’d run off with that lowlife dad of his and left his momma nearly in a grave, and Bailey hated that waste of potential. What happened to his family had broken her whole damn hometown, and now look at him. She should’ve predicted he would be the replica of his dad.
With a snarl, she chucked the rag that was sitting on her shoulder at the back door of the van.
She’d really cared for him once—before she�
�d realized how dangerous love was.
Please save him.
His mom’s voice was right there, clear as the day she’d come to Bailey’s house begging salvation for her son.
Bailey blinked hard. She’d tried not to think about any of this for years. She had a life now, a good one. A steady one. One with a good Clan of wolves. One where she was safe under her dad’s rule. Daughter of the Alpha, and what was she doing? Regretting the fall of a crow? Fuck this. It was none of her business how Brandon lived his life.
She yanked open the back door of the van and hefted out a huge pan of rolls. Usually she tried to make it look like she was weaker than she was, just to avoid human suspicion, but screw it all right now. She was upset and just wanted to get this inside so Donna wouldn’t get stressed.
“I’ll take that,” Brandon said as she turned around and ran smack into stony abs with the pan. The thin metal bent on the sides, but Brandon didn’t even flinch. Ridiculous.
His eyes were black when he frowned down at her. The bags under his eyes made him look tired and gruff, and his nostrils flared slightly as he breathed. He took the pan from her as she stood there shocked for the second time in ten minutes.
“What did you mean we were married?” he murmured in a low, gritty voice.
“Forget it,” she muttered, turning to grab another pan.
He gripped her elbow, and she snarled as she turned, “Don’t touch me.”
He was balancing the pan in one massive paw, so she jammed a finger at it and said, “Don’t spill that. I need this job. We can’t all get rich on dealing drugs. Some of us have morals.”
Brandon flinched, his eyebrows arched high, amusement quirking his full lips. “You’re a judgmental little wench, aren’t you? I’m a mechanic. I work on motorcycles mostly, but also cars. And I think you have me mistaken with someone else, lady. I’m Rike.”
“Rike?” Now it was her turn to give him an amused smile. “No, your name is Brandon. Brandon Blackwood.”