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I gripped my knives, letting the darkness come, beckoning it.
I could kill them.
Maybe not before, but this was different. It was kill or be killed.
“We need to talk,” Grey said as he shut off the engine, sighing.
Corvus muttered something I didn’t catch to himself as he shoved out the passenger side door and slammed it, stalking into the house.
Rook whistled low, a smirk playing at the edge of his lips as he opened his door. “Want a whiskey?” he offered. “You’re going to need it.”
What?
“We aren’t going to kill you, AJ,” came Grey’s exasperated voice from the front seat as he withdrew the keys and stepped out himself, shutting his door as he opened mine. I shied away, lifting a blade.
He looked between it and me, a tightness around his eyes. “And you aren’t going to kill us, either,” he challenged as I caught sight of Rook in my periphery, going into the house, too. “I think you made that pretty clear tonight.”
“If you aren’t going to kill me, then why the fuck am I here?”
He bent his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, making his dirty blond hair fall forward, shining with streaks of purest gold in the soft early morning light.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Either you come willingly on my word that you won’t be harmed, or I call my brothers back out here and we drag you inside. Your choice.”
I rolled my eyes and stepped out, forcing Grey to move out of my way or be hit. He shut the door behind me. “Good choice.”
“The only reason I’m going in there is because Rook said there’s whiskey, and I’m hungry enough to eat a whole fucking turkey,” I grumbled, knowing how I must sound but unable to stop myself.
“If you say so.”
“Fuck you.”
His hand closed around my wrist, and I lashed out, slicing his forearm as he tossed me against the door of the Rover. Grey bared his teeth as he moved to box me in, the blade between us the only thing keeping him from closing the last few inches of the gap. Blood dripped in a slow stream from his arm, but he didn’t seem to mind. Didn’t even seem to feel it.
Fury burned in his eyes. A deep, pained thing that hurt to look at.
“Do you have any idea what I just risked to save you?” he demanded, his anger so hot that I could feel it soaking into my skin. Making the small hairs on the back of my neck raise. “What we’llallrisk to keep you alive?”
“What are you talking about?”
“And after you were trying to...to what? Blackmail us?” he continued, drawing back with a dark laugh. “I saw the videos, AJ. I know what you did. What you were doing—”
“You gave me no fucking choice!” I shouted, my own fury rising to meet his, the icy dream in my belly turning quickly to acid.
“Yeah, you gave me no choice, either,” he scoffed. “Just remember that.”
“What’s going on out there?” Rook called lazily from the front door, sipping a short glass of amber liquid. “Come inside so we can all join the fun.”
I growled in frustration, shouldering past Grey toward the front door. I snatched the whiskey right from Rook’s hand and tossed it back in one long burning swallow before shoving the glass back at him and going inside.
They wanted to talk.Fine. Let’s talk.
I knew the basic layout of the house since I’d been stalking it on and off for weeks, and I took an easy left from the hall in the entry, through to the kitchen, where there was a whiskey bottle open on the counter. I snatched it up and kept going, through the kitchen to the right into the living room.
Corvus was already there, sitting on the couch, the dirt streaks gone from his face and hands. His dirty jacket missing, leaving him in only a black shirt, dark wash jeans, and sock feet. It felt strange to see him so comfortable. I didn’t think there was a place on earth where he wouldn’t be ready for an attack at all times.
He lifted his head, and upon seeing me, threw the item he’d been twirling in his fingers at me. My lips parted in surprise as I caught it, the blade cutting into the pads of my thumb and forefinger. The blade that’d been embedded in Carl’s meaty hand.
“You’re welcome,” he grunted, fixing me with a deadly stare.
