Chapter 3 – Corvus
CORVUS
“ W hich one is it?” Rook asked as we crested the top of the stairs, sending a trio of girls fleeing in the opposite direction, whispering as they went.
“That one,” I growled, my back tensing with frustration as I jabbed a finger in the direction of her room. The silver number three marking the otherwise plain door.
Rook tried the handle. “Locked.”
I banged on the wood twice, the thudding sound echoing back to us in the long hall of female dorms and apartments.
She didn’t come.
I threw a fist through my hair, an audible growl vibrating in my throat. Christ, why couldn’t she have stayed put? Grey was going to head over and let her out for lunch, escort her back to campus for the end of the day.
Fuck, it was his idea to leave her there in the first place, to let her sleep . I only agreed once he changed the door handle and locked her in, and only because I doubted she would wake any time soon.
She was dead to the world when I looked in on her. Sprawled facedown with one leg hanging off the mattress, like she just flopped and didn’t bother moving to get comfortable.
I’d kill to be able to sleep like that. Just once.
“Grey,” I gritted out, stepping back so he could slip ahead. He dropped to his knee and pulled out his wallet, drawing two pins from one of the card slots to pick the lock.
He cracked it in less than fifteen seconds, and we were in.
Her shared apartment sprawled before us. A wide space that would’ve been bright with all the natural light from the long windows across the floor, if not for all the black sucking the life out of it. Black couches. Black tables. Black cabinets in the kitchen. Even black throw rugs under our feet.
“AJ?” Grey called, but I was already moving. I could hear the shower running in the room to the right, and I headed for the door, shouldering through into her bedroom. Her smell permeated the air, like citrus fruits and salty caramel, making my jaw tighten.
I shoved through the bathroom door just in time to see her arm snake out of the shower and her wild eyes shining through wet dark hair as she threw a blade at me with a shriek.
I only just managed to dodge it, stepping to the left as it embedded in the door where my fucking head was a spit second earlier. A goddamned kill shot.
“Fuck, Sparrow!” I cursed, staring between her and the blade.
“Fuck me?” she howled, stepping out of the shower ass naked and dripping wet, making my fury heat into something more potent. “Fuck you! ”
She angrily ripped a towel from the hook to cover herself, and I opened my mouth to say something, but she looked at me like she might kill me if I dared. She didn’t know how much I’d have liked to see her try.
Rook appeared at my back with Grey only a step behind him.
“Great, now it’s a fucking party,” she hissed, tucking the corner of her towel down between her perky little tits.
“Can we rewind?” Rook asked, biting his lip ring as his heavy-lidded eyes narrowed on her body. “I think I missed the show.”
Ava Jade rolled her eyes. “I should carve each of your stupid eyes out,” she said, but I could tell she was quickly losing steam. Exhaustion dragged down the corners of her eyes, fucking with the usually bright and tawny color of her skin.
I couldn’t help noticing the bruises.
And the scars...
Her short towel did almost nothing to hide them. Perfect little lines of white raised skin in neat rows on her upper thighs.
Self-inflicted.
My upper lip twitched up into a scowl, wanting a villain to blame. A face to smash. A life to end for her suffering.
I stopped myself. Cut off the thoughts with clenched teeth.
“I can’t believe you locked me in that tiny ass room,” she said, shoving a heavy mass of wet hair away from her face as she approached us. Seeming to be completely unbothered that I’d seen every inch of her naked body.
“ Uh , move or I’ll move you,” she sneered at me, shouldering past us all and into her bedroom.
“I mean, what the fuck did you think I was going to do? Stay there like a good little bitch? Maybe chew your furniture a little if I got hungry? Piss on the floor? Wag my little tail when you got home?”
Rook snorted.
“I was going to come get you at lunch,” Grey said in defense, and she whirled on him with a glare fit to smite him to ashes. I didn’t know how I didn’t see it in her from the start.
Her power.
It would have to be tamed if we were going to get her through this alive.
I pinched the bridge of my nose as Rook settled in to lean against the wall, loosely crossing his arms over his chest as she rummaged for clothes in the closet.
He watched her like a starved lion before a feast. Transfixed.
Like when he finally bent for the kill, he might not stop at blood and bone, but go for her heart, too.
Her soul. I’d never seen that kind of obsession in him before, not even in his drug days, and it made my own blood chill to ice in my veins.
The edge of a dark duffle bag poked out from behind a stack of haphazardly folded jeans and I snatched it, shoving it at Grey. “Pack her a bag. We’re taking her back to the Nest.”
Her back stiffened, but she didn’t turn as she strolled to the edge of her bed, dropping her towel to give us an unobstructed view of her ass.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“I had a really good shower think after my rude awakening this morning…”
My cock thickened as she bent to tug on a thong and then a pair of jeans, jumping on the spot to hitch them up over her peachy ass. The searing urge to string her up and fuck her until she screamed herself hoarse made my muscles bunch and my erection push insistently down into the leg of my jeans.
“I decided the whole thing is a hard pass. I’m not doing it.”
“Doing what?” I asked through gritted teeth as she pulled a fitted tank over her head, going braless beneath the thin navy fabric.
“The trials,” she retorted, shooting me a raised brow glare over her shoulder. “I’m not interested in being inducted into your fucking cult.”
“Cult?” Rook asked, squinting then nodding as though he might agree with the assessment.
“Sect,” she tried again, rolling the word around in her mouth. “Whatever the fuck you call a group of sinners dressed as Saints.”
“It’s too late for that, AJ,” Grey said, perching on the edge of her desk.
The growing light of the day deepened the shadows beneath his eyes.
Our roles reversed for the moment. He didn’t sleep last night either.
I heard him pacing in his bedroom. Rifling through pages until long past dawn. “We’ve been over this.”
Did she really think this was optional? The frustration heating my blood made me unsteady on my feet, and I had to grit my teeth to keep my frame from wavering.
Last night wasn’t the only one I hadn’t slept through.
It’d been days. My bones were heavy with fatigue, muscles strained from overuse without rest.
“It’s already begun,” I intoned, my voice flat. Dead. “Your first trial could be today. We won’t be in on all of them. They can happen anytime. Any place.”
“Yeah. Yeah. And anyone or anything is fair game. If I don’t comply, I die. If I fail, I die. And if I somehow make it through the whole fucked up thing alive, I’ll be in so deep that your dear ol’ dad will own my ass for the rest of my life. I remember. ”
“You should be grateful, Sparrow. If Grey hadn’t done what he did, you’d be six feet under..”
“Ha!” She sneered, her face contorting with rage as she stepped up to me, jabbing two fingers into my chest, poking the beast within. “If I hadn’t done what I did, it would be your ass buried six feet under.”
A muscle in my jaw ticked, and she must’ve seen something in my stare because she backed off a step, dropping her arm with a grimace.
“There’s no way out of this,” Rook said, joining the conversation with a cavalier shrug.
Ava Jade clamped her mouth shut, and I knew she was already thinking of ways she might do just that. Though I doubted she was about to share any of them with the group.
“Aves?” Becca called from outside the room, the front door of the apartment sweeping closed behind her with a click. “You in here?”
Ava Jade tipped her head up to the ceiling with a sigh and closed her eyes before tossing her towel toward the bathroom floor and leaving the room.
“Babe, where were you? I texted, but you didn’t…”
Rebecca Hart’s words trailed off into shocked silence as we followed Ava Jade from her bedroom.
“Sorry, Becks,” Ava Jade said, her frustration clearly evident in her voice. “I got held up .”
She sent a pointed glare in our direction as she pilfered through the coffee on the counter, trying to dump way too much espresso into the portafilter.
“Um,” Rebecca said, swallowing as she glanced between us and her roommate, making her way carefully toward the kitchen. “Here,” she offered, gingerly taking the portafilter out of Ava Jade’s shaking hands. “Let me do it.”
She stooped to whisper something to Ava Jade, who gave her head a miniscule shake.
“Apologies for the intrusion, Becks ,” I said. “We’ve just come to collect Ava Jade, and then we’ll be on our way.”
Her mouth opened in a little ‘o’ of surprise as the color leached from her face. She didn’t respond to me, instead looking to her roommate for confirmation.
Ava Jade leaned heavily against the counter with a soft groan, watching the espresso drip steadily from the portafilter into a bowl-shaped mug.
“Grey,” I growled, and he turned, heading back into her bedroom to begin packing the duffle still clenched in his fist.
“Aves?” Rebecca asked, her panicked whisper meant only for my Sparrow. “Are you really going with them?”
“ No, ” she replied, locking eyes with me across the room. “I’m not.”
“Yes,” I argued, taking another step toward the kitchen. “You are.”
Becca turned off the steamer wand and slammed the metal jug of hot milk down atop the marbled counter top, making some slosh out the top as she spun to face us.
“Look, I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing here,” she said, her dark eyes alight with fear and the misplaced desire to protect her friend. “But if Ava Jade says she isn’t going with you, then she isn’t going with you. You should leave.”
I lifted a brow, trying to reconcile this Becca with the one I thought I had pegged as a docile non-threat.
When I glanced at Ava Jade, she was staring at me, doing an analysis of her own.
“It’s okay, Becca,” she decided, reaching out to squeeze her roommate’s arm.
To reassure her. “Corvus knows I’m not going with him.
He’s smart enough to know that no matter how many times he drags me back to the Crow’s Nest that I’ll just keep escaping.
And that I might just decide to slit a few throats on my way out next time. ”
“ Mmmm ,” Rook moaned almost inaudibly.
Heat rushed across the back of my neck at her defiance, making my hands curl and stiffen, my jaw clench.
Touché, little Sparrow.
Becca nodded to her roommate, busying herself pouring the frothed milk into the cup with the espresso before handing it over to Ava Jade, who looked like she might come on the spot at the first sip. A curl of wicked jealousy wrapped its green fingers around my stomach.
She peered at me over the brim of her cup, waiting for me to play the next card.
“Aww, let her stay,” Rook said, sauntering toward the kitchen. He cut in between Ava Jade and Becca, scooping a mug from the top of the espresso machine with his pinkie. He held the mug out to Becca with a grin, ignoring Ava Jade completely. “Can I get one of those, love?”
Flustered, Rebecca cleared her throat and took the proffered cup with a little nod, setting to work making another latte.
I sent Rook a pointed glare, telling him without the need for words that we’d talk about his idiocy later.
“ Fine ,” I said just as Grey exited Sparrow’s bedroom with a duffle full of clothes, my skin practically fucking itching with irritation. If she kept pushing me, I was going to blow.
How did she do that?
Nothing affected me like this.
I made sure of it.
Always calm.
Always level headed.
Except with her.
“She stays,” I announced, turning my attention back to Sparrow, fixing her with a hard stare. “But one of us stays with you. One of us is with you at all times.”
She paused, her latte frozen in mid-air with a grimace.
I drew my phone from my pocket and thumbed in her number, my angry strokes messing it up twice before I got it right. It was one of the first things I memorized from her file.
I sent her Rook, Grey, and myself as contacts via text. “I just sent you all of our numbers. If I text you, you reply. If I call, you answer. ”
Her expression soured.
“And if I don’t?”
My spine tingled.
“If you don’t, I’ll drag your ass back to the Nest and design you your very own fucking prison cell,” I warned, the image of her locked behind iron bars, chained, and as naked as she’d been only minutes ago made my cock thicken once more.
“Don’t think I won’t do it,” I added. “Nothing would make me happier.”