Page 82 of The Crow Games

“I let youin,” I ground out, disdain coloring every syllable. “I trusted you, and all this time you’ve been playing god games.”

“I don’t want to play games with you.” His eyes squeezed shut. His fingers tapped out an anxious beat on the tabletop between us. “I convinced myself the truth didn’t matter. What did it hurt that you obviously believed I was just another crow? We both wanted the same thing. I just needed you to get me to the Upper Realm, and I didn’t care what you thought about me. But then that all changed. What I wanted changed. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but my feelings for you—”

“Don’t! Don’t you dare go there,” I breathed, nostrils flaring. “Just tell me what you’re after. Where do you want to go now?”

“Wherever you are,” he said so sadly that the tiniest part of me, a part shrinking by the second under feelings of betrayal, felt sorry for him.

It was like being back in my shop all over again, seeing Lisbeth broken and not being able to comprehend any of it. My thoughts had gone slippery. I couldn’t cling to any one of them for long before another stole its place. But now, instead of a fury that fueled me, there was a new icy, determined ache. A new desire to set it all to rights again, come what may.

Our shared kiss the night before flashed through my mind. I shoved the image away, pressing my lips together to quell the phantom sensation of his mouth against mine.

Just like that moment all those years ago when little Lisbeth had smiled up at me with a mouth full of missing teeth, that same sense of weighty responsibility settled across my shoulders. Come what may, I wouldn’t see my coven harmed. I could bury my feelings if it meant protecting my new family.

No more of my sisters would die. I was getting all of us out of here. There was no going back now. I was ready to face the Old One and conquer whatever the deities threw at me.

I rubbed at my throat, trying to clear it. “Mara was never going to give me her sigil, was she?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders, and they drooped forward. “I don’t know, but there are far more pressing concerns we need to deal with first.”

The cosmic shadows left the windows to encircle me. Light poured inside, casting him in a glow that made him look gray as the grave. The car filled with even more faceless revenants. They lined the cabin and crowded the archways.

“I need you to understand that what happens next,” Asher cautioned, “isn’t entirely up to me. There are rules.”

I glanced from the smothering darkness to his grimacing face, and my heart jumped into my throat. I shrunk down into my seat, needing separation from the encroaching cosmic midnight.

“Asher,” I pleaded, my voice small, “are you going to rip out my soul?”

He pinned me in place with those same bottomless black eyes that made me feel seen through. “We haven’t decided yet.”

The End For Now

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