Page 38 of Crooked Crows (Boys of Briar Hall 1)

What did she say to her?

For a second, I had to wonder if she’d use her blade. I knew she carried. I clocked it the very first day. Not because I saw it, or even its outline through her jeans. It was the way her fingers twitched low, toward her means of protection. The way her ankle hitched up when I stood to use the bathroom, just to get a better look at her. If she drew, I’d have no choice but to stop her.

My own hand inched to my gun, jaw tightening. Maybe we should stop this before it got any worse.

Bri’s tear-stained gaze lifted to us, pleading without the need for words. Hurt and anger brightening her dull brown eyes.

A sneer curled my upper lip, and she let her head hang, defeated.

“Should we do something?” Grey asked, hollering over the music.

I shook my head. “I’ll do it. You stay here, keep an eye.”

Becca pulled Ava away, and the pair weaved their way out. I let out a breath as they shouldered past awed onlookers as Bri did her best to looknotlike the bag of shit she clearly was. Batting away helping hands left and right with a scowl.

“Corvus,” Grey warned before I could leave. “Let me do it?”

I didn’t like the look on his face. The way his eyes darted to her and away, or how his brows were drawn, jaw clamped tight. He was...worried...about what I was going to do. Toher.

The beast inside me stiffened, making my blood sizzle in my veins, but I didn’t let that show. Instead, I fixed Grey with an impassive stare.

Not for the first time, I questioned the truth of his excuse for vanishing last night. And for the too-perfect slicein his arm. He was keeping something from me. I had a feeling I knew exactlywhoit was.

“Nah,” I replied easily, searching his eyes for any betrayal of emotion. “Why don’t you shovel Bri off the floor? Looks like she might need a hand.”

It was easy enough to find them. The partygoers scattered like roaches from an exterminator as I passed, letting me catch up to them without needing to hurry a single step.

When I stepped onto the dock, any lingering people outside fled too, except for the two girls who hadn’t yet noticed I was trailing behind them.

Ava Jade tipped her head back and howled a laugh at the moon halfway down the dock while Becca continued trying to tug her along.

“Fuck,” I heard her curse, her body shuddering on a long sigh. “That feltgood.”

Becca stopped short, yanked to a stop with Ava Jade. “Look, crazypants, that shit might fly in Lennox for keeping the wolves at bay, but it won’t here. You just started a war.”

Ava Jade leveled her stare on Becca and smirked, giving a one-shoulder shrug. “Worth it,” she said, and Becca shared in her next laugh.

“We’ll see howworth ityou think it is on Monday. Come on, let’s get back.”

“Rebecca,” I growled and her back stiffened. “A word with your new friend, if you don’t mind.”

Her throat bobbed as she glanced at Ava Jade, whose full attention was squarely on me. Where it should be.

“Uh…” Becca started, her discomfort evident in the tension between her eyes. In her stilted movements.

“No thanks,” she answered, her icy stare narrowing to slits that would cut a lesser man down to the quick.

My lips twitched. “I wasn’t asking.”

“Corvus,” Becca started, “Bri was—”

“I don’t give two shits about Bri.”

Ava Jade looped her arm back through Becca’s, lifting her chin with a false smile. “We have somewhere to be.”

I shook my head. “You’re making a mistake.”

“Am I?”

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