“And what about you? Do you ever think about finishing your crest?”
He shrugged.
There was a space, on every Crow man’s back, intentionally left blank inside the crest. A perfect curve designed, where her name went. The only person we were ever meant to carry.
Once filled, it couldn’t be undone. That space was forever.
“You ever think it’s all too much?” I asked, looking down at the table. “The bloodletting. The thigh tattoo. The red-to-green claiming light system. The oath scars. The post-lock-in branding ceremony. The?—”
“Don’t forget the ancestral blade that gets passed down to the groom’s oldest living male relative so he can cut the collar tags off the bride’s dress before the claiming,” Vince added, deadpan.
I laughed. “Jesus Christ. That’snormalto us.”
“That’s Thursday.”
We both shook our heads.
I leaned back and looked at him, really looked this time. And I said, “Is it that wehaveto steal brides, or that no one sane would walk into this willingly?”
He didn’t answer. Because we both knew the truth. It wasn’t just that our rituals were heavy. Or soaked in generational madness. It was that deep down—we liked it.
Wewantedto claim them in ways no other dynasty dared. And that was the real reason most of us would never say it out loud.
Because it wasn’t the dynasty world that scared us. It was the fear that if we everlovedsomeone that much, we’d never stop. Not even when we should.
Possession didn’t end at the lock-in. For a Crow, it started there.
14
Vince
She had stopped replying to my messages, and hadn’t returned one of my calls. The message was obvious, I’d scared her off.
And maybe that was smart of her.
Smart girls run when they see the edge. Smarter ones don’t wait around for the fall.
I wasn’t angry at her. I was angry at the ache sitting in my chest like a second set of ribs. The kind you couldn’t cut out without tearing through everything else.
Tonight, I drank. Harder than I’d been in years. Slurred, staggering, barely able to punch the elevator code. I missed the number twice. Got the third time right by leaning on the wall. I was beyond fucked up.
I kicked off my boots in the dark. Was about to stagger across the room to my bed. Until I saw her. She was sitting on the couch like she lived here.
My first thought was that the liquor finally broke something in my head. She was a hallucination.
But she moved and our eyes locked.
“Madeline?”
“You’re drunk,” she said.
I forgot I gave her the code to get up. I blinked, took a step closer, then leaned against the wall to steady myself.
“Fuck, you’re really here.”
“I came to talk. But not like this.” she slowly looked me up and down.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I muttered, dragging a hand through my hair. “I mean—not because I don’t want you here. God, I want you here. I just—fuck.” I exhaled hard, the words coming out too fast before I could catch them. “I thought I ruined everything.”
