The brothers drift into the open space in ones and twos, boots crunching over frost-stiff grass, the low murmur of voices threading through the stillness. They form a loose, shifting constellation around the ruined stone as naturally as breath, drawn by a shared instinct older than whatever rules they pretend to follow. Shoulders brush, hands clap briefly in passing. The quiet gravity of the club holds them there, unspoken and absolute.
I linger at the perimeter, weight balanced between stepping forward and not moving at all. Weeks of learning this place from the outside have etched caution into my muscle memory, a subtle hesitation that keeps my body angled away even as my attention stays fixed on its center. I watch the easy proximity between them, the way belonging lives in their posture, in the casual certainty of where they stand.
Cold presses against my skin hard enough to ache, with the churchyard wrapped in that weird dead silence that always comes after violence. The kind where everyone’s still standing, but nobody’s really come down from it yet. Above us, the sky starts bleeding out of black. The horizon turns the color of bruises, gray dragging itself slowly toward the threat of rain, without making any promises about survival once it arrives.
The brothers move through the yard in rough little groups, blood still on them, cuts split open, boots grinding frost into mud. Nobody’s talking loud or laughing. Whatever happened tonight took something out of all of them. I can feel it hanging in the air like smoke.
Then suddenly, the first caw splits the silence, sharp enough to make my spine lock. Another answers it immediately,then another. Then all at once the eerie sounds tear across the churchyard hard enough to cut straight through every conversation in the yard.
Every single person freezes.
I look up automatically, pulse kicking harder when I see the five crows perched along the rooftop tiles. Big, black, way too still, and watching us in a way that immediately puts something cold in my stomach.
I don’t know what they are.
But everybody else clearly does.
The reaction rolls through the churchyard instantly. Conversations die, faces tighten, even the men I’ve seen walk into slaughter without blinking suddenly look like they’re waiting for bad news they already know is coming.
Beside me, Rogue goes rigid. Not tense, much worse—predatory. Like his body’s bracing for impact before his mind catches up.
And Crave…
Fuck.
I’ve never seen him look like that before.
Still as stone. Eyes locked on the crows with something dark and heavy sitting behind them.
“Of course they’re here,” Rogue mutters.
“They always were,” Crave says quietly. “We just couldn’t see them before.”
Dread’s shadows pull tighter around him. Hex slowly lowers his hands from the keyboard he’d been carrying, like even moving too fast suddenly feels dangerous. The entire churchyard shifts into this awful held-breath silence that makes my pulse start climbing for no reason other than instinct.
Because if these men are nervous?
I should be terrified.
Then one of the crows moves. Its wings spread slowly, feathers opening with a sound sharp enough to make me flinch—one heavy flap, then another.
And suddenly everyone locks up harder.
I don’t understand what’s happening, but I understand enough to know this wasn’t expected. Rogue’s body goes stiff beside me. Crave’s jaw clenches so hard I hear his teeth grind together. Across the yard, a couple of brothers exchange looks, trying not to react too early in case they’re wrong.
Then the crow lifts off the roof, and the entire churchyard changes.
Not all at once… someone exhales, another brother mutters a shaky, “Thank fuck,” under his breath. Tension eases by inches instead of disappearing completely. Like everyone just watched a gun lower slightly instead of firing.
The second crow follows.
Then the third and fourth together, black wings tearing across the gray dawn sky before disappearing into the distance.
I stare around the churchyard, trying to understand why it feels like everybody just narrowly escaped death. Rogue finally breathes beside me, shoulders dropping slightly, but his eyes never leave the roof.
Neither do Crave’s.
Because one crow is still there…
