Page 100 of House of Crimson Cloak and Silver Teeth

Greed wins.

“Done.”

Kitty becomes a Grimsbane that night and becomes ours.

I sit in the punishment hall, holding Shade’s broken body, understanding for the first time that my friend isn’t like the rest of us.

He still has a soul.

And it’s going to get him killed.

Kitty cries for weeks. She sits beside Shade’s bed while the healers work on his back, trying to save what they can. The scars will be permanent, deep and terrible.

“You’re so stupid,” she keeps saying through her tears. “So stupid.”

Shade, barely conscious and dosed with pain medication, mutters weakly, “Wolf got struck too. You didn’t cry for him.”

“Why would you do something like this?” She’s crying so hard she can barely speak.

Shade stares at her through half-lidded eyes, pale and unfocused from the pain medication.

“You could’ve died,” she whispers brokenly. “Look at you. You’re so small. A skinny little kid who almost got killed over nothing—”

“If I get bigger than Wolf,” Shade interrupts, his voice slurred, “will you stop crying?”

She holds his gaze. Then nods miserably through her tears.

“I will,” he promises. “I’ll grow taller than Wolf. Taller than Shepherd even.”

Years pass. Shade keeps his promise. He’s slightly taller than me, by an inch.

Kitty stops crying. Mostly.

The door suddenly creaks open, pulling me back to the present.

Kitty melts from shadows like she was born from them. Moonlight filters through the broken roof and catches on her cat mask, sleek black leather molded into feline features with silver whiskers etched along the cheeks.

“Jumpy,” she observes.

She pulls the mask off and reveals the face underneath.

Kitty grew into something dangerous and beautiful, with sharp cheekbones and golden brown eyes that miss nothing. Her dark hair is pulled back in a practical braid tonight and she’s wearing her form-fitting Grimsbane suit.

“Wolf,” she says properly as she drops a pack onto the floor beside me. “Are those new leathers?”

Her eyes drag over me slowly. “You look... different.”

I ignore the comment. She pulls a bottle of wine from her pack and examines the label critically. “Decent vintage. Stole it from my mark’s cellar after I opened his throat.”

“Clean kill?”

“Three seconds,” she replies nonchalantly. “He didn’t even wake up.”

Then she studies me again with narrowed eyes.

“Seriously though. You look good.”

“You’re being weird,” I grunt.