Page 147 of A Vicious Love

“If the review goes through, two outcomes become likely.” Marcel’s voice went quiet.

“I know.”

“Say them.”

“I don’t need⁠—”

“Say them.”

I looked at him. He held my stare. Fine.

“Damius marries Celeste to me.”

Emmie’s mouth tightened.

Marcel nodded once. “And?”

“Sienna goes elsewhere.”

“To Weston,” Marcel said.

I looked toward the windows because looking at Marcel made it harder not to react.

“You know what that means. Weston puts his ring on her finger. His name goes into the ledger with hers.”

“Stop.”

“No.” Marcel’s voice stayed calm. “Then comes the claiming rite.”

Emmie immediately hid her face against his chest. Marcel’s hand moved up her back, soothing her before she even asked for it.

“It’s fine, baby,” he murmured. “I’m only making him understand.”

“I understand,” I said sharply.

“You understand the law,” Marcel replied. “You are not acting like you understand the sight. If you keep pretending you do not care, that is where this goes.”

For Crows, the claiming rite was normal. Old. Public in the dynasty sense, which meant private to everyone except the people whose opinions mattered. Sex as confirmation that the marriage had moved from paper into body.

Crows accepted it the way we accepted violence at dinner.

Our wives took longer.

Emmie still hid her face when anyone mentioned it, even now. She had built a whole life inside the very customs that had once terrified her.

I could not think of Sienna on a bed beneath Weston St. Cross while I stood as Harlan blood and bled a protection oath because the family law required male kin to acknowledge the transfer.

Claiming her while I watched because I had been too proud. My body went cold, then hot…violent.

Marcel bent his head and kissed her hair. “It’s fine, baby.”

She nodded, still hiding her face.

“I’m going mad,” I sat on the chair near the fireplace because my legs suddenly did not feel entirely reliable. That irritated me. I had been shot before and stayed standing. Feelings apparently had worse aim.

“I’m going mad,” I repeated. “I can run Harlan. I can order men killed before lunch and eat afterward. I can sit across from Damius Crow and lie straight. But Sienna stops asking for my hand and I feel like something is clawing under my skin.”

I looked down at my own hands. Big. Tattooed. Violent. The hands she once placed in her lap like they were precious instead of dangerous.