The City of Crows by Bethany Lovejoy (great books to read .txt) 📕

before. He’d stolen everything, every moment that was meant to belong to Leo and I. “Why, you two have upset a few amongst our members. There was no way I could have stopped them.”

Bullshit. I couldn’t even begin to call him out on that lie. We may have upset a few, but he had the ability to stop them. This was out of malice, a warning to me. Sign, or he dies.

“Leo,” I tried again, hands patting the sides of his face. “Leo, please. You have to get up, you need to wake up.” A shudder, anything, that was all I needed to keep going. A dry sob escaped me when it didn’t come, when not a single sound left him. A short, small kiss; anything to wake him up. My lips searched for his, gentle so as not to split his lip further, the taste of iron leaching into my mouth and turning my stomach. Still, nothing. Not so much as a murmur or a twitch, Leo would stay asleep.

“This isn’t a fairytale, Lyra,” the man behind me laughed. “This is something plain and simple, the solution has already been told to you. You sign and I fix all of this. He wakes up, you take him home. Happily, ever after.” Happily, ever after felt like such a bastardization in this case.

“You’re the one who did this to him!” I screamed, my throat running ragged under my breath. It was an unconscious moment, and yet, I didn’t regret it. “Fix it, make him wake up.”

“Again,” the man spoke patiently like he was scolding a child. “I didn’t do it, Lyra,” god, I hated the way he said my name. “Your friends did.”

“Make them fix it then!” I demanded, once again turning my full attention to Leo. And there, there it was, stirred by the volume of my voice, by my betraying mouth, just the slightest motion; a flinch. My hands tightened, pulling his face closer as my heart beat faster. Come on, come on; just a little more. “Leo?” My voice peaked, a hint of hope underneath it. He could awaken, he was still capable of that.

“The contract, Lyra,” the man commanded. He was growing increasingly impatient and insistent, focused only on that. “Or do you not want the boy anymore,” he sneered, “now that he’s broken. I understand I like my shiny new toys as well; I’m sure Rowan wouldn’t object to taking his place.” Oh, to shut him up, to bury my fist deep into his face and tell him that there were no replacements; Leo wasn’t broken, and I would always want him. Still, underneath his taunts was an air of desperation, a need for me to sign. He wouldn’t leave without my name on that sheet of paper, not if he could help it. Whatever he gained from my signature was far more than revenge.

I blinked at the realization, pulling away from Leo just slightly. The concept rounded itself out in my head, growing into something easier to understand. “Why would you need me to sign it?” I asked, my voice slow and barely audible, skepticism growing in my bones. “Wouldn’t it be easier, if you want to really upset my mother, to just kill me?”

“Oh please,” the man snarled, yet his feet moving backward. He was frightened by the notion, desperate to keep me there. He looked again to Leo, and I knew that this was a purposeful motion, extra leverage to convince me it was necessary. There was no other need to do what he’d done, not unless he thought it would sway my hand.

“I mean…” The idea grew bigger, larger and larger until it threatened to burst. “You have all these people around me, and yet… A signature on a contract, one that you promise you don’t need anything other than. You say it’s revenge on my mother, yet it won’t even hurt her…” My lips pulled taunt, thumb making a final stroke against Leo’s cheek before pulling away. He’d wake up, I knew he would. For the moment, I had to leave him, but it was only momentarily. Soon his eyes would be open again, his delicate smile would grace his lips once more. “It should be simple, and in the end, it shouldn’t really matter to you if I signed.”

“The contract,” the man reiterated, this time sounding far more desperate than before. He urged me forward, out of the closet before conclusions were made. I was certain that somewhere in the room sat a piece of paper, prepped and readied for me to sign. And yet, he didn’t call any of his followers forward, not to pull me out of the closet; likely afraid that in some way their intervention would lead to my resistance.

But he couldn’t stop the gears turning in my head. “Unless…” my lips began to form and the man’s eyes narrowed, his hands reaching out for me, desperate to grab me, Perhaps, in his mind, if he were to do so then he’d be able to convince me otherwise, or at the very least, keep me from leaving.

The room was silent, deathly silent. I wondered how long it’d been like that, the echoes of breaths and small voices from the chamber having left us. The man’s eyes widened at the same time as mine, the realization hitting both of us. There was no one else, not anymore, not for a while now. So engrossed was I in Leo, that nothing else had mattered, and now?

Color left the man’s face, his blood already so thin that the only change was a greying of his skin. Something was there, someone had come. Whether it was for him or me remained to be seen, but… air entering and exiting lungs were the only sounds that filled the closet, my arm tucking behind Leo’s shoulder futilely. If something was coming, I wanted to move him.

And then, there it was.

“Unless he’s a lesser demon, and he never had