New Boss In Town
Joan Grey
***
Rowan crawled from under the bed, dragging out the last of Marc’s dirty clothes. Behind him, Marc sniffled, but kept shoving things into the three new duffle bags Rowan had bought.
“That’s the last of it.” Rowan looked around the room, gaze catching on the stains and dents on the walls, trying not to think about what part of Marc’s body had made them. “Let’s go home.”
“You don’t have to—it’s okay, I can stay here.” Marc’s hands twisted together.
Rowan bit back the first, vicious, response (‘Like hell you can stay here, they’re fucking awful’) and pulled Marc into a hug. “Come on. We’ll get Thai from that place near my house and eat it on the floor in front of the TV.”
A week later, just as Marc was setting out their plates for dinner, someone pounded on the door.
“Open up, Rowan, you jerk. I know you know where he is! I just wanna talk.” The voice was deep and harsh, and Rowan hated the way only hearing it made Marc’s shoulders curl in.
“Marc,” Rowan said, “go to your room. I’ll deal with this.”
“He’s my brother,” Marc started, but Rowan interrupted.
“That doesn’t mean you have to tell him anything about your life.” He pressed his hands firmly against Marc’s shoulders, then slid them down to his wrists. “You deserve respect, you deserve kindness, you deserve protection. They were hurting you.” He bent to peer up into Marc’s lowered face. “Let me help you.”
“Okay. But if you— if he—”
“I can protect you.”
Once Marc’s door was closed, Rowan opened the front door and slipped through the narrow gap he’d allowed.
“Where is he?” Theo’s fists were rocks at the ends of his arms, and Rowan reminded himself that the point of this was that those fists never got near Marc again.
“You’ll never see him again. You and your hateful family have seen the last of Marc.” Rowan crossed his arms and leaned his shoulders back against his door.
“He’s ours,” Theo growled, “and we want him back.”
Rowan’s brows rose. He hadn’t expected Theo to be this honest about things. “You don’t own him. You don’t own any of the people you’ve been keeping. Soon, Theo, your whole family will reap what you’ve been sowing, and I’ll enjoy being the one to take you down.”
“Fuck you! You’re just some skinny grad student. What the fuck do you think you can do to us? We own this whole city.”
Rowan felt a smile pull at the corners of his mouth and let it spread, knowing it would show everything he’d been hiding.
Theo fell back, eyes suddenly wide. “Wait, what the hell?”
Rowan surged forward, arms reaching out, fingernails shifting to long talons. His fangs finished dropping from the roof of his mouth, and he sank them into Theo’s stupid, narrow neck. He yanked back, tearing Theo’s throat open.
“You’re not the biggest predator in the city anymore,” he said.