As a child, I learned about the dark years after the fae war when the East broke free from the Unified Nations and fought for power amongst itself. The persecution of half-breeds was at a fever pitch. Anyone even suspected of having a drop of fae blood was rounded up and sent away. I had never thought much of what happened to them. I was so young, but now I realized they weren’t “sent away.” They were hunted down and slaughtered. Most probably smuggled themselves into the Unified Nations or hid underground in the seedy world of the Savage Lands. They were no longer blatantly hunted like they once were, but the stigma hadn’t gone away.
His plight invoked more anger in me—at myself, HDF, and the world. Why did people have to make life so much harder when it was already hard enough? All this death, pain, and agony were completely man-made. Why couldn’t we all stop trying to put our own fears and beliefs on everyone else and just live our lives? Who are you to say this man, who had no control over the fae blood running in his veins, was less than you? Worthy of being murdered because he was different?
Living in this mixed pot of people, you saw every single being had a life, feelings, family, friends, hopes, and dreams. We weren’t different at all; circumstances made our goals on how to achieve those things different. The anger toward each other, the drive to eradicate someone else hoping it would ease your life and burdens... .it was disgusting and totally wrong. It only made life that much tougher for all. Heavy, insufferable, and dark.
Warwick went up the stairs and I followed, my feet coming to a stop right at the top, my stomach twisting at the figure standing in front of our door.
“Luv.” Rosie’s red lips pulled in a smile. Her arms were filled with clothes, bathroom essentials, and a paper bag smelling of Thai noodles. “I was hoping it would be you.”
I didn’t move or speak. I was emotionless—gutted. I stared at her like a stranger. She was now. Right or wrong, I couldn’t pretend the knife in my back wasn’t from her. True, Warwick and I weren’t together, and she was a prostitute, but that didn’t mean I could be friendly toward her now. She was another harlot in the den of iniquity.
“I can sleep in another room if you were planning to be a ‘paying customer’ again tonight. I don’t want to get in the way of anyone making money by spreading their legs.” I glared at Warwick, but my cold tone jerked Rosie back as if I slapped her. She blinked. Then her weight shifted between her feet, eyes drifting to the ground. Guilt. Shame.
Warwick’s lids narrowed on me, rage bristling from him, getting my insinuation. “Excuse her.” He growled at me, grabbing the items from Rosie’s arms, then with his free hand, yanked me roughly in the room. “Thank you, Rosie.” He slammed the door to the room we always stayed in, but this time when I stepped in, it felt different.
Tainted.
There wasn’t an inch of this room not covered in what some considered sin. The walls retained moans and screams, the furniture was saturated with the smell of sex, the bed sagged with punishing use. I hadn’t cared much before, but it was different now. Even when I had seen him with the four women in this room, it didn’t tarnish the comfort and safety this space provided. They had felt distant and detached.
But now, all I could see was Rosie straddling him, her tits bouncing as she rode him, his hips plowing into her, their faces scrunching with pleasure on this very bed. Her lips on him, his hands fondling her.
I stood stiffly in the middle of the room. The thought of touching anything in here made me want to vomit. Fury bubbled in my stomach.
Tonight I had gained and lost so much. Although I was afraid for Opie and Bitzy, I believed they could get away easily. It was my father who sat heavily on my heart.
I was an orphan. I never knew my mother and had nothing of my father’s to hold on to. Finding his journal meant more to me than anyone could know. For a brief moment, I had a piece of him again, his inner thoughts, his findings about me, what he learned and saw. How he felt.
I held his heart and soul in my hands.
I wasn’t even sure I cared so much about what he learned about me; it was more about having something of my dad’s. He was my world, my everything. He was my mother, father, best friend, and protector. I missed him so much it tore me into pieces, pain so deep it engraved scars across my soul. Before I even opened the pages of his journal, it was taken from me, like both he and my mother had been.
I was heartbroken... and furious.
Now I was stuck in a small room with a man who traded me to the Seelie lord, who tried to kill me, who fucked me relentlessly, then screwed my one friend here just to prove a point. I had been gassed, shot at by my ex-best friends, punched, attacked, and robbed.
I was fucking done.
Angry.
Volatile.
Warwick strolled to the dresser, dumping the container of food and clothes on it. Grabbing a label-less bottle from the bag, he took a chug of the liquor. The cheap, acidic, grainy smell of whiskey tingled my nostrils. He slammed it back down, wiping his mouth and leaning over the bureau, his muscles tensing, flexing under his skin.
He didn’t look at me, but I knew he was aware of every inch of space between us as I was. My gaze drilled into the back of him, the tension growing thicker with each beat of silence, weaving the room in snares.
So much had happened since he turned me over to Killian. Even if I understood the reason for his actions, the betrayal still sat in my gut, darkening with revenge the longer I pushed it away. I had never really let it out, our lives taking such sharp turns and becoming so hectic, it seemed like a frivolous thought to keep harping on.
But what he did then was only one layer.
He didn’t even try to go after the journal. He could have. They were human. He was supposed to be a god on Earth. The book meant nothing to him, so why would he care? I was the fool. Pampered and protected. This world was not meant for trust or emotions. It was brutal. Cruel. Pitiless.
I thought I learned my lesson in Halálház, not to trust, to become just as feral as them, but I hadn’t even come close. I let them all in. Believed. Rage filled me, shutting off anything resembling sentiment.
“Want to say something, princess?” Warwick snarled, his fingers drumming the table. “Just fucking say it.”
No words slid off my tongue, my lungs sucking in more fury.
A low growl came from his chest before he slowly turned around to face me, pulling himself up to his full height. The notion he thought he could possibly intimidate me sparked my muscles, my own hands curling.
He could have said a million cruel things, and I might not have broken. It was the slight smirk on his lips that did it, the smugness, belittling my anger as if it were “cute.”
A cry belted from my lungs, my body moving in a blink. I slammed into the wall of muscle, my fist cracking against his chin, slicing over his mouth.
My hand pulsed with agony at the impact, the pain making me even more enraged. A guttural noise thundered from my gut as I struck again, the sound of bone hitting bone cracking in my ears. He stumbled back into the dresser.
His smirk deepened, and his tongue swiped over his broken lip, tasting the blood. “Feel better?” he snarled, his eyes flaring.
“Not even a little.”
“Good.” His shoulders rolled, lurching for me. He was faster. His body slammed into mine, tossing us both to the floor with a painful blow. Instinctively, my knee drove up, ramming into his crotch.