I reel back in shock, the admission hitting me harder than any master or blade slave ever has. “You…you own that place?” I stammer, as though not even my mouth can wrap itself around the truth of those words.
They own me?
Tilleo and the ludere belong to them?
Flashes of all the torture and brutality I’ve experienced in that hellish hovel flash in my mind. Pain suddenly explodes in my shoulder as though I’m reliving some long forgotten injury. I rub it absently as I stare them down. I don’t know what in the crowns is going on.
Is this why they killed Dorsin that night? They wanted what he’d built?
No wonder they left me there, they probably thought I’d been bought and paid for. Why would they take me from exactly where they wanted me to be? Every ounce of interest and need simmering inside of me goes sour. I try to breathe through the mess of emotions bombarding me. I can’t believe I thought for even a second that these Scorpions might be different. They’re just as rancid and evil as every other master I’ve ever met.
I was dying, and it was their skeletal faces that invaded my thoughts. I dared to believe that the strange draw to them might be fate working on my side for once. And here they’ve owned me this entire time. All the abuse, the mind games, the constant struggle for survival was because of them. Maybe not by their hand directly, but surely by their purse. They paid for it all.
Pain and anger pit my soul. A brutal haze coats my vision. Everything in me is crying and begging for me to move, to strike, to kill. I want to make them pay for every lash, every broken bone and attempt to break my spirit. Every disfiguring scar slashed into who I am, now has their names etched inside too. I want to rip their fucking heads from their bodies, but I know I can’t. It’s a fight I won’t win, and they don’t deserve my end. They don’t deserve another second of my life. They’ve taken enough from me.
I refuse to submit to the anger that’s broiling me from the inside out, so instead, I shut everything down. I deaden every feeling, every flicker of fury, every unwelcome brush of betrayal. My expression goes blank, and my body relaxes as I let go. I can’t take all three of them. I’m not delusional. I’ll do what it takes to survive today, just like I have for too many years, but a reckoning is coming. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but they’ll pay. I’ll make sure of it. I already promised myself that I’d destroy the ludere if it was the last thing I ever did. These three just added their names to that list.
As though the sudden change in me has charged the air in this room with warning, Tarek steps back, his tall hard body almost shielding Riall and Curio. It’s a silent declaration that to get to them, I’ll have to go through him first. I like that he sees me as a threat.
He should.
I don’t know what the kind of devotion and partnership that he’s showing the other two feels like; all anyone has ever done for me is turn their back when I needed them most. If I think about it long enough, it might sting, but I shut all of that out.
Fuck them.
“Stop,” Tarek commands, and my enraged focus tunnels until all I see is him.
I taste magic in the air, and his order moves over me like an encroaching fog. It doesn’t nip forcefully at my skin like I expect. It’s as though he wants me to know that he could compel me to listen, but he’s not. I had no idea fae could do this, that they could feel this powerful. I should probably be terrified, but all it does is piss me off even more.
“We know that your life hasn’t been easy,” he starts, the tinge of power winking around me like sun sparkles over water. “But before you act on the righteous indignation simmering in your eyes, you need to understand that there’s more to this than you think, Auset. We help condemned fae have a chance at more. The ludere and the Orders are the best option any of them have. You may not like the methods, but we give fae an opportunity to overcome their shitty circumstances at birth. We show them a way to fight what fate had in store for them.”
His message sounds noble. Maybe if I hadn’t spent the last six years having theirmethodsandopportunitieswhipped, beaten, and scored into me, I might fall for the earnest gleam in his blue gaze, but it’s all bullshit. No one in the ludere has a choice. Maybe things get better for the blade slaves once they leave, but everything that happens up until that point nullifies anygoodthe Scorpions think they’re doing.
I scoff and shake my head. “Whatever you tell yourself to help you sleep at night.” I glare at each of them. “You can paint pretty pictures about where you get fae from, but you still make slaves of them. You’re as rotten as every other powerful person who preys on the unfortunate.”
“They would have been slaves whether we stepped in or not,” Skull counters. “Whether the skin trade got them or they were pulled in by a thief’s guild. Maybe, by some miracle, they find a job, but in the end, it’s all some form of slavery. One fae slogging away for another, dependent on them for everything they have. It could all be stripped away in a second, and often is. Don’t pretend that the realms don’t work the way that they do. We’reallslavesto something or someone.”
“So that makes it okay?” I demand, disgusted by the rationale.
“It makes it what it is,” Riall offers grimly. “We at least give fae a chance. We don’t doom anyone to a lifetime of nothing but suffering. The ludere teaches the skills needed to crawl out of the shit-ridden holes the Crowns would rather see them drown in. It’s something, which is infinitely better than nothing.”
“Like we said, it’s gray, Auset, even you have to be able to see that,” Tarek adds.
I stare at him, his words swirling all around me like pecking birds looking for a place to swoop in and perch. I refuse to give them one. I smother the flames of fury that try to flicker through my chest and offer the Scorpions a cold smile.
“I don’t think you want to know exactly what it is I see,” I challenge, my tone so saccharine that it makes Curio’s mouth pucker against it.
“We’re offering you a place with us, Auset. We don’t offer it lightly, and you shouldn’t dismiss it simply because we see the world differently. Being one of us won’t right the wrongs done to you—no one can do that—but it can give you what you truly want in life,” Tarek offers, and it’s almost as though the other two are holding their breath as he stares at me pointedly.
“And what would you know about what I want, Scorpius?” I bite back.
“More than you’ll admit,” he smugly retorts, one of his eyebrows ticking up as though he’s daring me to deny it.
I want to argue, but it would solely be for argument’s sake. I know nothing about these three fae in front of me, and he’s right, knowing that what was done to me is wrong doesn’t erase that it was done. The notches in my soul are a permanent part of who I am now. I don’t know much about the realms outside of the ludere, but it’s not hard to see that too much about them is severely broken. It makes me want to burn it all to the ground, but that’s nothing more than an unrealistic fantasy, and I think the Scorpions are delusional enough for the both of us.
Even if the abominable systems could be toppled, I have no doubt that something equally as heinous would find a way to rise from the rubble. I know all too well that life is nothing more than a brutal dance between predator and prey. I’ve had the keen misfortune of being prey since I can remember, but now, if I accept the Scorpion’s offer, that could change. I wouldn’t have to live the rest of my life being hunted. I could finally be the hunter.
Like he can sense the chips in my resolve, Tarek’s shoulders lose some of their tension. “You wouldn’t be alone anymore,” he tells me as he steps to the side and leans back against the table next to Curio.
