He must think the worst that could happen between us has passed.
“You’d be a Scorpion, and you’d be entitled to everything that comes with that designation,” he continues as though this conversation has shifted from chaos to casual in less time than it takes to blink.
I wish I could say the staggering flip back and forth hasn’t been our entire interaction so far, but I keep flashing from wrath to wonder so fast that I don’t even know what I’m feeling anymore or why. Tarek stands there as though he’s not working hard to dangle an irresistible lure in front of my face.
“You’re one of us, Little Dagger. I know you feel it,” he tells me, and it’s exactly what I need to hear to see this for what it is.
“You don’t know me,” I contend, scowling at his presumption.
“Then let us get to know you,” Riall counters, as though it’s as simple as that.
He’s a mere arm stretch away, and his body tightens as though he wants to move closer but is stopping himself. I brush off the longing and justifications that try to seep through the cracks in my armor. They know exactly what to say to coax out my deepest desires and buried insecurities, but I know I can’t trust it. The offer is enticing, but it lacks the one thing that’s kept me going all of this time. I don’t ever want to bow to anyone again. Whether it’s three powerful assassins or the kings that rule over these shitty realms.
Let them all leave their castles and their cooks and their servants. Let them be bought, sold, and used as they come up in a ludere, and then maybe they’d be worth listening to. Until then, they can fuck themselves with an iron dagger for all I care.
I don’t remember who I was before I woke up in a cage, but I hadn’t been starved. I didn’t have any bruises, broken bones, or a mark on me until the iron bars burned my back. Dorsin and the orcs expected to ransom me, which makes me think that I came from a place where I was wanted, valued. There were people somewhere out in the realms who would have paid a great deal to get me back. I was once cared for, maybe even loved…and now I’m nothing.
I’ve been fractured beyond all repair, and I’m now standing in the home of the fae who helped—in more ways than one—to break me. I’ve had enough.
“I belong to no one but me. I never did and I never will,” I proclaim, my head high and my stance proud. “I want nothing more than that. Dressing up the cage doesn’t change what it is. I don’t give a fuck how comfortable you make your chains or what benefits might come with them, they’re still chains.”
“We’re not trying to chain you,” Riall argues.
“Speak for yourself,” Curio interjects, his tone a seductive purr.
“Not helping,” Riall snaps at him, his hazel eyes enraged as he fists his hands at his side.
Tarek rolls his eyes and then blows out a deep exhale. He studies me with a contemplative eye, like he can see what he wants but he’s still unsure how to get it. Silence grows heavy in the room. It presses against me, demanding I lift the pressure that’s slowly growing, but I refuse to give in. I won’t speak first. I won’t be the weak one.
“Fine,” Tarek finally clips. “If that’s what it takes, you’re free. You can walk out the door right now, and no one will stop you. No one will hunt you down. Your life is your own.”
I suck in a sharp breath at the indifferently spoken pronouncement. I don’t miss how both Riall’s and Curio’s heads snap in Tarek’s direction. It’s obvious neither of them are in on what their leader just declared, which makes it all the more confusing. Unable to help myself, I glance over at the door Riall walked through when he first found me in this kitchen.
Through the window inset in the wood, I can see the fluffy gray clouds are even darker, and the smell of rain is potent in the briny air.
“We can help you, if you stay,” Tarek proffers. “If you give us a chance we can show you who we really are and how you could fit in that.”
I jerk my stare back to Tarek, his words a sprinkle of enticing crumbs on the barren ground, a trail he’s hoping I’ll follow. “You said you don’t know where you come from or how you ended up at the ludere. We have contacts that could help point us in the right direction. There’s no one in the realms more driven or adept at finding things than we are. We can help you.”
“Why?” I ask, completely bewildered.
Curio and Riall study me earnestly. They’re silent as Scorpius does what he can to reel me back in. It’s written all over each of their faces that they’re keen to keep me here. I doubt it’s because they want answers too, but this can’t just be about fucking, can it? I’m not daft, I know what each of them is not so subtly hinting at. Under different circumstances, with less crushing truths between us, I might not be opposed to the physical implications of staying.
Fucking and emotion are not connected things for me. It’s a release, a need, an opportunity to control what happens to my body when I want it and how I want it. But I can’t trust these fae. I just met them, and there’s already too much damaging history between us to turn a blind eye to. I don’t understand what it is about me that they’re fighting so hard for, but in the end, it really doesn’t matter.
“What you can do, Auset…what all of us can do for that matter, is rare.Shadow walkingandbloodingare not talents that we stumble across often, if ever. We can help you develop those abilities while we search for answers. We can prepare you better than anyone for what’s out there in the realms. Let us show you what it’s like to be one of us.”
Tarek’s words do their best to ensnare me. They try to wrap around my cold shoulders like a warm cloak. I can see the promised answers, offers of inclusion, and hints of so much more sewn into the seams of the hopeful protection he wants to drape over me. But I know where hope leads. I know how quickly sweet promises can be ripped from your heart, leaving gouges not even the best healers can smooth away.
They can’t see them, but I’m covered in those scars. Besides, it’s not lost on me that he didn’t actually answer my question. He’s being cagy about something, they all are, and I’m not interested in figuring out what it is or how it will bite me in the ass in the end. It always does. I’ve learned that lesson too many times now to care to repeat it again.
I watch the three Scorpions as they watch me, their offer dangling between us. I don’t know what they expect me to say. I want answers, I want to find my place, but trusting anyone, especially them, is too dangerous a trade. These three left me chained to a floor in a manor as it passed hands from Dorsin to Tilleo, with them watching from the shadows. They abandoned me to my fate, and now after all this time, they want me to braid that fate with theirs as though a few answers would earn them that sacrifice.
It doesn’t.
Like the night they crawled out of the window in Dorsin’s chambers without so much as a goodbye or a backward look, I turn for the door. A stool scrapes against the stone floor behind me, and the sounds of a soft scuffle trail in my wake as I reach for the knob. My hands tremble as I hear Tarek whisper commandingly to the others.
“No, let her go. She deserves to choose this.”
