Because Imadea fucking mess.
“Besides,” he says, “this is a golden opportunity to lure out all your enemies.”
“She’s my wife! I’m not using her as bait!”
“No, she’s not. You got an annulment, remember?”
I lunge for him, but he just kicks me in the balls, and I drop to my hands and knees as the fucker laughs. Pulling a gosberry out of his tunic, he eats it while I try not to puke all over the ground. Fuck, if he does that again, I won’t even need to use contraceptives with my wife. He’ll have kicked all the future kids out of me.
Closing my eyes, I struggle to my feet. I want to kill him and Evangeline – the two people who I know for certain know where she is. But Jace is a masochist waiting to die so he can reunite with Aurelia, and Evangeline pissed herself laughing when I tried to threaten her earlier this morning.
“You need us, Dickie,” she said as she sat on the floor of my room, wiping away her tears as someone banged on the closeddoor of my ensuite. They screamed for help behind a muffled gag.
Any other time, I would’ve demanded to know who she had locked in my bathroom, but if it doesn’t have anything to do with Arienna, I frankly don’t care anymore.
“I need to see her,” I tell Jace as I open my eyes.
“You need a shower and a shave and some fucking sleep.”
Spreading my wings, I launch into the air. Ignoring his concern for me, I head down to the forest floor. I’ve spent all this time looking in Kholar, but she is a brownie. If she isn’t in our tree, then she could be in the meadow.
As soon as I touch down in Brownston, I grab the nearest brownie by his arm. The mushroom-shaped houses rising up around us are a vivid difference to the wooden elegance of Raza. They look more like her. My heart calms just a little bit. But not enough.
“Has Arienna moved back here?” I demand of the man.
“Nope.”
“Where is her mother?” Perhaps she can give me insight into where her daughter might’ve gone to find solace.
He points at a pink-haired woman coming out of a shop.
“Dab!” I call out as I stride over to her. She turns to me with a smile.
“Yes?”
“Where did Arienna go when she was sad as a kid?”
“A good brownie is never sad.”
“Yes, yes, but where did she go after her granddad…” I grit my teeth together. Realising my hand is already on the blade at my hip, I force myself to let it go. “After he died?”
“She left with Fabia.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“She was your daughter. Six years old and you didn’t watch her?”
She blinks at me, not understanding.
“They’re brainwashed,” Jace says as he removes my hand from my knife.
Shrugging him off, I turn and spread my wings. It was pointless to come here.
“Oh, are you leaving already?” Arienna’s mother asks. “You should come to our orgy. It’s Cara’s sixth –”
I’m on her in an instant. My blade slips into her chest. Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t scream. No one around us does either. Her smile doesn’t even falter as she looks at me. Joy still lingers in her eyes.
