Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Lagos
She is unconscious.
Blood covers her cream corset and stains the pale skin across her chest and arms. Her hair is a red matted mess. I can’t identify her injuries in the fucking dark, with all this blood.
I rip her corset down the middle to find her torso swelling on the left-hand side, around her defined ribs. With barely any fat or muscle on her, very little protects her lungs.
And her skin, thin and soft, barely keeps her together.
Fucking Common.
They are unbelievably fragile creatures.
I wrap my hands around her ribcage, encompassing it entirely, and trace the channels between each bone with my thumbs until I feel the breaks. One, at least.
My blood boils. That Shadow fucker kicked her, crushed her nose, split her lip, fuck knows what else. I scoop her into my arms, expecting her to be light, but… She is made of nothing.
Young. Weak. Fragile.
Fuck.
They can’t find her.
I stride through the puddles of blood caked across the dusty limestone. All that is left of the fucker who hurt her. Bones and flesh in the ocean. It won’t happen again. She stays with me now, until I deliver her and the Shadow baby to the Common Community.
She stays at my side.
Until she is safe.
The rocks crunch beneath my feet as I make my way through the dark rocky corridors and down to the subterranean stream.
In response to my presence, glowworms brighten, illuminating the walls and each lancing stalactite. I take the old cavern stairs with her flopped in my arms.
Check her quick.
Fully clothed, I stride straight into the underground lake, needing to clean her wounds so that I can see the damage I’m fucking dealing with.
A long whimper leaves her split lip; still, even in this battered condition, she is pretty. I noticed the moment I saw her, noticed and hated it. Hated her green eyes filled with fear and sorrow. She looked up at me, and—fuck me—her eyes perfectly reflected my soul. Large, glistening, olive-green orbs of fear and disgust.
Something inside me said, there she is. The thing you have been waiting for, the reason for it all. Something pure and gentle that sees you for what you are—inhuman. Someone to remind you how real humanity glows and trembles.
Take her.
Fuck her.
She could be yours.
That was pathetic humanity clinging to me— And I felt like killing someone after that. Remind myself who I am and what I don’t deserve to touch—Her. Anyone pure and good like her.
Not again.
I followed her that first day because my blood could sense her lie. I watched her bathe and sensed she wasn’t Maple. Stalked her to the Hub, where she exchanged her body with that fucking Endigo. No way was I allowing that, even if he’d left her unharmed.
Which he probably would have.
But fuck, did the vision of him with his cock between her pale, flawless thighs fuel my veins for his death. I’ve never killed a townie before, but I didn’t even blink. Red was a mist over my eyes.
Hate their kind.
Mine, too.
Submerging all but the little Lace Girl’s face in the blue pool, the water ripples around her perfectly formed figure. It’s hard to ignore such a feminine shape, wet and half-bared to me.
She groans as I wipe her face, noting the splits and cuts, the gashes and bloody paint. I see the very moment she comes to. Pain assaults her—cripples her. Her face tightening, auburn brows furrowing above long brown lashes waved over her wet cheeks.
“Tide,” she croaks, a throat full of tears.
Dead. He’s dead, and grief is not something I waste time on—an emotion without purpose.
“He was old,” I grunt.
With her eyes closed, helpless sobs escape her, jerking her entire torso in my arms. She suddenly screams as her physical pain and anguish collide, but she doesn’t stop weeping.
“Stop crying over that old fool.” I support her body as she trembles. “You’re broken.”
“Tomar!” she growls, green eyes snapping open, full of anger, disappointment, and betrayal that spear my calloused heart. “I don’t want you. You’ll never understand. He was my friend .”
I grind my teeth.
Her need to mourn is a burden. I’m not a soft man. My skin is hide, a thick coat that holds darkness and depravities, but I need her to stop shaking her fragile body around.
“Stop fucking crying!” I growl, trying to scare her into obedience, and her eyes burn true hatred up at me. The kind the stars feel.
My iron-blood howls, and a fierce self-loathing twists the muscles that hold her.
Should drown her.
Save her from more of this... Pain. Loss. Reality. Death is sweet. A release. An end to suffering. She is too weak, innocent, and vulnerable for this damn world.
Too innocent.
They did that.
Kept her like this.
I inhale hard, close my eyes, exhale roughly, and open them to her glassy, bloodshot gaze. I try again. Gentle. Controlled. “Take it easy, little flower.” I keep my voice low and steady. “I need to find your wounds, so I know how to hold you.” I pause. She closes her tear-ridden eyes, locking the cold vision of me out, and nods her head once.
Good girl.
I push her red hair from her cheeks and splash the water on her wounds, gauging the depth by how quickly fresh blood swims out into the rippling pool. My chest aches. A real sense of guilt tears through me when I see the bruising waking up over her swollen ribcage.
Could have stopped this.
Guilt is another useless emotion.
My eyes travel over her supple, flat stomach submerged just below the water, and I frown. Is she hurt anywhere else? Why is she wearing this corset?
Don’t go there.
Cradling her with one hand, I brush the other across her abdomen, and her muscles tremble beneath my touch. I squeeze the length of each leg, checking for swelling, but I’m pretty certain all her injuries are above her waist.
Internal bleeding creates a bulb at her hip, but blood only leeches into the pool in small, elegant swirls of scarlet. It’s not heavy. I lift her from the water, and little fingers curl around the fabric of my shirt. I tense up.
Good girl.
Don’t look at me.
“Keep your eyes closed.” I can’t bear her eyes on me, not this close, as I walk her from the lake and back toward the docks.
Her torso and little tits are exposed—I ripped her corset open. Too close to me. A surge of un-fucking welcome possessiveness rushes through my veins. I lift my head, scanning the area through a scowl. Making sure no one is strolling the roads of The Bite at this hour, warning them not to approach me. She is not like the other girls I interact with.
The girls at The Bite are ruined, broken, and lost. I can work with that. Can touch that. I can be their dark warrior, the monster who keeps their rogue town safe, reaps vengeance for them during the day, and fucks them at night. No expectations, intimacy or gentle hands. They like it. The bloody vendettas and all I stand for.
She doesn’t.
I step onto the cat and duck into the hull. Pass Tomar’s room. The baby is in there. She’ll wake him. I head for my cabin, shoulder the door open, and lay her on the single bed. Water seeps from her damp red hair into the pillow—my pillow.
I stare at her. Still.
What the fuck am I doing?
Her nipples harden, and I squeeze my fists at my side. Freckles dot her chest and over her breasts, with a few on the hard tight beads. I need to fix and cover her and push her the fuck away. Fast.
Reaching for a towel, I lay it over her and lightly dry her through the fabric. And by the time I have the acetone in a sealed bag of water for cool compression, she is unconscious again, breathing deeply. There might be peace behind her eyelids. Might be lies and innocence.
Don’t want to disturb that.
I knock twice on the wall. “Tomar.” I lay the cool packs on her wounds, nose, ribs, and her left hip. Done. Thank fuck. I cover her again. “Tomar.”
When he enters, rubbing his eyes back from slumber, I slide down to the floor beside her, press my back to the bed, and stare at the wall.
He freezes. “What happened?”
Keeping my position beside her, like a damn guard dog on the floor, I manage to convince my body to lean aside, allowing Tomar access to her.
He dashes out and returns with his med kit, and I glare at the wall, molars clenching in my jaw, while he checks her over.
“So?” I bark, firmer than I meant to.
He is hovering over her. “Her nose is fractured. Lip split, but not enough to warrant stitches. Swollen. Everything is internal.”
I thought so.
“I could realign her nose by hand, but it’ll hurt like Hell, and I don’t have any Opi for her.”
I nod. “She will have Opi.”
“But I don’t.”
“Then don’t touch her.” Don’t hurt her. Her nose was perfect. “A little imperfection would do her wonders,” I grunt. I’m an arsehole.
Tomar steps back from the bed and stares down at me. “I’ll see how she feels about it when she wakes up.” His eyes lock on my face, suspicion and concern obvious in their blue depths. “What happened to her, Lagos?”
“We have to leave.” I growl, fighting back my anger, and look up at him. “They found her.”
“Who?”
“A Shadow.”
His shoulders sag. “That’s why you ran out of here like a bat out of Hell,” he states to himself, not me. Probably wondering why I saved her, why I was the one. Why she is in my room.
He likes her.
Can’t blame him.
“Is she naked under the towel?” he asks, voice tight.
Calm. I stay very still. “Almost.” I don’t have an honourable reputation when it comes to women, and one like her… I’d never tarnish with my murderous hands. He must know that about me. After everything we have been through, he knows the pleasure I allow myself—women—is a basic necessity. Not romantic or intimate. An animal instinct that brings me to pain without it.
She’s too human for me.
“Any injuries to her body?” he asks, and I hear him shuffle.
Is he reluctant to look?
“One rib is broken,” I answer, because I don’t want him to look. “Others fractured, perhaps.” I direct my attention back to the wall and stare at it, hiding my thoughts. “Swelling around her abdomen. No skin tears. No stitches are needed. He wasn’t trying to kill her or do too much damage. Or she’d be dead.”
“He was going to take her back to The Trade.” Tomar closes his eyes, shaking his head, before opening them again. “Poor little thing. A broken rib will make travel painful.” He strides toward the door, saying, “She needs to be cleaned, and cool compressed, and?—”
“I did it.”
He stops. Looking back at me on the floor by her bed—my bed, my fucking bed—and then to her unconscious, he tries to read the situation. “You’re happy to give up your bed for the girl tonight? When she wakes, I’ll move her into mine with Spero if she wishes. Let her decide where she is most comfortable.”
“Fine.”
Fuck, that was hard to say.
He exhales with satisfaction, the single word that struggled along my tongue filling him with relief. Makes more sense for her to be in his room. Fucking Lace Girl Dahlia, with her pretty eyes and perfect skin, needs to stay the hell away from me.
“We have to leave with them tomorrow. We can dock for a few days by the fall, but then we have to get away from The Bite. If they send more Shadows, they’ll find us. They will sense us.”
I grunt. I know.
“You’ll get the cat ready? We need to give Sweets, the other girls, and the townies all the supplies we have for the month. We won’t be back again for a few weeks.”
I nod. “I’ll do it at first-light.”
He stops and the weight of unspoken words thicken the air between us. An inevitable message twitches in my veins. It is a constant reminder.
He finally says, “We can’t risk me being out of action for a day. Not with Dahlia and Spero. Tomorrow, while we are at the fall, we need to drain you. You need to be in control, in top condition while we drive across The Cradle.”
My eyes cut to the little flower, wary of our privacy. “I know.”
“While I’m out, you’ll need to listen out for Spero. I’ll feed and change him and put him to sleep. Just listen. I might not wake up straight away, and she needs to rest and recover.” I stiffen, so he adds, “It is only for a day, Lagos. He’s incredibly sweet and easy.”
Turning to leave, he pauses at the threshold of my door with his back to me. “You won’t hurt him, brother. Not everything you touch breaks.”
A cruel smile slides into place.
That’s where he’s wrong.