Chapter 21
T he giant bartender and Rohan shared a look, but Rohan chuckled first and said, “I’ll have my usual.” He continued laughing to himself, and I finally couldn’t take it anymore.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, just thinking about what Padruig is going to make you.” He continued smiling as he grabbed a bowl full of nuts. Tossing a handful into his mouth, he finally looked over at me. “What?” he asked.
“Am I in trouble?”
“That depends,” Rohan said with a shrug.
“Depends on what, exactly?”
“Depends on what kind of mood the ogre is in tonight. You may get a nice martini with top-shelf liquor, or you may get a dark and stormy with a few extra bits inside.” When Rohan saw the fearful look on my face, he nudged my shoulder and shook his head.
“I’ll let you know if there’s anything…unusual in there. ”
“Thanks.”
Rohan continued crunching on his food while I took in my surroundings.
Along the back wall, where there were no bottles of alcohol on shelves, were framed pictures.
There must have been at least a hundred of them stretching from one side of the alcove to the other.
Some were in black and white, and some, as they moved further to my right, were in color.
And in every single one of them was the short, muscular man currently giving Tris a beating in the fighting ring.
I turned to the tiger shifter. “How old is Razi?”
Rohan raised his brows and smiled at the bartender when he dropped off our drinks.
His was dark and in a tall glass with a lime.
Mine was in a martini glass, clear, and topped with an orange peel spiral and a gummy bear.
Intrigued, I thanked the ogre and pulled the drink closer to take a whiff.
The sweet smell of orange liquor mixed nicely with what I assumed was vodka and a splash of soda. It looked delicious.
Rohan nudged my shoulder again. He was a touchy-feeling kind of guy, this one. “He likes you,” he said with a grin. “You should be grateful. It could have been much worse.”
“I have to know…how?”
Leaning toward me like we were sharing a very special secret, he said, “I once saw Padruig cut off a man’s finger and serve it back to him in a Bloody Mary.”
“What!” When I caught Padruig staring at me, I did my best to smile through the shock. “What did the man do to him?” I whispered.
Rohan shrugged. “He complained about his drink.”
Fully terrified, I dropped my gaze to my own cocktail and took a sip.
It was delicious despite the fact that I would have told Padruig it was the best I’d ever had, even if it was the worst thing I’d ever tasted.
Smiling at the bartender and giving him a thumbs-up, I pushed the drink to the side and faced Rohan again. “So…Razi?”
“Ah, yes. Razi.” Rohan’s gaze travelled over the wall of pictures. “Razi’s been around for a long time.”
“How long have you known him?”
Smiling over the top of his glass, Rohan raised his brows at me. “A long time. ”
“Are we talking like one generation long or maybe like one century long?”
The tiger shifter chuffed a laugh that reminded me of the sounds he made last night once he’d changed into his animal. “You’re a smart one, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been called that.”
“I’ll bet.” He took another sip of his drink before answering me. “I’ve known Razi nearly fifty years and have been fighting for him for forty.”
“Whoa! How old are you?”
“How old are you?” he countered.
“Twenty-five.”
He sighed. “So young. I am about three times your age.”
The man didn’t look a day over thirty, so I couldn’t stop my jaw from flapping open when he told me the truth. “How is that possible?”
“Shifter genes.”
“Is that the same for all shifters?”
“Oh yeah.” Rohan signaled for Padruig to get him another drink. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“I’m a journalist.”
“I see.” Rohan smiled. “Do people like to tell you things?”
Ignoring his question, I swallowed another excellent sip of alcohol and studied the pictures again. “How long has Razi had this place?”
“Just a few years, as far as I know. He has to move regularly to make sure no one suspects that he’s…different.”
“You mean that he’s a troll.”
Again, Rohan bumped against my shoulder and smiled. “You are an interesting one. And yes. So no one realizes he’s something different, along with all the fighters who work for him.”
There was something sad in Rohan’s eyes when he talked about fighters working for Razi. “Can you quit?”
Rohan snapped his head back to me and stared. I swore I heard something rumble in his chest, and I had a feeling it wasn’t a hunger pain. “Why would I quit?” He’d asked it innocently enough, despite the pain I saw in his eyes.
“I don’t know. How long do the fighters usually work for Razi?”
This time, I knew I saw a hint of sadness pass over the tiger’s face. “Until they die.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I kept nursing my drink as Rohan spun a nut around in circles on the counter.
“Sosie?”
Tris’s voice startled me enough that I almost knocked my glass over.
I twisted the stool around and got a good look.
Tris was already covered in bruises. His right eye was starting to swell, and an ice bag was taped to his knee.
Considering his bloodied knuckles and split lip, I wondered just how well I really knew Tris.
Was this what he wanted out of life? To get beaten and battered just for the rush? Was that something I could handle?
I didn’t say anything, but Tris was watching Rohan. “Hey, you’re that tiger, aren’t you?”
Holding out his hand, the two shook. “Rohan.”
“You were amazing last night,” Tris said. He shifted his backpack strap from one shoulder to the other, wincing as he did.
I just glared at him.
“You know, you have potential,” Rohan complimented Tris.
I turned my glare to the tiger shifter, and he laughed. “What? It’s the truth.”
“You’re not helping,” I groaned.
Tris cleared his throat. “Sosie, can we talk? In private.”
He’d added that second part when Padruig came over to take my empty glass. “Sure,” I said, sliding off the stool. “Thank you for the drink, Rohan. It was really nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure was mine. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
I didn’t know about that, but I smiled at him anyway.
Giving a wave to Padruig so he wouldn’t try to feed me body parts, I followed Tris back through the warehouse and toward the front door.
At some point after his fight, Tris had changed into his jeans and T-shirt he’d been wearing during my trip to Divine Pathways.
Absentmindedly, I wondered what he’d done with his bloodied shorts.
Once outside, I thanked the Monster, and Tris gave him a fist bump.
The mild summer air was much welcomed, and the stench of fighting pits started to slowly ooze away from my skin.
When we reached my bike, Tris set his bag on the street and turned to face me.
I hadn’t really known what kind of conversation to expect, but I certainly hadn’t anticipated getting a major stink eye from him.
“Why did you come here?” he immediately asked.
“Because I wanted to talk to you. Is that not allowed?” I snapped back.
“Not when you embarrass me in front of everyone.”
“Excuse me?” I crossed my arms and ground my jaw together.
“You can’t stop the fights, Sosie. It’s against the rules.”
“And how was I supposed to know that?”
Tris let out a long breath and started to pace beside me and my bike. “You shouldn’t even be here!”
“Tris,” I warned, “I heard you the first time. You don’t have to be so mean about it.” I kicked at the paver-covered road and tried to pick my next words carefully. “We found something, Tris. Wylen and I. And I wanted to tell you. I didn’t know you were coming here to pick a fight with Razi.”
Tris chuckled, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “You think I came here to pick a fight? You know, Sosie, the world doesn’t just revolve around you. I’m trying to figure things out, and all you can do is think about yourself and your family.”
“Tris,” I whispered, totally taken aback by the amount of anger spewing from him.
“I don’t have anyone else to talk to about this!
” he shouted. “My mother won’t tell me jack shit, and everyone else who might know where my troll bloodline comes from is either dead or missing.
This,” he pointed to the club, “is the only the only place I have where I might be able to find some answers.”
“Well, did you?”
He creased his face at me. “Did I what?”
“Did you find some fucking answers, Tris?”
Blowing out a huge puff of air, he shook his head and glared at me. “Yeah, actually, I did. Do you know that the faeries created trolls to be their slaves? Slapped them together out of dirt and magic and treated them like animals for thousands of years.”
I’d read about that in my research, but had no idea if it was really true. Based on Tris’s anger, I was guessing he got a little history lesson tonight. I stayed silent, afraid of what I might say.
“And did you know that when my people rebelled, they were either killed or had to flee to our world? The fucking fae wouldn’t ever let them come home again without the threat of assassination.”
I almost said something about the “my people” comment, but when I saw the veins popping out of Tris’s neck, I swallowed my words. “I’m sorry, Tris. This is all new to me, too?—”
“That’s why I was fighting,” he interrupted. “Razi wanted to see what I had in me so that we could try to figure out how close of a relative could have been his kin.”
“He can tell that just from fighting you?”
Tris shrugged. “Yes. He said he already has a guess, but he wanted to run some more tests.”
Grinding my lips together, I debated, yet again, if I should say the next words. “Razi makes people fight with him until they die.” There, I’d said it.
“So?”
My mouth dropped open in surprise at his response. “So?”
“Yeah. What does that matter?”
“Um, maybe because I don’t want you to end up like that grizzly last night and get your throat ripped out by Rohan. How about that?” My blood pressure was fuming…I could feel my pu lse beating against my neck. Tris was getting on my last nerve. And my heart was slowly breaking.
“Please, Sosie. Don’t be stupid.”
And cue the shouting. “Don’t call me stupid, Tris.”
“Well, stop asking me stupid questions.”
“What is wrong with you?” I asked, the tears starting to blur my vision.
“I’m just so tired of it always being about you and your little quest to find your fae father.”
“Tris?” The word came out in a squeak as my voice shook with hurt.
“You know what?” He yanked his backpack off my ground and threw it over his shoulder.
“I think I just need to go home and spend some time alone tonight.” Watching and waiting for me to agree, he stood there in the streetlight, fuming.
Was this the troll side of him or was this just the adrenaline junkie coming down from his high?
Either way, I agreed with him. I wanted to be alone tonight, too.
“Then go,” I said, surprised when my voice didn’t shake despite my whole body trembling.
He paced a few more times, apparently deciding if I was toying with him or not. I crossed my arms and cocked my hip. I wasn’t going to be the one to walk away.
Finally making a decision, he spun back around to look at me. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I said nothing as he walked away, got on his bike, and drove off into the darkness. The Monster was still standing by the warehouse entry, and when I saw him watching, he gave a small wave. Great, now even the big, bad bouncer felt sorry for me.
Angry and hurt, I climbed onto my bike, buckled my helmet, and sat there for a few minutes.
I tried to swallow the tears, because dammit, I wasn’t going to let Tris make me cry.
But I failed miserably. I wiped at my face and did my best to clear the view so I could make it home.
The air didn’t feel right. I assumed it was Tris and his sudden shift in behavior, but there was something else deep in my gut telling me to run away right now.
I finally decided to listen to my instincts and slowly started my drive home.
And as I pulled away from the warehouse, I saw the faint flicker of a pipe lighting up in the shadows next to where I’d been parked.