Eleven - Evangeline
My pussy clenching, I banged my head against the wall of the restaurant and breathed out heavily. I could get myself off now, but the bastard wasn’t waiting for me, already spreading his wings and taking to the air.
Aurelia laughed, and I flicked her off. Banging my head one final time with a curse, I wiped an arm across my face, getting all his cum off, then followed after Redric.
“We’ll go to mine first,” I said as I drew up beside him. “There’s not much you can pack, so it’ll be quick. Then we can go to wherever it is you’re flying to in a hurry.”
“Do you ever shut up?” he snapped, and I shrugged, not at all bothered by his temper. Given I was used to having a weapon thrust in my face, a few harsh words were nothing.
“Not unless I have a dick in my mouth,” I teased.
“So basically never then. I can’t imagine you’ve had many cocks in you considering how shit you are at it. Too much teeth.”
I snorted on a laugh. “As if you’ve had a lot of blow jobs to compare. You didn’t even have a dick six weeks ago.”
His lips thinned. Mine widened. Riling him was fun – even if he had left me hanging really badly.
My thighs clenched, my nerves still buzzing with the need for a release. “And besides,” I continued, “you came hard.”
His jaw tightening, he flew faster, and I laughed as I followed after him.
“Turn east towards Evisa,” I said as we neared the place I was staying.
When he didn’t show any sign of hearing me, I rolled my eyes and grabbed his arm. “My house is this way.”
“I’m not packing you a bag.”
“You’re really going to make me wear the same clothes all weekend? You do know we’ll be sharing a room?”
“Then pack one yourself.”
“The Dame said –”
“She’s not going to know,” he snapped, yanking his arm away.
“Actually, she will. She might not have magic, but she’s crazy good. Now veer east.”
Glaring at me, he refused for a few more paces before cursing and flying in the direction I wanted him to.
“Do you have a phone?” he gritted out, and I looked at him with one brow cocked.
“Why?”
“I need to call child social services.”
“What? Why? I thought you were here to kill me? Jeez, and here I was thinking I was lucky.”
“I picked up the kids you passed on your way into the pits. You know, the girl who tried to sell her brother?” The words came out as a near growl.
I cocked my head to the side as I landed at the back door of my house. Thinking, I picked the lock. “Oh yeah, I remember them.” Opening the door, I stepped into the hall and asked over my shoulder. “So you bought him then?”
“No.” He slammed the door shut. “I saved them from their shitty mother.”
Snorting, I turned towards him. “You kidnapped them.”
“I saved them.”
“Pretty sure the law won’t care.”
“You going to arrest me?”
I grinned. “You can count it as the favour I owe you.” Chang-ching. Booyah! I was no longer in his debt.
Relaxing with that weight off my shoulders, I spun on my heels and led him into my room. “Grabbing the bag under the bed, which was already packed in case I needed to run, I tossed it onto the mattress. “There you go. I’ll step out and let you pack in private.”
“Don’t bother,” he said, grabbing the bag. “I’m done. Let’s go.”
“But –”
“I’m not packing you a fucking bag.”
“Fine. Jeez. You’re supposed to be nicer now that you got laid.” I turned for the door, but just as I stepped across the mantel, he grabbed my arm and spun me back inside. Slamming me into the wall beside the door, he leaned in.
“Fucking you was a bad idea.”
“And yet you’ve done it twice in two hours.”
His fingers biting into my flesh, his eyes dipped to my lips. A small whimper built in my chest, my body still on that edge he’d left me at. I rubbed my thighs together as he leaned in.
Snapping his eyes up, he suddenly released me and stepped back. “You’re a fucking disease,” he spat, passing through the door.
“No, you’re not,” Aurelia said, feeling the slice of pain in my chest.
“Of course I’m not,” I said, letting his words roll off me. I’d been called a lot worse over the years and had never let any of it get to me.
I was the head of FI-9, and it was basically in the rule book that I couldn’t have any weaknesses for people to exploit. No desires to have a friend. No loved ones to kidnap.
It’s why my daughter was my biggest secret. Why I’d built her a second identity from birth. Why the only way we could meet in public was under the disguise of fighting or something else just as distant.
Evangeline Sinclair was a heartless woman who got things done.
Shoving off the wall, I met Redric outside. Neither of us said a word as we flew towards the centre of the city. I wasn’t upset with him. I would have to care to be upset, and I didn’t care. I just...didn’t feel like talking.
We landed in front of a much smaller house than I was expecting. There was only one floor, and it was more cosy cottage than sprawling mansion. He stopped in front of the door. “Try to behave,” he said, glancing at me over his shoulder. “They’re just kids.”
I gasped. “What ever do you mean? I’m always on my best behaviour.”
His jaw locking, he stepped inside.
“You’re back!” a young boy shouted as he hurried into the room with a broom in one hand. His blond hair was cut in haggard lines, and he used his free hand to shove the longer strands out of his sunken face. “I told you he wasn’t leaving us, Dee!” he hollered over his shoulder as he stopped in front of Redric. The girl whose sign I’d fixed came up behind him, lingering in the hallway, wary and uncertain.
Chirpy as all hel, I turned to Redric. “So what are you going to do with these two while we’re gone?” I asked, knowing he didn’t have a bloody clue.
“You’re leaving us?” The girl shot me the stink eye.
“Yep,” I answered for him, “and there’s a good chance we might not come back because Testes here –”
Spinning around, he grabbed me by the arm. “Shut up,” he hissed.
“Make me.”
“What are you? A child.”
“If I was, that would make you a pedophile.”
A vein at his temple bulged as he exhaled sharply, but I didn’t care. If he killed me, he’d just bring me back. I’d lose an hour or so and it would hurt a bit, but honestly, purgatory had been amazing in its utter silence. I hadn’t experienced such peace in decades.
Was that crazy?
“Yes.” Aurelia smiled. “But considering crazy is your default, it’d be more crazy if you didn’t like it.”
I laughed internally. My lips twitched, and his eyes narrowed on them in warning.
“But we cleaned the whole house!” the boy cried, his words shaky with so much pain. It was no wonder his sister had tried to sell him. No one liked a cry baby. Their panic would feed into yours if you weren’t careful, and when you were already struggling to survive, to keep up a brave face like the girl clearly was, their presence would be nothing but a weight keeping you down.
She’d be better off without him.
“I’m sorry,” Redric said, turning to him as his fingers clenched tighter around me. “But I didn’t mean for you to live with me. I’ll take you to an orphanage –”
“Don’t bother,” the girl said, her voice the complete opposite of her brother’s. It was hard and flat. She was used to disappointment, used to everyone always failing her. “Come on, Ziny. Let’s go.”
“You can’t just leave,” Redric protested.
She snorted. “So it’s okay for us to be thrown out but not if we leave willingly?”
“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m trying –”
“To make yourself feel good. We know. You said.” She grabbed Ziny’s arm as tears welled in his eyes. “Maybe the next time you want to play hero, stick to a fucking improv class.”
She shoved past me, hitting me with her shoulder as she dragged her brother behind her. Snapping my arm out, I wrapped my fingers around her scrawny bicep and rooted her in place.
She glared at me, a glistening behind her eyes. “Let go of me.”
“Funny. I was going to tell you to let go of him. He’s dead weight.”
“Evangeline!” Redric snapped just as she called me a bitch – a name I’d heard more times than my actual one.
Her eyes widened, and I could see her connecting the dots. She knew me as Elana – the champion fighter in the pits. There was no reason for him to call me Evangeline unless I was undercover.
Closing my eyes briefly, I then opened them, my body still. “I really wish you hadn’t said that, Testes.”
Kicking him in the shin, I twisted out of his grip, freed a knife from its sheath, and aimed it at her chest, right between the ribs so it’d sink into her heart. At the same time, I spun her around, putting her between me and Redric. My blade stopped right after it cut through the thin layer of her shirt.
“I won’t tell anyone,” the girl said, her voice wobbling as I held her to me.
“I know you won’t.” My eyes were on Redric. He had pulled Ziny behind him and was watching me with so much disgust in his eyes. I was the woman without lines, and that reputation would keep him where he was. I did not have to tell him that if he moved, I would kill her. He already knew.
“Because you and your brother,” I said, flicking my gaze to Ziny, “are going to Kholar.”
“What?” Redric and the girl asked at the same time.
“As I can’t kill you or cut off your hands and tongue without upsetting Testes here, I’m going to drop you off at Echo’s.”
She gasped and most likely paled, though I couldn’t see her face. If people thought I was indifferent to the pain of others, they should meet Echo. She was head of the Royal Guard, trained all the soldiers in Raza’s capital Kholar, and was so cold that she made me look like a feel-good hippy in comparison. Her methods were effective, painful, and utterly breaking. All but one of the nightmares I had suffered had been born under her tutelage. These two wouldn’t get the chance to sleep, let alone tell anyone who I was.
“Once she passes you two,” I said, “you’ll join FI-9.”
“They’re kids,” Redric spat.
“They’re older than I was when you first tried to kill me.” The words came out sharper than I’d meant them to. and I reined the anger in. What did it matter to me if he cared more for these two strangers?
“You’ll be fed and housed and become a family with your bunkmates and good friends with the others in your squadron. It’ll be a hard life but better than anything you have known.” I didn’t know why I was trying to sell it to her. She didn’t have a choice.
Still, I waited for her response.
“And if we don’t pass?” she asked softly.
“You will,” I said confidently. “Your squadron will see to it. Even Ziny over there will make it.” We didn’t leave anyone behind, starting in training.
Silence lingered for a few seconds before she broke it. “Will I learn how to do what you just did?”
I grinned at the tilt of excitement in her words. Slowly removing my blade from her, I sheathed it. “You’ll learn that and more. Now go pack. You’re getting dropped off tonight, and it’s a good fly away.” We had to leave in the next hour if Redric and I were to return in time for our early morning meeting.
“We don’t have anything to pack,” Ziny said, shuffling forward. “Redric didn’t grab anything when he kidnapped us.”
“Go pack whatever you want of mine,” Redric said as he walked towards me. “Evangeline and I need to talk.”
Knowing better than to linger, the girl pulled Ziny down the hall.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked, stopping in front of me, his eyes flashing with a murderous rage.
I cocked my head to the side. “Well, that’s a weird way to say ‘thank you’.”
“Thank you?” he sneered.
“You’re welcome.” Gods, he was so easy.
His hands fisted. His jaw clenched. “Don’t you ever put a knife to either of them ever again.”
“Or what?” I challenged. “You going to kill me?”
Scoffing, I shook my head and went to step past him with a pat on his shoulder, but he grabbed my arm and twisted it behind me. Shoving me into the wall, he held me there, his body caging mine.
Adrenaline shot through me, but I didn’t try to get away. I needed him to get into Midnights even if I no longer trusted him to protect me after he tried to take off my leg at the restaurant. No one else would do now that we’d met the Dame.
His breath hitting my ear, he growled, “Yes, and that time, I won’t bring you back.”
I snorted, calling his bluff. “Yes, you will. You hate me too much.”
“Not as much as I would hate myself,” he said softly.
Turning my head, I looked at him. His eyes pierced mine, and I realised he felt responsible for my actions now that he’d resurrected me. What a fool. The trick to not feeling guilty was to not take responsibility for anything. That’s what my therapist said.
“That is not what he says.”
“I’m paraphrasing.”
She rolled her eyes. “He said, ‘Don’t stress over things you can’t control.’”
“Which is exactly what I just said!”
Focusing back on Redric, I sighed. “I really did help them, you know. The orphanages around here are just shopping malls for the mafia.”
“The only way you’d help someone was if they were on fire and you needed to pee.”
I grinned. “Still helping though, isn’t it?”
His lips didn’t even twitch. “I mean it, Evangeline. Don’t hurt them.”
“Okay. Sheesh.” When he released me, I rolled my shoulder and turned to face him. “It’s a six hours’ flight from here to Kholar. You got any food? I’m absolutely starving for some reason.”
His eyes dropped to my lips for a heavy second before he yanked them back up again. Walking stiffly past me, he showed me into the kitchen. “You should make the kids something too.” When he turned to leave, I grabbed his arm.
“Uh, no. You make something. I need to go pack you a bag,” I said, heading out.
“I’m spitting in your sandwich.”
Grinning, I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “Now who’s being a child?”