CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
R UBY
“Pull over,” I order as we turn the corner, my heart already beating faster at what I’ve decided to ask.
Torrence glances suspiciously at me, but he pulls into the empty parking lot of a bank. “Everything okay?”
“No, Tor. I really can’t say that it is. I need some answers - and I want them before you take me to your house.” I repress a shudder at the idea that his house might even still be covered with blood and... and body parts.
Torrence nods, resting his hands on his knees instead of the steering wheel. I take a deep breath.
“You’re a gobbelin, or at least part, right? So you drink blood?”
He nods again, his lips tightening. “Human blood gives us power. Makes our magic more potent.”
“So the restaurant...” I trail off, not knowing where to begin after that. Part of me is screaming that I should be terrified, that I should run. He’s a natural predator for me. Yet. My gut is stubbornly saying he won’t hurt me, and I’m determined to figure out why.
After all, if there’s a war, and if it involves Rose, why wouldn’t I want scary dog privilege from Torrence?
If I can’t have magic to protect myself, maybe I can have a beast with magic to protect me.
“The restaurant helps me find willing, susceptible humans to donate their blood. Now that I’m in charge here, they aren’t kidnapped, and they rarely die.”
I wince at the caveat, but keep silent. I’m in the car, so I’ve obviously committed to trusting him for now.
“Humans that fit with our needs are kept at the lodge for a short time to acclimate to the stress of donating blood, then eventually they’re moved to a different place where it’s easier to send the blood home to Haret, for the army. Under my direction, gobbelins aren’t allowed to drink straight from a human anymore.”
“Why not?” I ask, needing to hear him say it, whatever it is.
He sighs, but holds my gaze. “Full-blooded gobbelins used to do more than just drink blood. They used to eat the flesh, and they didn’t stop at humans. My gobbelin ancestors were cannibals, and everything I do helps the living ones keep that in the past.”
My breathing is shallow as I process the information.
Of course, I wasn’t dumb enough to think magic would only be pretty and light. Of course, I expected that if fae were real, other creatures would be, too. But this is a lot.
“My mother is cruel and vicious. She’s at the heart of this war, and her methods will destroy everything I want. I know you have such little information, Ruby, and such little reason to trust me. But I’m working around my mother, not with her. Gobbelins aren’t evil any more than a pack of wolves is evil. Neither are fae. But both of us have been ruled for so long by cruelty that it seems like the only way, to so many.”
“And you’re trying to change that?” I ask, my voice small in the enclosed car.
“Gobbelins are warrior people, but they’ve been forced into that role. I want to believe they can enjoy a life without war, too. And I’ve seen them do it here, at the restaurant.”
“Everyone deserves that,” I murmur, thinking of all the times in human history where a particular group of people was forced into the role of warrior, simply to continue existing. So much unnecessary killing and hatred. If Torrence is telling me his truth, then how could I not support him?
He may have been born a beast, but it doesn’t define who he really is.
“I can show you more, if you’re willing to come to the lodge. The house,” he amends, and the silence stretches as I debate. Really, though, I already know my answer.
The true debate is how will I convince Rose that I’m doing the right thing.
“Show me,” I finally whisper, my fingers curling against my palm as he pulls back onto the road.
“Everything is clean,” he says as we come to a stop inside the garage. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “I should have seen Arlo for what he was sooner, and I’m sorry he got to you, even a little.”
I smile, grateful for the apology, although he’s said it before.
“Why would your mother tell him to kill everyone, though?” I ask as he opens the door to the house.
“She doesn’t leave loose ends. Although, it worries me that she didn’t give the task to me. It shows how much her trust in me has eroded.”
“She would have asked you to kill them? And you... you would have done it?” I’m frozen in the doorway, one hand on the knob before shutting the door and closing myself in with him.
“I would have.”
I should close my mouth and run. I don’t. “Why?”
“To keep her from learning my true plans. Sacrificed the few to save the many. Even though I don’t want this to be a war, it is. Death is part of that, and I would have at least killed them honorably.” He scowls, and I struggle with the complexity of human morality against whatever this is.
Then again, who am I to judge his morals?
If I were faced with the choice of sacrificing a few to save so many more, could I really choose any different? And if I did, would it do any good?
“You’re starting to understand,” Torrence says softly.
“A rock and a hard place,” I manage.
“I was born into hard decisions - the fae princes, too. I don’t think they want this war, either, but they will fight it to protect their people. I’m doing the same, but the fae aren’t my true enemy.”
“Your mother is.”
He nods and reaches for my hand. I let him take it and pull me inside the house, up the stairs to the room I glimpsed before. The tile and glass walls are clean, free of blood. Sparkling as though ready for a realtor to guide a tour through. My memory paints the blood back anyway.
When I gaze at the deck through the windows, all I can see is Torrence, shoving me out of Arlo’s reach. Torrence, slashing his ice magic into Arlo to protect me. To save me.
I believe he will save me again, if he needs to. Even if it means others will die.
“Why me?” I blurt, still missing that vital piece. He’s admitted that humans mean little to him. He’s warned me multiple times that he doesn’t date, and even though the idea of dating him now seems ridiculously human, he’s still here. Even if I remind him of his sister... that’s not enough reason.
Torrence turns away, staring out into the forest beyond the deck.
“I don’t know, Ruby. I don’t know why, but I know it has to be you. I never expected it. Never wanted it. But it’s always going to be you.”
“Fated mates,” I say, rolling my eyes, and he snorts.
“Gobbelins don’t believe in that. They don’t even form couples. But... fae do.”
The words catch my breath in my throat. Torrence is caught between two worlds, just like I am. Just like Rose will be, if Kier is right.
He doesn’t need fate. Just like me, he can choose.
“Will you hurt me?” I ask, stepping to his side and examining our reflections in the window glass.
“I will ruin you,” he rasps, turning his back on the reflection.
It’s only evidence of how twisted I am when his words settle deep in my belly, twining cords of desire around the very core of me. It’s this heady feeling of need that makes me ask something truly insane.
“If you drink my blood, would you be able to stop before killing me?”
Torrence laughs once, the sound hard and bitter, as though he hates the question already. He pushes off the window and strides out onto the deck, pressing his hands on the railing and staring down into the edges of the woods. I follow, hanging back a few steps, waiting for him to answer.
“I already have.”
The words send shock waves through my legs, and my knees weaken until I have to scramble for the nearest deck chair. My brain flips hurriedly through our time together, looking for all the clues I’ve missed.
“You can leave. I won’t stop you,” Torrence says, not moving a muscle toward me.
“The rooftop,” I guess, remembering how my neck was sore. Remembering how I thought it was from sleeping on it funny.
“And the picnic.”
I remember how sleepy I’d gotten, how I drifted off curled in his arms.
A kitten tucked between the paws of a wolf.
The longer I sit, though, listening to the rustle of leaves and the call of birds, the more I realize I’m still here . He didn’t harm me, and I haven’t run away. Torrence seems to realize it too, and he turns to watch me, wary and disbelieving.
“What do I taste like?”
The question is out before I can think better of it, but his response is so worth it. A throaty groan. His eyes roll back a little.
“Ruby, you’re fucking delicious. Better than anything I’ve ever created in my kitchen.”
I can’t stop the giggle either, or the oddest streak of pride. It’s ridiculous, and I don’t fucking care.
“And the power I feel after you - it’s stronger than I’ve ever felt.” The admission brings a flush to his cheeks, and I sit up a little taller.
“I give you power?”
“If I could live on your blood forever, I think I could beat her.” Torrence scrubs his hands over his face, as though he can’t believe he’s telling me this. “I don’t want you to think-”
“Do it,” I demand, before I lose my nerve. “Show me what it does to you. What I do to you.”
I make fun of fated mates, but really, is there anything sexier than seeing the power you hold over someone, combined with the power they gain from being with you?
It’s what women really, truly want. We want men to recognize that their power comes from us. Everything they have comes from us.
Without women, men are nothing more than warrior animals, snarling and fighting and fearing each other in the darkness. With us, they have access to peace and love and the strength of community. And with each of those things comes more power than any weapon.
Creation will always trump destruction.
“Do it, Tor.”
“You should be asleep first,” he protests, shaking his head, but I see the glint of sharp teeth between his lips.
“I want to feel it. Even if it hurts. I want to see what changes about you.”
“Ruby... this is dangerous.” He actually sounds afraid, but it does nothing to deter me.
“And I’m saying I trust you to keep me safe.”
A strangled noise gets stuck in his throat, and his indecision is all the answer I’ll ever need to the question of whether Torrence is meant to be just another beast, or if I can tame him enough to be my beast.
A beat of silence passes, and then he’s barely an inch from me. My chest heaves with anticipation, a tantalizing snake of fear coiling around my hips and dipping between my thighs. Heart pounding, I bare my throat.
With a groan that tells me he’s given in, Torrence gathers me to him, burying needle-sharp teeth in my skin.
I gasp as it burns and stings, hurting fiercely until it doesn’t.
The pull of blood from my neck turns into the push and pull of really good, rough sex - dizzying pleasure followed by aching pain, around and again in a circle that quickly becomes my entire spiraling world. I expected to feel weaker, drained, but the crackle of energy passing into his body from mine is a spark to ignite an all-consuming fire.
The power comes back to me, then to him again, passed in a closed circuit of electricity between us until he breaks free with a heave.
My head lolls back on his arm as he stares down at me, haloed by the sun behind him, face darkened in shadow. He glows amber now, not only his eyes, but everywhere. An ember in the center of the fire that is us.
“Ruby,” he whispers, like he can’t believe what’s happened. I blink slowly, my body humming with the sort of lazy content from a late afternoon nap in the sun, or the sleepy pleasure of unhurried morning sex.
“Could you beat her now?” I mumble, and he snatches me to his chest, burying his face in my hair and breathing hard.
“Fuck, Ruby. I’ve never felt this much power. Not even before, when you were asleep.” His arms are shaking around me, half of his skin like ice and half like fire wherever he touches me.
Burning sweetly, either way.
“It’s the consent,” I answer, my voice muffled against his shirt. I don’t know why I say it, but it rings true. Maybe I know nothing of real magic and its rules, but it makes sense that power given can grow much deeper roots than power taken.
He curses again under his breath, and I push away, giggling.
“Told you I could take a man down,” I tease, my words still a bit slurred.
“And I thought I was the dangerous one,” he answers, shaking his head at me and blinking as though he still can’t think straight.
“Promise me one thing, and I’ll think about letting you drink from me again.”
Torrence raises an eyebrow like he doesn’t believe I could stop him, but he doesn’t know the kind of girl magic I know. If he’s going to be my beast, then this is the first day of training.
“You can tap me like a power keg, as long as you use your magic for good, like stopping the war. Like stopping the uprising happening now, for example.”
His eyes flare as he sits up straight, mouth tight. “What uprising?”
I frown. “Kier told Rose. He had to go back home to take care of a gobbelin uprising. I thought that’s why you...”
Torrence shoots to his feet, pacing angrily, all of the lazy pleasure and teasing fun instantly sucked out of our moment.
“What? What is it?” I demand, stumbling to my feet and trying to get in his way to stop his pacing. He dodges around me, heading inside as I hurry to catch up.
“I have to go, Ruby. I have to stop whatever my mother is doing here.”
“Yeah, that’s what I want you to do. But why are you surprised by it?”
“Because she kept me out of the fucking loop again. She did all of this behind my back.” He waves his arm at the spotless kitchen, and my stomach sours as I realize he’s talking about Arlo and the murdered gobbelin servers.
“So she suspects you of double-crossing her,” I guess, and he curses in answer, already slamming open the door to the garage. I have to jog now to catch up to him.
“I have to go,” he repeats, handing me his car keys. I blink down at them, realizing he wants me to drive back to Rose. He’s going now , leaving me behind.
“I want to come with you.”
He looks at me in horror, but I don’t want to take the words back.
“No,” he barks, as though that could ever be the end of it.
“You said you’ve never felt more powerful - what if you need my blood again?” I’m desperate not to be left behind, not when I’ve just now found the magic I’ve always wanted.
“Ruby. Fucking no. You have no idea what this is going to be like. Stay here, stick with Rose. I’ll come back, but I have to go.”
I scrabble for his arm, but he’s gone. Moving faster than I thought possible, he streaks out of the garage and deep into the forest beyond. There’s no way to catch up to him now, and I have no idea how to get where he’s going.
The keys are heavy in my hand as I trudge back to the car, feeling the fear of missing out, not to mention confused as crap by all the choices I’ve made today.
Still, as I pull the car carefully past the stand of trees where I almost died, I know.
I would make every one of those choices again.