Chapter 2 #2
In a blink, he gripped my wrists, slamming my body into the wall, his frame looming over mine, his lips tucked into a snarl. “I have no interest in you humans. Torturing or otherwise. This, edesem.” Sweetheart. “It is all your kind’s doing.”
“What?” My head snapped up to him.
He pressed in closer, his frame lining up with mine. “What your beloved master is doing to his own people while killing mine.”
“Istvan? What does he have to do with it?”
“Do you want to know what those blue pills do? What you were stealing?” He let go of one of my wrists, his hand sliding down my arm, igniting shivers along my nerves.
Tugging down the face mask I wore, he clutched my chin, pinching it between his fingers as he stared at me.
“Why are you so different?” he whispered, like he was talking to himself.
I couldn’t respond, feeling every part of him press into me, his intense magic overstimulating my senses and tricking my brain.
“Get off me,” I hissed through my teeth, countering what my body wanted, stirring up abhorrence.
His gaze went to my mouth, neither of us moving for a moment. Then he shoved me back, his head shaking, his fists rolling into balls.
“Come, Ms. Kovacs. See firsthand what your guardian is smuggling in those crates to other countries.” He whipped back around, striding up to the cells, yanking a clipboard from a holder.
“Meet Adel. Thirty-five-year-old worker in the Savage Lands. It’s her first day taking the pills. How are you feeling, Mrs. Denke?”
She was huddled on a surprisingly nice mattress dripping in clean blankets and pillows, a tray of untouched food and drink next to her. She looked up, shrugging slightly, not saying anything. Sadness was etched on her face.
“You think you’re not evil and sick?” I stomped up to him, motioning to the cage. “Kidnapping and testing innocent humans because we’re nothing more than livestock to you?”
“Mrs. Denke?” Killian lowered himself down to her level, his voice softer than I would ever have thought. “Were you kidnapped and forced into anything?”
Her expression cracked with pain, but she shook her head. “No.”
I huffed, my head shaking. “What else would she say? She’s in a cage!”
“The bars are for her protection as well as ours.”
“You are a monster.”
He exhaled sharply, as though trying to keep calm. “My friend here doesn’t seem to believe me, Mrs. Denke. Will you tell her how you came to be here?”
She nodded, wiping her eyes, folding her arms tighter around her legs. “He saved my family from starvation and desolation. I volunteered.”
My forehead wrinkled. “You volunteered?”
“My family now has a roof over their heads, food on the table, and my husband has a well-paying job in the palace.”
My throat tightened. “You mean they get paid in exchange for this torture?”
“I’m not well anyway.” She shrugged. “Knowing they are taken care of makes whatever will happen to me worth it.”
My glare shot to Killian as he stood back up. “Everyone is here by their own will.”
“Because you preyed on their weakest point. Took advantage of them,” I bellowed.
Rage flashed through his eyes, his jaw tightening.
“I am a lord, Ms. Kovacs, not some saint from one of your make-believe stories.” He stepped back up to me, his force shoving at me.
“I am giving them a lot more than your own dear leader does. At least it is their choice, and their family benefits from my gratitude.”
“You are vile,” I snarled.
“Whatever lets you sleep at night,” he scoffed, his breath trickling across my lips, making me realize how close we were. “Let’s finish our tour, shall we?” He rotated, motioning to the second cage.
An older, gray-haired man sat on the bed, rocking, his lips moving, muttering to himself, but I couldn’t make out his words.
“Mr. Laski has been on the pills for two days. Mr. Petrov.” He pointed to the next cell, a younger man, but life had not been kind to him.
His pants were almost falling off, his skin a yellowish color, and he talked to himself like he was having a full conversation, sometimes bellowing out words.
He paced the small cell, scratching and pulling at his hair, not taking notice of us at all.
“He’s been on for three.” Killian continued on.
“But Ms. Kinsky is where things start changing.” He paused on the next cage.
The girl was no more than twenty, but again you could see her life had not been easy.
Her skin was drawn and sun-damaged, scarred along her face and arms. She stood stock-still, her eyes vacant.
Her thin frame was not even trembling from weakness. “Day four is the shift.”
“The shift?” I stepped up to the bars, peering at her. She took no notice of us, not even a flinch or blink of her lids. I reached out, touching her hand. Nothing. “What’s wrong with her?”
“You really have no idea what those pills do?” Killian eyed me.
“No.” I shook my head, snapping my fingers in front of her face. No reaction. “How long has she been this way?”
“She stopped pacing twenty-four hours ago and hasn’t moved since.”
“Twenty-four hours?” My mouth dropped.
“They stay in this state for days. So far, the maximum time has been five days, but she might be the first who surpasses that.” Killian flicked his chin down the row to the ones wailing, nothing but skeletons. “Next, this starts to happen . . . and then . . .”
I gulped. “Then what?”
“Their brains pretty much melt, and they finally die.”
My hand went to my stomach, pressing in.
“They don’t eat, drink, or defecate. But when they reach this state?” He gestured back to Ms. Kinsky. “They are incredibly easy to control.”
“Control? What do you mean?”
“Ms. Kinsky?” Killian addressed her, though she did not respond. He moved us away from the bars, pointing at me. “Kill her.”
As if a monster took her over, she lurched for the bars, making me jump back with a cry. A guttural howl echoed from her, bouncing off the walls as she clawed for me. Her face twisted, her bones cracking while she tried to force herself to fit between the bars, tearing at her flesh.
“Stop!” Killian ordered. She went still, and she stood there like a robot again.
“Oh, my gods.” A bitter tang coated my tongue, my heart thumping in my chest.
“It took us a while to realize when they reached this stage, they were waiting for orders.” He watched the girl, not looking at me. “They also have triple the strength of a normal human and are slightly harder to kill, as if their senses don’t tell them when they’re in pain.”
My head wagging, I swallowed. “I don’t understand. Who would do this?”
“Come on, Ms. Kovacs. Who do you think would benefit from an army of people who don’t feel pain and will attack anyone they are told to?”
“You’re saying Istvan is doing this?” I sputtered, laughing. “We protect humans; this is the opposite of that. This is something you fae would do.”
“We don’t need to.” He spun to me, his statement flat and matter of fact. “Plus, why would I hurt my own people to achieve something we already have?”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t guessed what the main components in these pills are?” His violet eyes burrowed into me like he was trying to excavate into my brain and pluck out what was hidden in there. “What is giving these humans this ability?”
I didn’t answer, my jaw locked tight. Dread swirled in my stomach because deep down, I was afraid I might already know. And I’d have to face how na?ve and blind I had been when it came to Istvan. What he had been doing.
Fury flickered in Killian’s eyes. “You look at us like we are the monsters when it’s been you humans the whole time. Who forced us into hiding for centuries, who slaughtered us by the thousands, who denied our existence. Because in truth, humans have always been jealous and wanted to be us.”
Oxygen clogged in my airways. “No.” I shook my head, denying what I feared was coming.
“There is only one way to get fae essence like this.” He snarled, moving closer. “By harvesting it from fae and half-breeds.”
Sucking in sharply, the cascade of his declaration cracked over me.
“And you know what I found even more interesting?”
“What?” A hoarse whisper came from my throat.
“You.”
“Me?” I pointed at myself. “Why me?”
“Because, Ms. Kovacs, every test subject has responded in the same exact way, until succumbing to it. Every. One. Of. Them . . . except one.” He slid his hands into his pockets, stepping up to me. “Subject Number One.”
“And where is Subject One?”
He smirked. “Standing in front of me.”