CHAPTER 6
WREN
∞
I’m just grabbing a drink for myself when Alex walks back through the door. I glance at him over my shoulder, raising my eyebrow questioningly. “I see you gave up on being formal and knocking,”
I murmur, chugging back the shot of whiskey.
What happened?”
He hisses.
He’s clearly irritated, and his presence shifts as the bottled rage seethes from his core. This is Alex…my first in command. He’s been guarded around me the last few weeks as my mental state took a turn, but he’s very much the arrogant prick I need on my side. He doesn’t typically put up with my bullshit, but with how I’ve been acting, he clearly didn’t want to tip me over the edge.
Obviously with what just happened, he’s feeling a bit jaded about the whole situation. I’m sure he wanted to rip into me right from the beginning, but having him quarrel with the King, in front of an enforcer no less, would have raised some alarms.
“The bitch stabbed me…ruined my favourite shirt too,”
I chuckle, pouring myself another glass.
“You tried to bite her, Wren. What the fuck has gotten into you?”
“I need you to pull up all the information you can on little miss Francesca Denali.”
“No. Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on. You don’t feed on people who don’t consent. I know you…sure, you’re ruthless and a prick, but that’s one of your biggest hangups and for good reason.”
“She pisses me off,” I groan.
“That’s still not a reason, Wren.”
Alex is one of the few that actually calls me by my name. Him calling me Sir, pissed me off more than I could express, but I didn’t want to seem weak by acknowledging the fact I prefer him directing me informally. I shift myself towards my desk and motion for him to come over. He rolls his eyes and takes a seat in front of my computer.
“She’s right…you’re acting like an asshole,”
he murmurs as his fingers glide across the keys effortlessly.
“I know,”
I admit. “What did she smell like to you?”
I have no idea why I feel the need to ask him this, and clearly he’s thrown off by it as well when he looks at me over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow.
“Like a human…why? What did she smell like to you?”
“A human, of course.”
“Is that all?”
He chuckles, turning back to the computer.
“She smelled…good.”
His hands pause on the keyboard, and I can tell he’s thinking about what to say next. “You mean her blood or her as a person.”
“I’m…not sure. She smelled different than the blood whores.”
“You still shouldn’t have tried to bite her. What was your plan anyways? Were you just trying to scare her?”
“At first, yes…but being that close to her…her scent was intoxicating. My mind wasn’t there, Alex. I wanted to taste her just to see if she tasted like she smelled.”
“I still can’t believe she stabbed you,”
he laughs. “She’s a feisty one, and it was refreshing to see her actually calling you out on your bullshit.”
“I’m a King, Alex. She’s an enforcer under my rule, she should not be speaking to me in that way.”
“Admit it,”
he chuckles, spinning in his chair to face me. He crosses his arms across his chest and smirks at me. “It was a turn on for you…having someone rile you up in that way.”
“Hardly,”
I scoff. “I would have rather ripped her throat out for her insolence.”
“You’re such a fucking liar. If you were that pissed off, you wouldn’t have agreed to use her. Why did you, anyways? You weren’t wrong in saying that she’s really not right for this job.”
“She’s persistent,”
I say through gritted teeth.
“That’s never swayed you before…”
“She’s clearly trying to prove a point. I don’t give a fuck if she ends up getting herself killed in the process, okay? If she wants to go off and die, even after being warned, then that’s on her.”
“Sure, sure,”
he laughs before spinning back around to continue his search.
Alex is smart. He’s hacker level with computers, and whenever I need him to dig up dirt on anyone, he’s never disappointed me.
“Here we go. I’ve got some stuff coming in, but some of it is buried pretty deep. I never expected this for a human though…not unless they’ve done some shit for some high-up people.”
I lean over his shoulder to read what he’s pulling up and stare at one of the pictures on the screen. “Is that her?”
I’m completely confused by the photos he’s slowly scrolling through.
“Frankie is currently thirty years old. These were taken when she was between twelve and eighteen by the looks of it.”
She looks feral and broken in the photos, and I settle my eyes on a few of her in a cage fight. “Wait…is that…?”
“Looks like Jullian got his hands on her when she was young. Hang on, let me see what else I can find here.”
He quickly types out a few more words into his search and I widen my eyes. “Okay…so, she has some history here. She was in the foster system until she was nine and then Jullian adopted her. Her parents were killed…by vampires by the sounds of it, and she had two older brothers.”
“Had?”
“Yeah, they died a few years after the parents. They were twenty-two when they died, and they were twins.”
“How did they die?”
“Um, looks like they were in the turning program…they weren’t compatible.”
Fuck.
No wonder she hates vampires so much, but if she hates them…why is she working under Adrian who is a vampire himself.
“Pull up the information in regard to Jullian. I want to know how she became an enforcer.”
“It looks like Jullian trained her up to fight in the pits. She’s got a lot a wins, but also quite a few losses…”
I cluck my tongue and rip my eyes away from the screen. “Does it have any information on the pay loss of the losses?”
“She incurred a dept of about a hundred and twenty grand.”
“Fuck.”
“Looks like it’s been mostly paid back though. There’s still about sixty left on the debt.”
“Who paid it?”
“From her banking statements. She’s been making payments monthly to an offshore account…huh, that’s weird.”
“What is?”
“She doesn’t make that much in wages.”
“What do you mean? My enforcers all get paid well.”
“Not her…she’s only bringing in about a quarter of what the others are.”
“Are her wages being deducted because of the debt?”
“Nope. She’s making payments on top of the pay cut.”
“Who made this decision?”
“Well, the finances are technically decided by Adrian.”
“What other information is there, Alex.”
He scrolls quickly through all the files in front of him and he lets out a harsh whistle. “It looks like Jullian was somehow making the money back from her in other ways…he was selling her off to vamps every time she lost in order to recuperate some of the losses.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? There’s no way. I didn’t see any marks on her, Alex.”
He glances back at me and smirks. “Did you see her naked and just happened to forget to tell me that?”
“Well…no.”
“I’m sure the buyers weren’t gentle about it but discreet none the less.”
This makes so much more sense. Not only did she lose her entire family because of vampires, she was then sold off to them. Jullian is a right prick, but I can’t do much about him right now. He’s a werewolf and has a pretty extensive reach when it comes to the dark world. He runs fighting rings, where he pits humans and dark worlders alike against each other. It’s lucrative but fucking barbaric.
“You said she only fought in the pits until the age of eighteen…what happened after that?”
“Ah…well, the pay cut makes a bit more sense now. Adrian bought her from Jullian. With her extensive battle experience against supernaturals, she was a good choice to take on as an enforcer. I’m honestly surprised he’s even paying her at all with how much he spent on her.”
“He owns her…”
I feel an unnatural seed of anger in my chest at the thought of Adrian actually owning Chess. She’s a fucking spitfire, and I would never think she would be okay with something like that.
“Thoroughly…he’s branded her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah,”
he sighs. “She’s been branded by him…she’s officially tied to him until she dies…even if she pays off her debt to either of them.”
My jaw pops at the thought that Adrian would do such a thing. I’m not his biggest fan, but I never thought he would go as far as to buy a human off the black market for his own personal gain.
“Does he…feed on her?”
“How should I know? That’s not the sort of information I can find out through the dark web, Wren.”
“The wages need to be rectified.”
“If I do that, Adrian will know I’ve been snooping.”
“Pay her from my personal account. She deserves more money for what I’m about to put her through with this assignment.”
“Not like she’ll survive it long enough to spend it,”
he mumbles.
“Alex,”
I sigh, smacking him on the back of the head.
“What? It’s true. You can’t honestly think she can do this.”
“If she was in the pits, then I clearly underestimated her.”
“How much do you want to pay her?”
“Get me ten for now. I want it sent to her tonight. I want her to know I’m serious about allowing her to do this.”
“Alright, I’ll have it sent over to her apartment within the hour.”
“You can go for now. I’m officially done for today.”
“Do you need to feed again?”
“Possibly. Can you send for Erin? I think I need more than just blood tonight.”
“Sure, Wren.”
He gets up from the desk and makes his way over to the door. I see him pause with his hand on the frame before he looks back at me with a pitiful smile on his face. “For what it’s worth, she seems to be a good kid. She’s strong considering all the shit she’s been through.”
He pats the door frame and closes the door behind him.
I settle into my desk and scroll through all the information he left open for me. I end up back at the photos of her, smirking at how much she looks like a feral cat being cornered. I feel a pang of guilt in my chest at knowing I made her revert back to those days with the way I acted today, but she brings out the worst in me. I need to try and keep control over myself while she’s around or she may just end up killing me.
I snort out a laugh as my thoughts tumble around in my head. She could be the one person that could actually kill me, and I don’t even think I could fight her at this point because I don’t even want to fucking be here anyways.