CHAPTER 16
WREN
∞
That was painful. That entire meeting was excruciating for me. I snapped at her again, and I really am becoming the fucking asshole she expected me to be. She called me Sir. This entire time, she’s been calling me Wren and I loved it because no one has the nerve to call me by my name except Alex. I pushed her far enough to completely bypass any of her witty and asinine retorts and evolved right to Sir. The epitome of a dismissal of anything more than a boss and an employee.
She’s going to wear a fucking dress tonight…to a club full of dark worlders and majority vampires. It took everything in me to not order her to wear an enforcer outfit. She’s free to do as she wishes as long as it doesn’t affect us in a negative way. Alex will at least keep an eye on her. He seems to like her, and she doesn’t recoil at his touch like she does mine.
I close my eyes at the memory of her touching my hair. It wasn’t much, but I felt instantly grounded in that moment. I glance up when Alex comes back in, and he gives me a haughty expression.
“What?”
I grumble.
“You know exactly what.”
“How is she?”
He flops himself back down at the table, leaning back in his chair as he raises an eyebrow at me. “Do you actually care?”
“Of course I do. I don’t need my employees getting directly injured by me.”
“Employee…right. She’s fine. The cut was shallow.”
“Okay.”
He continues to glare at me, and I roll my eyes. “What now?”
“That was a dick move. I hope you realize that.”
“I know I overreacted to her comment, Alex, but it fucking hurts to know that my own charges think of me in that way. I thought I’ve been fair and decent, meanwhile, she pegs me as a fucking villain.”
“I’m not just talking about that. I get her reaction to that as well as yours. I’m talking about after.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know…”
He leans forward on the table and settles his chin on his hand. “For someone who has been obviously trying to be more personal with her, you really shut down during that meeting.”
“You and I both know where she stands in this, Alex.”
“Didn’t seem to stop you before. You even went as far as to invite her into your home and make her breakfast.”
“I was trying to show her that not all vampires are as bad as she pegs us to be.”
“Yeah, you did a great job of that when you flipped the fucking table and ruined my meal as well as hers.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I should have never had you here to get in the middle of that.”
“I’m glad I was. If that happened while I wasn’t, would you have been able to stop before you bit her?”
“Excuse me?”
I can feel myself getting defensive at his accusation, even though I know he’s right.
“Wren, I saw you. I saw how you reacted the instant the scent of her blood hit the air. You went dark. I think it’s time you do a bloodletting. Your mental state isn’t stable right now.”
“I have full control when I feed, Alex.”
“Maybe with the blood whores that you despise, but clearly not around her. Do you really want to risk hurting her worse? You seem to like her.”
“I don’t like her. I just don’t like it when people hate me for no fucking reason.”
He tilts his head back and cackles out a laugh. “She has every reason to hate you, Wren. All you do is piss her off. The fact she even touched you today on her own, just goes to show she’s trying with you, and then you had to go and make things hard for her when she was trying to be understanding.”
“She’s irritating.”
“You like her.”
“No.”
“Admit it,”
he chuckles.
“I don’t fucking like her!”
“Fine…denial isn’t just a river in Egypt though.”
“You’re annoying,”
I grumble.
“I know,”
he laughs. “And yet you still keep me around.”
“Can you pull up the info on her like I asked you to.”
“On Chess Denali? Yeah I can do that right now.”
I watch him as he focuses back on his computer, and I watch as his expression darkens. I visibly see him swallow before ripping his eyes away from the screen.
“What? What is it?”
“There are videos,”
he says through gritted teeth.
“What?”
“There are videos of her on the darkest parts of the web, Wren.”
“What…videos?”
“I don’t think you should watch them.”
My chair drags back harshly as I push myself to my feet and settle in behind him. My entire body feels cold as I watch the screen. I lean over him and raise the volume on the one currently playing and my stomach drops.
“No,”
her small voice whimpers. “Please, don’t!”
She cries.
“What the fuck, Alex.”
He clucks his tongue, and I can feel the anger seething from him as he glances back at the computer. “There are multiple videos. These sick fucks videoed what they did to her and are making money off of views still. It looks like Jullian had a menu available for her when they purchased her time. They paid more to do more with her.”
I’m horrified as I watch it, but I can’t turn away. The vampires abusing her are hidden mostly from the camera and my heart breaks for what this girl had to endure.
“She’s been raped, Wren. Over and over…as a child,”
he says quietly.
I can see the bite marks on her thighs in the video as well as the bruises all over her body. In this particular video, she’s completely strapped down so she can’t even fight off her attackers. I reach past him and click to the next video.
She stumbles into the frame as she’s shoved forward. Her face looks panicked as she shakes her head back and forth with tears streaming down her face. One of them grabs her while another forces vampire blood down her throat. She’s gasping and frantically trying to wipe her mouth and retch, but I can see the effect take hold on her quickly as her body sways.
They treat her like a rag doll…only there for their own satisfaction as they each take turns raping her limp, drugged up body.
“Wipe it,”
I snarl. I can barely contain my rage at this point. Fucking Jullian. If he was one of my own, I would destroy him. But with him being a werewolf leader, I can’t start a war between our kind over a human girl.
“Wren, there’s a lot I have to do in order to get all of this off the web.”
“I don’t fucking care. Wipe it, right fucking now. Do whatever you have to, Alex. And I want you to get me all the names you can on the vamps who did this. This is not allowed within my city. I will not tolerate this any longer.”
“I’ll try to run a facial recognition on the ones that are visible in the videos. This is so fucking hard to watch.”
I stand back up and grip into the back of his chair as I try to steady my own breathing. No wonder she hates us…no wonder she reacts the way she does when one of us tries to touch her. This is why she hates the name Chess so much. The trauma of her past is rooted deep in her soul, and I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done to help her. She slipped through the cracks within my city because she’s a human. How many others have suffered the same fate as her? The fact she’s still standing and trying to survive, just shows how strong she really is. She endured this for six fucking years until she was sold off to Adrian at eighteen. She was a child…a child.
I need to get a better handle on the vampires within my territory because this is cruelty at its worst.
I shift myself to the bar and pour myself a drink. “A little early for that, don’t you think?”
Alex murmurs. I chug it back and look over at him. “Pour me one too,”
he sighs. “I don’t think I can handle this without some hard liquor.”
I grab another glass and the bottle and set both down in front of him. I lean up against the table and he glances up at me. “I’m going with you tonight,”
I whisper.
“What?”
“To the club…I’m going with you.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I…need to make this right, Alex. I don’t actually want her hating me.”
“And you think forcing her to hang out with you is the best way to do that?”
He snorts. “She wants nothing to do with us, Wren. It’s probably bad enough that I’m going with her.”
“She likes you…she lets you touch her and she’s not afraid of you being near her.”
“She has no reason to be afraid of me though. I didn’t try to bite her.”
“I want to go.”
“You can do what you want, Wren. It’s not like you need my permission since you’re the King, so I’m not sure what you’re expecting me to say.”
“Am I insane for thinking that I can change what she thinks of me?”
“You’re insane in general, so is this really any different?”
“You’re so fucking helpful, thank you,”
I grumble.
“I am helpful and you need me, so don’t deny it.”
“I do need you,”
I chuckle. “I would feel very alone if you left me.”
“I’ll never leave you, Wren…you’re like a brother to me.”