Chapter 3
Chapter Three
SCORPION
Early afternoon light peeked through the sections of window that weren’t boarded up, echoes from the vast curved ceilings beating like hollow drums in my ears.
Rushing down the marble steps, I moved to the basement level.
Even if this place had never held royalty, the facade still parroted a decadence I could never understand.
Living the last ten years mostly underground and in sparse buildings was comfortable to me.
That had been a luxury compared to my youth.
This superfluous excess made me uncomfortable in the fine, meticulously carved arches and banisters, painted with gold and dripping with details.
Even gutted, this place made me feel like a dirt spot on white silk.
It itched my skin and quickened my step.
Heading down the stairs to the clinic, I told myself it was to get a full list of items Rosie needed from the market before I headed out.
There was no other reason I was heading straight to the healing room without even stopping to get coffee.
I snarled at the half-truth clinging to the back of my mind.
I wasn’t someone who backed away from the truth, who couldn’t look at myself head-on if I did.
But I pushed the rotting taste in my mouth away, clearing my thoughts and keeping my focus on finding the redhead.
I stepped into the large room, which used to hold museum items, but now was chock-full of beds, patients, healing potions, and human medicines.
My eyes betrayed me the moment I entered, shooting to the spot in the far corner. I tried to ignore the tightening in my chest, the way my shoulders relaxed and locked up at the same time.
I spied long, wavy blonde hair and the curve of a slim figure curled up on her side, facing away from me.
The girl who bit and clawed me, full of vigor and venom, boiling my blood with aggravation and overwhelming my brain with headaches, stared blankly at the wall like she was waiting for death.
Even from here I could see her legs and arms twitching unconsciously, but everything else in her seemed to be empty.
My jaw clenched. Hanna was the last person I should give a fuck about, but the instinct was strong to stomp over to her and yank her out of bed, pushing her until the little viper struck back.
Her entire world had flipped on her. Everything she was taught, believed in, was ripped from under her. Her DNA had been changed without her consent. She had been brutalized, assaulted, and watched both her parents get viciously murdered.
Something I understood more than she knew.
“Scorpion, did you need something?” Rosie strolled up to me, though I couldn’t snap my attention off Hanna.
Rosie glanced over her shoulder, following my gaze and then coming back to me. “She’s been through a lot.”
The softness in her voice jerked me to the redhead. I shifted on my feet, shaking my head like it didn’t matter to me. “So have you.”
“Yes, but I’ve already been through that moment when you find everything you believe in is a lie.
Where you feel life is trying to take everything, including your soul, from you.
Where the worst, most vile things happen.
Stuff you can’t even imagine. Some people don’t come back from that.
Hanna also has to deal with the murder of her parents and what Markos did to her. What he made her.”
Air whipped sharply in and out of my nose. Istvan Markos. The rage I felt at hearing his name was overwhelming. I dreamed of torturing and killing him so slowly, he’d beg for me to end it. Everything he put us through, I wanted to do to him tenfold.
“She saw what the pills did to her fellow HDF comrades. What they were turned into. She’s scared.” Rosie folded her arms. “She’s terrified the same thing will happen to her.”
“The fuck it will,” I growled, my words grounding out before I could even stop them. We all remember what those pills did to her ex-friends. They took on the fae essence in the pills, became the worst of human and animal. Feral monsters. Murderers. Mutants.
I would not let Hanna become that.
“Get me a list of what you need,” I huffed at her, my feet already taking me across the room, my legs moving without any thought.
Weaving through the beds, I spotted many people I recognized, one I knew as Ash’s and Warwick’s friend Kitty.
She had been thin before, but now she was grotesquely so, nothing but skin and bones.
She was hooked up to a feeding tube, looking like she was being forced to stay in this world.
Fae or human, Věrh?za fucked us all up, even if we didn’t show it on the outside.
Getting close to Hanna’s cot, my mouth dried up, my tongue stuck behind my teeth, not knowing what to say. Sentiment or pleasantries weren’t in my tool kit.
“Get up,” I grunted, my fists knocking against my legs.
Hanna didn’t move, her gaze not leaving the wall.
“I said get up,” I demanded, my voice straining, trying to stay low.
Only a blink of her lids told me she was aware.
She was ignoring me, which was actually worse. Before I would get at least a glare, snarl, or a fuck you. This was nothing. I wasn’t even there. I held no weight.
“Hanna . . .” I growled threateningly. Laying on this cot, longing for parents who would never return, for a time that would never come back, wasn’t healthy.
She had a lot to work through and had a long journey ahead, but it was time to start getting up.
Living. Her parents would not want this for her. “I. Said. Get. Your. Ass. Up.”
No response.
People feared me. I was not happy-go-lucky like Wesley.
Maddox had charm even when he had been an asshole.
I wasn’t that person until you got to know me a bit.
The most comfortable I had been with someone was Brexley.
And that was because she was in every fiber of my being.
I was only standing here now because of her.
You had no choice with her. Every guy I knew, no matter how disgruntled, would be wrapped around her finger.
She could approach the most feral, bloodthirsty dog and would have it snuggling on her lap in ten minutes, licking her face.
A.K.A. . . . Warwick Farkas. But that bastard wasn’t just licking her face.
Embarrassment and anger flared up my spine as Hanna left my demands and threats hanging in the air like tiny little butterflies.
Fuck that.
I shoved my hands underneath her, finally inspiring a yelp from her lips as I lifted her into my arms.
“What the hell are you doing?” she sputtered, squirming in my embrace.
This time I was the one to ignore her, acting like I didn’t have a woman trying to wiggle free of me, my grip becoming tighter on her as I sauntered across the room.
“Let go of me!” Hanna snarled.
“List?” I paused in front of Rosie, a piece of paper in her hand. I flicked my chin at my pocket.
“Scorpion, let go!” Hanna wormed, her palms pressing into my chest. When she got nowhere, she turned to Rosie. “Help me.”
Amusement twitched on Rosie’s features, trying to hide her smile, stuffing the paper inside my jacket. Not doing a thing to stop me. I felt her pat my arm to continue on, as if she was all for getting Hanna up and out.
“Are you kidding me?” Hanna’s face turned even redder, her legs kicking, letting me get a quick whiff of her. You could tell she hadn’t showered or done anything in over a week.
“You stink, little viper.” I curved toward the restrooms. Her cries grew more frustrated as she tried pointlessly to get out of my grip.
Hitching her up higher, I went into a private shower stall, turning on the water.
“Let me go!”
“As you wish.” I plunked her down on her feet under the steady stream.
The cool water caused her to belt out a string of curse words at me.
Her thin cotton pants and shirt became like gauze as the water cascaded down her.
My eyes darted to the side, trying not to notice how the material clung to her skin or how see-through it was.
“You fucking asshole!” Her hiss drew my attention back to see ire flaming from her eyes, her cheeks ruddy with fury.
“That I am.”
“Szarjál sünt!” May you shit a hedgehog!
“Good to see you still have some fire in you.” I smirked, tossing her a bar of soap. “Now wash up and get dressed. You’re coming with me on a mission.”
“A mission?” She licked at the water on her lips, my dick instantly hardening, which sent rage through me.
“Yeah, so be ready in fifteen minutes.” I stepped out, slamming the door behind me. I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose, taking in deep breaths. I shook off the hum of adrenaline spiking through me and tightening my balls.
Fuck, I needed to get laid. Being tied to Brexley and Warwick kept me in a constant state of arousal. The energy they created just being near each other was intense enough for me, but when they fucked? Hell . . . people from all around could feel them.
It was torture. Not that I begrudged them fucking each other’s brains out, but to be constantly pulled into other people’s unrelenting passion was too much. Especially when you did not have anyone to take it out on.
My head shook, trying to dislodge the image of Hanna in the shower, the anger in her eyes, the hate on her lips, her nipples hard and showing through her shirt.
No! I yelled at myself. She might be feisty, but she was way too pure for me.
I had a firm rule of not shitting where I eat.
I kept sex and home separate. Never had I hooked up with anyone in Sarkis’s army.
I didn’t believe in monogamy. So I kept sex uncomplicated—and paid for.
And humans were never on my radar. What I liked .
. . it wasn’t for the faint of heart. And she was far too delicate and innocent.
Plus, I think she actually hated my guts.