Chapter 5
Chapter Five
CADEN
Icy night wind whipped off the Danube, stabbing my frozen face with painful pricks. My muscles juddered like they were hopping under my skin.
Always restless. Always ready to attack.
My finger twitched around the trigger of my gun, my gaze darting around, taking in everything.
My senses were overloaded all the time now.
The magic in the air I had never really thought about sparked against my nerves.
The lapping of water snapped in my eardrums. The smell of the dank, musty water, fish, pollution, and gasoline from the boats made me feel nauseous.
Had it always been this bad and I just didn’t notice?
My chest knotted, pushing back the truth that I was too afraid to acknowledge. Hiding it deeper under the layers of rage.
“You and Birdie stay here,” Scorpion instructed me.
I couldn’t stop the rush of anger at the nerve of a fae ordering me around like I was some foot soldier.
The fact I was even here, guarding his back, twisted more ire through me.
Gritting my teeth, it took everything in my power not to strike out, fury constantly bubbling under my skin, which seemed to be the only thing I’d felt since that day . . .
Actually, that wasn’t true. Fear was another one, but that only fueled my anger.
And what burned my veins with fire and more rage was the unrelenting drive for sex.
I had a normal, healthy appetite before all this shit.
Typical for a human man in his early twenties.
I had taken a few women to bed because sleeping next to Brexley without touching her gave me the worst case of blue balls imaginable.
I always had my pick of girls willing to be with me at HDF, but I wasn’t a playboy.
Not really my thing. I chose to be with Brexley over them.
This was different. What was raging through me was a desire I almost couldn’t control. A need so deep to not just have sex, but fuck. Relentlessly and brutally. The need itched my insides like I wanted to tear out of my own skin.
“He won’t trade with anyone he doesn’t know.
” Scorpion peered around the boat dock, his posture suggesting he was on the defense, prepared to fight at any moment.
“Be on the lookout up here.” He frowned as if he could feel the same thing as me.
Something was off, coating the air like a bad taste in your mouth.
“Yes, I know how to do this,” I snipped, feeling like some moody teenager going through puberty. “I am a trained officer.”
“Yeah, inside the cushy walls of HDF.” Scorpion scoffed. “But the moment you had to fight outside of them, you were captured.” By me, he left off.
“Fuck you.” My body lurched for Scorpion before my brain even had a chance to think. He reacted to my threat, his chest puffing out.
“Whoa! Whoa!” Birdie jumped between us, holding up her hands, pushing us away from each other. “Both of you calm the hell down. We’re supposed to be on the same side, remember?”
“Right.” Hanna snorted, her head shaking, our eyes meeting across the two fae.
I could see the same struggle in her. All our lives, we were conditioned and trained to hate fae, to kill them without mercy.
Since our “capture” by Sarkis’s army, her going into Věrh?za, and my being treated like a lab experiment by my own father, nothing was solid underneath us. Nothing made sense anymore.
I was fighting with them now, but it didn’t mean I was totally on their side. I had no side. And the more I felt the truth tapping at the back of my neck, the awareness of what was happening to me, the more isolated and alone I felt.
Scorpion glared at me but took a deep breath, his gaze going to Hanna for a moment. She didn’t flinch from his heavy stare. “You coming, little viper?”
Her lips pressed together, and she turned to head down the dock without a word.
A small sigh came from him. “Birdie?” He tipped a brow at her.
She nodded at his unspoken words, only a strand of her white-blonde hair peeking from her hood. You could see the bond, the closeness between them, the years they had known and worked together.
Had they ever fucked each other?
My lip curled at the image, and a wave of irrational anger flared up my spine. The instinct to step closer to her, to block her from Scorpion’s view, almost rocked me back on my ass.
What the fuck was that? Turning away to get ahold of myself, I took a deep staggering breath.
“You okay?” For such a tiny petite thing, she had a deeper, scratchy voice that clawed down my back, making my dick hard. Which only pissed me off more. My fingers rolled so tight, the skin over my knuckles started to split.
“Fine,” I huffed, shaking my head and moving behind the embankment wall, getting a better position overlooking the docks below.
“Seriously, pretty boy, you are really tightly wound lately.” She crouched right next to me, her gun ready, her tiny frame giving off so much heat and energy my teeth sawed together. I inched away from the way her energy had my body reacting.
Her brows furrowed, watching me scoot away like I was six and she had cooties. She rolled her eyes, setting her focus on Hanna and Scorpion slipping through the darkness to the pier where they were meeting his contact, Dzsinn.
Clouds slid over the full moon, fog rolling off the river and drenching everything in a murky eeriness.
My shoulder twitched again, the sensation shifting me in our hiding spot, turning my head behind me.
I couldn’t explain it, but something felt off tonight.
It was heavy in the air, like the atmosphere was playing a song trying to warn us, but the night only reflected the croaking of frogs, the soft lapping of water against the embankment.
Nothing out of sorts, but I couldn’t seem to settle.
Birdie looked around, her nose scrunching up.
“You feel that?” I watched her look around.
Her head snapped to me. “You do?” Her head tipped, scrutinizing me.
I hadn’t told anyone what had happened to me at the labs, nor had Warwick uttered a word.
It was difficult to articulate the hurt and shame of your own father feeling so little for you that he tested his theory on you before he did it himself.
I felt violated—uncomfortable with what happened to my body without my say.
I was overshadowed with shame to realize how blind I was for so long.
Gullible and stupid. I even turned on my best friend because I still wanted to believe my father over her accusations.
Another struggle was the discomfort of no longer feeling in control.
I was tied to someone I hated, and he was with the woman who should be mine.
I wanted to punch myself for not admitting it sooner. For being so cocky, taking her for granted, thinking she would love me forever and would never slip through my fingers. Now Brexley was gone. Her loss was more than just physical for me.
“Why shouldn’t I?” I muttered, my jaw struggling to move between my gritted teeth and numb muscles.
Birdie shrugged. “Not usually something humans can sense anymore.”
I locked up. “What does that mean?”
She shot me another what the fuck look. “Nothing, pretty boy. Just saying. The slight surge in the air from magic is something humans don’t really notice.”
“How do you know? You’re not human. Maybe we do.” I could hear the defensiveness, the attack spitting from my mouth. “You don’t fucking know.”
“Seriously, what is going on with you?” she snapped back at me. “You weren’t this much a dick when you were chained up as our prisoner.”
“Maybe that’s why,” I huffed. I knew I was being an ass, which was not normal for me.
I had been brought up to do my duty, to be the well-mannered prince of HDF.
Charming, strong, smart, and refined. Now, I couldn’t seem to control this beast inside, the fury crawling out of me, and she seemed to bring it right to the surface.
Movement down at the pier turned our focus. A boat motored up, three silhouettes climbing out of the small craft. Everything about their dark outlines had me tensing up. I could tell the smaller one was in charge. He had that air about him.
All were fae.
“Dzsinn.” I heard Scorpion address him, their voices easily carrying to me, though they should have been far out of earshot.
“Everything’s in there.” Dzsinn nodded to the container his men dropped at Scorpion’s feet.
Scorpion leaned down, examining the product inside. He nodded as he stood, handing him a thick envelope. “Thank you.”
Dzsinn peered in, checking it was all there. Satisfied, he glanced back at Scorp. “I will let you know when I need to call on that favor.”
Scorpion dipped his head in understanding.
Icy air licked at my spine, prickling the hairs on my arms as if tiny ants were crawling over my skin, screaming in warning.
My head twisted behind me, confirming my fear.
Dozens of figures in dark clothes, branded with an insignia I had never seen before, darted out of the shadows.
They were heading for us, loaded with weapons.
“Csapda!” Ambush! Birdie screamed to Scorpion below as a shot rang out, cutting the bitter air with a ricochet.
It only took a moment for everything to combust with gunfire, everyone scrambling to hide. Birdie and I ran behind an old ferry booth, shooting back at the assailants. Gunfire came from the dock, retaliating against the group coming toward us.
“Who the hell are they?” I poked my head out, firing at anything moving toward us. There were so many. “They aren’t HDF.” I knew their style, the way they moved and would attack.
These guys moved with precision, but not as a unit. Almost as if they were barely trained. They lacked cohesiveness. They seemed to be of all ages, women and men. Our attackers were skinny and weak but determined to kill us.
“I don’t know.” She pulled another gun from her jacket. Double fisting them, she leaned around me, firing both at once, each shot dropping a body.
“Damn.” I blinked back at her, causing a hint of a smile on her face. The sound of a boat engine spun us to the dock. Dzsinn and his men fled the area.
“Scorp!” She shouted down where he and Hanna were. Hanna covered Scorpion as he picked up the box. They bolted off the pier without cover and joined us behind the abandoned ferry booth.
“Who the hell is shooting at us?” Scorpion hissed. “It’s not HDF, right?”
“No.” Hanna’s back was to the wall, but she stood there almost like she was in a trance, her chest moving up and down. “It’s not HDF.”
“Then who?” Birdie fired on our attackers. Emptying the chamber of one of her guns, she seamlessly tucked it back into her coat, yanking out another automatic from her thigh, and continued to shoot without pause.
Why did I find that so hot?
“They’re no longer human.” Hanna swallowed, her eyes glossing with emotion.
“What?” Scorpion’s head darted to her for a second, his gaze running over her as she stood there, frozen.
“I can feel them,” she muttered, her throat bobbing, her hands strangling the handle of her gun as if she was trying not to move. “They’re like me.”
“Like you?” Birdie’s forehead furrowed.
Hanna turned her head to Birdie. “Monsters.”
Scorpion growled under his breath, his head shaking in disagreement, but we all understood what she was talking about.
They were on the pills. Human-fae hybrid freaks that were turning into the fae essence they were given. I had seen a couple of my old classmates firsthand turn into these monstrosities and attack us. They became almost impossible to kill.
“Then they have to be HDF.” Birdie’s gun blasted at the approaching enemy.
“No.” Hanna shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“It doesn’t matter!” Scorpion yelled. “We need to escape!”
They continued to move in from all sides; we only had the water as an exit, and that was yards away.
“Szar!” My gun clicked empty.
“I hope you have a plan like the one in the market.” Birdie yelled at Scorpion over the volley of bullets, pulling out yet another gun attached to her ankle and handing it to me.
I blinked at her.
“What?” She shrugged at me. “I like guns.”
“I was hoping you had a plan.” Scorpion took back her attention. “Like the one in Sarajevo.”
“Oh yeah, that was a good one.” She nodded. “You had that brilliant one in Vienna.”
“Masterful.” She and Scorpion went back and forth as our enemy descended, getting only yards away from us. They were the kind to joke until the end, while Hanna and I were the serious ones.
I could see the tension in Birdie’s frame, her fear hidden behind her badass demeanor.
“Ahhh!” Birdie cried out as a bullet grazed her arm. It was like I watched it hit in slow motion, the blood spraying out, her body jolting as another one hit her thigh, the force taking her to the ground.
Terror. Rage. Vengeance.
They boiled under my skin, shutting off everything but the desire to kill whoever hurt her.
In that moment, I was no longer in my head. Something deep in me roared with retribution, a force I could not contain bellowing out in a cry.
Nothing could touch me.
Death was afraid of me.
I was to be feared. Revered.
The roar of motorcycles, gunfire, and screams of death snapped me back with the sting of a rubber band, dropping my body, my energy heaving out of me.
“Oh, hell yeah,” Birdie cheered out. “Distraction!”
My gaze lifted to see Warwick, Ash, Lukas, and Kek barrel in. Warwick used his clawed scythe to slice through the attackers as Ash and Lukas gunned others down. Kek smiled with a sinister joy, snapping their necks without lifting a finger.
Warwick was everything the rumors suggested. Brutal, ruthless, detached, and quick. He gave no thought to the one he cut in half as he sunk into the next. Killing without mercy and with no effort.
A true warrior and legend.
I fucking hated him.
With a swing of his claw, the final head rolled off into the river; the now silent streets were soaked with blood and littered with body parts.
His gaze lifted to mine, stirring up more of my hatred, when I heard Birdie call out for him.
“Legend!” She limped over to him with a grin, ignoring her wounds. “Can I say you have impeccable timing.”
He nodded at her, his eyes shooting to me again like it was my fault he was there.
Even worse, I knew deep down . . . I had called him here.