Chapter Forty-Two

Her boots stomped hard against the ground as she backtracked to the brothel. She didn't know how long she would have before Orik's body would be found. Or if anyone would even care here. It was a gamble. Time to improvise her plan.

She reached the back door of the brothel without anyone stopping her. She'd spent years inside Colette's and knew that the back door was the best way to get in and out without raising suspicion. The workers were always going to be more helpful than the goons. She loved the Roulettes, but they were hired muscle. And hired muscle didn't want anyone inside who could mess with business.

A group of workers sat together in a room on the first floor. She ducked her head in and kept her voice slow and steady.

"Hey," she said. The group glanced up at her, saw she wasn't an employee or likely a customer based on her attire, and dismissed her. Then she used the one card she had to ask, "Orik said that Torra was on break. Do you know where she is?"

"Probably her room," a man said, lounging back on a divan.

"Second floor, third door to the left," a woman said.

"Thanks," Kierse said.

Kierse climbed the flight of stairs that led from the back of the brothel. It was primarily used by the workers themselves, so it was blessedly empty. She pushed open the stairwell door to the second floor and scanned the hallway. She waited for a female vampire to pass before she hustled down the hall and knocked on Torra's door.

Up until this moment, she had been moving on pure adrenaline. The news that Torra wasn't just alive but had been living here in Red Velvet this whole time hit her like a freight train as she waited for the door to open. She'd been trafficked. She'd been stolen from her home and forced into this blood brothel. And she'd survived it for a year. A whole fucking year.

While Kierse had been up above, living her life and trying to move on, thinking she was dead. The thought broke her. And a tear came to her eye that she hastily brushed away. She couldn't fall apart. Not yet. Not until Torra was out of here.

The door was yanked open, and Kierse stopped breathing.

Torra stood before her. Her once-pink hair was now a dark brown with blond ends. Her blue eyes were vivid against her creamy white skin, which was so pale that Kierse could see the veins running underneath. As if this place had leeched the color from her skin. But the sway of those hips, the careful tilt to her head, the swell of her breasts in the red corset. Those were all things Kierse distinctly remembered.

"Torra?" she gasped.

Her eyes rounded. "Kierse?"

"You're alive," she said, her hand going to her mouth.

"What are you doing here?" Torra grasped Kierse by the arm and yanked her into the room. She slammed the door closed behind her and leaned back against it as if she, too, could barely stay standing at the sight of her.

Kierse's eyes traveled over Torra like she was a ghost come back to life. She was the same and wholly different. More fragile, more frail, and with the unmistakable white outlines of bites across her neck and delicate wrists. But she was still completely Torra.

"Torra, you're alive," Kierse repeated.

She couldn't stop herself. She moved toward Torra and pulled her into her arms. For the last year, she had believed that she was dead. She was the last person Kierse had ever had a relationship with, and she'd just given up after that. She and Torra hadn't been perfect. They'd fought, and little things had always blown up to bigger things between them. But she hadn't wanted her dead. And she certainly didn't want this.

"I'm alive. I'm alive," Torra said, brushing at the tear that had rolled down Kierse's cheek.

"I can't believe you're here," she said. "We need to get you out of here. I just killed a vampire and..."

"You did what?" Torra gasped.

"I killed the fucking vampire who did this to you, Tor." She straightened, forcing a sense of calm back over herself. "I cornered Orik Thompson in an alley, and I cut his head off when he lunged for me."

"Oh my god." Torra's lips quavered. "I'm glad he's dead. I'm glad for it, Kierse, but the entire place is going to go on lock down as soon as they find him. You need to get out of here."

"I'm not leaving without you!" Kierse insisted. "I'm getting you the fuck out of here."

"And go where? Do you have a plan?"

"Fuck," she spat.

She did have a plan. She had one from Graves. And it was find a fucking exit.

It was important, had always been important to the success of the mission. But now it was something else. Now it meant a way to get Torra out. She hadn't thought she was alive, so she hadn't even considered that she would need the exit first. She had her exit but not one for anyone else. And she had never hated herself for that fact more.

"I can get you out. I just need more time," Kierse said. "We can hide you until I figure it out."

"You can't hide me. I'm okay. I'm safe. I'm alive."

"Tor," she said, swiping at her eyes again. "You're not safe. Please."

"No, you listen to me. You are going to get the fuck out of here, and then you're going to find a way to get me out. I don't care that I'm indentured to King Louis and that he might find and kill me if I leave."

"He won't find you. I'm going to kill him."

Torra looked frightened then. "I believe you mean that, but first we need to get you out of here. Come back. Find a way out. I'll go with you. But I cannot live if they put you in this place, too. It'd be so much worse if you were here."

An alarm wailed in the brothel. Kierse jumped at the abrupt sound.

"They know. They know he's dead," Torra said, her voice frantic and horrified. She pushed Kierse toward the door. "Please just go."

"I will find a way to get you out of here," she promised. "I swear it. I'm coming back for you."

Torra threw her arms around her once more. "Don't die. Please."

Then Torra grabbed her and dragged her out the door.

Kierse flew out of the bedroom in Torra's wake. The brothel was in chaos, much the same as the night of the gang raid at Colette's.

"This way," Torra told her.

Kierse followed Torra to the stairwell that Kierse had taken to find her. They hurtled down the stairs past other panicked workers. No one looked at Kierse twice when she was with Torra. But she knew that it was only a matter of time before a vampire started rounding the workers up, and Kierse would look out of place.

"Here," Torra said.

They took a separate landing from the rest of the rush and came to a side exit. Bless Torra for having another exit.

"Now go."

"I'll come back," Kierse promised.

"Thank you," Torra said with tears in her eyes.

She took one last look at her ex-girlfriend. The tear that tracked down her cheek, the red in her eyes, the terror on her face and trembling of her too-thin body. She memorized what Torra looked like in this moment. Because this was the true cost of King Louis's power.

Thiswas his real villainy. She had wanted to get the spear for many reasons. For money, for the safety of her chosen family, for Graves's collection, to keep it out of the hands of monsters who would start a new war with its power.

But this... this was the real consequence of him ruling.

She had wanted the spear to finish the job.

Now, she wanted it to slit King Louis's fucking throat.