Page 35 of Lies That Bleed
“Will she let us pet her?” Virtue said.
I shrugged. “You can ask.”
Where was she? Did she die and not get reborn like me? I knew spending the first week after bonding together was crucial, but I didn’t know how crucial. What happened if she didn’t show up by oh seven hundred tomorrow morning?
“Why don’t you go get ready? And then these three need to bathe.” Elaine gave Victory the stink eye.
Victory rolled her eyes. “Elaine, we are not children. You don’t need to tell us when to bathe.”
Elaine’s hand snaked out lightning-quick and grabbed the last chunk of chocolate cake off of Victory’s plate and shoved it into her mouth.
“What was that you were saying?” Elaine asked through the mouthful with a twinkle in her eye.
Victory crossed her arms and groaned. “Yes, ma’am.”
I couldn’t help but smile. It was nice to see the girls getting the same treatment I had growing up.
Elaine did not tolerate eye rolling oranylevel of sass, and there was a comfort in that.
Verik pickedup Tetra and then dropped us both off at Sleuth.
“I will be back at eleven forty-five to pick you up. Be outside and ready to go,” Verik said.
I nodded.
I would normally have driven my motorbike, but the fact that my father told me to take the car meant he wasn’t comfortable with that right now, and I was trying to do everything he said so that I didn’t piss him off before I went to boot camp for a month.
The entrance to Sleuth had a line wrapped around the block, creatures standing by their humans waiting to get in. We walked right up to the front, bypassing the line. The bouncer took one look at me and his mouth opened in surprise.
“Miss Everhart, what a pleasure.” He unhooked the red velvet rope that blocked the door and allowed Tetra, her creature, and me, to step inside.
I felt a little bit like a douchebag just cutting the line, but if you couldn’t use your family status to get to the front line into clubs then what was the point?
The second we stepped inside, we were assaulted with loud music. Some live band was strumming away at their guitars and screaming into the mic. Not exactly my favorite type of tunes. I was into the more melodious lyrical stuff.
The thing that made Sleuth so cool was that the building was converted from an old warehouse. There was room for humans and creatures, which wasn’t always the case. A few imperial soldiers stood at the edge of the room, eyes tracking me as I passed.
Great, my dad sent babysitters.
Tetra watched my gaze. “They could just be here to protect all of us, because of the war.”
I shrugged. After the Blackout, we went to war with Imbria, and now that we’d merged with them, we stood united against our common enemy.
Luska.
The Luskins hated us and were constantly trying to inch into our borders and redraw maps, taking more and more of our land. They’d poisoned our reservoirs, set traps for our creatures, all because we had the most ember and they wanted it.
“Then why are they staring at me?” I asked Tetra.
She shrugged. “Because you are their boss’ daughter. If anything happens to you, it’s their head.”
She was right, but I still didn’t like it.
We finally met up with a group of people we recognized and I let my gaze scan over them to rest on Jace.
His arm was in a sling; he had a cut on his face which was sutured up, and standing beside him was a black puma, nearly identical to Zuri. Wow, I hadn’t known how much like my father he was until now.
I swallowed hard as his gaze ran the length of my body, brows bunching together in confusion. I stillhadn’t processed the fact that he cheated on me, the ultimate betrayal. Our carefully-laid-out future was gone before I could see it realized. Maybe it was better that way.
