Page 70 of Rapunzel Unchained
“We do, too,” Luke stated, while Blake nodded in agreement.
“And if you continue to fight against her, you’ll have to fight us too.” Zane’s eyes narrowed, a hardened edge to his expression that I’d only ever seen on the demon’s face.
“We don’t want to fight her,” Adam interjected, dragging his hands through his hair before throwing his arms up with a sigh. “We fucked up, alright?! Eva was right from the beginning. The council, sans Nick, was never going to compromise enough to let the humans be free. I thought I could change them, that I could get through to them.”
Adam shook his head and flopped back into his chair, his fingers rubbing his temples. “Why did I think I was the one who could make a difference when my grandfather couldn’t get them to budge?”
“At least, you’re trying.” Gage turned away from Zane. “The last person they sent me to assassinate wasn’t even some high-powered mage. It was just some nobody with barely a blip of power.”
“What?” Luke’s brows furrowed. “Why would they choose someone like that?”
“I looked into it.” Gage pulled his small square from his pocket, flicking across the screen before holding it up to them. “They’ve been sending me after human sympathizers. Anyone who might cause a problem in the future.”
“Culling the herd before they can rise up against them.” Adam nodded with a serious tone. “I wouldn’t put it past them. I don’t know if my grandfather was aware of these, but I will get with Nick to put a stop to any executions that don’t have just cause.”
“What about the other council members?” Luke brought his arms crossed over his chest as he stared Adam down. “They won’t just let Eva live. Not after they find out that Beatriz died by her hand.”
Adam and Gage exchanged a look before turning their attention back to their friends.
“We’ll decide together,” Adam announced, earning an approving round of smiles from the others. “But first, we need to take care of Eva.”
My vision grew dimmer as Gage moved toward the door. “I’ll take care of her. After all, that knife was meant for me.”
Chapter 33
My mind crashed back into my body just as the door clicked shut. I shifted in bed, the softness of the mattress making me sink in so much that I feared I couldn’t get out. A masculine mixture of spices and something else that was all Gage filled my nose.
I must be in Gage’s room then.
A creak and the slide of leather told me Gage had taken a seat near me. I waited for him to say something. Though my eyes were closed, I wasn’t bothering to feign sleep.
“You were listening before, weren’t you?” Gage’s voice filled the silence of the room, and I rolled over until I faced the direction of his voice.
The dim light in the room did nothing to help the burning in my eyes as I squinted them open, peering over at his large frame bent over in his reclining chair.
“Does it matter?” I croaked and then cleared my throat.
Gage leaned forward and offered me a glass of water. “Partially. There’s nothing Adam or I can do to make the others step down and let us take care of it.”
I snorted before sipping my water. I held it back out to him, and he placed it on the side table.
“I don’t agree with just killing people because you don’t agree with the way they are doing things.” Gage steepled his fingers in front of him. “I’d only ever taken assignments to kill those who were a true threat to peace and had malicious intentions. But I grew complacent. We all did.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but he held up a hand.
“No, let me finish.” Gage shifted from his chair to the side of the bed, the mattress dipping toward him. “I’ve always just taken orders. Doing what I was told without asking why. I didn’tsee the world the way you did, I thought that, if the humans were assigned as lesser, then it was for a reason. Who was I to question that reason?”
I narrowed my eyes on his use of the word lesser but didn’t interrupt him.
Gage’s hand reached out, and he rubbed the ends of my blonde hair between his fingertips. “Zane’s right. I am a fool and a coward.” His dark gaze landed on mine. “A fool for following the council’s orders without question. A fool for believing that just because it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck doesn’t mean that it’s a duck.”
My brows furrowed at his words.
He laughed at my puzzled expression. “It’s an analogy. What I mean is I judged you based on your actions and not the reasoning behind them. You shared your story with me.” His fingers shifted from my hand to where my hand sat against my stomach. “And while I know you were doing it to frighten me, it made me realize something. Villains aren’t born, they’re made by the choices we make. You weren’t born to be evil, Eva.”
His eyes bore into me over his mask, and my fingers itched to pull that last barrier away from his face, to have him fully open up to me once again.
“A series of events caused you to take one extreme and then the next.” His fingers laced with mine, and he lifted it up to cup his face. “I stay away from my mother and sister because I know that, if something were to happen to them, I wouldn’t stop until I burned the world down looking for their killer. You’re just a daughter who lost her mother, a lover who lost her love, and the only person in this godforsaken world that makes me want to question the why of everything.”
