“Of course I did,” I said with a sigh. “I knew when he took you for achat, but I trusted you to tell me if anything happened.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
“I thought I had it handled. I’m sorry I didn’t think to tell you. I didn’t want to burden you with it. I thought that maybe if I could handle it myself, we could just move past it and—” She cut herself off with a sigh. “I’m sorry I failed you.”
The brokenness in her tone had me lessening my grip on her hair.
“You didn’t fail me. You never failed me,” I said softly, my hand moving from her hair to her cheek.How long has she felt this way?“I’m just worried about Eve.”
“We’ll get her back, I swear to you,” Eros vowed. “I won’t stop until?—”
There was a clearing of a throat that had us both looking down the hall we’d come from. Freya stood there, alone and fidgeting.
“I think I know where your human is. But in return, I want a favor.”
Not again.
But what choice did we have?
“Name your terms,” Eros bargained, pushing herself off me. I stood, following closely behind her.
Could we trust Freya?Again, no other choice.
“There is a human there,” she said. “I want you to save him when you go to get her.”
A human?Her eyes flashed red, and I swore her cheeks began to flush.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
Her eyes met mine as she slowly replied, “She’s at the whorehouse.”
24
EROS
Ineed to make things right.
The guilt that was weighing on me since Eve had been taken was immeasurable.
Knowing we couldn’t both go and risk Father’s suspicions, I had volunteered to go with Freya to find and rescue Eve. We were on a strict time limit, and I would never forgive myself if anything happened to Eve.
What if I had told Oros as soon as she got back?
What if we’d gone away, never to return?
Those thoughts and more just kept running over and over through my head.
Knowing she’d been taken to that vile place, one that used humans for their own gain… I couldn’t handle the guilt. Knowing my father had left her there made me see red, and I wanted to get even.
I want to rip his fucking throat out.
We could leave our birthright. Leave our home. But it would go against everything we had worked so hard for.
It’s not that Eve wasn’t worth it; she was worth everything. I didn’t care if we’d ever come back to the palace.
But I—we—needed to make sure she would always be safe.
We burst through the doors and watched as humans screamed and scattered in response.
