Page 90 of Petals for Vicious Secrets

“How?” Lenna asked, despite her mumble of a brain.

“How did I let your father know, or how did he inform the Roix Reigner? Or how the fuck have I waited this long pretending that I was your puppet friend that would move to another city just to be closer to you? Because I wonder that every single day too,” Theon said.

“How long have you had a petal?” Lenna asked, bile urging up her throat.

“Egocentric but not stupid, that’s what I like about you,” Theon winked. “Your father donated one to me the day he asked me to train you. So we could communicate through ink and he could keep a close eye on you. He almost revealed it when I told him you had confided in me your sneaky visit to the West House months ago, but he decided it was more useful to continue monitoring your moves through our pretend friendship. Why did you think he let me come to Corentre? You can’t genuinely think your father gives a shit about how well you fight.”

Each word was a direct hit to Lenna’s chest.

“The good thing about all of this is that I can finally go back to my normal life. Even though the red uniform I haven’t missed so much, to be honest. Never been a fan,” he smiled, looking at the Roix Reigner.

“You are lucky that your father is busy with a simultaneous attack in all the Houses,” the Roix Reigner said. “Otherwise he would kill you himself.” Lenna wasn’t sure if she was talking to her, Ayla, or Jake, but she was pretty sure that in all cases her statement would be true and applicable.

Jake scoffed. “He has always been very selective with the inks he allows to receive.”

“A simultaneous attack, Reigner?” a roixer with a white band on top of his uniform asked.

“A bunch of organized criminals and the fucking courtrades causing trouble again. Nothing that we can’t manage.”

The fucking what causing trouble? Lenna could have sworn she saw a hint of a smile on Hope’s lips, but was too busy refusing to believe Theon was a traitor to figure out why. Lenna felt golden sparks on her fingertips.

“Can I kill him?” Jake asked Lenna with all the deathly calm in the world, without taking his silver eyes from Theon.

A movement on Lenna’s right made her look. Carson had gotten free of the roixer’s grip and hit the roixer with an elbow into his nose. Theon was in front of him in no time, twisting his neck and leaving him dead on the floor.

Sasha gasped, a raw scream leaving her throat, “You fucking traitor!”

Theon had just killed Sasha’s brother in front of her, and hadn’t even bothered to avoid stepping on his lifeless hand as he returned to the Roix Reigner’s side.

From the corner of her eye, Lenna thought the shadows around Hope seemed to emanate anger, but she couldn’t get her eyes off Theon to see how could that even be possible.

“I’d rather kill him myself,” Lenna said.

59

Hope

“I’d rather kill him myself,” Lenna said.

Too many people had been involved in this rescuing. Too many strangers. Too many risks. If anything, this betrayal had proved again that people couldn’t be trusted. Ever.

The discomposed expression on Lenna’s face was a combination of rage, devastation and deep confusion all in one. Yet in the middle of this now-troublesome rescue, Hope couldn’t help but feel relieved at the fact that the traitor had been the damn fighter and not the panom who had vanished the moment he had killed two of the roixers in the security vault.

Hope shouldn’t care too much about his intentions or his alliances, but deep down she knew it would have affected her if the man who had opened the doors to his home had been a traitor. Ciaran’s body had disappeared from sight, and she couldn’t exactly tell how she knew, but it was not as when someone moured away. It was… different. As if his presence and his pine-and-night scent were still lingering around her, but she couldn’t see him. She could have sworn she had even felt Ciaran’s raw anger when Carson’s body dropped to the floor after Theon killed him in two moves.

Hope’s eyes locked with Nina’s panicked ones. She would not let the life of her first friend end at the hands of anyone, let alone a military force governed by the Organ Mandor.

She saw it in the eyes of the others, too. There were genuine feelings between them. Jake was standing next to Lenna, his body protecting her, presumably from the roixers inside the other security vault. Lenna couldn’t take the eyes off Theon for long, but when she did, her jaw clenched angrily at how the roixers were holding Sasha, Brendon and Indianna, the weapons pointing on their skins. Sasha was biting her bottom lip as tears flew down her cheeks and she appeared unable to get her eyes off her dead brother. Indianna’s lips were curled, looking at her mother with the maximum hate one being could bear. Ayla’s tearful eyes moved from Lenna to Nina, her hands clenched into fists with jumping silver sparks.

Nina was looking at Hope with fear, but also expectation and something else. Raoul was a few feet away from Hope. Hope nodded, looking at Nina, trying to reassure her he was here.

Raoul was here. Because the roixers hadn’t had time to move him somewhere else with the short notice of the fighter’s ink, or because they were stupid enough to think the Roix stood a chance against all of them, Hope didn’t know. Not that it mattered.

“I wondered when were we going to start killing.” Ciaran materialized next to Hope, as if he had never left. Those were shadows curling at his feet.

“Bloody courtrade,” the Roix Reigner spat. “The Organ Mandor should have killed you when he found out.”

The side smile on Ciaran’s lips was both utterly terrifying and the most beautiful thing Hope had ever seen. “Only an arrogant shithead like him could believe that amputating the arm with my Llunal mark would be enough to clean me from my courtrade blood.”

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