Page 67 of A Reign of Roses
I had no time for horror. “You’re fine,” I gritted out, scooping Arwen up and taking off.
The impoverished slums only offered one long avenue, and without the walls of Solaris the entire road was shrouded in a thick, repellent fog. Crooked, stacked homes and half-toppling storefronts swayed into one another, most windowpanes streaked with dust, most roofs in desperate need of reshaping.
The building behind me shook with the weight of whatever creature had landed atop it. I wasted no time taking off down a thinner, dirt-lined alley. Arwen moaned as my footsteps echoed against the peeling walls.
My eyes caught a shadowed alcove and I veered sharply into it. When I peered down to set Arwen on her feet, I saw my hands were coated thickly in her blood.
“What happened to you?” I hissed.
“Monster’s lair,” she mumbled. Then, warmly, “You flew.”
“I’ve been remade.”
Arwen’s response was a wet, hacking cough.
She was losing too much blood. And not healing herself. My heart rate quickened.
A sickly male groan sent a spike of adrenaline through me and I whirled to find a bundle of rags. A man lurking beneath them shared the alcove with us. Through a cloud of mosquitoes, he moaned again and I caught sight of the festering wounds along his cheeks.
A mortal, poisoned by lighte.
He grumbled again and I urged him to be silent. The thundering feet and shouts for our capture drew nearer. The Fae mercenaries had shifted back to their human forms.
“Please,” the sickly vagrant begged. “More, I need—”
“Shh,” Arwen soothed, leaning up against the wall to support herself.
We didn’t have anything to help the man. No medicine, no coin, no lighte to offer him. My gut churned.
“Please,” he moaned loudly.
“We have nothing for you,” I hushed.
Mercenary feet shuffled outside in the fog-riddled alleyway.
“But I need—”
“Bequiet—”
“It’s going to be all right,” Arwen muttered, dropping to the man’s eye level with a wince. “We just have to calm down—”
“Sir.” His voice pitched to a near whine as he craned his neck up to me. “Sir, won’t you please…”
I pressed a blood-soaked hand to his mouth.
“Kane—”
The man thrashed and spit.
My eyes peeled over the corner and into the street. A woman in nothing but a transparent shift that accentuated her wanton curves flashed sparks of pale blue from the tips of her fingers. A whore shilling her lighte.
And farther, around some crumbling corner—the wails of a baby. Even farther, the grunts of a brawl.
Nowhere safe to hide.
My gaze found the sickly man again. His eyes were unfocused and wild.
“Kane, release him,” Arwen urged quietly.
