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“You can’t have everything,” I joked, adding in a serious tone. “I liked the idea of saving her, but that girl is fully capable of saving herself.”
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That was all I needed to say for him to know what I’d meant. Somehow the idea of healing Star had me thinking it’d make up for not finding Lilith. She looked so small and vulnerable at first. How was I supposed to know her balls were probably bigger than mine?
That was wrong of me, anyway.
Star was not my baby sister. The only way to make me feel better about Lilith was to find her. I had to know for myself that she was okay.
The three of us watched the fire burn in silence. We needed to sit down and have a real conversation.
Doing it by a pit of flaming corpses in the hot ass sun wasn’t where I wanted to get any deeper or more meaningful.
“You know what I do want?”
“What?” they asked at the same time.
“I think I need pussy.”
“About time. I was thinking you’d gone nomad,” Ice laughed.
“Those blue balls you’re about to have are going to be fierce,” Luce mused.
We joked around for the next fifteen minutes, still by the pit when the acolytes began putting the fire out and another approached with a box, the kind my mother would keep her jewelry in.
Luce immediately switched back to his ultra-serious mode and waited for the man to reach us.
“This was left at the end of the lane, my liege.”
We all looked from the thin black box to the bold red envelope addressed to Astraea.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It didn’t take me much time to figure things out.
I knew A.R.C was so invested in Star and her brother because of who their mother was. If my findings were correct, which they were, she had been a renegade her damn self. How their dad ended up at the place I imagined she would’ve warned him about was anyone’s guess.
The man handed his kids over on a fucking platter. He was supposedly dead because of it. I had to give it to him, he did an excellent job disposing of his secrets, but I did an even better one recovering them.
That’s how I knew the A.R.C wouldn’t give her up without at least trying to get me to give her back. I thought my messenger would’ve made it clear that wasn’t an option. Holding a jewelry box and an envelope addressed to Star, I guess not.
They weren’t the only interested faction. The Stags were in on this too, which I found mildly amusing considering their leader didn’t give a shit about anyone. Creed wouldn’t need the A.R.C to secure a bride, he’d force some unlucky bitch to be his and call it a day.
So, you see, things weren’t quite adding up.
I was waiting on something to confirm what I was ninety-nine percent sure of. Pretty sure I was holding that proof in my hands. This had been fun at first, now it was just fucked all around.
“Hold this.” I passed Cam the envelope and opened the box. There was a glittery cloth flattened inside but nothing else. I lifted it out and something fell onto my shoe.
“What the hell is that?” Ice questioned.
I swiped it off and dangled what I now could see was a piece of skin between my thumb and forefinger.
“It’s a barcode. A.R.C uses them to mark their girls as property.”
“Like the one Star has on her hip,” Cam stated.
I leveled a stare at him.
