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“I know what Patience has on Eli Rebellis, but when I tell you this next information, I must have your word that it does not leave this room.” I pause, the cigarette hanging from between my teeth. Kauis curls his finger and a woman steps out of the shadows, her face fully clothed in a black silk veil. She carries a silver platter, one I’ve seen many times before.
I point to it with my cigarette. “Our word isn’t enough? You want a blood oath?”
Kallisto, Killian’s father, turns in his chair to look down at all of us. “This goes deeper than you, Kyrin. Deeper than anything that you all could have done. You all recklessly walked into what could have been your own deaths, all for what?” He glares at all of us, and suddenly I’m a child again and Uncle Kal didn’t get to dip his cookie into the cookie jar. “For your pride?”
“You will listen this time.” Kauis again, as he rolls the trunk of a fat cigar around between his fingers. He gestures to the young girl, and she begins her tour around the table as each person cuts their finger and drops their share of blood into the cup. “Eli is gone. Do not look for him.”
I clench my jaw. The fuck I won’t.
“Kyrin!” my father snaps, and my eyes fly to his. “This is serious.”
I take the ancient knife, pressing the tip against the cushion of my finger and dropping my blood onto the paper that’s laid out. I place the knife back onto the platter, glaring at both my father and Kauis. “I know, but you’re fucking kidding yourself if you think I’m not going to find Eli and raise hell while doing it.”
“Son.” Kauis’s tone softens. It’s foreign for him, since he always uses force. Even with his words. “I’m going to guarantee that you won’t be looking for him.”
When I first came into this house, I thought it was too big. Too big, at least for only two bedrooms. I was wrong. Now, having all six of the Dolls inside of it, not including Bear, it could be bigger. They’ve always looked up to me. I knew that. We were raised together mostly, or at least all except for Wolf.
“We all need to talk.” Not my best opening for the speech I’ve been reciting since getting here, but I’m going with it. I’m hanging on to the fact that in three days, I’ll get information on Eli. In three days, I might even see him.
All six of them are seated around the lounge. Two on the floor, three on the longer sofa, one in the armchair. Wolf is the only other one I really spoke to who wasn’t Bear. There’s Bee, who has honey-colored hair that flows down her back, with matching eyes. She’s taller than all of us, standing around five-eleven. Then there’s Siren, who has long dark hair and strange almond eyes. They don’t look normal. In fact, she is a strange one in general. Though… they have said worse about me. Lamb is young, with dark curly hair and dark skin. She’s the one that all the other girls gravitate to. She has a kindness about her that none of us carry. We need her a lot—at least they did. I just relied on her comfort for the rest of them. She also sees through bullshit, so I can’t lie around her. And then Puppy. With little doe eyes and a heart-shaped face, she’s every man’s wet fantasy when it comes to fucking their daughters’ friends. All The Dolls are created for perfection. Their personalities, though, well…
Wolf, with her gray eyes and blonde hair, I saw a lot of myself in her when she was converted in, which was just after I met Eli. She was plucked from a place in Switzerland and broken, snapped, and shaped to be what she is now.
She taps her fingers on the handle. “We’re at your disposal, Lilith. You know we bow to no one but you.”
“We’re not in Patience anymore.” I look around at all of them, studying their faces. “You can be free now. Live a life that you want to live.”
The silence is loud. Their brains all try to work on the words I just said.
Lamb is the first. “We don’t want to. We want to stay with you.” They’re conditioned for this life, to have an owner and a master.
Closing my eyes, I massage my temples. But every time I close them, Eli is looking right back at me. “Okay. Give me a second, okay?” They all bat their lashes up at me. I pick up my phone from the table and move into the kitchen, dialing Perse’s number. She and I haven’t spoken since her hostility.
She answers. “Lilith?” Her tone is different, but I don’t care. I need a plan, and I don’t think I’ll get one without her. I have to respect that she runs this show, and that everything has to go through her before it even settles in my head.
