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Deacon snorted. “Hardly.I’mnot helping her try to escape.”
That made me go completely still. While I knew Deacon suspected something, him coming right out and saying it showed his confidence in his guess.
“No idea what you mean,” I said, though I doubted it was all that convincing.
“Right. Look, I know she’s got some naïve, romantic idea that she’s going to find a life outside of Larkwood, but you’ve been here long enough to know better. I have no idea what you, Wade, Brax and she have cooked up, but whatever it is, let it go. Tell her to accept her place here, to make the best of it.”
“Easy for you to say. It’s always people who are free telling those who aren’t to learn to accept what is. It’s like people with homes telling those without to learn to be happy with wherever they are.” I spat the words as I approached him, my temper slipping.
Deacon didn’t pull away, didn’t show any signs of fear. Then again, he wasn’t exactly human or some weakling. “I’ve seen shades get dragged off to the North Tower. I’vebeenin the North Tower. I know better than you do what happens when shades step outside the line, when they pay the price for it. I don’t want to see Hera end up there for some pipe dream that will never happen. If you help her with this fool’s errand, then you’re on the hook for what happens to her.”
Wasn’t that similar to what I’d told Kit days earlier?
I ended up standing right in front of him, so close that if someone didn’t know us, we could have almost seemed like lovers. Funny how similar love and hate could look. “Hera is going to do what she wants. Sometimes a life trapped somewhere isn’t a life worth living, and risking it is worth anything.”
The purple of his eyes shone bright, almost as if glowing. “It isn’t just about dying. It’s easy to say you’d rather die than live imprisoned, because if you die, that’s it. It’s all over. Shades don’t get to just die here,though. Don’t you get that? Larkwood doesn’t let anyone go, not if they can use them. So if Hera gets caught, if she lands herself in serious trouble, she isn’t going to just die. She doesn’t get to close her eyes and head off to some magical afterlife where everything is perfect. She’ll get taken to the North Tower, she’ll be experimented on, tortured, forced to do things you can’t even imagine, and destroyed until there is nothing but a husk left.”
I swallowed hard because I knew he wasn’t lying. Larkwood didn’t remove its claws from anyone. Still… “If you have something to say to her, say it to her. You might see her as a thing you can control, but I don’t. She’s not property, and she can make her own choices.”
Deacon pulled his shoulders back, the level of aggression rolling off him making me wish we could go a few rounds. I wanted to beat on one another until we were both too bloody and tired to think about any of this anymore. It wouldn’t solve anything, wouldn’t fix the problems, but fuck, I’d feel better.
It wasn’t possible, though. If I laid a finger on him, it would just come down on me, would ruin the plans I had that were far more important than rearranging this asshole’s face.
“Let me make myself clear,” Deacon said. “If Hera pays the price for whatever bullshit you, Knox and Wade are helping her with, I’m not going to let it go. Whatever she suffers, I’ll make fucking sure you suffer tenfold.”
As I stared at him, I didn’t bother to respond, because what was the point? The reality was that he was right. Even without him intervening, if Hera got caught, if things didn’t go right, I knew I’d suffer more than I’d ever experienced before.
That girl was important to me, no matter how much I’d tried to keep it from happening, and losing her would be a wound I didn’t think I could come back from.
* * * *
Hera
I didn’t bother to knock on the door to Knox’s room. Knocking on front doors like that didn’t happen in Larkwood. Privacy wasn’t a thing people expected here, so I’d gotten used to just walking in.
Not that it hadn’t bit me in the ass before.
I recalled walking in on Knox and that demon before, and the uncomfortable moment that had happened afterward.
However, that had stopped happening. I didn’t doubt that Knox still fed on his own, but he didn’t bring them back to his room at least. I had mixed feelings about it.
I didn’t like him hiding things from me, but I didn’t want to walk in on it again, either.
I knocked on the counter as I set down the book Knox had wanted. The knocking was less of a request to enter and more of just letting him know I’d arrived. It was my version of,“Hey, I’m here!”
A moment later, Knox walked in from his bedroom. He was barefoot and wore only his sweats low on his hips. It put his chest on display, and worse? He must have gotten out of a shower recently because droplets of water glistened on his chest. A towel hung around his shoulders, and when he spotted me, he gave me an absolutely mind-blowing smile.
Again I wondered how one person could tempt me this much.
Still, I shook my head, waking myself up so I didn’t ogle as I dropped my gaze to the floor. I knew damn well how he felt about that, understood the reasons why, so I tried hard not to put him in that position, not to make him feel pressured or stared at.
“You never look at me,” he said softly as he approached.
I shrugged, pretending it wasn’t a big deal.
He set his fingers beneath my chin but didn’t force my gaze up. It was a request, not a demand.
I sighed and gave in, looking up and into his green eyes
