“A baz-terd,” she snarled, staring at me with sudden hatred.
It was my turn to blink at her, twice, before I lowered my head in a single nod.
Ah. I had heard this term used by the other humans before. It was becoming popular on Lunaria as well as their culture seeped into our own. Baz-terd. An awful man. A taker of things that were not his to own. I knew the true meaning of it as well, the human one. Illegitimate. The product of a union without marriage. An unwanted thing without family, lineage, house or home. On Lunaria, cubs were almost always wanted, and so the human meaning of the word rarely rang true.
But for me—orphaned, abandoned, given up to be turned into a monster and a killer in the labyrinth beneath House Brixta’s palace where cubs became specters—for once, both meanings of the word rang true.
“Yes,” I told her as I rose. “Yes, I am.”
7
Atlanta
He sent me to bed after, with barely another word.
“Rest,” he told me simply as he helped me to my feet. “Tomorrow, you will need it.”
I waited up for a little while, fully expecting him to slip back beneath the blankets with me. Maybe, in some awful, stupid way, I even wanted him to. But he didn’t. Instead, I heard him slip out the door into the hall again. I fell asleep waiting for him to come back, though I didn’t know how.
My dreams were a mess. My brain was struggling to process what had happened that night, and my subconscious was a wreck. Punches melted into kisses melted into orders to kneel. Sometimes, it was Apex who was driving his fist into my stomach until I doubled over in pain. Sometimes, it was Razael or Votan doing the kissing. Once, it was even my own mother telling me to kneel, with an entire host of others looming behind her, some of them human, some of them not.
When I woke up again, I had to pry my eyes open. Maybe it was the adrenaline from last night, making me feel like that time Savannah and I had indulged in a little too much champagne at an awards ceremony. Maybe I was just tired—really, truly tired—and after so many nights of sleeping on the cold floor of a jail cell, my body was catching up on much needed rest.
I found Apex in the armchair on the other side of the room. He was awake, too, and staring at me. He looked like he’d hardly slept. The dark circles under his eyes would have made any other man look terrible, but incredibly, they seemed to suit Apex. They brought out the sharpness of his cheekbones and the hollows of his cheeks.
They made him look even more dangerous than ever. Something that, apparently…I kind of liked.
“Good. You are awake.” Apex didn’t make any move to get up out of the chair. I wondered if he’d managed to get a few hours of shut-eye in it, at least—or if he’d actually been sitting up all night. “You should make yourself ready for breakfast. And hurry about it. We are already late.”
“You could have woken me up,” I pointed out as I lugged myself out of bed. “You don’t look like you slept a wink.”
“There is nothing to wink about,” Apex said dryly. “Your actions from last night may still have repercussions. I did not think it wise to sleep while you might still be in danger from retaliation from Queen Lieja’s harem members, and it seemed to me that you might require the extra rest.”
“Oh. Well…thank you.” I frowned as my eyes lingered on his boots. He hadn’t taken them off all night, like he thought he might have to be up on his feet and fighting all over again at any minute. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it so that you had to—”
“Think nothing of it.” He held up a hand to stop me. “I am not sure I could have slept anyway.”
“No? Aren’t you some kind of…soldier or something, though?” I thought back to the black-classes on Earth. Apex reminded me of them sometimes. Stoic. Strong. And yes, a little dangerous, too. “I had to sit through a military ball once back home. One of the generals there told me that a good soldier can fall asleep anywhere.”
He stared at me for a long moment, like I’d just said something really dumb, and I had to try hard not to blush. Then, he shrugged.
“I am a specter, not a soldier,” he said. “I do not sleep when there is trouble lingering at my door.”
“Votan and Razael…they were outside last night?” I remembered how Apex had left as soon as the lights were out. “You didn’t have to fight them, did you?”
“They were not, and I did not. But not all trouble hangs about in a physical sense, Atlanta.” He nodded toward the bathroom door, which was ajar. “There will be fresh towels near the shower. Wash yourself and be quick about it.”
The water was searing, but I didn’t mind it. The steam opened up my pores and soothed the sleep from my eyes. Without it, I was pretty sure I could have slept for days in my bed.
It wasn’t hard to sleep, knowing that Apex was watching over me. I only felt bad that he’d lost out on sleep himself because of what I’d done.
I knew it had been wrong to run. I’d just been desperate. Once, when I was a little girl, one of our housekeepers had spilled rice in the pantry without realizing it. We’d gotten rats not long after. My father had been furious, and the servants had spent an entire day setting traps. When a poor little mouse had ended up stuck in one, it had rushed out as soon as our butler opened the trap up—straight beneath my father’s shoe. He’d stomped it to death without hesitation. I
