Kings of Blood and Money (Underworld Kings)

So gross.

I’m glad he’s asleep and didn’t witness it.

Swiping a hand across my mouth and over his chest, I groan. My mouth is so dry, it feels like moths could fly out of it.

Removing my sweater, I brush a hand through my hair and stalk to the bedroom door. I can be quick. Just grab a couple bottles of water. In and out. I won’t even get ice.

Looking back at Remi, my stomach lurches. He made me promise I wouldn’t leave the room. I could drink from the tap in the bathroom, but Ivy said bathroom faucets used a different water supply that aren’t as clean as the kitchen tap. I’m not sure how true that is, but it does put me off.

I’m going to make a dash to the kitchen.

Opening my door, I step out, waiting a few beats to listen for anyone.

Silence.

I take the stairs, stepping over the squeaky one, and tiptoe past Noah’s closed door. Edging down the second set of stairs, I wait at the bottom, listening out for visitors or Noah. There’s a faint knocking, like a nail tapping against a desk. Ivy used to do it all the time and it drove me freaking crazy.

I cross the foyer in a few hurried steps and dart past the dining room, disappearing into the kitchen.

Crap.

My heart skitters when I see light coming from the open door to Father’s blood room. I haven’t thought much else about it over the years, but it’s unusual. I’ve never seen anyone else come and go from the house, but if he’s a doctor why does he not see patients?

A crate the size of a coffee table on a trolly toward the back door catches my attention. The tapping sound is coming from inside there. I know I should turn around and go back to my room. Get out of here as fast as I can. But I don’t. I move toward the box instead.

My hand reaches out for it as a muffled mumble comes from inside, jolting me backward. A shudder ripples through my body, my bones shrinking beneath my skin.

There’s a person in there. “Hello?” I manage to squeak out. More mumbles and tapping. “Who's in there?” I croak, not noticing the shadow chasing across the room and falling over me.

Noah’s clean, woodsy scent overwhelms me as he grabs at my arms. “What are you doing?” he hisses, his eyes slamming toward the open door he must have come from. “Go to your room, Freya. Now,” he whisper-yells. There’s something dark and dangerous in his eyes. Then he says, “Please,” and I find my head bobbing up and down.

Turning, I run toward the exit, giving one more look over my shoulder. He pleads with a look I’ve never seen on his face before: panic.

When I get back to my room, I rush straight to my bed, curling myself into the safety of Remi’s body heat. Who the hell was in that box? Why were they in a box? Rational thoughts become inaccessible. There are just colliding theories too grim to give purchase to.

Is that how I came here, in a box?

Does Noah traffic people? Does Father?

Remi stirs, his eyes peeling open to look at me. A lazy grin kicks up the sides of his lips. I try to mask my utter meltdown, but I feel like I’m made of Lego bricks about to come tumbling down. “Why do you look like you’re about to throw up? Did you smoke too much?”

“There’s someone in a box downstairs,” I blurt out, my voice shaking.

As if I doused him in cold water, he darts up from the bed, getting to his feet. “You went downstairs?”

I fidget, sitting up, cradling my legs with my arms. “My mouth was so dry, I was going to be quick…but…”

“But what? Dammit, Freya. You promised.” He roughly pushes his hands through his hair then down his face. “Did anyone see you?”

“Noah did.”

“Fuck.”

“Did you hear what I said?” I move to my knees, fisting the duvet. “There’s a person in a freaking box down there, Remi.”

His muscles ripple and flex over the hard ridges of his body. The glow from the TV dances shadows over him as he begins to pace at the side of my bed.

“Listen, you need to forget what you saw.”

“Remi, tell me what the hell is going on. Is that how I came here?”

“What?”

“Was I taken? Is my family out there somewhere?”

“We’re not kidnappers, Freya. Dad fucking saved you.”

His statement knocks the wind from my lungs. “Wha--What do you mean? Saved me from what?” I beg.

Bowing his head, he mumbles expletives under his breath. I force my mind to remember, to fight through the wall keeping that time from me.

Screaming. There was screaming. My stomach turns as the sound drills into me through the layers I built up to keep my mind safe, awakening fear. I felt that fear bubble up under Noah’s wrath too. People are faceless in my dreams, memories disjointed, marred, spoiled. But the sound of pain, panic…it echoes, calling to me from my subconscious. My hand lifts to stroke the faint line across my neck.