Page 39 of House of Darkness (The Fallen Star #1)
ROMAN
Chaos had enveloped the world. Flames, fueled by Enso’s power, flickered around us, while the shrieks of girls evacuated by my generals pierced the air. The turmoil mirrored the storm raging inside my mind, but I kept my face impassive—I wouldn’t show emotion to the man glaring up at me.
“Did you or any of your dogs steal a woman from my house? Blonde hair the color of starlight, big blue eyes?”
“Fuck you,” he snarled.
My vision blurred with red fury. I hurled my fist through his chest, snapping a rib in the process.
His screams were muffled against the wall of rage in my mind.
I yanked my hand back with a sickening squelch, unfazed by the blood and gore splattered across my arm. “I’d recommend answering my questions.”
He gasped against the gaping wound, already beginning to heal itself. His pause made me shake with impatience. “You’ll kill me anyway.”
“Yes,” I replied flatly. This wasn’t a democracy; I was judge, jury, and executioner.
“But you decide how painful it is. I can either rip your head off and be done with it—” I twisted one of his fingers until it tore from his flesh, his shriek slicing through the air, “—or I can ensure you suffer.”
I reached for another finger, and he screamed. “Please stop! No, no, no—”
“TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!”
A hand landed on my shoulder. “Breathe. Count to ten.”
The air hissed past my teeth, but I obeyed Enso’s command.
The trafficker, a bloody mess and missing several parts, still had a voice, and that’s what mattered.
It trembled between shaky whimpers. Fucking pathetic.
Then again, so was I. “I didn’t take her, man.
I’m not that stupid. I don’t know who did—” I growled, and he hurried on, “—I promise! I don’t know anything! ”
“Thank you for your cooperation.” Despite my reluctance to accept it, he spoke the truth. I seized his head and twisted until it detached from his body.
“You need to calm down; you’re scaring the survivors.”
I ignored Enso’s words. The girls we rescued had witnessed worse. I hurled the severed head, which struck the far wall with a sickening thud. Blood splattered like some grotesque painting. Razvan would be proud.
My voice wavered with hysteria. “Where is she?”
This was the fourth black market acolyte ring we had dismantled in five days.
We had rescued countless girls and ended many wretched lives, but none of it mattered if she was still out there.
She had been taken while I wallowed in self-pity.
My guilt, anger, fear, and hatred boiled beneath the surface.
I couldn’t explode yet—not until she was safe.
“We’ll find her.” Enso’s certainty was a balm I desperately wanted to believe. I did believe it—I would turn the world upside down until I found her—but he left out what state she’d be in when we did. Five days she had endured hell while I failed her. I had promised to keep her safe and had failed.
I nodded vaguely toward him. Isabella stood outside, directing girl after girl to safety.
This wasn’t the first black market acolyte den we’d raided since I took the throne, and she had become adept at managing the details.
I knew it fulfilled a need within her, the same need I had, but those thoughts had faded, leaving only Estrella’s safety.
Sorin emerged from the shadows, looking unlike himself.
He now had sandy hair, was several inches shorter, and his facial structure shifted.
Yet after knowing him so long, I recognized him even when he used his powers to alter his appearance—the skill that allowed him to perform his job as general of intelligence so well.
His eyebrows were furrowed, and his shoulders tense.
He held a package wrapped in torn parchment.
That unmistakable sweet scent, like lilies and vanilla wrapped into one, radiated from that package. I stumbled forward on unsteady feet, my body instinctively searching out my starlight. Though my mind knew it was wrong. Estrella couldn’t be in that box, and whatever was in there couldn’t be good.
I reached for it, but Sorin stepped back. “Roman, you don’t want to see this. They left it with the dead body of my informant—”
“Sorin,” I rasped. My outstretched hand shook.
His face scrunched with pain as it morphed back into his own, eyes glistening. He reached forward to place the box in my hand. It was like my head didn’t want to move, unwilling to look at the horror in my hands. My neck creaked mechanically downward to look upon the contents of the parcel.
I recognized that blue silk immediately.
It had been fisted in my hands that morning when I tugged it over her perfect curves.
My favorite little scrap of fabric on the planet, folded neatly into the box.
It was smeared with blood that smelled of lilies—smelled of a moonsoaked night in my garden with her body in my arms and my lips on her neck.
My favorite things, all tainted, twisted, and wrong. The scent of cologne overpowered that of sweet, delicate lilies. Her blood wasn’t just smeared, it was in the shape of handprints along the sweetest, most intimate parts of her.
My shivering fingers tentatively fisted the fabric, letting the box fall to the wayside. I only knew I collapsed because of the sharp sting of stones digging into my knees. None of that mattered though.
I hadn’t protected her from this, just like before. My failures would be stained across her in the same way they were imprinted on this gown. She was going to suffer and die because I failed her. Just like last time. The thing inside me exploded.
The building exploded with it.
I didn’t care about the shards of wood cutting into my skin. It was nothing compared to pain caused by the frayed and cut silk in my dead fingers. Nothing else mattered because there was nothing without her safety.
Sorin appeared in front of me, crouching to my level in the sea of broken wood and glass. “I know where she is, let’s go rescue our girl.”