Page 58 of Nocte

Or I did.

Until I heard a broken, dying, uttered “beautiful,” and saw this sickening world in a new light. A new way. She doesn’t prize mindless beauty like Cassius. She feasts on the novelty. The brilliance. She sees these twisted lights and towering buildings as though they are the stars in the sky, fallen to her feet, suddenly within her reach.

I hate her. How she looks at this realm, dying and broken, and still praises it. How she clings to me with soft, powerless fingers and struggles to stare. She’ll kill herself faster if only to see more of this realm before she goes.

She’s so fucking selfish. Out of spite, I can’t let her die. Not yet. Not here.

So, I run.

This city unfurls before me, its roads well-tread and buildings changing, but my knowledge of it withstands the test of time. For centuries I’ve roamed these dirt, stone, now asphalt roads. More memories I wasn’t aware of flood back, giving me a clear idea of what to do next.

I take this fae through empty streets and winding alleys. I take her to the one place Cassius had deemed a haven for our kind in this wasteland.

A motel, shaky and crumbling, squeezed in between a laundromat and a deli. I forget its name, something that implies a double entendre in the mortal tongue.

My victims would remark on it more often than not, whenever I brought them here.

“Bleeding Hearts Motel,” they’d read, eyeing the flashing lights at the top of the building skeptically. Sometimes, they’d laugh. Sometimes, they’d sneer and beg to go somewhere else.

But there was nowhere else. Because this place was run not by fae or vamryre or lunaria, but half-creatures. Bastard bloodlines long forgotten and left behind. They would let Cassius do his bidding in peace for a price.

They’ll let me stay here for a price.

How will I pay it?

Who the hell knows? Who cares? If they keep her alive, I don’t fucking care. I’ll give them anything.

Exceptreturn to Cassius—never that.

But anything else. They won’t have a choice. When I enter the ruin, the fae in my arms, a woman at the front desk barely looks up from some tawdry image. A magazine. She sighs and shrugs.

“How can I help you?”

She isn’t fae or vamryre or lunaria, but she isn’t entirely mortal either. Her eyes sparkle in a way humans don’t. Her nostrils flare, picking up a scent they can’t. Then she looks up and she sees in a heartbeat what I am and where I am from.

But fear isn’t what makes her gasp and stagger forward.

It’s recognition.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she demands, her cheeks splattered with angry red, her pudgy arms crossed over her chest. “Fuck, I thought they’d locked you in some dungeon or whatever the hell it is they do. You aren’t allowed in here, bloodsucker. Not anymore. Get the fuck out before I sick my dog on you!”

“No.” I dig my heels in. I hold the fae tight. She’s running out of time, her breathing frail. But she’s watching. Greedy, stupid thing, she’s watching and curious and fighting with the last of her strength to take in what little she can of her precious mortal realm. She isn’t staring at the woman or the disgusting room with stained floors and shitty music blaring from a metal box. Her gaze is fixed straight ahead. I risk a glance down to watch her. Her one good eye widens with hope and delight.

She’s disgusting. This place is disgusting.

Except for a painting hanging on the wall behind the woman’s head. She sees it, and she’s content enough to die here and now.

Not while I have any say in it. I grip the back of her skull and wrench her head around to face me. Then I eye the woman and say, “Heal her.”

“Hell no!” She sputters. Then eyes the fae and her eyes widen with unmistakable interest. She sees what she is. Knows it. Vamryre are a dime a dozen around this place, but not her kind. Not her. Fae—corrupted or not, she is a novelty. A new treat I can exploit.

“Heal her,” I snarl. “Then supply me with a room. You don’t have a choice, mundane.”

That’s the term Cassius told me, once upon a time, to refer to these half-immortal kinds. Mundane. Unspecial. Unpretty. Unworthy of entrance to the other realm.

So they live here among mortals and hide their powers and differences. In a way, they live like she did, my fae. Making themselves small by shrinking and hiding.

Their overseers aren’t the members of the high council. Just their own disparate set of rules meant to keep mortal fears in check. How silly. How stupid.