Read Online Endgame (Voluntary Eradicators) by Nenia Campbell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nenia Campbell
Ads: Link
embossed with gold claps once, twice, three times . His paunch makes him stand out from the scrawny commoners and sinewy guardsmen . She doesn't know who he is, but she knows who he is supposed to be .
Only the Regent is allowed to wear purple .
His eyes are an extension of the smoke curling around the cheap lights of the bar . They slide over her like warm honey and a faint smile curves his lips in response to something she has just said . It must have been about herself, because he says, dryly, “You don't look like a nice girl to me.”
And her heart aches because it's true, because, of course, she would love to be nothing more than a nice girl — a girl to take home, a girl to come home to — but that option was closed to her long ago . Her contacts feel like thorns in her eyes . She blinks and smiles back . He thinks she is being coquettish; he has no way of knowing she's holding back tears .
“ I could be persuaded to be,” she says .
“ Oh?” he replies .
All she can do now is pretend .
The last few hours have passed in a blur to which she has tried to make herself blind . A few details have wormed their way through, like maggots gnawing at a corpse . Cuts spilling out like streamers . Offal and pieces of flesh, some recognizable and others mere bloody pulp . Each shrill cry of pain and terror seem to mirror her own until the walls between them grow so fine and thin that she feels she is tearing at herself .
The Regent speaks to the man beside him and she catches the words, “only an amusing parlor trick,” and she knows immediately that he is referring to her . She stares at her hands, at the blood worked so deeply under the nails that no matter how many times she rinses them in scalding water it never seems to come off .
For the first time, it occurs to her that one can hate one's existence without wanting to die .
One can hate the person that one has become .
His mouth crashes down on hers, and he tastes of sage and smoke and alcohol . She feels his pulse racing beneath her fingertips when she slides her hands around his neck . She returns his kiss, sighing into his mouth as his hands slide down her back . In this moment, she has never known anyone more alive .
“ Who are you?” he breathes, his voice hot and heavy with desire .
“ No one in particular . ”
“ Well, Miss Particular, anything else I should know?”
And she shudders when his fingers slip beneath the hem of her shirt . She slides off his lap, primly smoothing out her clothes . As if she isn't still on fire from her touch . As if she doesn't want him just as badly as he wants her .
“ I live in the Tower,” she says . “On the fourth floor . ”
And as she walks away, she feels his eyes on her, infusing her with a warm, red glow that settles low in her belly and simmers quietly . She quickens her step, giddy with adrenaline and anticipation . She already knows he will follow her . He was fumbling to pay the bartender even as she turned away .
“ Why do you make yourself so helpless?”
The voice, and the sharpness of it, give her pause .
She stops, tilts her head . The question has startled her . “Maybe,” she says lightly, “It's a trick . ”
The creatures approaches her . It is holding a needle filled with a honey-colored fluid . She knows what that fluid does . It is the drug that will turn her into a monster . She struggles — but nanobots pin down her arms . They move as she moves, fluid, but as tight and confining as steel .
The visor catches the bright-burning light as the creature tilts its head to regard her . Her skin is glossy with a sheen of sweat . She begs — she pleads — she threatens — all the while knowing it will be of no use . This has happened before . She knows it . Her body knows it .
But she cannot remember .
And then all coherent thought dissolves as her mind is drowned out by a new voice . A voice that hints at impossible cruelty, at killing for the sheer
Only the Regent is allowed to wear purple .
His eyes are an extension of the smoke curling around the cheap lights of the bar . They slide over her like warm honey and a faint smile curves his lips in response to something she has just said . It must have been about herself, because he says, dryly, “You don't look like a nice girl to me.”
And her heart aches because it's true, because, of course, she would love to be nothing more than a nice girl — a girl to take home, a girl to come home to — but that option was closed to her long ago . Her contacts feel like thorns in her eyes . She blinks and smiles back . He thinks she is being coquettish; he has no way of knowing she's holding back tears .
“ I could be persuaded to be,” she says .
“ Oh?” he replies .
All she can do now is pretend .
The last few hours have passed in a blur to which she has tried to make herself blind . A few details have wormed their way through, like maggots gnawing at a corpse . Cuts spilling out like streamers . Offal and pieces of flesh, some recognizable and others mere bloody pulp . Each shrill cry of pain and terror seem to mirror her own until the walls between them grow so fine and thin that she feels she is tearing at herself .
The Regent speaks to the man beside him and she catches the words, “only an amusing parlor trick,” and she knows immediately that he is referring to her . She stares at her hands, at the blood worked so deeply under the nails that no matter how many times she rinses them in scalding water it never seems to come off .
For the first time, it occurs to her that one can hate one's existence without wanting to die .
One can hate the person that one has become .
His mouth crashes down on hers, and he tastes of sage and smoke and alcohol . She feels his pulse racing beneath her fingertips when she slides her hands around his neck . She returns his kiss, sighing into his mouth as his hands slide down her back . In this moment, she has never known anyone more alive .
“ Who are you?” he breathes, his voice hot and heavy with desire .
“ No one in particular . ”
“ Well, Miss Particular, anything else I should know?”
And she shudders when his fingers slip beneath the hem of her shirt . She slides off his lap, primly smoothing out her clothes . As if she isn't still on fire from her touch . As if she doesn't want him just as badly as he wants her .
“ I live in the Tower,” she says . “On the fourth floor . ”
And as she walks away, she feels his eyes on her, infusing her with a warm, red glow that settles low in her belly and simmers quietly . She quickens her step, giddy with adrenaline and anticipation . She already knows he will follow her . He was fumbling to pay the bartender even as she turned away .
“ Why do you make yourself so helpless?”
The voice, and the sharpness of it, give her pause .
She stops, tilts her head . The question has startled her . “Maybe,” she says lightly, “It's a trick . ”
The creatures approaches her . It is holding a needle filled with a honey-colored fluid . She knows what that fluid does . It is the drug that will turn her into a monster . She struggles — but nanobots pin down her arms . They move as she moves, fluid, but as tight and confining as steel .
The visor catches the bright-burning light as the creature tilts its head to regard her . Her skin is glossy with a sheen of sweat . She begs — she pleads — she threatens — all the while knowing it will be of no use . This has happened before . She knows it . Her body knows it .
But she cannot remember .
And then all coherent thought dissolves as her mind is drowned out by a new voice . A voice that hints at impossible cruelty, at killing for the sheer
Similar Books
