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Up until this moment, she had been moving on pure adrenaline. The news that Torra wasn’t just alive but had been living here in Red Velvet this whole time hit her like a freight train as she waited for the door to open. She’d been trafficked. She’d been stolen from her home and forced into this blood brothel. And she’d survived it for a year. A whole fucking year.
While Kierse had been up above, living her life and trying to move on, thinking she was dead. The thought broke her. And a tear came to her eye that she hastily brushed away. She couldn’t fall apart. Not yet. Not until Torra was out of here.
The door was yanked open, and Kierse stopped breathing.
Torra stood before her. Her once-pink hair was now a dark brown with blond ends. Her blue eyes were vivid against her creamy white skin, which was so pale that Kierse could see the veins running underneath. As if this place had leeched the color from her skin. But the sway of those hips, the careful tilt to her head, the swell of her breasts in the red corset. Those were all things Kierse distinctly remembered.
“Torra?” she gasped.
Her eyes rounded. “Kierse?”
“You’re alive,” she said, her hand going to her mouth.
“What are you doing here?” Torra grasped Kierse by the arm and yanked her into the room. She slammed the door closed behind her and leaned back against it as if she, too, could barely stay standing at the sight of her.
Kierse’s eyes traveled over Torra like she was a ghost come back to life. She was the same and wholly different. More fragile, more frail, and with the unmistakable white outlines of bites across her neck and delicate wrists. But she was still completely Torra.
“Torra, you’re alive,” Kierse repeated.
She couldn’t stop herself. She moved toward Torra and pulled her into her arms. For the last year, she had believed that she was dead. She was the last person Kierse had ever had a relationship with, and she’d just given up after that. She and Torra hadn’t been perfect. They’d fought, and little things had always blown up to bigger things between them. But she hadn’t wanted her dead. And she certainly didn’t want this.
“I’m alive. I’m alive,” Torra said, brushing at the tear that had rolled down Kierse’s cheek.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said. “We need to get you out of here. I just killed a vampire and . . .”
“You did what?” Torra gasped.
“I killed the fucking vampire who did this to you, Tor.” She straightened, forcing a sense of calm back over herself. “I cornered Orik Thompson in an alley, and I cut his head off when he lunged for me.”
“Oh my god.” Torra’s lips quavered. “I’m glad he’s dead. I’m glad for it, Kierse, but the entire place is going to go on lock down as soon as they find him. You need to get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving without you!” Kierse insisted. “I’m getting you the fuck out of here.”
“And go where? Do you have a plan?”
“Fuck,” she spat.
She did have a plan. She had one from Graves. And it was find a fucking exit.
It was important, had always been important to the success of the mission. But now it was something else. Now it meant a way to get Torra out. She hadn’t thought she was alive, so she hadn’t even considered that she would need the exit first. She had her exit but not one for anyone else. And she had never hated herself for that fact more.
“I can get you out. I just need more time,” Kierse said. “We can hide you until I figure it out.”
“You can’t hide me. I’m okay. I’m safe. I’m alive.”
“Tor,” she said, swiping at her eyes again. “You’re not safe. Please.”
“No, you listen to me. You are going to get the fuck out of here, and then you’re going to find a way to get me out. I don’t care that I’m indentured to King Louis and that he might find and kill me if I leave.”
“He won’t find you. I’m going to kill him.”
Torra looked frightened then. “I believe you mean that, but first we need to get you out of here. Come back. Find a way out. I’ll go with you. But I cannot live if they put you in this place, too. It’d be so much worse if you were here.”
An alarm wailed in the brothel. Kierse jumped at the abrupt sound.
“They know. They know he’s dead,” Torra said, her voice frantic and horrified. She pushed Kierse toward the door. “Please just go.”
“I will find a way to get you out of here,” she promised. “I swear it. I’m coming back for you.”
Torra threw her arms around her once more. “Don’t die. Please.”
