Page 3 of Reap the Night
Hemlock adds sugar to his tea. “Yes, but Ezekiel was just saying how he owed her a debt and wanted to make her life easier. I think he’ll be laying low.”
Ingrid purses her lips. “Well…if you’re going to do this, then Orina should be told the truth. The whole truth. That poor girl. No more lies. No more secrets. If you want her to put distance between herself and the master, then you need to give her reason to do so.”
She’s right. It’s time to tell Orina everything.
Chapter 2
ORINA
Iwas awake. Finally awake after what felt like weeks, and to what? To Ezekiel ordering an execution. After my frantic flight down the steps earlier, I didn’t have the energy to get out of my bed.
How had I gotten back to my room?
Ezekiel…
I remembered him bracing me to stop me from falling. The look of horror on his face. Horror that I’d caught him sentencing an innocent to death.
A hollow ache filled my chest.
After all the time we’d spent together in our dream vista. After all the things he’d said…
How could I have been so stupid as to believe him?
Was it just another game to him? Playing with my emotions? Softening me to make me forget the atrocities he’d committed?
I was a fool.
A soft knock on the door pulled me out of my thoughts. “Who is it?”
“Hemlock.”
“And Ordell.”
I sat up in bed and wiped at my wet eyes.“Come in.”
They slipped into the room like shadowy messengers and closed the door behind them.
Ordell hovered at the foot of my bed, hands in his jogger pockets, shoulders hunched as if he wanted to make himself smaller, while Hemlock crossed to the lamp and turned it up, dispelling some of the shadows that crawled across my room.
“How are you?” Ordell asked.
“I’m not sure. I’m awake, so I’m healed but…What was Ezekiel doing? Why order that woman killed?”
“Did you get a look at her?” Hemlock asked.
I’d caught a glimpse of dark hair, but that was all. “Not really. Why?”
“It’s her,” Ordell said. “The woman who always comes.”
His word landed like a fist to my solar plexus, leaving me momentarily breathless.
She was here.
The woman who could save him. The one we thought had died. The one who was supposed to help him find his humanity and heal him. She was here, so…That was a good thing. I should be relieved. Happy even. We all should, so why was panic clawing at my insides, and why were they looking at me as if they were delivering bad news?
Because…Because…Her being here meant that I was no longer needed.
“Orina?” Ordell rounded the bed and sat by my hip. “We’re so grateful for everything you’ve done, but?—”
