Page 80 of Darkness I Become
I experience way more of those moments than seems fair for one person.
As night fell, Lana made Asha up with her homemade cosmetics and teased her dark hair into a high, voluminous ponytail. Asha did her best to push down her nausea when she saw herself in the cracked mirror on the wall. She hated being painted and sent like a pig for slaughter, but there was no choice. She had to kill Angel before the real fight began. He would be dead before he could rally any of his allies, before he even knew what was happening.
When it was finally time to visit Angel, his new doorman—another mountain of a man who called himself Slade—came to fetch her.
“Get a move on,” Slade grunted. “We don’t got all night.”
Asha was tempted to ask what else Angel had to do that was so important, but she bit her tongue. Instead, she shed the jacket she was wearing, letting it fall back on her bunk. The dress was more like lingerie than clothing: a bright red chemise that highlighted her cleavage and fell just past her ass, paired with black leather boots. What no one could see was the small, sheathed dagger strapped to her inner thigh.
Slade gave a crude whistle. “Lucky Angel. You got extra there for me, sweetie?”
“Yeah,” Asha replied, showing him her middle finger. “Right here.”
He laughed, she rolled her eyes, and he led her to Angel’s Wing. As they stood in front of the blue doors, her heart was pounding in her ears, and the bottom of her stomach felt like it was about to fall out. She hadn’t been anywhere near this place since Cade had returned to rescue her from Angel’s clutches. She was struck with the urge to run.
But she had a job to do. A role to play.
So, she took a deep breath, pulled herself together, and walked through the door that Slade held open. And when it closed behind her with an ominousthud,she focused solely on carrying the wine bottle between her sweaty palms, taking care not to drop it.
Angel was in his bedroom, reclining lazily on the enormous bed. There were empty bottles and cups already strewn about the room, and the strong stench of stale alcohol. His eyes were already somewhat glazed, indicating he’d already been drinking.
“Asha,” he said in greeting, a lascivious grin spreading across his horrible features. His eyes scanned her outfit, her body, and Asha immediately felt dirty.
“My favourite lay is back for another date.”
It took all of Asha’s energy not to react with rage and disgust.
Instead, she wet her lips and said, “It didn’t seem like I was your favourite at the time. Isn’t that Lana, anyway?”
He shrugged, still grinning. “Lana’s good for when I just need a good, mindless fuck. Just a warm, wet hole that lies there and lets me do what I want. But when I want a realchallenge…well, you gave me the fight of my life, sweet pea. Something real thrilling about that, isn’t there?”
She was going to vomit, for Lana as much as herself. Lana, her friend, who was smart and sweet and so fucking sexy, and he described her like a blow-up doll.Vile.
“Well, given how things have gone with Cade,” Asha said, “I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to…improvemy situation.”
She repeated the lines in just the way she’d rehearsed: a little playful, a little flirty, but not in a way that seemed unbelievable. She wanted to seem like she wastryingto flatter him. That she was treating it as a transaction. It was what he would expect.
“Yeah, shame about Cade,” Angel replied, sounding like he couldn’t care less. “Can’t imagine that guy fucking you like a real man. Probably says ‘please’ every time.” He scoffed. “Pussy.”
Asha elected not to point out that while Cade traveled around doing Angel’s dirty work, Angel sat here in this glorified hovel drinking himself to death.
“Can I offer you a drink?” Asha asked in the same flirty way. “You know…before we get started.”
She hated his laugh. It was a dry cackle.
“A woman who finally accepts that she’s a whore and nothing more,” he said, amused. “Willing toserve.Maybe I was wrong about Cade.”
Asha took the opportunity to turn away from him so he couldn’t see the hatred in her expression. She set the wine bottle on a small side table and retrieved one of the empty cups from the floor. As she poured the crimson liquid into the cup, she had to appreciate that Leo had been right: the drug was undetectable.
“Pour one for yourself,” Angel said, slurring his words a little. “We’re celebrating you getting fucked by a real man.”
Asha gritted her teeth, but poured another cup for herself. She presented the glass to him, and he motioned for her to sit on the edge of the bed. Nervous sweat trickling down her spine, she did, fighting fiercely against the flashbacks of all the things that had been done to her the last time she was on this bed.
“To Asha, for finally knowing her place,” Angel announced, and to her astonishment, he downed the glass in one swallow. “Another!”
This fucking idiot,Asha thought. She poured him another cupful of the tainted wine and sat down on the bed again. He babbled on for a couple minutes about some conquest he’d had with another woman the night before, and all the heads he’d mounted on his gate back in the day. Meanwhile, she pretended to sip at her wine but kept her lips firmly closed. Angel was either too drunk or too stupid to notice that her cup never emptied.
After another minute, he frowned. “I feel like shit.”
