I clawed at his arm and bucked, but he managed to restrain me.
“Tally?!” Arryn’s small, panicked voice called.
But I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.
“Vaughn? Why?” I whispered as hot tears gathered in my eyes. I waited for him to look at me. I waited for him to explain. He didn’t.
“Don’t talk to me, you… fae bitch.”
The words hit me like twin punches in the gut.
Fae.
Bitch.
The same insult he’d thrown at me in the beginning.
I thought… I thought we’d had something.
What a fool I had been.
Vaughn raised his wrist to his mouth speaking into a watch I’d not noticed before.
“There’s an escape attempt. Send the guards.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Little Arryn ranup to Vaughn and weakly started hitting him in the back with balled-up fists. “Let her go. Let her go!”
Vaughn ignored her and continued to tighten the straps around my body. To him, Arryn didn’t even register as a nuisance. It was as if she weren’t even there. But that soon changed when Vaughn yelped and whirled on her.
“Stop, you little fae devil!” he exclaimed.
Arryn spat and made a face as if she’d tasted something bad. She had bitten him. I knew her tricks well. He grabbed her by the shoulders and held her at arms’ length, looking as if she would shake her.
I lurched up against my restraints. “Don’t hurt her! She’s just a child.”
Vaughn glanced back at me, giving me a look that seemed to askyou think I would hurt a child?Except hewashurting her. He was ruining her chance to escape.
Arryn fought against Vaughn, her teeth bared, her wings fluttering behind her back while Vaughn held her with one hand. With the other, he started rolling my gurney out of the room.
“Where are you taking us, yougòrakbastard?” I demanded. “Let Arryn go.”
He set his jaw and kept going as if I hadn’t spoken.
How could he do this? Had I known him at all?
A loud bang brought me out of my thoughts, followed by hurried steps in the hall outside. The guards Vaughn had alerted were here. I fought against my restraints to no avail. Frustration roiled hot in my chest, feeling as if it would burn a hole through me.
“You will pay for this, Vaughn,” I spat between clenched teeth.
Before we made it out of the room, a handful of guards rushed in. Karen came in after them. Vaughn stopped pushing me and regarded the guards as if they were his enemies even though he had called them here.
More guards ran past the doorway that led to the hall. They were headed toward the warehouse.
Fates, let all the children be gone, I begged.
“Restrain those two,” Karen ordered, gesturing towards Arryn and Vaughn. “One of them killed Silver Bear.”