Torn (A Wicked Saga, #2)(7)

My body flushed hot at the image of him touching himself. “That’s not helping.”

“Ditto.”

Easing onto my back, I exhaled softly and closed my eyes. His hand stayed on my hip as he settled back in against me. Several moments passed, and in that time, a hundred different things filled my thoughts. I pushed aside the whole halfling business, and almost wished I hadn’t, because I started thinking about Val.

I still couldn’t believe what she’d done. I mean, I’d accepted that she was a traitorous bitch, but I just couldn’t understand why. How long had she been working with the fae? There was no way it could’ve been since I met her three years ago. Or at least I hoped not. She hadn’t been under compulsion, because she’d been wearing the four-leaf clover incased in her bracelet. I’d seen it, and the simple, yet extremely powerful thing prevented a fae from manipulating a human. She was using free will while aiding the fae, and even when she went back to headquarters, removing some weird, random crystal David had kept in storage. She made that choice.

How could she do this to everyone?

Heart pumping, I opened my eyes. “Ren?”

“Yeah?”

“Did . . . David say anything about Valerie?”

He didn’t answer immediately. “Order members are looking for her, but no one has seen her.”

That was because they didn’t know where to look or know her like I did, but I was going to find her. I had to, because I had to make sense of how she could do this.

“She’s a big concern. She knows a lot about the Order, and David isn’t keen on the fact she’s probably shared a shitload of secrets with the fae.” He paused. “I still want to kill her.”

And I still had a hard time hearing that.

I got his anger though. I was also furious. After the gate had opened and the prince had strolled through, kicking ass and not taking names, I’d followed them back to the Order’s headquarters, and she . . . she had left me there with him. There was no doubt in my mind she knew what was going to happen, and she left me.

“But it’s more than that.” His voice was heavier, tired. “He’s not questioning the whole halfling shit anymore. He knows we’ve got to find her.”

Understanding rippled through me. “You think Val is the halfling?”

“Yeah, babe. It’s what I’ve been thinking for some time. It’s why I wouldn’t tell you who the other person I was looking into was. Didn’t want to put that crap in your head if it turned out not to be the case,” he explained.

Holy Sunday-sized shit balls.

Ren and David, the sect leader, thought the halfling was Val. To them, it made sense. Then didn’t they have to be worried out of their minds that Val was already in the process of getting pregnant with the doomsday baby?

“She must’ve figured it out somehow. Maybe a fae got to her and found out,” Ren added, and then yawned. “I know her parents are denying it. Both are claiming that they’re her actual biological parents, but who would fess up to that shit?”

My stomach sunk. “Where are her parents now?”

“Don’t know. Don’t really care.”

Pressure clamped down on my chest. I opened my mouth to tell him . . . to tell him what, exactly? That I knew for a fact her parents were innocent of shacking up with a fae? How could I prove that without incriminating myself? I closed my mouth, and oh God, I was a terrible person, a legit horrible human being.

Well . . .

Nope. Wasn’t quite a human being now, was I?

Oh my God, I needed my brain to, like, jump off a freaking cliff. What in the hell was I going to do? I couldn’t let her parents go down, because I seriously doubted they had anything to do with what she’d done. And they would go down. That was the way the Order operated. Her parents would’ve been deemed a threat and there was only one way threats were dealt with. Unease blossomed in my chest, along with a hefty dose of fear.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked suddenly.

“Yeah,” I breathed, forcing my tense muscles to relax. I refocused. “Has David said anything about that crystal Val took?”

“He doesn’t know what it is.” Ren paused. “Or he’s not saying. Not sure if he trusts anyone at the moment, but I’ve put some feelers out to see if anyone in the Elite has an idea.”

Couldn’t blame David for not trusting anyone. Hopefully someone knew about the crystal. I thought about Merle. She’d randomly mentioned a crystal once before, but I was reluctant to involve her and her daughter. I didn’t want to bring trouble to their doorstep. They’d been through enough.

His hand tightened along my hip, and then he found my cheek in the darkness once more, and kissed me there. I let him fall asleep this time, but I stared into nothing as my mind jumped from one screwed up situation to the next. Stupid tears burned the back of my throat, but I fought them back, because if they fell, Ren would wake, and I was feeling too weak, too ripped open to keep this very big, very horrific secret under lock and key.

But as I lay there, the fear inside me grew like one of the vines that had crawled its way up the wall and over the balcony railing. There was no shaking the feeling that no matter what I did, things were going to go bad.

And they were going to go bad fast.