ARYCK found the sights before him unpalatable and nightmarish. A short time in the brothels owned by the vice lord Allende and he understood Rebekka’s choice to return. How could she turn her back on those she cared about when this was their fate?
He’d killed outcasts in the challenge circle when guilt drove them to continue fighting after Nahuatl ordered a halt to call for a change of form. He’d hunted those sentenced to death, but he’d never had to follow one of them into the human world. He’d never seen this for himself.
She’d described what life was like for the outcasts who lived in brothels, told him of the brutality and degradation. But even as he listened, a part of him had remained sure they lived as they deserved to live. He was no longer willing to make such a sweeping generalization.
Aryck turned away from the glass allowing him to watch as humans were serviced by those trapped between forms. Rebekka’s scent lingered in this brothel more than it did in the others, a sweet blend of woman and compassion surviving in the cesspit stench of unwashed bodies and stale sex.
His purity of form along with the payment of coin allowed him to move unhindered from building to building. It gave him free rein to watch, though nothing he saw gave him pleasure or made his cock stir with desire.
This was the fifth brothel. There’d been no sight of Rebekka, and he could find none of the prostitutes she’d mentioned by name. It made his fear for her deepen.
In growing desperation he sought out the bore-tusked madam, Dorrit. Asked if she knew Levi’s whereabouts, thinking she’d lie if he asked about Rebekka.
Small pig-eyes took his measure. There was calculation in Dorrit’s gaze. Suspicion. But in the end she said, “Check the bar.”
Aryck moved through the parlor where males and females alike lined up, suffering the meaty pawing of a merchant as bodyguards looked on and a second man whined about the poor selection.
He followed the smell of beer and unwashed bodies to a dark room where a waitress knelt in front of a chair, working a man’s shaft in and out her mouth as he sprawled in his chair, swilling his drink and bragging to his companions about staving off release to make her earn her money.
Levi stood with his back to the scene. His head bent in a whispered conversation with the bartender.
He stiffened, feeling Aryck’s eyes on him or catching his scent. Turned as Aryck neared, an unwelcome expression on his face. “Go away and stay away. You’ve hurt her enough. She deserves better.”
Anger flashed through Aryck, mixed with jealousy. Levi’s charge was well deserved, but he couldn’t stop himself from inhaling, half fearing and half expecting to discover Rebekka had turned to the outcast in her pain and let him comfort her with physical intimacy.
Relief came at finding no sign they were lovers. Shock followed at the difference in the outcast’s smell.
Not human with only a hint of Lion as it had been before. Not lion with only a hint of human as Cyrin’s was, but an unmistakable blend of the two, the scent of a pure Were.
Rebekka. Though Aryck couldn’t explain it, every instinct told him she was somehow responsible.
“Take me to her,” he said, willing to put aside his pride. “I’ve failed her repeatedly, but let her be the one to decide if she’s willing to give me another chance to prove myself.”
Levi’s eyes burned with harsh judgment. No hung in the air between them, if not permanently, then at least until the Lion judged Aryck had suffered in equal measure to Rebekka.