Torn

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  over shortly. Just hang tight, okay?”

  Brighton hesitated and then sighed. “Okay.”

  “Thank you.” I started to hang up and then stopped. “I talked to Jerome. He knows something, but he warned me to not poke around about these fae.” I kept my voice low as people passed me. “You haven’t mentioned this to anyone else, right?”

  “Who else would I tell?” She laughed, and it sounded forced. “Everyone already thinks my mom and I are crazy. No reason to give them further ammo.”

  She had a point. “Okay. I’ll be over soon.” As soon as I disconnected the call, the phone rang again. This time it was my home number. I answered. “Tink?”

  “How’d you know it was me?” he asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “Who else would be calling me from inside my apartment?”

  “I don’t know. People. Ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?” I turned, walking back toward Canal.

  “Maybe they can use phones. You don’t know.”

  “I’m pretty sure ghosts can’t use the phone,” I replied dryly. “Is there a reason for you calling me?”

  He huffed. “I have a reason. I was calling to tell you I set up the answering machine for you.”

  I’d forgotten all about that. “Thanks.”

  “And I also might’ve ordered something else. Okay, I definitely ordered something else. But not from Amazon. You can’t get these from Amazon.”

  “Okay.” I picked up my pace, knowing more cabs would be on Canal. “What did you order?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  Oh no. “Tink, I don’t like your surprises.”

  “You’ll like this one.”

  “Doubtful. What is it?”

  “You’ll see when you come home. Bye!” Tink hung up on me.

  I glanced down at my phone, half-tempted to call him back, but figured I didn’t have the brain space to deal with whatever he was up to. Catching a cab on Canal, I gave him the South Peters address, which earned me a puzzled look. Whatever. I’m sure the cabbie had driven people to weirder places.

  As I stared out the window, I remembered the crack of Henry’s neck and winced. What was I going to do about that? I knew I had no intentions of going to David or law enforcement, and I knew that didn’t say great things about me. What I needed was more information from Ren about what he knew that led him to believe there was now such a risk.

  Traffic was a pain, and it took about twenty-five minutes to get over to the old power plant. The moment I stepped out of the cab, the man tore out of there like an army of bats was chasing him. Guess I was going to have to Uber it back out.

  I eyed the sprawling brick building that was several stories high and had many broken windows. I approached one that looked like a basketball had been thrown through the glass, and peered inside.

  “Yikes,” I murmured, seeing overturned, broken workbenches and chairs. I really couldn’t see more than that through the window I was peering into. The place was incredibly dark.

  Stepping away, I made my way to the end of the building and down the side. A tall metal fence enclosed the back and obscured most of the rear of the building, but there was no mansion inside. A trailer could fit back here and be hidden. Maybe a single-story home, but definitely no mansion. I walked the length of the fence, looking for a possible opening and not finding one as the scent of the nearby river grew stronger. A narrow alley appeared, and it looked as abandoned as the power plant.

  There was nothing here.

  Shows a totally different city.

  I was going to have to get in front of Brighton and see whatever she was looking at to figure it out. Pivoting around, I hurried back up the side of the building, toward the front as my phone went off again. This time it was Ren. My stomach dropped, a mixture of excitement and unease. “Hey,” I answered.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Um.” I glanced inside one of the broken-out windows and saw a flutter of wings. A pigeon. “Nowhere. Where are you?”

  “At the apartment. It’s been taken care of.”

  I wrapped my arm around myself, glancing up at the thick clouds as a shudder worked its way through me. That was extraordinarily quick. “Ren . . .”

  “What?”

  I swallowed hard as I looked around. There was some kind of industrial business across from the old power plant. There were a ton of white utility trucks, but no one was moving about. “We need to talk about what happened.”

  He didn’t respond.

  I lowered my chin as I worried the inside of my lip. I needed to go to Brighton’s, but I had to take care of this first. “I’ll meet you back over at your place, okay?”

  There was another gap of silence and then he said, “I’ll be waiting.”

  I hung up the phone and started walking again. I’d taken a handful of steps when I caught a sweet, minty scent that reminded me of Ren’s earlier kisses.

  I turned and looked over my shoulder. I don’t know what I expected to see, but there was no one here, and nothing that could be responsible for the scent. Weird.

  It took no time to get to Ren’s since the power plant was close to his place. I shifted from one foot to the next the entire ride up the elevator. He opened the door as soon as I knocked, appearing the same as when I’d left, tall and beautiful, and I wasn’t sure why I was looking for something different. Like he’d have the words “I killed someone for you” stamped across his forehead.

  Ren stepped aside, and I walked in. The scent of coffee was strong in the air. My stomach turned. He’d snapped Henry’s neck, got rid of the body, and returned home to make coffee.

  So cold.

  I stared at him as he closed the door, and the unease in the pit of my stomach doubled. Turning away, I lifted the strap of my bag off my shoulders and placed it on the arm of the couch. I didn’t look at the spot on the floor where Henry had fallen.

  Ren brushed past me, walking into the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No.” I followed, keeping my arms at my sides. “What did you do with Henry?”

  “You probably don’t want to know.” He picked up his cup of coffee and took a drink. “No one is going to find him, though.”

  My gaze flitted to his and then I looked away, shaken by his blasé attitude. “Who are you?” I blurted out.

  Ren slowly lowered the cup. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re freaking me out a little. Okay, a lot,” I admitted, placing my hands on the kitchen island. “You straight-up murdered Henry and you’re acting like today is just any normal Wednesday.”

  “I did not straight-up murder someone. He was going to hurt you. So will Kyle. I cannot allow that to happen.” He stepped back, crossing his arms. “I am protecting you.”

  I stared at him. “I get that you were protecting me, but Henry didn’t even try anything. I wasn’t in immediate danger.”

  “You would’ve been. You still are,” he reasoned. “And if you’re wondering if I will do the same to Kyle, the answer is yes.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “Why are you so surprised? They will kill you, Ivy. Just because they haven’t tried anything yet doesn’t mean they won’t once they realize they can’t easily use you to trap the prince.”

  He had a point, but it was the method in which he had carried it out. And it was more than that, too. This wasn’t like Ren. Not at all. Frustrated, I reached across the counter and picked up his coffee mug. “May I?”

  “Have at it.” He gestured with one arm.

  I took a drink and immediately recoiled at the bitter taste. “Whoa.” I placed the coffee cup down as I stuck out my tongue. “Holy crap, that is some strong, black coffee.”

  “It’s the way I like it,” he stated.

  My brows furrowed together. “No, it’s not.”

  Ren cocked his head to the side.

  “You like sugar in your coffee, like me. Actually, you usually put, like, six or more packets of sugar in your coffee
. You don’t drink it black.”

  His lips parted. “I like it both ways.”

  “No one likes coffee both ways.” Okay, maybe someone out in the world enjoyed coffee both ways, but I’d never met one in real life.

  He raised one shoulder. “It’s just coffee.”

  It wasn’t just coffee. Something occurred to me then. He’d thrown away the beignets this morning, claiming they tasted bad. I was eating out of the same batch, and mine were fine. Once Ren had been introduced to beignets, he loved them like all people with good taste in fried pastries did. It’s like he’d developed a sudden allergy to sugar. And what he’d done to Henry? That wasn’t like Ren either. Not the Ren who enjoyed sugar in his coffee and on his pastries, but the Ren who viewed all human life as something precious.

  A biting chill slammed into my chest as I took a step back. Deep in my heart of hearts, I already knew. I knew, and I was seriously going to be sick. “What was I studying in college?”

  Ren blinked those cool green eyes at me. “What?”

  My heart started pounding in my chest. “What was I studying at Loyola?”

  He laughed quietly under his breath. “Why are you asking that, Ivy? Are you feeling well?”

  No. I was not feeling well at all. “Just answer the question, Ren.”

  The half-smile disappeared, and the iciness spread in my chest. “What did you call me the first time we met?”

  A muscle flexed along Ren’s jaw as he slowly unfurled his arms. He didn’t answer, because I knew he couldn’t. There was no way, because this . . . this wasn’t Ren.

  Chapter Twenty

  Heart thundering in my chest, I placed my right hand on my hip, just below where the iron dagger was secured. His gaze flicked to my hand and back up to my eyes. He didn’t miss the movement.

  Of course not.

  Horror rose swiftly as full realization kicked in. This . . . this thing standing in front of me wasn’t Ren. It hadn’t been him in Jackson Square. It hadn’t been Ren kissing and touching me on that couch. My hand shook with revulsion. It looked like him, but it wasn’t him, and that meant the real Ren . . .

  Oh God.

  Pain lanced my chest. “Where is Ren?”

  The thing in front of me raised its brows. “What are you talking about? I’m right in front of you.”

  “You aren’t him.” I slipped my hand under my shirt and wrapped my fingers around the handle of the dagger.

  “Okay.” It lifted its hands. “I do not know what’s going on in your head, but we can work this out together.”

  Oh my God, even its speech patterns were different. This thing spoke too formally. How had I not noticed that until now? I unhooked the dagger and braced myself. “Where is the real Ren?”

  It stepped out from behind the island, and I tensed. “Ivy—”

  “Don’t say my name,” I ordered, fingers tightening around the dagger. Oh God, how long had it not been Ren? My stomach twisted like a cold knife had been thrust into it. No. It had to have been him the evening the knight showed up. We made love. I would’ve known if it was him, and I couldn’t focus on that right now. “Tell me where Ren is, or I am seriously going to make this hurt for you before I kill you, whatever you are.”

  The only creature this thing could be was a changeling, but as far as we knew, none of them had come through the gates since the last time they’d been closed. We’d never caught one before, and according to lore, for a changeling to be in our world, the human they’d taken over was typically in the Otherworld. And that wasn’t possible. The gates were closed.

  The worst possible scenarios were going through my head as I widened my stance. “You need to start talking now.”

  It lifted its chin and eyed me for a moment. Then a slow, cold grin crept across the mirror image of Ren’s face. The thing blinked, and when its eyes reopened, they were icy blue instead of emerald. I sucked in a sharp breath.

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t catch on so quickly,” the thing wearing Ren’s face and body said. “Unfortunately, you are more clever than I anticipated.”

  The thing came forward, and I held up the dagger between us. “Stop,” I demanded. “Don’t come any closer.”

  “What are you going to do to stop me?” it queried.

  I opened my mouth to tell it that I was going to cut off a very important part of it and shove it down its throat, but the thing leaped at me. I spun out of its way at the last possible moment and jumped back. I swung with my free hand, and it caught my wrist.

  “You could’ve tried to stab me but you didn’t.” Fake Ren yanked me forward, up against its chest and onto the tips of my toes. “As long as I look like him, you will do nothing to me.”

  Fake Ren was right. Dammit. Even though I knew this wasn’t Ren, I’d swung a fist at it and not the dagger. That folly had cost me. It grabbed my other wrist with its free hand and twisted. Biting pain radiated down my arm and my fingers twitched. The dagger clanged to the floor.

  I cursed as Fake Ren let go. Shifting back a step, I brought my knee up, aiming for a sensitive area, but it anticipated the move and twisted. My knee slammed into its solid thigh.

  It grunted. “That was not very nice, little bird.”

  Little bird. My gaze snapped up, and ice shot down my spine. “You,” I whispered, and the full horror of what was happening, of what I’d come so close to doing with him earlier, was realized. “Drake.”

  The prince wearing Ren’s face smiled.

  Panic blossomed in the pit of my stomach. The prince had the ability to take on another form? I knew he’d appeared as a raven, but a human? I had no idea he was capable of this, and there was no way I could have prepared myself for him masquerading as someone else—as Ren. None of that mattered at the moment, though.

  “Where is Ren?” I yelled, yanking myself away.

  I twisted as I pulled, putting some space between us. I rocked back, bringing my other fist down, pounding on him and breaking the hold on my arm.

  “You are so aggressive,” Drake said with a low laugh.

  Springing back a step and keeping my eye on the prince, I went to reach for my other dagger. “Where is he?” I asked.

  “He’s a bit . . . occupied at the moment.”

  I brandished the dagger and willed my hand to still. “What does that mean?”

  Drake continued to smile as he stepped forward.

  “Is he alive?” When he said nothing, I almost lost it. “Answer me!”

  “The last time I checked.” He shrugged one shoulder. “That could change at any moment.”

  Oh my God. The bubbling panic almost pulled me under. “You better pray he’s still alive.”

  A smirk replaced the cold smile. “And if not?”

  I didn’t answer. Instinct screamed that I should run, should get as far away from the prince as possible, but he was my only link to Ren—if Ren was truly still alive.

  “You have to admit this was impressive,” Drake said. “If it wasn’t for the stupid cup of coffee, you wouldn’t have known.”

  “I would’ve figured it out.” And I would have. Hopefully before things progressed further than they had already. I should have caught on immediately. There had been warnings that this wasn’t Ren from the moment he showed up at the Square. His speech patterns. The fact he hadn’t driven. The way he tasted of—oh God—of winter mint. The coolness of his touch.

  And the fact that he’d killed Henry without remorse.

  “Would you have figured it out with my tongue in your mouth or while I was thrusting between your legs?” he asked. “Because when I fucked you, it would have been me and not this pathetic excuse for a creature.”

  I didn’t think.

  Reacting out of pure, unadulterated fury, I launched myself at him, sweeping the dagger in a wide arc. The prince darted to the side, but I’m fast when I’m angry. I caught him over the chest,