Vengeance (The Prince's Games Book 1) by Rebecca Grey (electric book reader TXT) 📕

didn't have anywhere else to go. Nothing to really live for... so I thought... why not?"

I've had that same thought. Should I keep living the way I am? Struggling? When I know these games are a once in a lifetime opportunity for a Human to escape a place like The Bend. Or to better it, I think.

"Right," I chuckle dryly. "I'm sorry, if you could excuse me. I suddenly just got this overwhelming feeling that I can't stand another minute pretending to be someone who is personable or excited to make connections with all these Hybrids I fully intend on killing."

I take a step around him and his hand grabs for my wrist. My eyes narrow on the small act.

"Nilsa, I'm not asking you to be anyone's friend. And we both know how very Human I am."

I slip my hand out of his grasp. "I'll kill you too if I need to. It was nice to meet another Human, it's such a shame that it's in a circumstance like this."

I mean every word. Even though I know that girl exists somewhere deep, deep down inside. The girl that lives out on that dance floor, the one who's dancing, drunk, and has a guy on her arm. But this isn't the time or the place to be her. I'm not willing to pretend like tomorrow doesn't exist... Because it so fucking does.

Death stings in the worst way when it's people you love. But there is joy in death when it's a resolution to the hate that boils inside your heart. So let me hate them. Let me hate every last creature here.

Davison doesn't understand because he's been blessed with this easy life in The Oasis. He doesn't get the ruin that lives on the other side of the wall, or the way the fancy decor all around me makes me want to scream and rip it all down.

I fall back into old habits, slipping around moving bodies without a word as they bob to the music, drink, and cheer each other on. Disgusting. It's all fake, all of it. A show for the evening.

Marcello still leans against the wall where he'd been earlier but now a pretty blonde woman, who could very well be a mix between Orc and Dwarf looks up to him. She's posed against the wall to exaggerate her curves, laughing at everything he says. Marcello isn't that funny.

My pulse is still racing in my ear, thrumming like the bass of the song as I approach the couple. I point a finger at the girl. "Leave. Now."

"Excuse me?" She blinks and looks at Marcello for backup. He sips his drink and looks between us without saying a word.

"I need to speak to him in private," I flash my teeth in a possessive smile and add with a sarcastic emphasis, "please."

"Can it wait? We are in the middle of our own private conversation?" she suggests. "Would you like to continue this conversation elsewhere without interruption?" She places a hand on Marcello's chest.

"If you’re smart you'll just leave," Marcello finally responds.

The woman growls under her breath, but picks up her dark crimson gown to storm away. I let out a long sigh, then insert myself where she was standing. I lift one brow at Marcello.

"You got a type? Blondes?" I watch the Hybrid Dwarf/Orc girl slither up to another man. It's clear she came here for one thing tonight.

"Why? You want me to hit on you?" He twirls a strand of my hair and I give it a minute before I swat his hand away, earning a chuckle from him.

"I never said that." I watch as Juilliard grabs himself a new partner and spins across the floor sticky with liquor. Even his own outfit is spotted with the drink, but he doesn't mind.

"Why are you here, Nilsa?" Marcello shifts, pressing his back into the wall, so it's just the two of us watching the party happening around us. Both of us are here, but not really a part of it.

Why am I here? Sometimes I don't have the answers to questions I get asked, and that bothers me. I don't have an answer to why I'd left Davison and come to stand with Marcello.

His glass tilts to someone in the crowd as he speaks again. I follow his line of sight to where Davison glances at us, another conversation he's started with a burly Orc. "I thought you two were hitting it off. You even let him touch you."

I had. Because he's Human, and that alone is comforting.

"I came here to complain that you've forced me to come to this little event and I suddenly realized how fake everyone is acting. They're pretending, you're pretending, for a moment I was pretending that tomorrow won't change everything, that some of these people won't get killed."

"You're right."

"I am." Our shoulders brush and a silence falls in our conversation until I'm finally able to talk again. "I'm surprised you agree."

"I never said that I agree." His mouth ticks up in a smile. "On the contrary, I think that you should get out there with the best of them. Especially you. Experience life, Nilsa. Experience joy outside of The Bend and the crap life you've been handed." His head rolls to the side to watch me.

"I don't want to get to know any of these people the day before their deaths."

"You have such a morbid way of thinking."

"And you forget to think at all." Maybe I could learn from him. It would probably help the way my chest always aches when I start to overthink a situation, which is far too often.

"I bet if you went out on that dance floor right now with me, you'd forget about everything happening tomorrow. You could be someone like them, even if it's only for an