Artifice - Man x Man - Book Six

Chapter 22

Convincing Marisol that we were not to blame was no easy task. It would seem Verando wasn't the only one who was unreasonably suspicious; it did not occur to me that I would conclude that she suspected us as much as he did her. 

Our host had some unkind words for my companion, and while I didn't speak Spanish, I had an idea of what she was saying to him- a conversation not suited for tiny ears. In her mind, Verando should have tried harder to protect the bar from the invading cats, and she was struggling to come to terms with the man he had become. 

It was a foreign concept to me considering he was not her problem, so her struggle seemed invalid. Someone stepping away from the bravado of youth and inexperience shouldn't be such an atrocity. 

Regardless, it did nothing for his mood and his temper soured with her lack of enthusiasm towards his less reckless approach. It was an interesting dilemma, listening to the two of them hash it out while my body was laid victim to the merciless prodding of Tonya. 

Thankfully, Tonya's flavor of torture came with better painkillers. I drifted into a drunken haze as I dreamt of the argument between the former lovers. While the enslavement had been going on, Marisol had never met her 'Nicolas.' 

She had never had the moment that made her want to step away from the 'lifestyle.' The life that she knew, living on the edge of tolerance and fighting to the end for what was rightfully hers, it was her moral code that she abided by and he had thoroughly disgraced it by abandoning her home and her business in favor of my life. 

I can hear the heated discussion in my dreams, her harsh tone, her mixture of Spanish, English, and colorful curses. He sounds tired, fed up as if her existence brings back the worst of his past. Any question in my mind that he would return to her faded as my consciousness did.

Marisol is gone for days after the argument and Verando is a ghost to me, no doubt fuming over her judgment. While I know he's trying not to let it affect him, he was honest when he confessed to me that she knew him better than he cared for. She pulled the depths of his person out, uncensored and unrelenting, to expose him to his core.

She thought he was a coward, soft and tamed, a slave now bearing the title 'husband' and, at her cruelest, a pet. My pet. As I heal from my own wounds, I relinquish my warlord to Marcello, who seems reluctant to exercise the lycan, yet there are no other suitable matches. 

Reid and Tonic's level of fitness doesn't compare to that of a man not long out of the wilds of Romania. Marcello, on the other hand, stood a much better chance of not being murdered and seemed, at the very least, intrigued to dabble in the fighting techniques. Much like Tomas, he had been eyeing the assortment of knives we had arrived with.

While Verando was otherwise occupied, returning to my bed in a state of complete exhaustion at night and keeping me out of trouble while I healed, I devoted my newfound free time to devising a plan to help the city. 

The state of the smog seemed to be the significant factor that prevented valuable cloud formation and sunlight from reaching the streets.  If I could factor in a way to clean the air, without poisoning the ground, then we would be able to, at the very least, use this city as a test subject. One city at a time felt rather ridiculous, but it was a start. 

As much as I felt it was uncomfortable, the person who helped me the most in my quest to clean up the city was Rhea. Her knowledge of the technologies that tracked things like weather, temperature, and humidity was helpful and I found her to be actually rather pleasant. 

While she didn't have the snappy sarcasm I was used to, her cut-and-dry nature was welcomed, and I had grown to appreciate her appreciation of the male form. If nothing else, it made for good commentary.