talking, yelling, and music streamed down an alley where Warwick slowed the motorcycle to a stop. Torches lit up the outside of the pedestrian lane, people stumbling in and out, women and men, fae and human. The amount of loud and unruly people caused my lungs to pulse with anxiety. Gunshots echoed through the lane, making me jolt with a cry, clenching the gun I was still holding.
“As I said. Stay close.” Warwick got off the bike and turned toward me, taking the gun from me and stuffing it into the back of his pants before reaching for me. Blood still leaked down his arm from where he’d been shot, but it looked like the bullet had grazed him—lucky him. I was only in my sports bra, my gray pants so soaked with blood they were sliding off my bony hips, the weight pulling them down.
Both of us were shot, bruised, wounded, covered in dirt and blood, and not one person gave us notice as we entered the lane.
Walking through the entryway was like passing into another world—a dark fantasy and a terrifying circus. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. Overwhelmed, I stopped in my tracks, my mouth parting. My senses were inundated with stimuli. The stench of body odor, liquor, smoke, vomit, and food slammed up my nose. The boisterous noises had me darting my head around the pedestrian lane packed with bars and restaurants. The air reverberated with the sound of high-pitched laughter from scantily clad women, coupled with music from pianos or live bands. Tables were filled with people drinking and gambling, people kissing or fighting, passed out, dancing, or doing drugs right in the open. One fae had partially shifted into her fox form, alluring everyone who passed to come watch her dance. Most customers were dressed in simple cotton trousers or skirts with shirts and jackets in muted, dull colors, as if they had been washed and worn for so long they’d lost all pigment. The insipid fabrics emphasized the shirtless men and painted women strolling around, their eyes empty, but salacious smiles curved on their mouths.
Women in racy fantasy costumes dangled from the ceiling on hoops and swings. A hammock high up was filled with multiple naked forms—groaning, touching, licking—not hiding one bit of their ecstasy as they openly fucked each other.
“Full house!” A man’s voice bellowed, drawing my attention to a group gambling at a table inside one of the bars. All the doors and windows were open on this balmy night. “My reward. Come.” The old man curled his fingers at one of the young men near him, beckoning him over with a lustful sneer. The boy couldn’t have been older than fourteen. I turned away, feeling sick to my stomach. I wasn’t naïve, but my world had none of this depravity. Not in the open anyway. We kept our sins hidden.
I hobbled forward, the pain in my leg screaming louder with each step, but I was still caught up in the debauchery around me. Feeling overwhelmed and uncomfortable, the lane seemed to tighten around me, figures knocking into me, pushing and touching my emaciated frame with ease, forcing me to tuck closer to Warwick.
We reached an intersection in the path. A building on the corner boomed with activity, my skin shivering with the extra energy and shock. Women draped out of the windows above, motioning to the men walking by as music streamed out, enticing the people below. Men paraded in and out, some not even bothering to proceed up to a room, their pants down around their ankles as they fucked against the wall, right under a sign that read Kitty’s House.
Feeling revolted, but unable to stop watching, my stomach twisted, my innocent world crashing in around me as my gaze caught more lewd acts among the shadows in the alley.
“Here.” Warwick turned me toward the whorehouse.
“What?” I yanked back on his arm, almost falling, realizing I had been leaning on him much more than I wanted, my leg barely able to hold my weight. “Here?”
“You gonna get righteous on me, Kovacs?” His brows furrowed as he tugged me forward, my feet stumbling to catch up.
“Warwick!” A woman yelled down, her smile growing into elation, her eyes turning hungry.
“Warwick! Warwick’s back!” More women joined in from the windows waving down, pushing each other out of the way to see and call down to him.
Why was I not surprised he was well known at a whorehouse?