by Quinn Loftis
Sally stood and walked over to stand beside her mate. Costin tried to push her behind him. She allowed him to put his left shoulder just a little in front of hers. They’d been through a lot, and his need to protect her was palpable through their bond. She could feel his wolf raging inside. Yet, somehow, he was keeping the beast under control.
“Wrong,” her mate's voice filled her mind. “You are keeping him under control. You and only you.”
Sally looked to the two males and one female who moved just inside the room. They were fae, which meant she and Costin didn’t stand a chance in hell of fighting them with brute strength. Not that she could help that much anyway, but fae had eyes that could be clawed out just like any other supernatural.
“Alston would like to speak with your mate,” the female said.
She was tall and slight, as seemed to be the norm for the fae. Her hair was dull yellow and pulled back into a tight ponytail. Her eyes were a pale green, and her lips, though thin, still managed to look sensual. How is that fair? Unlike the others, the woman’s voice was cordial, and she didn’t appear as if she wanted to zap them, which Sally thought was a good sign.
“Where she goes, we all go,” Costin said, gesturing behind them to Titus.
All three shook their heads at the same time. Creepy. “Only the healer,” the male in the middle, with long, black hair that matched his pitch-black eyes, said.
“That’s not happening,” Costin growled.
Sally placed a hand on his arm. She understood that he didn’t want to be separated from her, any more than she wanted to be separated from him, but they needed to compromise in order to keep Titus safe.
“They aren’t going to hurt me,” she said through their bond. “They need something from me, and hurting me isn’t going to get what they want.”
“They’ve already hurt you,” Costin challenged.
Sally didn’t flinch away from his words or the truth in them. “Let me see if I can find out exactly what they want. Titus needs to be protected. Can we guarantee that outside of this room he will be safe? Your attention would be divided. Please, Costin, keep him here and protect him.” She was pulling the daddy card, and it was cruel, but she had to keep her child safe. If Costin didn’t let Sally go, then the fae would likely take her by force, hurting Costin in the process. If he was injured, he couldn’t protect their son.
Sally could feel the emotions warring inside of her mate. He hated that he couldn’t just save them all. It filled him with rage that she would be facing the man who’d not only taken her memories but also a piece of her that she had not been willing to give. But he could also see Sally’s logic.
“I can’t stand you being away from me,” he said, his eyes still completely focused on the threat across from them.
“I will keep her safe,” the female fae said suddenly. Her eyes met Sally’s, and something flashed in them. It was so fast that Sally wasn’t sure she’d seen it. Was it compassion? Was she trying to tell Sally something without giving herself away?
“You work for Alston,” Costin growled. “Your word is worth less than the dirt beneath my feet.”
“All the same,” the fae said, “I will bring her back to you in the exact condition she is in now.”
Sally reached up and turned Costin’s face to look at her. His eyes were glowing bright hazel, and he was barely holding on. “My wolf,” she said, addressing the beast inside of her mate, “trust me. Protect our pup. I will come back to you.”
Costin wrapped her in his arms and pulled her tightly against him. “If something happens to you, I will burn this city to the ground. Do you understand? My wolf will not hold on this time.”
Sally did understand. Costin would go feral if he lost her again. It would be better for her to die so he could be with her than for her to be hurt or taken from him. “I know. I’m coming back to you. Alston wouldn’t have allowed you to be here with me if he was going to hurt me.” After several minutes of Costin simply staring at her and Sally hearing his wolf rage inside of him, he finally bowed his head in defeat. There was nothing they could do, and he knew it. The fae were more powerful when it came to the use of their magic, and they wouldn’t fight fair.
Sally walked over to Titus and gave him a strong hug. She pressed her mouth close to his ear and talked as softly as she could, hoping that Costin wouldn’t hear her. “You take care of Daddy, okay?”
Titus nodded and whispered back. “I’ll ask the angel for protection.”
Sally smiled at her son and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’ve no doubt she will hear you.”
She didn’t let tears fall, no matter how terrified she was to leave Titus and Costin. Sally wasn’t afraid for herself. She worried what Alston would do to her mate and child in order to get her to cooperate. Whatever he wanted, she might have to give it to him because she would not let her son suffer. Never again.
Sally squeezed Costin’s hand as she walked past him toward the fae warriors. She didn’t let him hold onto her because he might not let her go. When she reached the fae, the female took her arm firmly but not painfully and led her from the room.
She heard the door click behind them and then the lock being turned. She heard Costin’s fist against the door. Not trying to get out, but striking the wood in frustration and fear. She could feel it all coming through the bond. She tried to reassure and calm him and his wolf. They had to accept that this was their situation. There was no changing it, at least not yet.
“My name is Tenia,” the female fae said.
“I’d like to say it’s nice to meet you,” Sally said as she eyed the woman. “But under the circumstances, it would be a lie.”
Tenia bow her head slightly. “I can understand that.”
“Should you be engaging the prisoner?” The fae male with the pitch-black eyes asked.
“There is no harm in being civil,” Tenia said, her tone sharp, bordering on hostility toward her comrade.
The tall male shrugged his shoulders as if the matter wasn’t important enough to argue about. They walked down a long, wide hall. The walls were made of steel beams. Her surroundings appeared grimy and industrial, and not in a hipster way. It was simply the way the building was built, a warehouse that had been altered to be a housing space. They reached a set of stairs and descended, turning at yet another set. They walked down five flights before finally coming to the bottom floor.
Sally held her shoulders back, trying to appear confident regardless of the fact she was in the hands of the people responsible for the awful things that had happened to her. She grabbed onto her inner Jen and tried to channel her best friend’s boldness. They walked across a large expanse that had been converted into some sort of meeting area containing metal tables and chairs. On the left side, there was an industrial kitchen. Guess the Order members who weren’t vampires had to eat sometime.
They reached the far side of the room, and the large male with pale eyes unlocked a steel door. He pushed it open, and it creaked ominously. Nice touch. Creepy sounding door? Check. Warehouse full of evil vampires, fae, and other supernaturals? Check. Now they just needed the flickering lights and water to drip from the pipes lining the ceiling, and they’d have a complete horror movie set.
Sally walked into the room, which was lit by only a few dim lights that flickered sporadically. When her eyes adjusted, she saw a single chair in the middle of the room. It looked way too much like an electric chair for Sally’s tastes. She froze. “I’m not sitting in that,” she said firmly.
“You won’t have to.” Alston stepped out of the shadows from the other side of the room. Sally took him in, really looked at him for the first time, and realized his white hair was similar to Peri’s, though it lacked the shimmering quality. His eyes were steel grey, but there was a darkness lurking in them she could see from across the room. The angles of his face were sharp, and he might have been handsome if he wasn’t as rotten as a spoiled apple.
He was tall and whip thin but muscula
r. He wore a sleeveless leather vest, showing off sinewy arms. Much like most of the fae warriors she’d seen, he wore leather pants and calf-high boots. She noticed the handles of blades protruding from various places on his person. For some reason, she assumed he would be donned in the robes she’d seen him wear in the past. But apparently stepping down from his position on the high fae council also meant he hung up the robes and traded them in for the leathers.
“The chair is a last resort. It will only be necessary if you don’t do what we ask … and it’s not for you.”
Sally’s gut twisted. She knew what he was saying. The chair was for Costin or Titus. But which one? She couldn’t guess. Hell no. That was never going to happen. “What do you want?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“What does everyone want with a healer?” Alston asked dryly, as if tired of the answer.
She breathed out heavily. “My magic.”
He nodded. “You’ve been told, no doubt, many times how special a healer’s magic is. It’s because your heart is pure. It doesn’t mean you’re perfect, of course. You still have the nature of a human. You can be selfish, and you can lie, but the very core of you is pure. If it comes down to your life or another’s, you will always choose to give yourself up.” He stepped closer to her and tilted his head as if he were trying to figure her out. “You would even give up your life for a complete stranger. And not only that, but you might just do it for an enemy.” He motioned behind her, but Sally didn’t take her eyes off of him. “Tenia, the female who brought you. You would help her if she needed it. I can see it in your eyes.”
Damn eyes. Sally hoped she didn’t give anything else away. He was right, curse him. Tenia worked for the Order. Sally had no idea why the woman worked for them. Maybe they had something over her head and were blackmailing her, or maybe she just had some misguided belief that what she was doing was the right thing, but she didn’t realize just how evil the men running the organization really were.
“The wheels are turning in your pretty head,” the high fae said with a chuckle. “You’re trying to puzzle out why you would help her when she clearly works with us. There’s no point in trying to figure it out. It simply is the way you were created.”
“Does that mean you were created to be evil?” Sally should probably keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t help herself.
“You should,” she heard her mate’s wolf say through the bond. “Do not antagonize him.”
“Don’t distract me, wolf,” Sally mentally growled.
“I am what I am,” Alston answered, seemingly unfazed by her question. “What you call evil, I call progress. There is no reason that supernatural beings should have to live in hiding.”
“Did you ever think there might be a different way to reveal yourselves other than making humans your slaves?” she challenged.
Alston shook his head. “Humans react to fear with violence. I have lived a very, very long time, healer, and I have watched them over and over attack that which they do not understand. They wouldn’t give us time to explain ourselves. The bullets would be flying and the bombs dropping before we had time to say anything other than ‘we aren’t human.’”
Sally wished she could argue with him, but she couldn’t promise him that wouldn’t happen. Cornered prey had a tendency to lash out. And though humans weren’t animals, they still reacted as such when they felt like prey. They’re natural reaction was to stay alive and to do whatever it takes to keep breathing.
“So, you need my magic. How is it that you are going to take it?”
“You’re going to willingly give it to us, Sally. You know we will hurt your mate and child. Do not think I have any weakness in me, not even for the young. I will do whatever it takes to move our agenda forward. And I now know that you’re not the only powerful healer in this world. Turns out, Perizada has been greedy, keeping some other healers to herself. It's not fair of her to squirrel them away from the rest of the supernatural world. After all, healers are something to be celebrated, not sheltered.”
“Pretty sure that when there are psychopaths who want to exploit and use them, it’s definitely better to keep them hidden,” Sally said and then mentally slapped her hand over her mouth. Okay, maybe she was channeling too much of her inner Jen. Or maybe something inside her had been fundamentally altered after what she’d been through. She wasn’t going to be the quiet mouse who simply tried to go unnoticed anymore. But she still needed to be careful and not get her child and mate hurt because of her lack of a filter.
Alston ignored her comment and began to pace around the room. Sally turned with his movement, keeping him in front of her. She felt chill bumps rise on her skin, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The power emanating from the high fae was palpable. She’d felt a similar thing around Peri, but Alston’s felt different, twisted and malicious.
“Why do you need my magic?” Sally was stalling but also hoping he would give away some information that might somehow help the pack when she and the other prisoners got away, because they would get away. There was no way in Hades they were going to be held captive by Alston and his army of crazies indefinitely.
“I suppose there is no harm in telling you.” He made a motion with his hand. Suddenly, two chairs appeared, resting on the far side away from the exit, behind the creepy one in the center of the room. The lights had also brightened so that Sally could finally see her surroundings clearly. The room was bigger than she’d first thought. The walls were black. Super original. The carpet was a pattern of grey and black. She noticed a door on the opposite side of the one she’d entered. Two possible escape routes. Okay, now she really sounded like Jen. Reel it in, Sally. She felt Costin in her mind, but he seemed to be staying in the shadows, allowing her to keep her complete focus on Alston.
She sat down in the chair he indicated as he took the chair next to hers. The three fae stayed on the other side of the room, guarding the door that Sally couldn’t possibly get to even if there’d been only one fae. Total overkill on the security.
“You know about much of the supernatural world I imagine,” Alston began. Sally nodded. “But you do not know everything.” He paused as if awaiting a response, but she stayed quiet, so, he continued. “There are more realms of races than those you’ve heard about in stories. Most of them have not entered the human realm in centuries.”
“And they suddenly want to?” Sally asked.
Alston held up his finger. “Patience. I’m getting there.”
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. He was a man who liked the sound of his own voice. But if it delayed whatever they were going to do to steal her magic, then she’d let him drone on until the cows came home.
“It’s not necessarily that they want to come to the human realm. They might not have a choice. When you first learned of the supernatural world, you had to have heard about how the magic between the veils is weakening.”
Sally did remember hearing about the magic waning in some of the magical realms, but she couldn’t remember why.
“If the magic that protects their veils fail, then humans will be able to pass through the veils at will,” Alston continued.
“Isn’t that a reason not to reveal yourself?” Sally asked. “If humans don’t know you exist, then they don’t know about the veils and cannot learn how to go through them.”
“They can’t get through them now. But what about when the magic has weakened enough that a human wandering through the forest stumbles through one? What happens if he comes back and tells everyone he knows of his experience? And when they don’t believe him, he brings them to the spot where the veil is located and leads them straight through it. What then? What do you think will happen to the supernaturals that live in those realms? They grow weaker along with the magic.”
“How does coming to the human realm make them stronger?” Sally’s brow furrowed. It didn’t make sense for a magical being to come into a non-magical realm and get stronger.
“Yo
u ask this because you believe the human realm is non-magical.” His grin made it apparent that he thought this very humorous.
“I’ve lived here my whole life. If there was magic floating around, I think I would have noticed. Humans don’t have magic.”
“Yet you knew nothing of the Canis lupus and the other supernatural beings living all around you. You didn’t even know you were a magical creature,” he pointed out. “The five healers Peri has been hoarding suggest the human realm is very magical indeed. You all are very powerful. And the Canis lupus have never lived in any other realm. The vampires live in the human realm, and though they feed on blood, they live very long lives. That isn’t just a random anomaly. It is magic.”
Holy wolf balls. Sally had never thought of it like that. Alston was right. The human realm was full of magic. How many Canis lupus lived all over the world? And vampires? Their magic would be concentrated wherever they existed. And what about the warlocks? They lived in a mountain, but it was in the human realm. They’d come because their magic had been growing weak in their own realm.
“So, you see,” Alston said softly, “we have to come here. We have to give our races a place to live and thrive.”
“But that doesn’t mean you can’t share it with the humans. The wolves don’t go around killing humans. They live alongside them.”
“In hiding,” Alston bit out through clenched teeth.
Dude really had a problem with being in hiding. Maybe he was a narcissist. Sally eyed him as he sat regally in his chair, as if it were a throne instead of a simple metal chair. Yep, definite narcissist.
“Okay, so back to why you need my magic in particular,” she said.
“It’s not only yours that we need.” He shifted until he was facing her. “We need them all.”
“All?” Her brow rose.
He nodded. “We need representation from every single supernatural race to add their magic to our own. The combination will be so powerful that we will be able to accomplish our goals.”
“And what is that goal?” Sally wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know.