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 muscular. 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 ideawhythe 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 meanyouwere 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.
