Page 176 of Huntress

She straightened herself up and looked from Angela to Morgan and back.

“He’s usually a reasonable guy, and you’ll face a lot worse than him if you’re not careful. Frost Hollow is a long way from here, but they’re good people, and they have a strong working relationship with the demons around them. Tell Anne I sent you, and that I’ll repay any debt the village decides I owe because of it.”

“Why are you doing this?” Angela repeated. Elsie glanced at Saint.

“I also have someone I want to protect. Tommy is a kid, and I’m not a fucking monster.” She stuffed the map back into the bag. “You need to be smart, fast, and careful. If you get caught, we’re all dead, do you understand?”

“I–I understand.”

Elsie pointed at the venison. “Pack it up, take what you can carry, then get out of here. Get as much distance as possible before the sun goes down.”

“And stop feeding the kid meat,” Saint added. “He’s an herbivore, that shit’s not good for him. If you don’t have anything else to feed him, let him sniff around a bit. He knows what he can eat, and he won’t let himself starve.”

“All the MREs in the bag are veggie,” Elsie said.

“I didn’t know. I thought all demons ate meat.”

“Well, they’re not exactly good with details in hunter training, are they?” Elsie joked.

“They’ll help you learn more once you get to the village,” Saint told her.

“You’re a demon.” She’d only realized it now. His magic was entirely hidden, and she’d been too terrified to notice. Looking at Elsie, understanding lit her eyes.

“Thank you, we owe you our lives.” She wrapped up the meat, then threw the bag over her shoulder. Taking the boy’s hand, she disappeared into the trees.

“That was really scary,” Tommy’s voice floated back to them as they walked away.

“Captain, call your fucking dog off, now!”

“Sorry, Morgan, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Elsie dragged the remains of the deer onto the fire so she could bury the bones once they were charred beyond recognition. She’d done the same with all the other bodies. Without her map, she could only give Mordane an approximate location, but with all the proof she had, she was reasonably certain they wouldn’t send anyone to check.

Saint held Morgan down for another half an hour after Angela’s departure before letting him go. The demon stayed on him, making sure he didn’t try to follow the woman he was determined to kill.

“You have endangered all our lives!” the sniper seethed.

“Your life is in the clear. I made the decision alone, and against your will, and I’ll make sure to clarify the truth of it when you rat me out. Saint and I are the only ones at fault. Riven’s not supposed to be here, and nothing that happened can be pinned on her. Tell them what you need to when we return. I won’t force you to lie.”

“Elsie! This isn’t a joke! You’ve crossed a line you can’t come back from.”

“If this is where the line is drawn, I don’t want to come back from it. Come on, Morgan! Rabbit demons?! Are you telling me that if I told you to kill an entire herd of them rather than chase them off, you’d fall in line and do as I say without a second of hesitation? You’d question my sanity, and you damned well know it.”

“That’s different because you’re different. An order like that wouldn’t mesh with who you are. We’re a field squad, we have the expertise in handling demons, and a colony squad doesn’t have our resources.”

“It’s not different. They have better resources than we do. They have freaking barriers and a warehouse full of weapons at their constant disposal. Her captain didn’t have to give that order, he did it because he wanted to. It has ‘bored little man with a giant ego’ written all over it.”

“Her refusal to listen cost two humans their lives.”

“How many lives have we lost over the years we’ve been together? Hell, in the battle of the rats alone we lost more than thirty times as many. But you fought for me, hell-bent on making sure we left there unscathed. How are we any better than her?”

“We were fighting for our lives, and Angela was fighting for the enemy. Why can’t you see that? She chose demons over her own people.” His eyes cut over to Saint. “Something you’re getting way too comfortable doing yourself. Letting that woman and that demon go is worse than what she did. Insubordination, refusal of orders. Sympathy for a demon.”

He took a deep breath, soft brown eyes leveling on hers. “With every passing mission, you grow more headstrong. At what point will you finally care that you’re putting the rest of us in danger? If you keep this up, it won’t be the higher-ups that put you down. It’ll be one of us, protecting our own from you.”

“He’s a child, Morgan! An innocent child of a species that has never and will never harm a human.”

“After his entire herd was killed, do you really think that’s true?! That demon isn’t a cute little kid to the rest of us, it’s a future problem with razor-sharp teeth. Elsie, I’ve watched you bleed for this squad. I’ve watched you nearly die for it. And now you’re choosing to throw away what we’ve built together to impress the demon in your fucking bed.” He was inches from her face; the harshness of his words was made worse by the bitterness in his voice.