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Aodh wanted to believe the thing was dead, saved from such misery and torment, but—

“Is it still alive?” Turi questioned. As an Ursine, the answer to that question would have required him to lean in close to the odd beast and take a sniff, and neither the bears nor the wolves wanted to be that close.

Hell, it was apparent that none of the rest of them did, either.

“Barely,” Aodh confirmed; the whiff of the thing's breath floated up from its still form on the ground, but only a trace.

It reminded Aodh of how close to death Morlie was when Kai begged him to save her.

However, he would not be doing the same for this thing.

Deatach glan heyl could heal and even mend the body, but it could not return such a physical state of mutation to its original form.

The best Aodh could do for it was swipe his broad sword to its neck and take it out of its misery.

“No. No!” Michaela, Amaros’s mate, began to scream. “It’s one of them.”

Aodh glanced over at the newly turned Vampire and saw Amaros holding her close to him where he still stood on the other side of the table. The female’s eyes were no longer crimson, glimmering with the dark beast's bloodlust. Her eyes were now luminous with water and fear.

She’s seen this before . Aodh was convinced of that fact by her visceral reaction. When he glanced in the other direction, he saw that his brother’s mate’s face was shrouded in concern and worry but not recognition.

Liekki remained by her side, keeping an arm of comfort around Avalore, as he observed the mass on the floor in the center across the distance.

“Who did this?” questioned Iskah, shaking her head, perplexed.

“The humans,” Amaros answered.

Everyone now glanced in his direction.

“What do you know?” Aodh’s demand rumbled out. The Mckenna didn’t care at this moment that it was talking to other leaders and should show temperance and respect for their mutual positions. His beast wanted answers so it was clear where to aim its stream of fire.

Everyone focused their attention on Amaros, who took the time to sit in his chair and pull his mate into his lap as if not wanting to create even the smallest space for her to worry.

Amaros lowered his gaze to his hand, the one holding Michaela’s. He silently contemplated the situation in his mind before returning his gaze to the other leaders.

“Presenting Michaela to the council and letting you all know about her escape from inside the Wall wasn’t the reason I requested the meeting be moved up as early as possible.

” He chucked his chin to the center. “That was. My mate revealed to my Coven leaders that she’d laid eyes on a large mutated being while she was in the lab. Like this one.”

“But bigger,” Michaela asserted.

“What? Michaela, why didn’t you tell me?” Avalore started to move toward her friend, concern marred her pretty features.

Liekki quickly grasped Avalore’s arm, keeping her away.

Aodh watched as the fierce female snapped her head toward his brother and gave him a sharp look.

Liekki lifted a single brow and held Avalore’s gaze.

She sighed and stepped back beside him.

He didn’t miss how Avalore’s body seemed to relax into his brother, listing a little to the side. Aodh doubted that the human female was aware of what she was doing.

Aodh focused back on Amaros’s mate.

“I couldn’t, Ava.” Michaela sank her teeth, now blunt again, into her bottom lip as she shook her head, keeping her eyes downcast.

“It’s all right, little angel,” Amaros whispered preternaturally low, then brushed a kiss along Michaela’s temple.

It amazed Aodh to see the dominant Prince of Darkness, who usually presented with a blasé, devil-may-care attitude at the meeting, exhibit such tenderness.

However, Aodh knew from his own experience that even if nothing else could soothe the savage beast that resided in all the preternatural entities gathered, a mate could.

Protecting a mate could also trigger their beasts to go into kill mode, as demonstrated by his brother.

“What else, Amaros?”

“Michaela explained that some kind of collar controlled the one she saw in the lab, maybe shock, maybe mind.” Amaros shrugged.

“They’re using our blood.” This came from Chanin.

All eyes shifted to the wolf who sat at the table along the inner circle with his arms folded beside his Beta, who was more concerned with spying on Marceline, who was oddly still slowly circling the malformed figure on the floor.

“I figured as much by the looks of what Dov and Turi found,” Aodh determined.

“I’m going to call their human asses up and get them to explain this shit!” Iskah held her hand back towards her Consort, who placed the single SAT radio used to communicate with the human government.

“Wait, Iskah. There’s more.” Chanin lowered his hands to the table beside his thighs and stared right at the Fae.

Iskah gasped and shook her head as if reading something in Chanin’s expression. “Please tell me no, Chanin.”

Chanin let out a heavy sigh.

Aodh recalled not too long ago when Iskah had requested permission to cross his territory to get to the Lupine because two Fae teens had been taken. Aodh shoved a hand through his hair with the weight of the thought of what was coming.

“Farkas confessed that he’d turned over the Fae youths’ blood to the human government. He was pissed about not being Alpha and having to wait his turn for a mate. The blood was his bargaining chip with the humans for around thirteen marked females for him and his men.”

“Ah, shit.” Liekki echoed what was in Aodh’s mind.

“Fae blood is as close to pure Mage power as it gets.” Dov got up and started stomping around the area, grumbling the same thing everyone was thinking. “We all know what this could mean in the hands of the human government.”

“There was a reason we didn’t—” Iskah swallowed, unable to finish her statement.

“We know, Iskah,” Aodh assured. And they all did.

The Fae were affected the least. Not in the breeding or mating department, but only in the few years since their powers were weakened by ecosystem destruction from natural disasters.

However, they never gave their blood or applied their essence to the serum because, with it, there was a possibility of forcing an extreme change on any marked ones.

But to what degree, no one truly knew. However, it was a risk not worth taking. The combined serum of all the other entities was enough to heal any ailment.

The silence in the open area-columned structure pulsed and vibrated with anger and explosive shifter energy. The tension was so palpable that it felt like a boulder was sitting on Aodh’s shoulders.

“Now, can I call them?” Iskah looked around, meeting the gaze of each territory leader. “Or are there any other grenades anyone would like to toss into the mix of shit?”

When no one else spoke, Aodh confirmed, “Make the call.”

Iskah clicked on the device and set the frequency that would allow her to reach the humans.

When it connected, and someone answered, there was a brief exchange with a commander who informed them that all human leaders within the Wall were gathered.

“The Peoples’ Governor, Everette Muskrand, here.” The man’s voice had the nerve to appear bored through the line as if he’d instead preferred to count blades of grass in a 100-yard field then speak with them.

“What the hell have you delivered us?” Iskah bit out through gritted teeth, her translucent wings almost a sheer black now.

“Ah, I see you've all received our present.” This is what we agreed upon. You said you’d take our most ill. Those dead and dying.”

Iskah’s free hand fisted, and the trees that bordered the clearing bent inward until she opened her hand again.

“Is this what you have used our serum and the Fae blood to produce?” Aodh demanded, flattening his palms on the table and leaning toward the SAT speaker.

“Now, Dragonlord, I don’t ask any of your kind on the council how you serve up or devour the waste of humans that we send you, so we’ll call the knowledge you seek classified. Official human government business.”

Aodh didn’t even dignify the stupidity of the human male’s comment, implying they feasted on humans.

It wasn’t news to him; throughout the centuries, the leaders of the world had chosen to acknowledge that preternatural beings existed.

However, they had crafted them as monsters and spread extensive misinformation about them, from false oral tales to storybooks and movies.

However, it was the governor's blatant arrogance that made Aodh want to reach through the radio and rip the cocky bastard's heart out and roast it before him, then burn off each of the man’s limbs one at a time.

Aodh knew the political fucker was only brave because the governor was sealed behind a wall.

One, his dragon reminded Aodh he could easily traverse.

“By the way, if that wolf, who can’t seem to keep his damn mouth shut, is there, tell him that our deal is off, that the Continental U.S. Governor doesn’t give amnesty to defectors.”

A deal Aodh doubted the human government had ever planned to honor. And the one they made with them was full of loopholes and political doublespeak.

“Fucking, Farkas. He’s a traitor to his kind.

I’m glad I killed him.” Chanin spoke in a low tone that only their keen hearing could detect as he paced along the inner ring of the meeting structure, his blonde hair appearing wild, more like a mane around his head, as the Lupine Alpha clenched and unclenched his fists as if he wanted to punch through two or three of the towering stone columns.

Aodh realized that the human government didn’t have eyes on their territories, which Aodh was only slightly concerned with. It wouldn’t change the outcome of what they all realized needed to happen now.

“Why don’t we get back to why you haven’t sent any more of the marked ones as we agreed upon,” Iskah asked.