Page 16

Jack

T he brave little satyr marched out of the bar and straight into Jim’s waiting arms.

He grabbed her, wrapping a sweaty hand around her neck.

She bucked and kicked in his hold, but she was weak from blood loss and gave up quickly.

Her wide eyes met mine and I read the betrayal in them.

I swallowed hard, guilt twisting in my gut.

I couldn’t tell her I didn’t plan this, not in front of Jim or any of Dane’s soldiers.

“Jackie. You actually did something right for once?” He squeezed tighter. “Where’s the other one? The fairy loving bitch?”

“The other one’s human,” I spat, an edge of protective energy lacing my words.

Jim tilted his head to glance at the satyr. “We’ll get her. Your dad’s got plans for her.”

Heat sizzled in my veins at the threat in his words, and I bit down hard on a retort.

I had a choice to make: Help the satyr and blow my cover, or let Jim take her and add her to the growing list of creatures I needed to break out.

It was a risk I couldn’t take. Not yet. “Let’s just go before this one escapes. ”

Jim’s thick eyebrows slouched low, and he looked me over. “Where’s your shirt?”

“I lost it,” I grumbled, and shoved his shoulder, stomping past him.

At any moment, Sally might walk through that door, intent on helping the satyr, and I wasn’t willing to put myself in that situation again.

The last time she’d been in danger, when Dane had her trapped in his compound, I’d considered something reckless.

Something that could have cost me my whole mission.

I didn’t look back as I left the bar, crossing the street and retracing my earlier steps toward AFF headquarters.

“Let me go,” the satyr demanded, wriggling furiously in Jim’s arms. He’d released her neck and wrapped his arms around her biceps. She stomped a hoof down hard on his foot and he howled in fury, squeezing her arms tightly.

I glanced over my shoulder, biting back a grin. She was a vicious little thing.

She hadn’t said it, but Sally and the satyr knew each other.

The look that passed between them wasn’t as cleverly disguised as Sally thought.

I understood her reticence in admitting it, though.

Especially to the son of Dane Clyde. I had so many questions for her.

Why was she helping them? How had they met? What else was she willing to do?

Movement at the corner of my eye caught my attention. I glanced to my left—to the alley behind the bar. A mop of deep auburn hair, swept up in a bun, ducked back and I swore internally. The small bit of hope I’d had that she wouldn’t come after the satyr died.

“Jim. Hold up.”

He grunted as the satyr landed an elbow to his gut, but stopped beside me. “What is it, Jackie?”

I ground my teeth at the nickname. “I think I saw something.”

Jim glanced around and I moved to block his view of the alley. “I’ll go check it out. Wait here.”

“Like hell,” he groused. “I gotta get this one back to base before she gets loose.”

I nodded. “Alright. I’ll catch up.”

He pulled the satyr with him, glancing back as if he’d reconsider, but she rammed a horn into his side and he dragged her away, mumbling curses.

I waited till he crossed the street before turning, circling around the back of the bar from the other side and sliding up beside Sally.

“Hey.”

“Shit!” she shouted, eyes going wide. “How are you so quiet?”

I shrugged, and her gaze slid past me. “Where’s the satyr? Don’t tell me you let him take her.”

I balled my hands into fists at my sides.

“I didn’t have a choice.” Sally’s face contorted in pain and my chest spasmed.

“Look. I’m working on something more important than one satyr right now.

” I ground my teeth together, unwilling to say more.

She’d tried to help them twice, but that wasn’t enough for me to put complete faith in her yet.

Her mouth pressed into a thin line, and the rage wafting off her could have melted steel, but after a moment she swallowed. “Then I’ll get her out.”

She turned, and I grabbed her arm, panic flaring through my gut. “You can’t.”

She wrenched free from my grip, lean muscles along her forearm yanking loose with far more strength than she looked like she possessed.

My gaze fell to her ankles. I had to check again to remind myself that no fairy could withstand iron the way she had.

She was petite compared with my much taller frame, but that didn’t mean she was weak.

I needed to remember not to underestimate her.

Sally made to dart past me, but I caught her around the waist and pressed her back to the wall, leaning down to whisper in her ear as voices drifted toward us. “Think for a minute. If you go after her, you’ll be captured. Dane will lock you up and force you to do terrible things.”

The voices grew louder, but my focus was stolen by her breath puffing against my bare chest. Her lace bra rubbed against my skin as she heaved in and out.

Every muscle in her body was tense in anticipation of a fight.

Hers was a body honed by years of training.

I knew it well. When my father began his crusade, his sole mission had been to make me into a killer.

Too bad for him, it was the furthest thing from my dream.

Like mom, I’d wanted to help people. To heal people.

Taking life, any life, would never sit well with me.

Shadows stretched across the alley as members of the AFF passed by, and I leaned over Sally, covering her smaller body with my own.

Her floral rainwater scent drifted up, invading my senses.

It reminded me of early spring when dew clung to blades of grass before the sun’s warmth baked it away, the softest hint of honeysuckle lingering on the air.

Sally’s lips grazed my chest as I wrapped an arm overhead, shielding her from sight. I tried and failed to ignore the images her lips against my skin conjured. She moved and I blinked, inching backward to give her space.

Her thigh slid between my legs, and my thoughts took a turn toward indecent. Perhaps she didn’t want to—“Uggggg,” I groaned, slumping forward and cupping my balls as her knee slammed into me.

Sally seized her moment and slid out from under me, stepping back, leaving me to bend forward, cradling tender flesh.

“If you ever think of trapping me like that again, it will be a knife next time instead of my knee,” she warned.

“Sorry,” I wheezed out.

She crossed the alley, putting distance between us and, with some effort, I straightened, still holding my crotch.

“You’re right. I can’t free her myself, but the satyr had a good point. If the fae courts knew Dane was holding fae captive. Torturing them…They would have to send aid. I need to go to Faerie. To tell them what’s really going on.”

She said Faerie with a strange lilt that made my head fuzzy, but perhaps that was just the blood rushing to my balls.

“Humans can’t go to Faerie.”

She eyed me, gaze dropping to my hands cupped protectively over the area she had injured. “You stay. I’m going.”

She leaned out of the alley and the bun atop her head wobbled precariously to either side before she righted herself again. Her light hazel eyes studied me. They were an unusual color, but more than that, they held an ancient grief that didn’t match her youthful face.

She couldn’t be over twenty-five, but those eyes. They said she was ageless.

Her nose crinkled. “On second thought. I need you to come with me.”

I nodded, already having come to the same conclusion. If she thought I was going to let her try to find a way into another realm alone, she was sorely mistaken.

“But first, I need to get something.” She darted from the alley and ducked around the corner, stepping through the door to the bar so fast I blinked, rubbing my eyes.

In moments, she emerged with a bag slung over her shoulder and a T-shirt on that said: Fae’z in Harlem .

99 cent Fridays, stretched over the lacy black bra I’d never forget if I lived a thousand years.

She tossed a white bit of cloth at me, and I held up a shirt that read: Fae’z in Harlem do it better.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t be so free with your appreciation,” she said, and, peeking out one more time, dashed across the street, crossing into the neighborhood and away from Central Park.