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Dane

M y grip on my phone tightened. “I understand.”

“If you understood anything, you wouldn’t have burned down the last of the fae dwellings before we had everything in place.

You don’t have room for all the new fae you’ve captured.

” Janet’s sharp tone smacked of superiority and my jaw clenched.

She still believed she was in charge. Thought the money she paid to ensure my organization expanded gave her power over me.

She was wrong.

“Take the latest batch to wherever you’ve hidden the rest of them or I’ll execute them. I’m too far along in my trials to kill the creatures I have here.”

Silence crackled over the line and I knew I’d struck a nerve. Janet thought I didn’t know she had prisoners. She assumed all her illicit activities were untraceable.

“The fae we’ve relocated were sent back to Faerie.” She finally said.

“Bullshit.”

Morgan’s sultry voice whispered in the background, and I realized I’d been on speaker. It didn’t matter. The winged fairy didn’t frighten me.

Janet’s muffled voice gave a clipped response before her words came through the phone more clearly. “We need Juniper. Choose the next best candidate to begin work on from your recent acquisitions and we’ll be by to get the satyr tonight.”

I swung my hand up, checking the time on my watch.

We had another demonstration planned in less than an hour, one that required the satyr’s presence.

More than that, she’d made it further along in the trials than anyone else and I wanted to continue our work.

“Not tonight. I need her. In fact, I have several demonstrations lined up this week. You can have her when I’m done. ”

I hated negotiating with Janet. With anyone, but her resources still outweighed mine and until I had ferreted out the mole at headquarters, I couldn’t make a move against Janet without her being warned.

More whispered discussion between Janet and her lover before she spoke to me. “One week. We’ll take any orcs you have. Get rid of the rest.”

I mashed the end call button on the phone, slamming it on the desk. It was time to cut ties with Janet. Time to find my own informant. But finding someone ISHFA was willing to hire would be far more difficult than bribing someone who already worked there.

Leaning out the door to my office, my eyes narrowed on a shadow stretching away from my door. Someone had been outside. Listening.

I marched down the hall, picking up speed as I neared the exit stairwell and threw the door open glancing up, then down.

The light tap of tennis shoes bounding down caught my ears and I dashed after them.

Spinning around on the second-floor landing, I ran down the steps.

The first-floor door clanged against metal, and I swore as I tore the door open and stepped into a mob of restless people preparing for our next rally.

“Damnit.” I growled. William’s gaze shot to the ground and I marched to him, gripping the collar of his shirt in my fists.

I yanked him up until his toes only skimmed the floor and watery brown eyes met mine.

“Did you just come from the stairwell?” I spat the words, and a vicious grin broke on my face as his turned red, then purple in my hold.

“No. Dane.” he wheezed out.

“Who just came through that door?” My gaze narrowed on his as a bead of sweat ran down his temple and his eyes bulged.

He opened his mouth but no words came out. Visions of squeezing his throat, watching the light drain from his eyes as I wrung every gasp from his body, danced in my mind and I flashed a wicked grin at him.

His cheeks were mottled now and he’d pass out in a moment.

A whisper in my head: Calm, Dane. I exhaled. Once. Twice. Then loosened my grip, setting William on his feet.

William coughed and sputtered, sagging in my hold, but I held onto his collar, unwilling to release him until I had my answer. When his cheeks were only a few shades darker pink than usual, he gasped out another breath and mouthed: “Grif.”

I released William, squeezing my hands into tight balls at my sides as my vision went red. Grif. Grif, whom I’d considered a son, had betrayed me. “Grif!” I shouted.

The crowd parted, people trading nervous glances with one another as they moved to get away from me. A group backed up, leaving Grif at their center. He looked up, the grin stretched over his face falling as his skin went ashen.

“Yes sir?”

I stopped several feet away from him, not trusting myself to move any closer. “Grif.” His name was lead on my tongue and I spit out the putrid taste of it. “Why were you in the stairwell?”

He glanced around, searching for anyone to support him should he need it. “I was following—”

“Alice?” I cut him off, tilting my head. “Enough. Enough lies, Grif.”

His eyes widened as his gaze shot to someone behind me. I didn’t turn. Didn’t bother looking to see who he hoped would come to his rescue. No one would. No one in this compound was dumb enough to come between me and my rage.

“Brian, Oliver, Jim. Take him to the prison.”

The trio appeared beside me and rushed forward, grabbing Grif roughly.

He didn’t fight. Didn’t say a word as they dragged him away.

He knew he deserved whatever fate awaited him.

Some of my racing thoughts stilled, the anger boiling in my veins simmering.

I had trusted Grif more than anyone. More than my own son, and he had betrayed me.

For that, he deserved a traitor’s punishment.

Outside the remaining fairy housing in Central Park, now a smoking pile of ash, I stepped up onto the makeshift platform and brought the megaphone to my mouth. “Good evening, good people of New York.”

A cheer rose, incited by AFF members interspersed in the crowd of onlookers whose number seemed to grow at each rally.

I raised a hand, stretching my lips into a wide smile. “Tonight, as promised, we’ve taken back our city.”

A roar of approval erupted from the crowd and I held my hand up again.

“But destroying their housing doesn’t solve the problem.

” I motioned to Connor and his guard and they stepped forward, tugging a silent satyr behind them.

“We must domesticate the beasts if they are to live among us. Teach them their place.”

The crowd whispered and murmured to one another as Juniper stepped up beside me on the platform.

All eyes were on us as I directed Connor to bring one of the latest captives forward.

My limbs loosened, lightness stealing through me as we came one step closer to ridding the Earth of another alien creature.

Juniper stood motionless beside me, waiting for my command.

An orc was dragged to the grassy patch of ground before us and Connor tugged a spike from his pocket, spearing it through the creature’s right hand as he staked him down. Green blood oozed from the wound and his fingers flexed with each pound of the mallet, but otherwise he was still.

We had finally captured one of General Creig’s men, but it had been a fruitless effort.

No amount of torture had loosened his tongue and we were no closer to learning of the general’s whereabouts than we had been before we’d captured the soldier.

Whatever Creig did to inspire such loyalty, I would learn and I would replicate.

Then perhaps I wouldn’t be faced with the difficult task of ending those I’d thought were closest to me.

“Juniper. Remember what we discussed?” I said gently. “You were made for one thing.”

Her glassy-eyed stare swiveled to me and a chill ran down my spine. In this state, she was a thing of beauty. A killing machine bent on seeing my justice done.

I handed her the spear. Her hands hissed, skin bubbling around the spear.

She didn’t flinch. She never did. Our first several times, I’d had to give her clear instructions.

Now, she needed no prompting as she gripped the iron tightly in both hands.

Widening her stance, she ran the spear forcefully through the motionless orc.

He jolted from the impact of her thrust, convulsing once before going limp.

The spear stretched into the sky as she yanked it from his head, holding it up for the crowd.

For a moment, the only sound came from the soft breeze rustling the leaves on nearby trees, then, deafening shouts, and screams of approval as all were swept up in the joy of the moment.

I reached for the spear, tugging it from Juniper’s bloody palms and she released it easily, reverting to her catatonic state once more.

Holding the spear overhead, my chest expanded as I yelled with them, reveling in the glory of our hard-won battle. My voice cracked as I was caught up in the fervor for just a moment and I threw my head back, screaming to the heavens.

When some of the elation settled, the reality of what came next, sinking like a stone in my chest, I sobered, nodding to Connor.

Cheers slowly died as a pair of goblins marched through the crowd, each wearing collars of iron.

A chain stretched between them, and they stopped on either side of me when the iron went taught.

I held up the microphone again, clearing my throat.

Now that the moment had passed, regret hung like a blanket over my shoulders, but a traitor deserved one end and no matter my personal feelings, a leader had to make hard choices.

Grif was marched out next and I met his steely gaze. Not a flicker of guilt. Not even now. What had I created?

But he wasn’t my creation. Nothing I made would ever betray me the way he had.

The crowd glanced warily between the man in chains and me. This was the part I knew would be difficult. Convincing them to end fairies was easy, showing them why we had to defend ourselves even from our own kind would be harder.

“You may be shocked by this prisoner’s species, but do not be fooled. Our enemies are all around.”

A line of fairy creatures was marched forward, most of them from tonight’s raid. Some whimpered and cried, while others stood rigidly, glaring daggers at the crowd.

“And protecting our freedom comes at a high cost when our own kind threatens our way of life.”

Mumbles in the crowd and downturned lips had a light sheen of sweat trickling along my brow. What I needed was to feed their bloodlust. To incite their anger and terror.

“Gremlins do what you were made for.” The gremlin on the right moved, but the one to my left stood firm. As with most of the others, I’d met this resistance often. Only Juniper had complied absolutely. “Gremlin. End the folk before they end you.”

The crude command would instill the creature’s fight or flight instinct and jar him into action.

He moved, and together, they wrapped thick chains around the group of fairies lined up.

The folk wailed and screamed as both gremlins continued squeezing until the creatures stopped fighting their hold, slumping against one another.

Fairies weren’t so easily killed, though. Whipping out my pistol, I stepped off the stage and fired. Bang. Bang. Bang. The crowd had taken longer to rally this time, but one by one, with each shot to the head, a new round of cheers rose until they were frothing at the mouth for violence.

Turning, I faced them once more. “This man,” I pointed my gun at Grif. “Is a traitor. What do we do with traitors?”

“Kill him!” Someone shouted. One of mine.

“Hang him,” someone else shouted. “Gut him!” That one from a legitimate member of the crowd.

My chest swelled. I had known we would bring them around, but now that the moment had come, I couldn’t drag out his end.

Couldn’t watch him die slowly as I’d envisioned.

“Dane,” Grif said softly, only for my ears. I ignored it, and the pain clawing its way up my chest. If I gave him a chance to speak, to plead his case, I would be weak. Leveling the barrel between his eyes, I offered Grif this final gift—quick death—and pulled the trigger.