Page 76

Jack

I lifted my chin and bit down on my tongue.

“Tell us where they are,” Morgan’s cold, ethereal voice demanded.

Her magic pried my lips apart, loosening my tongue, but I fought it, and satisfaction stole through me when her brows furrowed at my silence.

When I arrived in Central Park, Dane hadn’t been surprised to see me. In fact, it seemed as though he’d expected it. Weapons aimed at Larek and Yolmar and safeties clicked off when Larek backed up. I threw up my hands.

“Don’t shoot.”

Dane grinned, closing the distance between us. He leaned close whispering so only I and the fae at my back could hear. “Thank you for bringing them to me. I’d be willing to bet good money the orc general will trade just about anything for his sons.”

Terror shot through me as I swiveled my gaze around and mouthed, “Run.”

They hadn’t.

In a desperate gamble that sure as hell shouldn’t have worked, I grabbed Dane’s second pistol from the holster at his hip, cocking it and held it to his head.

Shouts from behind him lifted the corners of my lips. “Let them go Dane.”

He backed up a step, a confident smile creeping over his face. “You won’t do it. You’ve never had the stomach to harm anyone.”

I looked over his shoulder at the men slowly closing in. “Put down your guns or I will shoot.”

Dane hadn’t brought his top men and that made me more uneasy than anything. If he knew we were coming and somehow he had, why bring random AFF members with no real training? Perhaps for once in his conniving life, Dane had miscalculated. A man set his gun down, then another.

I glanced back at Larek and Yolmar who hadn’t moved. “I said, run!”

Larek tugged Yolmar’s arm, and they backed up.

“Don’t let them get away,” Dane shouted, never breaking eye contact with me. “He won’t shoot his own father.”

One of the men behind Dane fired, but though his aim was wildly off, it startled Larek and Yolmar into action. They turned and another gunshot cracked.

I grimaced, lowered the gun to Dane’s arm and fired. He stumbled backward and the shock on his face made my stomach roil. Realizing I would do as I promised, everyone behind Dane began setting their guns on the ground. “You too, Dane.”

Dane held up his hands, but it wasn’t a gun he was holding. It was a walkie-talkie. “Now. They’re getting away.”

My eyes widened, but I had only a moment to think of Sav and the others and hope they had already made it out before white hot pain surged through me and I fell to the ground.

My vision blurred and overhead, Morgan, Emissary of the autumn court and Fae leader of ISHFA, stood over me.

Janet Glassdon stepped through sheer glass doors as they slid silently apart. It was a marvel of engineering I might have taken more time to admire had all my energy not been focused on keeping the fae leader of ISHFA from spilling my secrets.

I’d promised Sav, no matter what, that I wouldn’t tell them how to get in Faerie, but Morgan wasn’t interested in Faerie. She wanted Creig and his free army.

“No progress?”

Morgan shook her head, and a mane of golden curls bounced with the movement. Shimmering wine-colored eyes met mine. “He’s surprisingly difficult to break.”

Janet smiled but it was all teeth. Her severe black bob was a vivid contrast to pale skin and her features were all sharp angular lines.

When her gaze fell on me, my skin crawled.

I’d seen that kind of madness in another’s eyes only once.

The day I’d visited mom when she’d been placed on suicide watch.

It was three weeks before her death and if I’d known then she would actually go through with it, I’d have fought for her to stay in that horrible, bright place.

I’d give anything to have one more day with her.

But that wasn’t how love worked. Keeping those we loved when they no longer wished for it, was selfish.

When I visited her, her eyes were remarkably clear. None of the desperate frenzy I’d seen before they took her in. It wasn’t her eyes Janet reminded me of now. It was the nurse in white scrubs who wheeled her into a room we weren’t permitted to enter.

I knew then something was wrong, demanded they release her before the crazed nurse did something my mom would never recover from. Perhaps I was too late. Or maybe nothing anyone did could have saved her from her silent pain.

“When magic fails,” Janet said, pulling me from my thoughts. “There’s always good old-fashioned torture."

A bead of sweat ran down my temple even though the room was frigid. Morgan hadn’t frightened me; her magic was a fraction of the power I’d felt from the summer prince or Sav’s sister. It was no wonder she left her court in search of it. In her realm, she was nothing.

Janet slid a thin dagger from her belt. Metal glinted and the dagger flew before I had a chance to process the movement. It was inhumanly fast, and I blinked, exhaling a full sigh before I registered what had happened.

Glancing down, something like shock stole over me as I stared at the object protruding from my thigh.

The room went silent as all my focus zeroed in on the scene.

I couldn’t make sense of it. I was struck.

A thin line of blood welled along metal, trailing over the side of my leg and pooling in my chair.

Its wetness soaked into the underside of my thigh, cooling rapidly and my brain knew I should be screaming, but instead, I felt nothing.

I looked up, blinking at Janet, and her cold smile fell.