“Yeah, fine. There’s going to be some repairs needed to the fucking priceless balcony, but she’s good,” he drawled.
“I’ll pay for it and call Natalie,” I offered. “Her family can probably fix it.”
“Hudson doesn’t care. He worries over you and Melody. He wants you to be more careful. We do.”
“I know, River,” I sighed, leaning my head against him. That wasn’t reality though. “I have to handle this, but thanks for protecting me.”
“Lunch soon? I like when my mate feeds me.”
I smiled. “Yeah, we’ll have lunch before finals, I promise.”
“Tamsin is my favorite.”
Damn pushy dragon.
He set me on my feet and stepped away but kept close just in case. I found Mel lying down with two other dragons practically sitting on her… And her parents not there, so they had to be the two.
Tears filled my eyes as I realized that. “I’m so sorry, Mel. What should I have done? I couldn’t have let you go off and—he would have killed you. He’s loaded with all kinds of magical traps and items. White’s been teaching me to sense them and now I can better. I know he carries them for emergencies. It had to be someone he wouldn’t use them against.”
“A councilman from another council,” Mr. Vogel said from behind me. “Smart.”
“Thank you. There were over a dozen wolves he sold. They were more than willing to start this fight and go after the monster when they verified that. Ainsworth got caught pissing off the wrong people this time, not just fucking over his own.” My eyes never left Mel’s. “He will pay for his crimes. I’m sorry you won’t be the one to do it and if you can’t forgive me, I accept that. I couldn’t accept your death.”
My heart shattered when she turned her head so she wasn’t looking at me anymore. She curled into her parents, away from me, and the message was clear.
I turned on my heel and headed for the portal, silent tears running down my cheeks. I knew I’d done the right thing and it had kept her alive.
Even if it had cost me my best friend and sister.
23
The fallout was massive. People were outraged when they found out. Most everyone agreed with the wolf shifter council and that it was the one time they could cross the line of taking another council member into custody.
However, there was an unforeseen opinion that started to fester that made a lot of us ill.
That the victims were somewhat at fault for being weak women and creating this chaos by trying to fly free of their families and not doing everything their male relatives ordered them, who would have protected them. There was a wave of harsh criticism that erupted, saying this was why women trying to have more freedoms was dangerous to the supe community as a whole.
And people were actually listening to that garbage.
It made me walk around for the next few weeks with steam practically coming out of my ears. I knew it wasn’t the fault of every male, but I wanted to kick anyone with a penis in the nuts, as if it would help, and maybe help the idiots all pull their heads out of their asses.
No, I wasn’t thinking all that logically.
Did I mention the steam coming out of my ears and bullshit we were dealing with?
It didn’t help Mel was keeping her distance.
Neldor was still being an asshole.
I wasn’t getting stronger so I could unlock anyone else in Faerie. Something was holding me back and Dean White was fairly sure it was mental after the gem I’d found the last time I’d done it.
Things with Lucca and Darby were strained.
I had no idea where I was with Hudson.
Or Craftsman.
And I all-around wanted to take off and flip off my life.
Instead, I had finals.
With the storm clouds that were almost constantly above my head, it was no wonder that people were giving me a wide berth. It wasn’t only me though; even Izzy was taking things hard, as she’d been fighting for change and to make our world better and couldn’t believe the turning of the tide after we’d just won in getting Ainsworth locked up.
We were walking back from dinner with Darby and Lucca when my phone vibrated. I pulled it out and at first I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing.
Unknown: I doubt they’ll do anything this time either.
There were GPS coordinates at the end of the message. I knew what those were, but it was the picture that confused me.
Until it didn’t.
It was a woman’s hip.
And she didn’t have a birthmark on it.
Horror filled me when I put the pieces together. Those bastards were going to do something to another woman and pretend it was me and this time, they’d picked a woman I couldn’t bust as having a birthmark on her hip like “I” did in the video before.
“I have to go,” I whispered. I didn’t give anyone a chance to reply, wrapping a barrier and shadow runes around myself and taking off for our room. I thought the fairy rune and ran faster than they could, knowing we had stayed later than most at dinner, and the area was pretty cleared out.
Or honestly, I was so lost in my head, I might not have noticed if there had been millions of people around to bust me.
I got there in the blink of an eye, dumping my stuff and opening a temp portal. I didn’t even think about what I was wearing or that my magic automatically worked to GPS coordinates, which was awesome. It simply all happened, and then I was walking through the portal into a snowy clearing
