Chapter 15
Tamsin pulled no punches as she attacked the bag, reducing it to a ripped heap of sand in minutes. "I am just angry and frustrated," she told herself, tugging the hand-wraps off and wiping the sweat off her brow, "Dumb wolf!"
"Really?" a voice inquired from the entrance and the Valkyrie, startled but not spooked, turned to greet the older man with a slight respectful bow of her head.
"I've been watching the show from the sidelines and couldn't help noticing you're not exactly in the best of moods," the Blood King waddled over and nodded towards the sandy molehill under the still swaying remnants of the punching bag, "It's not exercising, it's punishing. What has Dyson done?"
"It's rather what he hasn't done," the woman huffed, "and I'm not going to expand as far as it doesn't concern our cause."
"Doesn't it?" Trick smirked mirthlessly, "Whatever is happening between my two major fighters is bound to have a bearing on the cause. I wasn't overly worried when you were getting into each other pants – everyone needs to relax. But now you seem to be getting too deep into each other's hearts as well."
"He's not going anywhere north of my waistline," the blonde snarled, resisting a childish urge to kick something solid and, preferably, resisting.
The man didn't make much of an effort to pretend he believed her as a sigh rippled through his broad chest. "In an ideal fae world I would say it's none of my concern what two fae centuries over age of consent are dong in their spare time together. A couple of years ago I would remind you that you were Dark where he was Light. But under these presently absolutely abnormal circumstances, I have to remind you how much your heart can mess with your priorities."
"It won't," Tamsin promised projecting all the conviction she didn't really feel.
"Good," Trick nodded, seemingly satisfied for the time being, "Then, you'll think over my suggestion with a clear head and an open mind. I was mulling over the fae we need to try out the antidote on and came up with Dyson."
Tamsin, who bent over to pick a bottle of water, felt her fingers loosen around the cool plastic. "Dyson?" she yelped letting the bottle slide down and plonk down on the floor, "But you said it yourself, the antidote is far from a safe bet and the wolf is too valuable to risk losing to the doctor's dubious charms."
The shrewd brown eyes locked with the panicking green as the Blood King reached his conclusions, "All of the above is so true that I wouldn't normally think of it, Tamsin. Dyson is valuable and the risk is high but you are even more valuable and the risk of having you distracted, with your priorities skewed is much more of a hazard. I have been harboring suspicions for a long while and now you have failed your test, my Valkyrie. You can keep telling yourself you don't have feelings for him and that, anyway, it has nothing to do with our fight, but you'll be lying to yourself. Either you shake it off and pull yourself together or my decoy suggestion to sacrifice Dyson for the greater good might take on the proportions of a necessity."
When Trick's dignified back was safely out of sight and well out of the door, Tamsin methodically ripped the plastic piece by small piece, oblivious of the water and blood dripping down her fingers in a pinkish mix. "I'm not letting men, any men, rule my life," she hissed, her torn fingers starting to sting, and though the words sounded so good and confidence-restoring, in her tortured heart of hearts she knew she was well beyond the point of not caring.
The ambush, in all its simplicity, worked precisely because it was simple and was based on a sound assumption that Evony would be too arrogant to be suspicious of a cowering human. She made a royal entrance, black lace, figure-hugging dress, immaculate make-up, into the abandoned storage unit, flanked by two fae guards of Steve proportions, her only concession to the hard times heels an inch lower on her dainty feet.
"Hopefully, this tip of yours will prove more reliable, the last one didn't exactly pan out," she barked to the Russian, not bothering with a greeting, "What have you unearthed for me, you little human rat?"
"I've got the revised last known location for Isaac Taft," Dima hurried to showcase his usefulness.
"That's already something," the brunette extended a peremptory hand and grabbed the piece of paper the man rushed forward to place in her open palm, "But a shady scientist vaguely connected to my person of interest wouldn't warrant my muddling through the dirt to this god-forsaken hellhole of a meeting place. I would've met you at a restaurant but for the fear of being seen with someone like you."
She nodded to one of the lackeys, who stepped forward to shove a wad of cash into Dima's still questioningly outstretched hand, and went on with the same air of disgusted superiority, "One more task and you'll get twice as much – I need the girl and I need you to get her to me."
"You need Kenzi?" the Russian dared to raise his voice interrogatively, "What are you going to do with her? She's just a small-time street hustler, nothing much. And she's my cousin…"
"Don't pretend you're currently growing a conscience," Evony scoffed back, "Anyway, you're paid enough for it to be none of your concern. But just saying, she's too valuable to allow for any bodily harm. Though that stipulation might not extend to mental damage."
Dima looked marginally relieved as he hastily pocketed the money and took a careful step towards the exit, nodding his full cooperation and unquestioning obedience.
"You're going to call her and lure her with some information to the spot of my choosing," the woman instructed with total confidence he had no option but to do her bidding.
"This old barn might actually do," Evony looked lazily around the darkened room with stacks of old crates cluttering the dimmest off-center parts, "So, here, sooner rather than later and alone, with no wolf escort."
Dima's blank look of not understanding would have probably amused the Dark fae to the point of giving some tongue-in-cheek elucidation if she wasn't interrupted in her inspired speech to the troops by the sound of a soft thump and a deep voice cutting into her plan-laying.
"That last part can prove problematic, Fleurette," Dyson hadn't even hoped for such a dramatic cue to make his entrance while he had been hiding atop the crates, shrouded in darkness and listening closely to the proceedings.
He didn't catch his breath or let the others draw theirs as he efficiently snapped the neck of one of the lackeys and turned, lighting-quick, to slash at the throat of the second guard with a long arm, fully equipped with the wolf claws. His unoccupied hand curled into a fist and punched the light out of Dima, who was rapidly shifting from thoroughly not understanding to uncannily spooked.
"See, now we can talk, darling," the wolf sneered, fully alert and far from underestimating the fragile woman in front of him.
"Who sent you? The Blood King?" the ex-Morrigan didn't lose an ounce of her aplomb, "The old loser wants to negotiate? Can't take out the human genius on his own?"
"Are you sure you can be of any help?" Dyson asked, his expression inscrutable, neither confirming nor denying anything, "He might well have sent me to take your self-serving bitchiness out of the game once and for all."
"I am sure he'll value my company and my contribution more than the pleasure of contemplating my grave. He's been making noises on that account, trying to find me and get me to unite fronts. Besides, I am the only one who has come up with a hostage idea and who has actually found a viable hostage," the woman drawled condescendingly, still dismissive of any threat from the fae she firmly placed in the subordinate category.
"Are you talking about the human girl I saved from your empty-brained goon?" the wolf squinted, no derision in return and not much of an outside display of emotion either. On the inside, his mind was going a mile a minute flashing through the possible outcomes – for Kenzi, for the Blood King, for Tamsin, for their common fight for liberation, for himself – and going all the way back to the small human again.
"Have you already figured out why I want her? Or is that too much of rocket science for an uncouth old Celt?" Evony pretended to be primarily occupied with the play of diamonds on her ring finger, "Frankly, Dyson, you'll greatly benefit from being turned into a mindless thrall – beautiful, obedient and preferably shirtless is the best you can do."
The shifter let the snark slide, indulging the woman's slamming tendencies and moving an imperceptible inch closer to her instead.
"The Blood King is not winning this battle, he needs me as an ally, and I might bring something to the table. That is, if I am interested enough," the brunette continued, growing more certain of her upper hand, "Or I might keep the dessert to myself and negotiate a nice little arrangement with the other side – with the good doctor herself."
Whichever option seemed at the moment more appealing to the woman herself, neither was admissible for the wolf. The ex-Morrigan sides with the fae resistance – she sells them Kenzi and makes a bargaining chip out of the girl. Evony being Evony, she plays the trump card with the human ruler – no telling if Kenzi will survive the negotiations between the two ruthless bitches. There might have been more mutually satisfactory options lurking in the area of the less obvious scheming but the wolf decided to go with Evony's version of his mental capacities and not to delve too deep.
Taken with the great prospects she herself had just outlined and lulled into the feeling of safety, the dark fae was a second too late to see the threat stepping up to get close up and personal. Just a fraction of a second past the moment she could've done something to melt the offender into a puddle of flesh Fleurette looked up into the yellowing blue and choked on a surge of fear. "You can't kill me, your master needs me," she wheezed, her deathly fingers making a dash to connect and destroy the impudent wolf but the man with the animal reflexes was faster.
"You said I don't have a master any longer," Dyson enunciated into her contorted face as his claws sank deep into her heart, "For some fae Lauren Lewis brought slavery, for some – liberation from the old constrictive ways."