by Erin R Flynn
I thought maybe annoyed. He hadn’t been very happy with Mel after hearing how things had gone down. At first, he had wanted nothing more but to praise her after how she kept me alive, but her “selfishly abandoning me,” as he put it, when I was in some of my hardest times, was unforgiveable.
And I was pretty sure that was why he was so extra lovely to Dean White. The woman was so thrown off meeting an actual demigod, and he lavished her with praise and respect when he saw her. That had to be a trip being used to sexist warlocks.
Mel stood and without any more preamble, raised the axe and brought it down on Ainsworth’s neck, severing his head in one shot. She let out a slow, shaky breath as she blinked back tears. Managing to turn away and wipe them with her arm before they fell, she was composed when she faced us again and retrieved the axe.
“This concludes this proceeding,” Councilman Brooks announced. “Thank you again to all who were involved and for their support.” He focused on a group who sat in the corner. “While our ruling was just and the evidence undeniable, fairness doesn’t always comfort family. We are sorry for your loss.”
One woman among the group stood and shook her head. “I thank you for your kind words but they aren’t needed. That monster forced me to mate him and abused our children and myself from the moment we met. Your council has been a blessing on our family to free us.” She glanced over at me. “And you as well, Ms. Vale. Thank you for putting an end to our misery.”
“You’re welcome. The danger isn’t over, and he was in bed with some truly bad people. Your council won’t protect you. If you need help, please, contact HAVEN. They’ll hide your family.”
She gave me a watery smile. “Sometimes I wonder if you are an angel we don’t deserve instead of an unknown we stumbled upon. All that man did to you, and you worry for his family.”
“You didn’t do any of it.”
“No, but I didn’t give you what you needed to help you stop him.”
I shrugged. “You had a lot to lose. Your life, and you have kids to protect. None of that is on you. You clearly would have wanted to if there was a way to do it safely and your own council wasn’t corrupt. You’ll pay off the penance another way.”
“I most certainly will. I’ll contact HAVEN tomorrow. Thank you very much.” She dipped her head to us and left with the group.
So things were already that bad. Crap.
Yeah, she would be a prime target for vultures to pick off and strip for everything they could.
I shared a glance with Taeral. “Ainsworth had a massive collection of magical items. She’s a sitting duck, and we don’t want that to fall into the wrong hands. Get a detail to guard her for now and let’s come up with a plan to really look into her. She might be someone good to loop in. She was mated to a warlock elder for like twenty years. She’s gotta know a lot.”
“Smart. Yes, a wise plan. I will handle it immediately, Princess.”
Nice. The whole having massive amounts of backup was super nice.
We got up to leave, stopping to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Brooks a bit, both glancing at Lageos several times. I promised in their minds we would talk soon, but right then wasn’t the time. Maybe over summer when some other things died down.
Basically saying yes, something big had happened, but I had to be careful not to draw attention to it… So my life really.
Mel and a large group of the Rothchilds were waiting for me just by the portal to leave the council estate. I couldn’t hide my surprise since it was the first time she’d initiated anything in all the months since Ainsworth’s take down.
“I forgive you, Tams,” she whispered, letting out a deep breath as if that had been hard to say. “I get why you did what you did and while it’s been hard to come to terms with it, pushing for me to be the one to carrying out the sentencing has really helped. I’m grateful you used your influence to give me at least that.”
I blinked at her for several moments, waiting for the rest of it. Then I kept simply stared at her when I realized that was it. That was all I was getting from her.
Un-fucking-real. I threw up a barrier around us and those with us before I responded, letting out my own slow breath and trying to keep my calm.
“You feel better?” I asked. “You’re all good now that you got that out, Mel?” I snorted, shaking my head. “You forgive me. Well, that’s fucking great. How awesome for you.” It was her turn to blink in shock, but I wasn’t remotely done. “I saved your life with what I did. I saved the lives of your clan who would have been dead with you.
“You’re so fucking focused on getting your vengeance still, all these months later you aren’t seeing what you flying off the edge would have done, the ripples. You’d be dead. Some of your family. I might be dead having gone after you. And guess what that would have meant for every fucking fairy alive, Mel? Frozen for eternity. All so you could get your vengeance.
“And still, I took a huge risk for all my people to go to Brooks and tell him, admitting what I was so he knew he backed the right side. I was flying solo because the whole thing would blow any second. So I risked my people for you, and you forgive me. Well, that’s fucking big of you months later. Really. Pat yourself on the back. I’m so glad you’ve come to peace with all of this.”
I heard a few snort behind me, clearly agreeing and making me feel better. I took down the barrier and headed to leave, pausing and looking at her over my shoulder.
“Shove your fucking forgiveness, Mel. I’m not sorry for what I did, and I don’t have a damn thing to be forgiven for. You’re welcome for saving your life and those of your clan. Ainsworth had so many death magic items on him when he was apprehended, he could have taken out your whole clan. Too bad you haven’t spent these months reflecting on that instead of working on how to forgive me.”
And then I left, closing the chapter on my friendship with Mel.
Fine, I went home and sobbed my eyes out. I called Hudson and asked him to come over and blubbered it all to him and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore at losing my best friend and the one person I thought would never abandon me.
It was a pain in my soul unlike any I’d felt before because she’d called herself my sister but in the end, I wasn’t. No sister could have been so cruel and left me out in the cold when I’d given so much to keep her alive.
13
Mrs. Ainsworth must have been truly touched by what I’d said and my offer because the next morning, I was sitting at the hobgoblin bakery with her enjoying the hustle and bustle of the always busy Saturdays. She had contacted HAVEN right after her mate’s execution—like moments after—when she arrived home to find a summons and several orders from the other warlock elders.
The vultures moved fast. I honestly expected it to have happened already, but the wolves told me they’d had guards stationed there during the investigation, and even the warlock elders wouldn’t make a move until everything was finalized in case Ainsworth managed to get out of it.
But the second his head was removed from his body, they jumped into action. Such honorable men like that.
Riiiiigggghhhhhtttt.
“There are things that wouldn’t have come out in his interrogation,” she told me as she set several journals and USB drives on the table. “I might not have been able to help, but I wasn’t blind to what was happening around me, and I knew if I ever had the chance to help, I would.”
“What is all of this? And why not give it to the wolf elders?” I asked, glancing between it and her.
She sighed. “They seem honorable, truly, but wolves will look out for wolves. I trust you more, Ms. Vale.”
“I’m not a witch, Mrs. Ainsworth,” I reminded her.
She winced. “Please, call me Gene. I know my council won’t grant a request to change back to my maiden name as they signed everything against my will to force my mating, but I cannot be called that anymore.”
“I get it. I’ve met others who—I get it.” I gave her a sympathetic smile. “It will get bet
ter.”
“Even if it doesn’t, being free is enough. My children and grandchildren are free. I can hopefully get my daughter out of the mating Louis forced her into, and with her children. If I can accomplish that then it will be enough for me.”
“Gene, we can do that today,” I promised her, nodding when she gave me a shocked look. “I swear to you that I can make that happen within the hour if your daughter truly wants out.”
“Please save them,” she choked out. “He’s almost as horrible as Louis was. He beats her and—please, Ms. Vale.”
“Tamsin. Yes, of course.” I glanced over to the Light Guardians who were on my detail, hiding who they were as always. “Call who you need to and make it happen. We can’t draw attention so make sure they know that.”
“Of course, GP,” he replied, pulling out his phone.
She didn’t even notice in her relief how he referred to me, but I bit back the need to roll my eyes. “GP” was what some fairies had decided to call me when we were in public where they couldn’t address me with Your Highness like they should. It stood for Grand Princess… And their hope that I might be the princess and heir for all of Faerie, unite both realms.
No pressure. I didn’t want to squash light and dark getting along but for the love of fuck, I had enough going on.
“I knew it was better to trust you,” she rasped, wiping her eyes. She thanked the hobgoblin that came over with some soothing tea for her before focusing on me again.
“I’m not a witch, Gene.”
She chuckled softly. “Of course you’re not.” She shook her head as she tried her tea. “Gods, the way Louis would rant and rave how you would slip his grasp and defy them. It was beautiful to watch. He always thought he was the smartest in the room.”
I snorted.
She nodded. “He wasn’t.” She tapped what she’d set on the table. “Not all the dirty guards are currently in the employment of the council. Some left when they realized how expendable they were. They still committed crimes, and it never sat well with me that they might become a footnote of ‘henchman one’ when the story was told. So I wrote their names down. All of them.”
“That was bold.” I smirked at her as I popped a mini scone into my mouth. “And?”
She shrugged. “Anything I could get, any information I could safely squirrel away that he would never find. I have lots about my son-in-law from what my daughter has told me. I was more powerful than Louis to hide it. She is not more powerful than her mate, so she can’t take the same risk.”
“No, but I love the fun of hunting new prey,” I purred, giddy at the idea of taking a look at it all. “And what are you asking for all of this supremely valuable information?”
Her gaze turned hard. “Make them all pay. That’s all I want, Tamsin. I want some godsdamn justice in our world. I would never take money for this. You didn’t ask for any for saving my daughter and grandbabies, and I have gobs of money.”
I shrugged this time. “So do I. I didn’t actually mean money. I thought more help starting over or new identities.”
She didn’t answer right away, sipping her tea, and I could practically see the storm clouds forming around her. “I honestly don’t know what to do or ask for. I was a pretty mare to sell to my family, sheltered and with no real-world experience. It was why I never ran. I would be—”
“Dead within a few weeks, or worse, if the Underground got you, and you are powerful.”
She swallowed loudly. “Tier eight crystals on my own and honestly, I stopped trying after that. So yes. As much as I hated what happened to me, running seemed like my death.” Tears filled her eyes. “I never planned to bear his children and bring others into this mess. He drugged me. The bastard drugged me to counteract the potions he knew I took. The staff was all in on it and I was clueless.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I am, but I’m not, because I love my children and grandchildren. I’m just—they’ve suffered so much and I couldn’t get them out.”
“We will now, and your son-in-law will pay for what he’s done. I swear it to you, Gene.”
We spent the next hour going over everything she had while the other fairies got ready for what came next. Then we decided to discuss moving her into protective custody… And her young kids.
How did that work when her daughter was mated with kids already? I mean, maybe that was weird to me since I grew up around humans, but it wasn’t like she remarried and had kids with her new husband. Supes lived way longer than humans, so maybe they just kept going with having families?
Oh no, her answer was way more disturbing. Like I had to swallow bile.
Ainsworth—unlike other sexist, psycho warlocks—had sold his daughter off the moment she was legal to mate at eighteen to a man four times her age. She still got her education but once pregnant, she was rarely allowed to attend classes, and everything was rubber stamped since she didn’t need a conduit anyways.
All while Ainsworth was still drugging and raping Gene to have more kids he could sell off in alliances and really to torture her since she wouldn’t ever try to run from him and leave behind a child. Oh. My. Gods. There truly was not a punishment horrid enough for him in the afterlife. I hoped he got all of the punishments.
“I feel ill,” one of the Light Guardians on my detail said as we went to leave.
“You are not the only one, mate,” I muttered. “Let’s go fuck up the evil we can and hope the evil already sentenced will never find peace.”
“Best plan I’ve heard all day, GP,” one of the Dark Guardians chuckled.
Yeah, it really was.
We took the portal to Ainsworth’s estate since Gene informed me that her son-in-law’s estate was locked down to where only certain portals could link to theirs. We could easily get around that, but we needed to all meet up and regroup.
“I hate to be crass, but you have some important decisions to make, and fast, as your council is not the only vulture circling you,” Iolas said to Gene. “Councilman Ainsworth was also the eldest son of the elite family but according to his younger brother, given Louis was disgraced, you should all be tossed out and he take over the family everything.”
“H-how do you know that?” she asked, her eyes going to big.
“We’ve been monitoring a lot since we were party to the interrogations,” Iolas explained gently. “Louis’s attorneys, estate manager, and basically anyone he dealt with are all being watched closely. His family as well, to see who was involved. We checked the current situations when Tamsin alerted us you asked for help for your family.”
“Okay, good,” she whispered, bobbing her head. “Good. You were the right people to trust then. Okay.” She took in and let out a slow breath. “What do I need to do?”
“That depends on how much you want to stick it to your brother-in-law, that family, and your council.”
She snickered. “As hard as you possibly can, if you please.”
Iolas smiled brightly at her. “Lovely. Then I would ask you work with our teams in going through the estate and pointing out everything you wish to keep, put in storage for now. There are a lot of dangerous magical items that—”
“I don’t want anything that will make us targets,” she cut in.
“Good, that is a concern but also a lot of it, Louis stole.”
She blinked at him. “Yes, and the sky is blue. Can you get it back to the original owners? Can I pay reparations somehow?”
“I believe we can help you with both,” Iolas said, giving me a quick wink.
Yeah, because a lot of it was stolen from fairies, belongings not locked away in the trusts. We’d learned that lots had stored their stuff in long-term storage, paying for decades just in case they died, and there were problems handling it all later. Fairies were pragmatic like that. The moment all fairies were gone though and they thought they could get away with it, bad people scoured the planet to steal it all.
And now we were going to get it back with a bit of bloo
d in interest.
She seemed to catch up with the plan, throwing back her head and laughing. “So you want to clean this estate and all our properties out so my brother-in-law and the council basically fight over the houses and land? The council summons is for Wednesday. They want to ‘interview’ me, basically gag me, as there were instructions not to speak with anyone, and then inspect all my holdings. That’s in the letter.”
“We know. We got a copy,” Iolas said gently, reaching over and patting her shoulder. “But yes, that’s the plan. We get you packed for the next couple of months, hide the rest in storage or return what we can, and from there, we work on some long-term ideas to keep you all safe.”
“Get your money transferred to the dragon banks and retain Geiger as your attorney so you’re protected,” I added, nodding to Iolas to handle it.
She stared at me for several moments. “How are you able to do all of this, Tamsin? Really? You’re just one young woman. If they weren’t gone, I would think you were all fairies.”
I winked at her. “Maybe they’re coming back.”
She snorted. “My life is not that blessed to have so many wonderful things happen in two days. Louis is gone, my daughter is being saved, we have a safe place to hide, and fairies are returning? No, our world is not that lucky or deserving.”
Deserving was relative, but we were coming back, and with a fierce need to handle as much as we could.
It took another half an hour to get down to the nitty gritty and teams going… Which meant it was time for the fun part.
“Your mother wouldn’t ever have joined us for this,” Iolas hedged.
I snorted. “Her loss. This is the best part.”
“She also had reservations about getting involved to this level,” he pushed. “She worried people would change their opinions from fairies being heroes when there were no other options to overbearing and sticking their noses where they shouldn’t.”
