Managing Expectations

by Erin R Flynn

  I slowly glanced at him, letting him see I wasn’t happy discussing this. “Well, good for her, but I’m not her. I’m me, and you can’t know what she’d do if our situations were reversed as you guys keep being shocked all over the place how bad the corruption is. We were asked to help. More than that, it’s not being overbearing if there’s humility involved. That’s what some human governments miss.”

  “I don’t understand,” he admitted.

  “The councils think they’re perfect. They’re above reproach. They’re the best. They’re the smartest. They’re the greatest government. No one can do better and they will tell everyone how to live. All bow down to them. Just ignore the glaring issues they all have. The selling out of their people, lining their own pockets, being bought to rule on this or that, and lying as they breathe.”

  “Yes, that has gotten much worse,” he agreed, still not catching on to my point.

  I gestured to everyone with us. “We know we’re not perfect. I fuck up all the time and admit it. I don’t tell everyone I’m awesome and they should live like me while ignoring the glaring problems in my own house. Hell, I don’t tell people they should live like me. That is what you’re missing. I’ve heard just about every fairy say they should have done something better or different.”

  “You’re right,” Taeral agreed. “I’ve heard people I’ve served with for decades admit things I never thought I’d ever hear them say. What we went through was a huge dose of humility and reality to see what our fighting has done to us and both worlds.”

  “And you honestly haven’t seen most of the ripples for real yet,” I warned. I sighed when Iolas seemed to still be hesitant. “The one thing I constantly heard while trying to figure out what happened and then find you guys was that people hoped fairies came back. That fairies were needed to help everyone and bring balance. We were asked to intervene. That’s not overbearing.”

  “That’s kindness, and screw assholes who would spin it around,” one of the Dark Guardians who was on my detail a lot agreed. “We’re with you, GP. I just want to do better than I did before I was frozen and eventually make it up to the people I left worrying about me.”

  “Sounds like good goals to me, mate.” I fist bumped him and headed for the portal. Iolas would understand it or not. He could get with the program or hang back.

  I didn’t care. I made a promise to Gene I would get her daughter and grandchildren out and I planned to do just that.

  Activating the portal to my destination, I didn’t let the others go through before me like they wanted, stepping right through. Horror filled me as I arrived into a large foyer just in time to see a man slap a young girl hard enough to send her falling to the unforgiving stone floor.

  I raced over there and grabbed his arm before he could do the same boy—a woman already on the ground who tried to catch the girl—and snapped his arm before dislocating his shoulder. Ignoring his screams of pain or the security racing for me that the fairies I came with handled, I focused on the woman. “Ally?”

  She stared at me with too big of eyes, nodding.

  “Gene sent me. She asked I get you and your kids out. I need you to confirm you want my help,” I said gently. “Do you want us to remove you from this home and take you somewhere safe?”

  “Are you insane?” the man I assumed to be Noah Taylor roared as he tried to pull away from me. “You cannot come in here and assault me. You’ve done it now and I will—”

  “I was asked to rescue a witch who you forced to mate, which is against the law, and witnessed you hit a child as I came in, so shut your fucking mouth before I give in to my clawing need to smash in your face,” I warned.

  I shoved him away and went over to the little girl. She couldn’t have been more than four or five, a huge bruise forming on her face and she hadn’t made a noise, silently crying. She’d already been trained to accept this type of abuse.

  And my soul broke for her.

  Because I knew that pain and feeling.

  “Do you want to leave this bad place, honey?” I asked her as I held out my hand, remembering how much I’d wished any of the social workers I’d met when I was a kid had asked me that when they’d walked into something bad. When they’d seen me with evidence of abuse instead of looking away. “I can take you somewhere safe where no one will hurt you again. I promise. I swear it to you.”

  I reached out and healed her, doing the other thing I’d wanted them to so much as a child. I’d wanted them to take away the pain.

  “Mommy can come?” she checked. “My little brother too? Daddy hits him too.”

  I nodded. “Yup. Anyone here can come with and we’ll keep them safe. We’ll get all your stuff and toys. We’ll bring it all.”

  She practically launched herself in my arms and nodded. “Yes, please.”

  I hugged her to me and swallowed down what I was feeling. It wasn’t about me, but the little girl I’d been cried out with joy that I got to save a child when no one had come to help us. I glanced at Ally and practically begged her with my eyes. “Say yes. Fight for your kids and say yes.”

  “Not one word, Allison,” Noah snarled. “You will never—”

  “That’s enough from you,” one of the Dark Guardian’s in glamour drawled as he slapped his hand over Noah’s mouth. “A man who abuses his mate and children doesn’t deserve to breath, much less bark threats. Be grateful we can’t punish you because I’d put your pathetic ass in the ground.”

  I snorted. He wasn’t the only one. I was more focused on Ally though, turning on my telepathy. “I know it’s scary. We won’t let you go back to him. Gene asked me to get involved, and I promised I’d bring you to where she is with your siblings and keep you all safe. Your council won’t intervene. I need you to be strong for your kids right now, and we’ll handle everything else. You can rest then.”

  That sounded silly to add, but she looked exhausted. Fear was exhausting. Always being in that state of terrified and upset was… There weren’t words for the toll that took on a person.

  She sniffled loudly and then pushed to stand, slipping when her arm wouldn’t support her, but then I realized it was injured. Still, she managed and went for her son, picking up the little boy who was also silently crying. He clutched to her, shooting scared glances at his father.

  “This man forced me to mate him, drugged me, and raped me repeatedly. He beats his children and I too often to count. Yes, please, save us from this house of horrors. If you can, there are others trapped here that I ask you bring with us.”

  I nodded. “If they give their permission, anyone is allowed sanctuary. We can’t force anyone.”

  “Nanny!” the little boy shouted.

  “Yes, Nanny will come with us and be safe,” Ally rasped looking away at whatever was on my face.

  Probably horror, as I heard in her thoughts that her mate liked to rape the woman in front of her and humiliate her that giving him children was her only purpose and she’d failed at the other duties of a woman. Like pleasing him. Satisfying him.

  I swallowed all the curse words in my vocabulary before going over to one of the guards and handing over the little girl. “Cover her eyes and ears. Ally, do the same with your son.”

  And then I punched Noah with all I had. I broke his face like he’d broken Ally’s will to fucking live with his abuse. Then, just because I could, I gave him the ten-year celibacy rune, searing it into his skin and smiling as I did it.

  “Rape anyone now, you fucking pig,” I snarled.

  “You’re done now, Vale,” he chuckled darkly. “They’ll get you now for this. I’ll have her and my kids back tomorrow, and your crusade will be over.”

  I snorted, staring him down without fear. “Tell that to Councilman Ainsworth. He thought the same until last night, and I got to enjoy pulling the rug out from under him on all he thought before he died.”

  “It was ridiculously enjoyable,” Iolas agreed.

  I nodded, smirking at Noah Taylor. “And we will b
e back to do the same for you. Today, all we can do is rescue those here who want help, but there will be another day we come for justice for all you’ve done. I know you won’t listen to my warning any more than Ainsworth did, and that will make it all the sweeter when we show up.”

  “The dragons won’t back you on this one,” he predicted.

  Except he was wrong.

  Seriously wrong.

  We got everyone packed up and out of there who wanted to leave, annoyed we couldn’t take all the assholes into custody, but had to wait for another day. Taylor immediately complained to his council and the supe police… Even though he was one of the dicks who said women deserved what they got for being weak. Those on his side weren’t happy he was willing to go against their stance and report me.

  But he cleared that up with saying I had a bunch of men with me, so he was mostly reporting them.

  Uh-huh, sure, dickhead.

  But the best was when the supe media caught some of the warlock elders demanding the Diazes remove their protection from me so they could punish me for attacking one of theirs. I watched the report later and almost died of laughter.

  Mrs. Diaz smirked at the elders. “Hmm, this man wishes to file a report against this abuse he sustained? Where is he right now? I only ask because my dragon would like to eat him for abusing his mate and children. Over a dozen people witnessed him strike his young child and reported he beat his children regularly. And yet you stand here demanding justice for this monster? Yes, let me care about him.”

  “Shouldn’t you be charging him with forcing someone to mate against their will?” Mr. Diaz added. “Is that not against your laws? Do you uphold any of them? It sickens me that your people have you as the ones to protect them. So no, we will not withdraw our protection from Ms. Vale. I hope she brands all the rapists on the planet.”

  “And all people who abuse children deserve death, so don’t come ask us for help on this topic again,” Mrs. Diaz warned. “You’ll upset our dragons by siding with such bad people.” Power flashed in her eyes for even the cameras to see, so she was super pissed.

  Good. We all should be.

  But that was the response across the board. Even those who might have looked the other way at forcing a mating or smacking around a woman couldn’t ignore child abuse. So even supes couldn’t stomach working with terrorists and child abusers.

  Well, it was a start. A shitty, too far back start, but a start.

  14

  A few days later, my assignment in Potions 102 exploded in my face… As everything in that class had been for the past month. Ever since we’d started this new section after spring break, I was messing up everything.

  Constantly.

  The class erupted into laughter before the whispers started that I was finally fizzling out from being an unknown, and all the studying in the world couldn’t compete with the educations they’d received growing up with family. Next would come the talk about how I was a one-hit wonder with runes and nothing else, no amount of tutoring or help would ever catch me up to be at the level of Artemis.

  Basically, everything I worried about myself constantly and was afraid was true.

  Which was why I hadn’t told anyone this was happening. It was honestly the first time something about me hadn’t spread like wildfire. I was shocked after it happened and that I wasn’t relentlessly mocked in the cafeteria.

  But then I realized the assholes were learning from their mistakes. If they talked about it, others would know… And help me.

  If they kept it quiet, they could continue to bully me.

  Especially since I couldn’t bring myself to ask for help.

  In my defense, I didn’t have a lot of options at the moment. Well I did, but all my avenues were complicated.

  Ask my teacher, Professor Kramer? Right, he was currently going back and forth between wondering what I was wearing under my clothes and debating if what everyone in class was saying was true. And that was actually the blander of his inappropriate thoughts about me. Most of the time he’d thought to help, but worried he couldn’t behave himself.

  So no.

  Instructor Larson? He was being a pain in the ass about the shit with Neldor and the fairies who wanted to take over my training.

  I should have asked Dean White. I knew that… I just couldn’t. It was humiliating. I could do complex magic and all kinds of crazy with crystals, but I couldn’t handle a magical cleanser without almost taking off my eyebrows.

  I couldn’t go to Craftsman. Things were so off with us that I felt guilty being around him, and not just because he agreed with me on everything, but that he was suffocating me. I ended things because he’d faded, and now I was unhappy he paid me too much attention.

  Talk about being a ridiculous bitch.

  All the fairies? Yeah, right. They would freak out again about my magic or… I couldn’t even imagine. Neldor never brought up his idea of binding me, but he’d thought it a few more times when I’d been listening. Some of the other older fairies were upset about my vast power so young and I was half demigod when a respected queen went off the rails.

  So I would? How did that logically work in their minds?

  Yeah, they were out.

  Lageos? Sure, I should bother the demigod who was trapped for twenty years in caustic darkness and grieving losing his mate with my fucking Potions 102 crap.

  I thought of asking Natalie and my witch friends… But they didn’t know I was a fairy.

  One would think I could go to my boyfriend who used to be a tutor and was tutoring me. But he already was tutoring me in physics and honestly, I was tired of feeling like a fucking moron in his genius eyes. That was part of why I couldn’t ask Craftsman either.

  I was tired of being behind and always feeling lacking. I was always lacking in one way or another, and I’d rather take the shitty fucking grade and keep getting the shit talk than have one more pitying look or worry I was defective.

  “Start again, Ms. Vale,” Professor Kramer said from across the lab.

  “Yes, Professor,” I replied as I waved away the smoke.

  “I suggest you finally stop by my office hours or ask for some type of help for whatever you’re going through,” he added after few moments. “All of these assignments you have failed are needed steps for the final. Fail that, and you will repeat this class next year and possibly throw off your whole graduation schedule if you do.”

  “Got it.” I’d picked up the beaker and headed to the back sink to safely dispose of the contents when the whispers got worse, ignoring how my hand burned. It took everything I had not to launch the whole thing into the bespelled sink that would nullify anything we dumped there so it was safe.

  Instead, I poured it out, swallowing my need to curse up a storm as the foul smelling green goop plopped out. Then, I cleaned the beaker and grabbed another set of ingredients.

  And blew up the potion all over again ten minutes later.

  Fuck. My. Life.

  The class laughed so hard I wondered if they could be heard the next building over or simply the remains of my pride shattering.

  I had just enough time to clean up my mess again before the bell rang, but the last place I wanted to go was lunch. I went to text Zack I was bailing on the rest of my day when I saw I had a message from Katrina Calloway about some items I’d bid on at auction through a Veritas Portas her cousin owned. Blinking at the phone several times, I wanted to kiss it.

  It was perfect. Not that I’d won the auction. That was great, but she was a powerful witch.

  A witch who could help me figure out what the fuck I was doing wrong and there wouldn’t be any issues. I texted her so fast, I almost dropped my phone. I didn’t care there was a begging to my tone, I was desperate.

  It must have been obvious I was off because she immediately responded she would love to see me, but only if I joined her at some restaurant she was craving for her dinner. Clearly, she wanted to feed me when I was upset.

  I agreed and
texted Zack I was going to see her and I would be protected with the Courtenays… Leaving out we weren’t staying there. I’d be fine and I had a glamour charm. Katrina always wore one as well now.

  We’d be fine.

  I collected everything and portaled over to pick her up, cloaking another portal to take us to the place she wanted and had already gotten us in at. She greeted me once we arrived and blended in with the people on the street as if we were meeting there.

  “Let’s eat and then you can tell me what’s wrong, darling.”

  I didn’t even try to deny it, nodding and letting her take the lead. I didn’t know any French, but I caught enough from the glances and her own demeanor that the person she was speaking with was a supe.

  And then I got depressed because I couldn’t even sense that. I was such a failure as a fairy and supe that I couldn’t tell who was a supe or human.

  How much longer until I was twenty-one?

  Oh right, I couldn’t have human booze anyways as a fairy. Fabulous.

  “Well, your mood has plummeted even worse, which I find surprising given how much food I ordered us,” she muttered when she focused back on me. “You trust me to order for you. I know you don’t understand French but—”

  “I also don’t know what he is,” I said under my breath. “I should. I don’t. I don’t know much of anything it seems.”

  She was quiet several moments, waiting until the server came and poured us waters and set down a basket of bread. She thanked him and took a sip before responding. “My answer won’t help your current mood, but I won’t lie to you. He’s wearing a charm to mimic a wolf, but I don’t know what he actually is. Probably a shifter that doesn’t have a council, and that makes them easy pickings.”

  And here I didn’t even know there were shifters that didn’t have councils. Awesome.

  “Darling, tell me what’s wrong,” she whispered. “Is this about what happened with Ally Taylor and her kids?”

  I couldn’t hide my confusion. “Why would I be upset about that? We got them out. That was a win and Noah Taylor can suck it.”