Huntress

Chapter 85

I knew what I wanted done to Dawn and Armond immediately. Ryder blinked once when I told him and some part of me wanted to be concerned about what he would think of me after this. But these people, these creatures, could have had a role in killing my parents. In fact, I was almost certain that they did. And if they did something to my parents, then they ruined the lives of countless others. They did not deserve mercy and if I was the one strong enough and angry enough to deliver violence, then so be it.

So, I watched silently while Ryder stood on a chair, looping a thick rope through a hoop in the ceiling. For how pretty the rest of the building was, this room had no pretense about what it was. No windows, poor lighting, cement floors with a drain. So, you could pressure wash the entire space and scrub out any evidence, I was sure.

Armond slunk into the room, Adrienne gripping his arm. He didn't protest too much when Ryder took over, pulling the man's arms behind his back. I knew the position well and just seeing it was enough to make the pain pulse down the length of my arms. If it worked on me and Milo, it would work on them. A protest crawled up my throat. I was being cruel. I was being unjust. I had no right to do this.

Then Dawn came into the room. Her hair was dirty and covering a portion of her face. She snarled insults at Adrienne. Thankfully, the wind howler looked entirely unbothered and dumped the fairy in the room. And I saw the horns that were sprouting from her head. Horns that hadn't been visible to me when she wrapped her arms around me, comforting me in the assisted living facility. And she had been the one who sent us to hunt the werewolves while being a magical creature herself. Wolf-drain aside, she had blood on her hands.

"Now what?" Ryder asked.

"Sit down, Dawn," I ordered.

Her chin ticked up, tipping those elegant horns back. "You think that you can order me about?" she hissed.

"I think me giving you simple instructions is the least of your problems," I murmured, the words coated in a softness that I didn't feel.

If Ryder could tie Armond up, I could handle Dawn. She sat down on a chair that looked like it had served more than it's time at a kitchen table decades ago. When it didn't crack under her weight, I took the remaining cord from Ryder and wound it around her wrists. She glared fiercely at me, but didn't protest otherwise.

"How do you want to start?" Ryder prompted again.

My attention settled heavily on Armond, the cold bastard, when I whispered, "Shift."

"What?"

"Shift. I want you in your wolf form," I repeated.

A quick scan of my features as if looking for doubt, then, he bowed his head in a brief nod. He discarded his shirt and shoes to save it them from being shredded, but sacrificed his pants. A quick roll of the shoulders and a sucked in breath. Then, the man I loved was a brilliant, black wolf.

I turned to the woman I had trusted with my entire world. "Tell me how awful the wolves are. Tell me how they destroy human beings," I snarled. She said nothing. She wouldn't even look at me, watching her partner instead. So, without tearing my gaze from her, I said to Ryder, "Start slowly. We want this to take a while."

It was hard to know if Ryder followed my instructions. I think the first scream from Armond was the loudest. Even I couldn't help but flinch while Dawn remained perfectly unbothered before me. Regardless of what I felt and what I wanted to be, pain was pain, and there was humanity in that. She watched on, though. Not an ounce of expression on her features. Her eyes were focused, not glazed, but there was nothing in her.

"Keep going," I said to Ryder.

He did. And I kept watching Dawn. So one little bite or scratch from a werewolf on her partner's body wouldn't make her crack? I supposed it was only fair. From what little I knew about fairies; I doubted that this woman was as young as she appeared. Was she hundreds of years old? If so, I was going to find out just how many screams it would take to make her crack.