The fae ruler here only cared if you were pureblood and could fight.
I guess the human side wasn’t much different in our prerequisites.
Half-breeds weren’t accepted on either side, living in the shadows of the Savage Lands with the rest of the degenerates.
“The captive ready for pick up?” He didn’t even look at her, his attention falling on me. He was solidly built. Tall, wide, and ripped like he was carved from stone.
“Yes. Seems pointless to have the elite team on her.” Her gaze drifted over to me, running down my barely dressed figure. “A human. I could snap her in half without blinking.”
“It’s our job. Pick up and transfer safely.” A blond guard peered at me, a snarl of disgust hitching his lip. Another pretty guy who looked similar to all the rest to me. “Though she looks like a bunny-shifter could handle her.”
Looks could be deceiving, asshole. I kept my mouth shut. We were taught to say nothing, even under torture.
“Let’s just get this last transfer done.” Sloane stepped forward, pulling a set of cuffs off his belt, his buddies moving in around me. Weaponless, wounded, and chained to a bed, the odds were against me.
“No,” I growled, shoving back into the bed away from their reach, the frame squealing over the tiled floor.
The blond guard on my left snorted, laughing at my attempt to resist. My brain told me logically I had no chance, to save my energy. But I knew in my gut where we were going. They wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to save my life to kill me. No. Where I was going was far worse.
The drug she pumped in my system gave me the strength to bounce on my toes, my back curling in defense.
“Save your energy and breath, human.” The third guard on my right, a striking male with black hair, dark skin, and amber eyes, pulled out a handgun from his belt. “This is only going one way.”
Baring my teeth, I glared at them, widening my stance.
The third guard shook his head. “All right. We warned you.” He lurched for me.
A grunt tore from my lips as I yanked at my cuffed arm, skating and twisting the bed across the floor, blocking them from me. I shoved at the bed, the heels of my feet digging into the floor, and rammed into the two guards with all the force I could muster. Their large bodies stumbled back, falling like boulders and crashing to the ground.
Cries of protest and surprise bubbled out of them. I leaped back over the bed feet first, my heels slamming into the healer’s stomach, knocking her over. Ignoring the throbbing pain from my body and the tug at my wrist, I jumped down on one of the guards, reaching for his gun, my brain clicking into survival mode.
Four shots to the heart or brain, and I could have a chance to get out of here. Escape.
I had killed only once before. It was part of our evaluation last year in class. To see if we could move up in training. Had what it took to be put in the field. They didn’t want us to hesitate or not be able to handle death out in the world.
When they brought out the fae prisoners for us to gun down like rats in a cage, Istvan had chosen that day to come watch me. His gaze drilled into me, the weight of his pride or disappointment riding on my shoulders. I pulled the trigger, shooting the fae in the back of the head with a fae bullet, watching his head explode like a watermelon. I almost vomited.
But I couldn’t deny a strange buzz I got—the energy in that moment between life and death. A morbid fascination. I thought a lot about that moment since.
Sergeant Bakos kept reminding us the fae wouldn’t falter, would slaughter us without pause as they had done to my father and so many others.
My fingers wrapped around the handle of the weapon, the power of it bringing me back to the present, the gun heavy in my hand, my finger pulling the trigger on the blond guard.
Kill or be killed.
A figure slammed into mine, bones crunching. The main guard, Sloane, hurtled us over the bed, flipping it with a piercing crash. The metal scraped and skidded on the floor, sounding like an explosion. Sloane’s bulk slammed down on me, yanking my body and arm in opposite directions. My wrist twisted, the cuff pulling my