wanted to abuse me was Alpha Berman. That asshole had sent word that if I didn’t help him with his crystal situation soon and stop stealing his hobgoblins, I wouldn’t like the measure he would take. Because if he couldn’t have the hobgoblins, no one would.
I actually was glad to have backup to handle the response since I was still injured. Neldor took a few packs of fae dogs and let them be seen destroying several areas of Alpha Berman’s, freeing the captive hobgoblins there and helping them to safety… While I was very publicly at a big event at school.
That spread like wildfire, and that the fae dogs were at the center of it all now that they had safe places to be and heard a lot of what was going on from Tanesha and I. There were some guesses that maybe the portals were opened with crystals from me or magical items they brought to the hobgoblins. It was a completely plausible idea.
And one we were a bit upset we hadn’t thought to push ourselves. But it took more heat off of me.
It was also amusing how Neldor seemed to want a pat on the back and all the praise for doing one thing right.
Uh-huh, keep up, dick. We did this shit all the time.
But the best news was learning he could actually heal Faerie. Once he was fully charged up and worked with Dean White to learn what I’d been doing, we got him everything he needed. It took him a bit and then he was where I was.
“Wait, how old is he?” Mel had asked, saying what I’d been feeling.
“Technically, Prince Neldor is about to be forty-three, but he was twenty-three when he was frozen in the magic,” White had answered. “I think that’s something all fairies will have to decide later, but—”
“He didn’t know how to use reservoirs and make crystals and unleash them together, and here I did it myself with as little knowledge as I have?” I hadn’t remotely hid my amusement and mocking.
Neither could they.
Apparently, what I’d been doing was much more advanced than I had known. At least that made me feel better and let me know that I was more powerful than Neldor when I was healed and caught up a bit.
I had a feeling I would need to be, so that was good.
There was something else interesting that came out in all that dirt Marisol had been digging up. Apparently, McGrath had been a busy, busy boy in his treachery. As much as the warlock elders hadn’t believed me that he was disloyal—and they should have—we now had piles of proof of it.
One of the best things we found out and released was McGrath’s plan on not turning me over to his council. I had told them he didn’t plan to, but they hadn’t believed me because how could he get around that? How could he avoid them when they were so powerful and controlled everyone?
The answer was the deer shifter council. He’d struck a deal with them; they were going to give him sanctuary and he was going to give them a very generous cut of the revenue of all the crystals I would pump out and sell to the dragons.
Oh, and they would get Cherrywood. They would just get it, completely take it over. All of it.
So they were corrupt as shit and the lowest form of trash who didn’t care what was done to me as long as they got paid. When the news broke, practically ever deer shifter on campus couldn’t even look at me. There weren’t all that many, and they were lower on the food chain, but they were mortified.
Which actually gave me hope for them. They should have been. What their council was willing to do to me was horrific, and I was glad people felt that way.
As horrible as it all was, as vast as the corruption and evil went in the supe leadership, the people were getting the wakeup call they needed and reacting as they should. That was a hopeful situation to be in. They were standing up to the bullshit, protesting, and as a group, finally saying they’d had enough.
Wasn’t that worth something?
It was to me.
Yes, it was a lot of headaches, especially on the eggshells I was already walking on around Lucca and Darby the next week, but I was glad to do it. Craftsman was still giving them annoyed looks, and Hudson was confused the whole