it all came down to the way we spun it. He didn't need help; they were merely more tools to help him achieve his goal. Knowing he would get to lead more Nightmares as his lieutenants with him as the general, and the agents as his soldiers, certainly held his attention in a positive way. Naturally, Thomson remained the man in charge, but Zain would be given the final word on which Nightmares were allowed to join our ranks.
Although he would never admit it, this greatly alleviated the fears that were gnawing at him and that had made him fall into that depression. Reading the literature Thomson had provided me about Nightmares and Wishes made many things so much clearer. The Mistwalkers defined themselves in large part by how relevant and desirable they were to their creator’s needs and aspirations. Even though I had told Zain that our relationship was not contingent on his ability to fight the Nightmares on our behalf, that had continued to worry him.
Now, Zain had a role, something he could define himself by and strive for. He was the pack leader of the Mist Defense Squad, the protector of the humans, and my savior. He didn't need to be the most powerful as our rules prevented him from taking all the means to achieve that. However, he could assemble the most powerful team to ensure that no enemy who broke our rules could go unpunished. It was not the type of dominance he had hoped for and would always secretly desire, but it was still dominance with him as the apex Alpha.
It was good to see my old, insufferable, rude, antisocial, and arrogant Zain back.
As I made my way home, I started enumerating the adjustments I'd be making over the next few weeks for when Zain and I left the base to settle together in my house. Thomson had understandably been reluctant to let my man roam free in the city. But as the weeks went by, I no longer had to escort him whenever he left our room, and the security measures surrounding him became increasingly lax. Thomson knew he couldn't keep me forever trapped in the base either. Furthermore, displaying trust towards Zain was an important step in the relationship between him and the Fourth Division.
Although he acted nonchalant about it, my man was impatient to meet his first two potential recruits tonight when the Mist would rise again. The holding cells to receive Riley’s and Julia’s Nightmares were already prepared, including the bed where they would take their human form, assuming they received my mate’s blessing to cross over.
I pulled up into the driveway of my house, a two-story stone cottage with a black iron fence closing off my large backyard. The street was unusually quiet. Then again, the children were in school and their parents at work. Under different circumstances, I would also have been at the office.
I first went around watering my plants before running upstairs to throw a few more clothes into a bag. I then proceeded to shut down the house in preparation for the Mist. I didn't have a fully automated system as those were on the very pricey side. However, with the new crazy salary I was earning at the Fourth division, and considering all meals were provided for free at the cafeteria, I'd be saving enough money to be able to get a major upgrade in the next couple of months.
I was still flabbergasted by the abundance of meat served at work. It was only recently that Thomson had confessed that there was no shortage of meat. The government had simply seized the tragedy of the first Mist to do the major overhaul that had been needed on so many levels. The environmental cost of meat production farms had been addressed by reducing the general population's consumption and upgrading production farms with better systems to convert methane into energy to fuel the farms’ equipment. It also helped to address the issue of people’s excessive meat consumption, bringing it down to healthier levels.
However, the rich naturally still wanted to have their meat. And the producers didn't complain as the new prices allowed them to bring in a healthy profit with a much lower and far more efficient production.
After securing all the windows on the second floor, I was heading back downstairs when the doorbell rang, startling me. I frowned, wondering who that could be. I hurried to the front door and opened it, stunned to find