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“Do you want to explain yourself, or should I start, Miss Sprite?”
His deep, cocky, arrogant voice irritates me as we both know he knows what happened—and why. But fine, if we are going to play this game.
I resist the urge to glower at my boss, not wanting to get fired, as I lift my chin. “I’ll start, boss. We were told it was a simple monster on the loose on the left side of the city—Yenrtic District. It was suggested that an exiled werewolf had murdered mortals, and they called us to take him in. That was all that we were told, and we went to hunt him as per our job. He might have been part werewolf once, but he wasn’t anymore when we found him. He was a hybrid, twisted and changed into something indescribable, but I’m sure we can go take a visit if you wish to see it.”
“That won’t be necessary, Miss Sprite,” he coldly replies, running his eyes over me once.
I grit my teeth. “It was a difficult mission. We were underprepared for it, and none of the usual tactics for taking down a shifter worked. It went a little wrong from the start, and I do apologize for that.”
“A little wrong,” he slowly repeats my answer.
Here we go.
He stands up from his desk and walks over to his window. “Come with me.”
I reluctantly follow him over, standing at his side as he towers over me. I hate being short at times. “A little wrong is when you make a small mistake that no one notices what you did and it doesn’t attract attention. M.A.D. is known for discreetly dealing with supernaturals who have turned into monsters, for the queen. Destroying two buildings would suggest it went very wrong and quite the opposite of what your job stands for.”
“Boss—”
“And furthermore, my boss is breathing down my neck to fire you. He is questioning why two of my junior associates have somehow managed to destroy two fucking expensive buildings. Explain it to me. Now, Miss Sprite.”
“Technically, the monster destroyed the buildings when it had a tantrum and reacted badly to the enchanted wolfbane,” I quietly answer.
“If you were struggling, you should have sent for help,” he commands. “Not taken it on yourself with a new enforcer.”
“We didn’t have time, or it would have escaped and killed more mortals,” I sharply reply. “Isn’t that the real job? To save lives?”
An awkward silence drifts between us, and I steel my back for his reply. “You’re meant to be instructing your partner on how to responsibly take on monsters. What you did today was teach her that you can take on a hybrid, alone, and somehow survive by the skin of your teeth. When she goes out and repeats your lesson alone, she will be hurt. Even die.”
Guilt presses down on my chest. “But, boss—”
“Yes, Miss Sprite?” he interrupts, challenging me to say anything but I’m sorry with those cold grey eyes of his. When I first met Merrick Night, I thought he was the most beguiling mortal I’d ever met. Then he opened his perfectly shaped lips and made me want to punch him.
I look away first and over the city, the last bits of light dying away over the horizon. “There’s been so many of these hybrid creatures recently, all over Wyvcelm. I have contacts in Junepit and Goldway City who told me as much. Where are they coming from? What caused them to be like that?”
“That is classified, Miss Sprite,” he coolly replies. Basically, it’s well above my pay grade to ask.
“It’s probably not safe for everyone to go out in twos on missions like this anymore,” I counter.
“Your only defense is that you secured the monster without Miss Mist using her voice,” he says with a hint of cool amusement. “That would have been a real fuckup for us all to deal with.”
Fuckup would be an understatement. The sirens’ most deadly power, among many, is their enchanted voice when they sing the old language of the fae. Instantly, she would lure every male in the entire vicinity towards her, monster or not, and they would bow to her alone. Mortal females like me would be left screaming for the dragon goddess to save us, holding our hands over our ears, begging for death. Her voice stretches for at least two to three miles, and only a full-blooded fae can resist it. I’ve only heard it once, and personally, I never want to hear it again. I can still hear it now, like an old echo that draws me to her, a flash of the old power of the sirens who used to rule this world before the fae rose to power.
“Am I fired or can I leave, boss?”
He links his fingers, leaning back in the chair, which creaks. “I’m itching to dock your pay for this. But I won’t. Not this time. You can go.”
“Thank you,” I say sarcastically and turn on my heel.
“Miss Sprite?” I stop mid-step and look back at him. “Don’t make me regret being lenient on you today. You should know better.”
I nod before turning away. “Fucking asshole,” I whisper under my breath. He’s not supernatural, and I know he can’t hear me, and it’s not like I can actually call him that to his face. Then I’d be fired for sure. Still, I’m sure I hear him chuckle under his breath.
I rush down the steps and say goodbye to Wendy before leaving the enforcement building and going to the Royal Bank on the other side of the market. I withdraw my day’s pay, wincing that it’s not nearly as much as I need, but a few hundred coins will sort everything out, and I’ll work a double shift at the end of this week so I can eat for the rest of the week.
After making my way through the market and grabbing some dried meats, I head into the complex where my apartment is, listening to the old tower creak and groan in the wind. My apartment is four hundred and seven out of eight hundred flats in the entire building, and it is owned by the Fae Queen, like everything else. I’m lucky I got a place here, in a decent side of town, and it is everything I’ve worked towards for a very long time. I take the steps two at a time until I get to the hundred level. The corridor is littered with bikes, toys and plants, like every family level.
I knock twice on door one hundred and seven before opening it up with my key and heading inside.
