Page 129 of Wings of Destruction

They do the same with me, but worse, because I’m watched more closely. Morgan’s job is to blend in, and she’s failed.

How in the world am I going to pull this off? They’ll know.

“A tool,” she repeats in an undertone. “What if I don’t want to be used?”

“It doesn’t matter what you want.”

Underneath the burned sugar and roast meat, underneath the table polish and the old beeswax, there’s a scent uniquely Morgan. I can’t put my finger on it.

Her lip trembles. “It never has. Not once.”

The defeat in her tone wrenches me. “I won’t ask what you want.”

I shift slightly, and I grind my teeth.

“Come on, Kieran, put her in her place,” someone jeers.

I push down on her chest and absorb the erratic heartbeat, tuning out the others. They’re all Evie’s friends. My friends, if one wants to get technical with the terms, although I’d never count one of them as a confidant.

Morgan senses my distraction and bucks to dislodge me. I grind my knees to the floor on either side of her legs.

“In this place, in this life, what you want doesn’t matter. It’s what is good for the rest of the world, for the good of many.”

She sneers. “What do you know about it?”

“I know there are certain unsavory things you have to swallow if you want to keep the peace.”

It’s the wrong thing for me to say and I realize it the second the last syllable leaves my tongue. Her eyes spit venom at me and she bares her teeth, a flash of white, before she drives her legs up. From this angle, there’s no way for her to make contact. I have her pinned.

“Is that what your father is doing? Keeping the peace?”

She’s burning up with the need for violence, thirsty for it, and rather than stoking my own frustrations, this only strengthens my resolve.

My mind races, thinking of a way to keep her, to save her. For the rebellion.

For me.

“Is the slaughter of innocents all a part of the great General’s plan for peace?” Morgan writhes, shaking her head from side to side.

I spread my fingers across her chest like a collar. “You mean King Lochlain, don’t you, Fury?”

It’s different now that I know how she feels about our world and our rulers. And odd to see her lift her nose in the air, given our positions. Somehow she still manages to look down it, at me, at everything.

Fury is an appropriate name for her, so much better than Princess. Although she’s got a high and mighty streak she isn’t even aware of.

There’s a legend among the elders who spread their tales like a disease through whispers. The old stories survive only around campfires or against a child’s ear in the dark and multiply with every new victim.

The Furies were a group of three women with powers like thunderbirds who meted out justice to those deserving. They were swift and lethal and merciful depending on who is telling the tale and whether or not you believe it.

If a Fury marked you, there was no escaping your fate. You’d reap what you sowed at their hands. If only the stories were true because it would save me a whole lot of trouble.

Morgan fits the mark and the mantle. If those creatures weren’t pure legend, she’d be one of the trio, and probably leading the pack.

She skids her heels across the floor, sullen, her back hunched. “Let go of me.”

“Not until I know you’ll stop fighting me.”

“I’ll never stop fighting. I will stand against you and people like you until my last breath.”