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Chapter Forty-Three
“He’s lying,” Shalesaid in a flat voice that all but ached with a wrathful, icy rage. The green eyes he’d pinned on Terrence Ball were licked with frost and promised a slow, painful death.
Despite the fact that Shale had recently been at death’s door himself, an air of menace hung around him. When Ball looked at him, it was with wide, wary eyes.
Shale’s skin, normally a warm, smooth gold, had an odd sallow tinge. His cheekbones were far too prominent, his body burning through calories at an advanced rate as it converted everything into raw power in order to speed up the healing process.
That he was already on his feet was thanks to Fae magic and his own strength.
Brigid had stepped in yet again to aid Shale, enraged to learn that Humans First was stirring once more. She had a history with that group—an ugly one—and took issue with any attack from them against the Fae rather personally.
Thanks to her intervention, Shale was almost completely healed.
She’d accelerated the way his body purged the iron, something that could take weeks in younger Fae, even the strong ones like Shale.
After that, how his body healed depended on him.
He’d only had a small amount of the deadly iron fed into him via the IV tubing, but it had gone straight into his blood, doing what could have been catastrophic damage, compromising every major body system to the point of total failure.
But between Brigid’s healing and his own strength, he was upright and moving on his own already.
He wasn’t at one hundred percent yet, the brutal double assault too much for somebody even as powerful as he was, but he was alive and functional.
He’d lost roughly a fifth of his body weight in the short span of time since his shooting, and subsequent poisoning, everything working to fix the damage and get him back on his feet, able to fight.
Or, in this case, help the Prime interrogate a prisoner.
Raking the human with a disgusted glance, he shook his head and met Niko’s eyes.
“Nothing he’s told us is true—or at least not wholly true.”
Ball’s head jerked up at that and Shale smiled. “I’m part Fae, you stupid shit. Nobody knows how to sidestep the truth like my kind.” He looked back at Niko. “He either wants you pissed off enough to kill him or he’s thinking if he strings you along, he might buy enough time for his people to find him.”
Niko laughed at that, a cold predatory laugh that brought an even colder smile to Shale’s lips.
“I’m kind of hoping it’s the second one, but logically, I’m thinking it’s the first,” Shale said. “I’d love to kill a few more of you pathetic creatures. It won’t be anything to me.”
“Stupid fuck.” Ball curled his lip. “That you’re even thinking is a remarkable feat, you dumb animal.”
“My feelings are hurt, Terrence,” Shale said solemnly. “I’m utterly crushed.”
Ball started in on another insult, but Shale ignored him, turning his eyes to Niko. “Ideas?”
But Niko had stopped looking at him.
He was staring at the door.
It swung in a moment later, revealing Zee.
At the look Niko shared with Zee, Shale moved up behind the human and grabbed the back of his shirt. “Up.”
Ball started to struggle. “Let go of me. You can’t do anything to me—you can’t keep me here. I demand a lawyer. I demand you call the fucking cops.”
“We already have,” Niko said, tossing him a disinterested look. “A report has already been started and gone through the initial review process. But you came onto protected pack lands—Therian lands are sovereign, Ball. You came here, and you came with weapons. You left DNA behind and you had incendiary devices in your vehicles.”
Ball’s jaw clenched.
“By the time my second was done filling in the local U.R.N. officiant, they were all but begging us to handle you and your team.” Boone smiled. “We can make you disappear and nobody but your fellow thugs will care.”
