Free Wild Hunt by Bilinda Sheehan

correctly. She hadn’t actually said anything in words but she’d certainly implied it—what if this wasn’t something she wanted me to share with Jason? Swallowing back my doubts, I said, “She says some of the guards force her to do things, sexual things. Her exact words were, ‘no makes them mean’.”
    The colour drained from Jason’s face and I couldn’t help but feel a small spark of relief ignite in my chest. He clearly wasn’t a part of the abuse or he wouldn’t look so shocked and disgusted.
    “I don’t believe it, they wouldn’t….” He cut off, and I knew that whatever he’d thought of had suddenly caused him to have a change of heart.
    “So what can we do about it? Lily is guilty of the crimes she’s committed, but it’s not up to the guards to meet out justice to her,” I said, chewing on my lip.
    Now I was beginning to feel like a hypocrite. Why did I care what happened to her? She’d killed people—hell, I’d just watched her kill someone else, and yet here I was trying to work out a plan to keep her safe from the very people tasked with keeping the rest of the world safe from her.
    My head was beginning to ache and nothing was really making sense anymore.
    “Leave it with me, I’ll fix this,” Jason said gruffly as he escorted me back to the main doors. Lifting my gun and badge from the collection box, I settled my clothes, a stalling tactic to stop me from having to look up into his face.
    “She really didn’t say anything else to you?” he asked hopefully.
    Shaking my head, I bit down on my tongue. “Nope, I think she was just looking for someone to appeal to,” I said.
    She had said something else to me, she’d spoken about “Him”, whoever he was. Part of me couldn’t help but wonder if she’d known more than she’d been letting on about the case I was working on. It didn’t seem possible that she could know about it, but then where Lily was concerned, I’d come to expect the impossible or at the very least the improbable.
    “The car is waiting for you. Graham called and said he was trying to contact you, that it was important.”
    Nodding, I slipped my cell phone out of my pocket and stared helplessly down at the no signal bar.
    “Amber,” Jason caught my arm and I jumped, his touch sending an uncomfortable jolt of electricity up my arms. Not the kind they spoke of in romance novels or fairy tales, but the kind that told me to be wary; that fear, where Jason was concerned, would be my friend.
    “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he continued on as though the jolt had affected only me. “If I’d known, I would have done something sooner, but she won’t talk to me,” he said, his voice pained.
    It seemed at odds, considering what he was. He was the very thing Shadow Sorcerers were supposed to fear and yet he honestly felt bad for not being able to protect Lily. He’d called her a monster….
    “How can I believe that when I heard you yourself call her a monster?” I asked.
    With a sigh, he pushed his hand back up through his hair, a total Nic move. “She is a monster. I’m not going to deny it, but then I won’t deny that I, too, am a monster….”
    His declaration surprised me and I felt my mouth drop open.
    “Don’t look so surprised; you’ve seen what I am, you’ve seen what I become. I can barely control it—it’s this destructive, all-consuming creature living inside me and I can’t get rid of it, and I’m barely holding on by my fingertips….”
    “You’re not a monster, Jason,” I said, without thinking.
    He hadn’t chosen his life; it had chosen him in the same way mine had chosen me. There wasn’t anything we could do about it but we needed to deal with it as best as possible. In my case, that involved learning as much as I could about what I was, about what I was capable of. For him, it seemed holding on to whatever made him human was vitally important.
    Was that why he’d come back?
    “Nic will forgive you, but he needs time.