Page 50 of Filthy Fae

An hour later, I was rethinking saving Zane’s ass.

“I’m not leaving without Zeezee. Take me to my apartment,” Zane demanded, glancing from the van bench seat beside me as we waited in the parking lot of the small-plane airport East of Eureka. The airport was little more than a single hanger and airstrip next to a small parking lot. All of it was surrounded in a barbed-wire fence, but unless that barrier was made from pure iron, it wasn’t keeping the fae out.

The airstrip sat on one of the topmost steps of Eureka, but where there should have been a view of the bay, ocean, and forest, I could see only mist rolling past, swirling over the structures and cars. The private shuttle Lance used was due for a landing any moment, but I couldn’t see anything through the fog bank.

An engine rumbled, and Darrel drove by us on his bike again. Every time I saw Darrel’s silhouette through the blanket of fog, I felt a pulse of relief. Risking my mates’ lives to protect my asshole ex-boyfriend felt all kinds of wrong.

“Hey, Zane,” I said, interrupting the man while he was demanding that we not only release him but also take him somewhere he could shower, change, and have a decent meal. “Show a little gratitude, yeah?” I bared my teeth in his direction. “The moment we stop protecting you, the fae will kill you.”

He straightened his posture and lifted his chin. “I can hold my own.”

Many submissive wolves could hold their own in the right circumstances. It just wasn’t their inclination to fight. Zane wasn’t one of these wolves. I didn’t look down on him for it, but I wasn’t going to let him get himself killed out of hubris, either.

“Sorry, no.” I turned to survey the parking lot, scanning the little bit of it I could see through the blanket of white. “I’m pretty sure you can’t kill the queen’s hunters by making entitled demands at them.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Jane mumbled from the front passenger seat of the van as she continued to read from her phone screen. “I feel myself slowly dying inside every time that man talks.” She hadn’t lifted her attention from her phone the entire time we escorted Zane to the airport, but clearly, she didn’t escape Zane’s agony-inducing arrogance.

Likewise, Lance looked distracted as he held a book of demonology before him in the driver’s seat. He’d been turning the pages every so often, but I was getting the feeling that his attention was on our surroundings.

I sighed and explained to my packmate, “All of us are doing this so you’ll survive today.”

“I don’t deserve any of this,” Zane snapped. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

I turned my gaze on him, letting my wolf forward into my eyes. I had let this bullshit go on long enough. “Didn’t do anything, Zane? You lied to your alpha while your alpha was risking her life to prove your innocence. Do you know what kind of punishment Jacob Knight would have given you for that? Scratch that. Jacob would have had you killed the moment the police let you go without investigating because you drew too much heat, and he wouldn’t have risked a single hair on his head for your sorry ass.”

Damn, that felt good to get off my chest.

“What are you accusing me of?” Zane asked, staring at me with wide eyes.

“Zeezee was at that party. You two were there to sleep with the queen of the fae.”

Zane’s gaze dropped to the bench seat. After two days in jail, he was more disheveled than I’d ever seen him. He usually had his hair gelled to perfection and his clothing impeccably pressed. Right now, he looked wrinkled, scruffy, and a whole lot younger than his twenty-five years.

“I was trying to protect her,” he whispered.

“You were trying to protect her from punishment by me. There was no other reason to keep that a secret. You weren’t trying to protect her life. If you’d told me what was really going on, I could have put all my effort into finding Zeezee when she was still in phone contact with us. Now, she has a demon after her, and no one can find her.”

“A demon?” Zane’s head shook slightly. “What?”

“Zane, tell us anything about the humans who were at the party,” I said. “You knew one of them. She was a nurse at your hospital.”

“I didn’t know any of them,” he said. “A demon?”

“They weren’t humans. They were mages from the Mage Union. Did you see any of them do anything unusual?”

“I was having sex.” Fur sprouted along his arms as his breaths came out in ragged pants. “I was having sex. I wasn’t paying attention. I was having sex.”

“Deep breaths, Zane. Calm down.” Reaching forward, I grabbed Zane’s shoulders and let my wolf fully into my eyes. “Calm down.” For a few seconds, I breathed with the man, inhaling and exhaling. When his hair had receded into his skin, I let him drop my gaze.

“When did you and Zeezee separate?”

He closed his eyes. “I told you how I shifted. Well… My wolf took over, and I panicked. Zeezee got in front of me, but I charged for the door, smashed through it, and ran away.” He drew a shaky breath.

I could practically feel the shame rolling off him. This was likely the other reason that he didn’t tell me what happened. In Zane’s eyes, he had abandoned his mate during a massacre.

“Zane,” I said, leaning down to catch his gaze. “Your wolf did the right thing by running. Zee’s the dominant wolf, it was her job to protect you, and your job to flee so she wouldn’t have to keep protecting you. You made all the right choices up until you lied to your alpha.”

He swallowed, his eyes still downcast.