Page 11 of Dante
“Do you know if they’re going out again?” I asked. I didn’t know if Felix would have any idea about the hellhounds’ assignments, but he was an enforcer as well, and maybe he would have looked at a schedule board or something. I honestly had no clue how any of that aspect of the council worked.
“They will. We’re all rotating in and out. My team is sort of stuck here right now. Benjamin has a whole lot going on with his mate and their babies. I guess his mate…no.” Felix scowled. “They call them Ones? Is that what warlocks call them?” I nodded. “Okay. Well, his just gave birth not too long ago. And Briggs just claimed his mate recently, and he’s pregnant, and I guess he’s really sick.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I’m friends with Todd. I’m so happy for him.” And I truly was. He deserved to have his happiness. He’d been through so much, and he’d been sold at such a young age. I was only a few years older than he was, but I’d been older when I’d been taken.
“You are?” Felix asked. “I guess I didn’t realize that.”
I shrugged. “We used to live together. After we were both rescued. He was already here when I arrived, and he was a bit quiet. I was as well, I guess.”
Felix and I fell into a bit of silence before he spoke again. “Anyway. Yeah, the teams are sticking closer to the council at themoment. The teams that have a hellhound for a lead are really stuck because they’re left either without a magic user or with one of us fae, and we don’t know the realm well enough to get our teams where we need to go.”
“You’ll learn,” I said. “How else will you if you don’t go around and visit all of the places?”
Felix shrugged. “I’m all for learning. We just don’t ever really get the chance.” Felix looked at me with wide eyes. “I’m not complaining. I love my job, and it’s already brought more opportunities than I would have had in my village.”
“What was that like?” I asked. “Your village.”
Felix looked off in the distance before he sighed. “It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t anything like this. Things were so much simpler.” Felix offered me a smile that looked nervous. “We don’t have television. I never missed it because I never had it. But that’s a huge difference.”
“You had power though, right?”
“Yes, but not like here.” Felix scowled. “Well, maybe like here. The power on Treasure Ridge is all because of magic. It was the same in our village. We had lamps, but they didn’t look like the lights here. And there were a lot of villages that were even more basic, and they would use candles. We had no real reason for a lot of the things that are fairly common here in this realm.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I mean, I get it—I grew up with a television and video games and cars. I don’t know if I could go back to being without them.”
Felix tilted his head. “Even if your mate ended up being fae and he wanted to go back to his village and not stay here?”
That question threw me a bit. I knew my mate wasn’t fae though, and I knew Dante would never want to go back to the demon realm. He couldn’t because he’d been banished.
“I don’t think my mate is going to be fae,” I told him. “But if he was, I would have to seriously consider leaving all of this tomove to his realm. I mean, is that even allowed? Do you have shifters in the fae realm?”
Felix shrugged. “I don’t know. There weren’t any in my village or in the neighboring villages when I left that I know of. It was just a question.” Felix’s smile dimmed a bit, and I quickly learned why when a few of the other fae could be heard approaching.
“I can go,” I murmured. “I had a lot of fun spending time with you.”
“Me too,” Felix said, but he wouldn’t look at me. That confused me a bit, but when someone plopped down beside me, I looked over and saw Lukan. He gave me a huge grin, which I returned.
“Hi, Lukan,” I said quietly. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Lukan’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Why?” he asked as he picked up a piece of chicken and took a bite.
“I need to go, and now Felix won’t be left alone.”
“Aww,” Evan said as he fell down beside Felix. I didn’t quite understand their friendship dynamic, but as far as I could tell, they were all friends.
“Are you all right, Felix?”
“Yeah. Thanks for having a picnic with me.”
I nodded. I didn’t mind spending time with Felix. We could all use more friends. I wasn’t so sure about Lukan just yet. Or Evan, but he seemed all right. I’d met Evan before, since he was Beau’s older brother, but I’d not spent a lot of time with any of the fae enforcers. They usually kept to themselves for the most part.
I stood and waved before I walked in the direction that the hellhound pack had gone. It was sort of the direction I lived. Not quite, but it got me away from the picnic that Felix and I were having that had been interrupted. Maybe I should have stayed? I glanced back toward the spot where we’d been sittingand found Felix covering his face while the other two laughed. What was that about? They weren’t teasing him, were they? Was it embarrassing that we’d become friends? Was that unusual?
The budding friendship I’d thought we had suddenly felt unfair. I didn’t want my new friend to be picked on by his fellow fae enforcers because he’d hung out with me a few times. I sighed. Todd was mated and super busy with his own enforcer. Sean…he was Alpha Maynard’s youngest, and although he was nice, he had his own friend group that I could never dream of fitting into. Tate was nice, but he was incredibly quiet and left as soon as his shift ended. We never saw him outside of work.
That left…not a whole lot, really. There were a few here on the mountain that had, like me, been rescued, but several of them had gone on to find their own mates. I shook my head now that it became quite clear. A lot of those who were rescued by the council were finding their mates in enforcers. Those who were protectors were being paired with those who felt the need or desire to be protected. Wasn’t that ironic.
My house came into view, and if I had been thinking clearly, I would have noticed the massive beast standing at the corner of it. Instead, I almost walked directly into the hellhound that was, for whatever reason, supposed to be mine.
