They gave me a fucking faerie. This cannot be happening. Not to me. Not now.
I worked my ass off day in and day out. I excelled at everything because they gave me no other choice. There was no other choice for someone like me.
An outsider to my own race. A stranger in the Human Realm. An immigrant.
But to do this to me? Now? When I was on the cusp of reaping the rewards for eighteen years of hard work. It’s got to be a joke.
I knocked on the general’s office door again, even though I knew what I was putting myself through. How he never wanted to be disturbed during his meditation hours. Though we all knew by now that the old man was probably snoring in front of the TV after inhaling junk food. Ever since his wife decided he needed to get on a healthier lifestyle after that heart attack, General Milosh implemented these ‘meditation hours’ as he liked to call them and none of us had the right to disturb him.
He even gave specific instructions, we could only do it in case of fire, death, or war.
None of these were happening to me. Yet.
But I knocked again, and again and again, determined to wait until he finished his snoring session, or he got so sick of me that he moved his fat ass and opened the fucking door.
Luckily, it was the latter.
“Who died?” General Milosh scanned me through those bushy eyebrows that mixed with his lashes. Their thickness, along with the darkness of his eyes made him look invincible. Unstoppable. Even for his old age. Everything that I wasn’t. That I wouldn’t be for a long time.
“Sir,” I jumped into action, knowing I had about five seconds before he lost his patience. And he was known for the aftermath of that action.
“Harrow,” he furrowed those brows deeper at me. “Who died?”
“Sir, I need to talk to you. There has to be a mistake, I can’t possibly—”
The smack against my cheek came with unexpected force, instantly silencing me. I hadn’t received a strike like that in years. My jaw forgot how to properly lock and distribute the pressure, making my lips get the better part of the hit.
I sucked at my bottom lip, the tang of blood all too familiar. Reminding me where I was. Whom I was speaking to. Who I had the nerve to disturb. Still, I did not back down. I did not shy away from the pain. I had gotten to live with it most of my life and it slowly, forcefully, became a friend rather than a thing of nightmares. If there was pain, it meant that I was still alive. If I was still alive, I could fight. Escape. Win.
“Sir,” I insisted with newfound commitment.
“For fuck’s sake, Harrow,” Milosh sighed, probably guessing that he would sooner or later have to deal with me.
Stepping back, the tall mountain of a man allowed enough room for me to squeeze past him and enter his den. The general’s office we all dreamt of owning one day. The invincibility such a position offered in the Realm, for generations to come. One I needed to earn for myself. For my family.
Not wasting a second, I started speaking, sharing the facts and carefully avoiding my feelings. He already knew the humiliation, there was no point in wasting breath to tell him facts he already guessed.
“Sir, there must be someone else. Something else. Anything else, but not a faerie. I can wait another season, I can help support the unit, I can…”
I stopped. He had already lost interest.
“Harrow,” he sighed. That sigh I knew all too well. That sigh that brought a rain of insults whenever he spoke to me like that.
“Sir,” I heard myself saying again, not knowing why.
“How long have you been a Captain for?” he asked to my surprise. He was the one who ranked me, after all.
“Three years, sir.”
“How many years have your colleagues been captains?” Again, a question he already knew the answer to. I was the youngest captain to complete the training and gain merit to a major appointment trial. I knew this and he knew it too, so what was the point in asking? Still, I had no choice but to answer a direct question from my superior.
“Longer than me, sir.”
“Did Wood, Pecknam or Castro get their appointment trials during these minutes you have wasted and I’m somehow not aware of it?”
“No, sir.” The way he looked at me, the evident disgust in his eyes, his body language, even the tilt of his lip, made me want to throw up. I should have been used to it by now. After all, I had been treated like this all my life. But somehow, my brain picked this exact moment to think about watering my eyes. Just because I needed even more embarrassment. Knowing what was coming, I braced myself for the blow. Pressing my lips together, I squeezed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and waited for the insults that would be coming. For the hate I had to swallow every day. Every time I walked the corridors.
“Do you think I want to have a Windling cunt in my unit, Harrow? Do you honestly think, if the choice were up to me, that I would put you in front of one of my boys? Young men I trained from childhood, deserving to be here?”
