I wanted to faint. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck. They saw everything. They saw all our conversations, all our plans, every time we fucked.
“You bastard!” I shouted, instinct urging me to punch the shadow but once I did, it flickered and recomposed in front of me. “You are an absolute creep. A miserable, lying piece of trash!” I released a few more curses and the shadow took them all in without protest.
I didn’t know what I was thinking…of course they would know something was up. Galenor and I had been locked in that room for the past three days. But it was one thing to cause rumours and another to watch our every move. To study us.
“Captain Harrow, you have a choice to make,” it finally spoke after I took a break from swearing. “We realise part of the failure of this assignment lies on our shoulders for placing a single woman in a confined space with a fae male. We were advised your personality and work ethic would strive over any sexual allures that would be put on you and we trusted the information we received. However, judging by your reaction in the first week, we understood the way this trial would go, and we offered you the freedom to make your own choices.”
“Yeah? Was watching us fuck entertaining for you? Did you jerk off at the sight of us? Did my moans make you horny, you sick bastard?” I spurted my rage at the human shape.
“Captain, I am here to offer you a way out of this, so I suggest you listen.” He started to sound annoyed and part of me took great pleasure in that. At least I was getting on his nerves.
“I’m listening,” I snapped, widening my eyes in anger.
“Galenor has reached a point of no return in our meetings. The information he has offered proved inaccurate and we have reached the end of his use.” With a deep breath, I allowed myself to finally relax. They were going to release him. Finally.
“I agree,” I instantly replied. “Galenor is ready to be released.”
“You, however, have broken various codes. In behaviour, civility, rank…”
“So I am to be demoted?” Three weeks ago, the possibility of demotion would have ended my world, but now, it sounded exciting. I could be free of this place. Galenor and I could make our dreams a reality. I saw myself living on a farm growing tomatoes, I saw my family finally having a home. I saw us happy.
“We reached the conclusion that it would be a shame to lose a member of your quality, so we decided to offer you another chance.”
“And what do I need to do?” I asked with awareness.
“We are willing to offer you a final instruction, which, upon completion, will set a positive mark on your record and would allow the career progression you are seeking.”
“And what is the instruction?” I snapped at the figure, the distrust for this male growing by the second.
“You must terminate the subject.”
If I don’t do it, they will.
I kept repeating this exact phrase, over and over, for hours on end as I prepared myself for Galenor’s return.
If I don’t do it, they will.
After listening to the tempest of rage and insults coming out of my mouth at the news, PDD had offered me the choice. Galenor’s life could be ended in peace, by someone who loves and cares for him until the very end, or he could be sentenced to a public execution.
It was all I needed to hear before accepting. I would not let him suffer alone, caged like a beast and trialled in public, I would not let him be stoned or injured by the passing crowd and especially, I would not let his beautiful frame be destroyed by fire.
A public execution had shaped my fate and brought me to where I was today. And I would not, for the life of me, do that to the man I loved.
After the disappearance of the shadow figure, I cried, trashed the place and when there was no energy left in me, I was left with nothing other than to accept my new instruction and make the necessary arrangements.
Only a few minutes till midnight. Until Galenor would be returned to me. Until I had to pierce a knife through his heart.
PDD did not make any requests, leaving me to my own devices as long as the instruction was completed within thirty minutes from the subject’s arrival. They didn’t trust me to spend more time with him, probably fearing that I would be too weak to fulfil my duties.
But they thought wrong. I was exactly what they raised me to be. A soldier through and through. And I would fight till the very end.
I settled my nerves as the sliding of the door rushed my senses into action, hurrying my step towards the kitchen at the exact moment a pair of hands pushed Galenor into the room, forcing him inside and making him fall on the ground, his body unable to hold its own weight.
He was wrapped in iron chains. Delivered to me like a present. One that I was supposed to slice through.
“Galenor,” I rushed to him, my arms instinctively wrapping around his body to bring him closer to me.
“Ellyana,” he murmured, his voice strained with pain and exhaustion. I did not want to know how his day had been, I did not have the strength. I could only focus on one thing and one thing only.
