Well, that was it. The thin veneer of calm the alpha and the matriarchs had been able to maintain was well and truly lost.
“They want men? Why not send some? We have so many, anyway.”
“We never should have sent them through the gate! We’ve always exiled to the human world!”
“We need to shut the gate now! What if they are already here?”
“What about the kids? How are we protecting the kids?”
“Enough!”
The lash of Ophelia’s voice was absolute and unquestionable. You could no more speak against it than walk through a wall. I’d heard the power in Kelly’s voice, but that was nothing by comparison. Everyone was pinned to the spot, unable to move a muscle. Except Finn.
“You sent my dads through the fucking portal to be fucked to death by those monsters, and for what?” He bit off the words, having to force them through his teeth to be heard. “Because Max refused to sign off on Kelly’s ascension? How are we getting them back before we close the portal?”
Gasps went up around the room. Obviously, Finn should not be able to do any of what he was doing. He should be frozen, wide-eyed, like all the other men.
“There was more to it, and you know it!” Kelly snapped back.
“This meeting has been a courtesy, not a necessity.” I could feel the growl in Ophelia’s body all the way down to my toes. “Sanctuary is under martial law, my law. Until such time as peace is guaranteed, I make the decisions here.” Her eyes scoured the gathering of people. “As I said, the miners will be recalled, the equipment that can b
e removed will be brought back, and the portal closed. We will be entering into a new era for Sanctuary, but a necessary one. We will not be sending our men through as some kind of act of appeasement. Apart from the way they are guaranteed to be treated, we do not do that to citizens of our town. But the men who were exiled... They made their choice, between adhering to the principles under which Sanctuary is run, or breaking off on their own. They chose to break off. I’ll not risk the men we do have,” she nodded to the soldiers, standing in a stiff group, “to try and save those who rejected us.”
As soon as the grip Ophelia held on us all was relinquished, Finn spun on his heel and marched from the building, the swinging doors slamming in his wake.
“You’ll need to find a way to manage him. I thought getting him a mate was supposed to help with that?” one of the matriarchs said to Ophelia as an aside. Her eyes flicked to me. “You, you’re his mate, yes? You need to keep him in line if you want to keep him by your side.”
I blinked, then shook my head, the desperate state of the men from the vision playing across my mind. It wasn’t just their pitiful state and the diabolical way they were used, it was the sheer hopelessness of it all. They faced each day knowing no one was coming, that help wasn’t on the way.
“If that’s what it takes to stay here,” I said, “you better boot me through the gate before you close it.”
I took off after Finn, feeling instantly better the farther I got from the enclave and their plans. Fucking hell, I’d thought I’d landed in some kind of women-centric paradise, but it appeared—like every other bloody society—people in power worked hard to maintain that power, even if it meant keeping others down.
I heard footsteps behind me, turning once I was out under the afternoon sun and expecting to see the guys there. Instead, Sylvan grinned, noting my change of expression with frank amusement. “Frustrated with the short-sightedness of your ruling elite?” he said.
“Appalled by what your people are doing to our men.”
His smile faltered at that. He blinked and then dropped his eyes to the ground, his jaw flexing. “Me too. An unfortunate side effect of being a seer is you don’t get to choose what you see of other people’s minds or lives. Instead, I was forced to endure a visceral account of the men’s experiences during captivity since the moment I came into my powers. I drank, fucked, took as many drugs as I could find, but it never dulled. Still doesn’t.” He shook his head. “Well, you want to find that man of yours? I can take you to him.”
“Finn? How?”
“I’m a seer, Julie. It’s what I do.”
We found Finn by the fence of the gate complex, sitting down on the ground, his back against the mesh. “They’ve already changed my access,” he said, flicking a swipe card. He shook his head and then looked up. “How’d you find me?”
“Sylvan.”
“So you’re the seer, huh? Can you ‘see’ a way for me to get beyond the gate?”
Sylvan smiled, his teeth stark against his tanned skin.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
22
Which is how we ended up back at Finn’s place.
“Sorry, it's a bit of a mess. Haven’t really been here much to give it a clean,” he said as we walked in the door. He busied himself opening windows and curtains, then getting everyone drinks.