No one could truly comprehend what could be accomplished in a decade of exploitation.
Ten years.
In my case, it was the difference between a war being won or lost.
The things I’d been forced to do were so shocking that it hurt to think about them.
Electricity burned my neurons.
One more year until adulthood. It was so close. Yet so far away.
Not that it mattered. Adulthood couldn’t change the fact that as a child, I’d been sold by rare species traffickers. It wouldn’t change that I was enslaved to the High Court.
I was nothing more than a tool.
“For the greater good,” Dick loved to say.
He had no remorse.
I had misery.
I convulsed silently as the projection of the night sky swirled on the ceiling above me. It was audacious of the High Court to refer to this primitive island as “Elite.”
Lately, everything felt like a joke of cosmic proportion.
But no one was laughing.
I swallowed roughly as my eyes glossed with tears, and I cursed my fragile physical state for the millionth time.
My weak body had allowed for this complete incarceration. Still, crying, whining, or talking about it with other people was a useless endeavor that would do nothing to alleviate the reality of the situation.
Warren whimpered against my nape.
The shifter was the only person who partially knew what I was going through. I’d wiped his memories a few times in the beast realm, but he’d kept catching me having episodes, and it was too exhausting to silence him.
He’d agreed to not share my secrets on the condition that he stayed by my side for protection.
It was pure blackmail. It almost made me respect him.
Warren whined again as his whiskers tickled against the tears streaking down my cheeks.
Almost was the key word.
“Stop complaining,” I whispered. “You’ll alert the others.”
Warren was insufferably melancholic about the entire ordeal of me being electrocuted against my will at night. I flagellated myself every day for being blackmailed by such a pathetic person.
But I had much bigger problems than a clingy teenage shifter.
My fingers twitched as my cranium throbbed.
“Do not fail us in the showcase, Guardian. If you do, you will be exterminated,” the Angel Consciousness said snootily into my mind.
The throbbing intensified.
Speaking of idiots.
There were layers to my subjugation.
My purpose wasn’t linear, it was circular and convoluted. The various threads wrapped around my neck like a noose.
Each one more dangerous than the last.
More deadly.
About ten years ago, Dick forced me to do the unthinkable and two lives were irrevocably changed. Ironically, I’d been fourteen years old when I’d committed the atrocity. About the same age I masqueraded as now.
At such a tender age, I’d used my abilities and mutilated two people.
Forever.
My only excuse was the High Court had promised me freedom if I did it.
I’d learned that day that even I could play the fool.
Dick had kept me locked away.
Four years later he’d told me I had a new task to complete.
I’d been brought to the shifter realm with three young girls who were backup genetic experiments. They provided the perfect cover.
My task was to infiltrate the family and get close to everyone. All with the aim of forming a relationship and becoming the guardian of one of the people I’d mutilated four years earlier: Aran.
This time, they hadn’t pretended to offer me freedom.
Dick had ordered me to follow his directive.
Or die.
Mortality was the universal motivator of all species.
The High Court was direct with me. They didn’t manipulate me like they did to every other person in the realms.
They were desperate because my initial task had messed with Aran in unexpected ways, and because of what I’d done, I was the only person who could connect with her and join the Angel Consciousness.
Apparently, all angels were assigned a guardian to help them earn their wings and keep them in check after they did so.
Someone strong who could help them.
It was an extremely prestigious position.
They had no choice but to give it to me because no one else could form the mental bond with Aran.
After an angel earned their wings, their guardian could send shock waves of punishment through their mental connection if they acted out of line.
The angel captain with heterochromia had it happen to him after the second competition.
The measure made sense.
As one of the few sentient species with wings and the ability to wield ice, angels were powerful in ways that weren’t easily controllable. They were also highly intelligent. As a result, the first angels had committed horrible atrocities in other realms and were unstoppable.
Angels were strong enough to commit horrors and cunning enough to evade capture.
The High Court had intervened to keep the peace.
The Angel Consciousness and guardian system were ways to keep them in check, and I was the unlucky person assigned to help guide Aran.
Some angels never earned their wings, and from what I could tell, there were no repercussions for the assigned guardian.
Not in our case.
Dick had cheerfully informed me that both of us would be murdered if Aran failed. It was imperative that she earned her wings.
According to him, the fate of all civilized society rested on her earning them.
I highly doubted it.
But it didn’t matter what I thought. I hadn’t been given a choice.
How bad could it be? I’d asked myself at the time.
Indubitably, it had gone way worse than I’d expected.
Aran was the most difficult and infuriating person I’d ever met. How someone so intelligent could act so self-deprecating and depressive was beyond my scope of understanding.
It was like she wanted both of us to die brutally.
At first, I’d been suitably impressed when she’d eaten her mother’s heart in the fae realm. When she’d had darkness in her eyes and blood dripping down her chin, I’d understood what all the fuss was about.
I’d gotten why angels needed guardians to help them do the right things.
Her capacity for violence was inspiring.
She had raw potential in her bones and a physical strength I could never hope to achieve.
My task had seemed doable. Difficult but still possible.
But then we’d gone to the beast realm, and Aran spiraled. Her mind couldn’t wrap itself around the sheer depth of depravity she’d displayed.
A pity.
Meanwhile, the Angel Consciousness argued back and forth in my brain.
They were divided on whether her gruesome murder of her mother was a positive—the woman had been an abusive bully—or a negative, for obvious reasons.
While they’d fought it out, nothing was asked of me.
I missed those days.
Once Aran had been brought to Elite Academy, the Consciousness had started making more demands. The voice had become more frequent and urgent.
Whatever happened in training and battles had convinced some members of the Consciousness that Aran might be worthy of earning her wings. Enough people that the voice had hope.
When she fought against the ungodly, they agreed she was a candidate to earn her wings.
They partially removed the mind enchantment that inhibited the expression of angel genes.
This step had prepared her body so if the Consciousness decided to remove the full blocker, the angel genes would express themselves fully and she’d earn her wings.