Table of Contents

heartsways - The Fourteenth Way: Punishment

LOST GIRL - BO/LAUREN

“Ways To Tell You I’m Sorry” series

The Fourteenth Way: Punishment

heartsways

Title: Ways To Tell You I’m Sorry - The Fourteenth Way: Punishment

Author: heartsways

Rating: NC–17

Fandom: Lost Girl

Pairing: Bo/Lauren

Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

Summary: Lauren is punished by The Ash and has only herself to rely upon.

Author’s Note: Thanks for the awesome beta and advice. Truly appreciated. This is not a pretty chapter, I’m afraid. Fair warning for angst and unhappiness.

The Fourteenth Way: Punishment

heartsways

She was cold. She knew she was cold because her brain screamed it into her senses. Because when she reached out, her hand touched the icy plains of a stone floor and she shivered and gasped, pulling it back to where it had been pressed against her stomach. The encroaching darkness had overtaken her efforts to stave it off and she was enveloped in it, smothered by the pitch that had taken away her light and covered her in a sweat of fear, beads forming on her brow and upper lip despite the shiver that crawled down her spine.

How long had she been here? Hours? Days? Longer? She couldn’t remember. And in not remembering, she only had more questions. Memories were indistinct, coming to her in fragmented pieces that she was unable to fit together into coherency. Like the brittle leaves of Fall, floating down around her to drift into a homogenous heap that was muddled and without true shape or form.

The Ash.

His face swam before her blind eyes, the look of resignation he’d given her before…this. Before nothing. Before the dark had overwhelmed her and blotted out pain.

Pain.

She clutched at her stomach again, fingers exploring the span of her torso, reminding her fevered brain that she was still corporeal. But the cold numbed her usually deft touch and she couldn’t identify where the pain began or ended, only that it was there. Everywhere. Here.

Her eyes were open – she brought her fingers up to her face and felt the flutter of eyelashes against her fingertips. But she was sightless in the absence of light, motionless in the blanketed still of the all–consuming night that had descended over her. She could recollect nothing after The Ash had meted out his sentence; nothing other than the Shaman entering his study, reciting the invocation of Eljudnir and a creeping cold that had chilled the very heart of her. After that? Despair: the onset of a numbing, visceral pain that had bitten at her with glacial teeth and a touch that turned every warmth to freezing tundra.

Trying to move her arms, Lauren flailed in the darkness, grasping at shadows that flitted past her fingers, taunting her with their insufficient forms, quickly engulfed by the pitch around her. Eljudnir came with the cold of winter and banished the light of summertime into a world of night. She couldn’t remember where she’d read that; couldn’t quite recall anything but the Shaman’s sonorous voice speaking the guttural, strange language of Old Norse.

“There are at least a dozen types of Fae associated with anxiety, despair, desperation, that kind of thing…”

And she knew them all by reputation, if not experience. She knew their place in Fae history, reaching back into the aeons that had existed long before humanity. The millenia of mythical creations that humanity preferred to ignore. How arrogant they were, she thought, to imagine that the world was created for them, when they were merely following in the footsteps of the Fae on paths that had been forged by terrifyingly beautiful creatures. How naive humans were, too, to think that they would be protected from them by rescinding reality into folkore and legends that kept children safe at night and monsters far from the door.

But you know we exist.

Her arm fell limply to her side and she stared ahead, holding her breath, listening intently. Sometimes the monsters crept inside. Sometimes they watched children as they slept and feasted on their dreams, replacing them with untold nightmares. Under Fae could never show their true faces – they infiltrated the human mind and gorged on the rich offerings they found there. Imagination and emotion, the wayward wanderings of the human self was their banquet and they lived only to lay waste to the mind and destroy what humans held most dear.

And you turned your back on that, didn’t you?

Again, Lauren caught her breath, staring into the darkness and straining to hear the voice, no more than a whisper, little more than a fleeting thought. Eljudnir. Hel’s hall. The Mist World created before time and the threshold to an eternity of suffering. It was the boundary of creation and damnation; a nowhere–land that hovered between life and death. A place where lost spirits surrendered to the failures of their lives and left behind all nobility and honor.

Now it was her prison.

* * * * *

Dyson shifted a little under the gimlet gaze of The Ash and looked away, down at the floor. He’d got them this far, but now he was uncertain of how to proceed. His relationship with The Ash had been frosty of late, to say the least. Ever since The Ash had wanted to hand him over to the Dark Fae, Dyson had found that his desire to prove his fealty was lackluster and filled with the kind of resentment that only he could harbor. It sat low in his gut, roiling with uncertainty and misplaced loyalties. He’d believed in the Light; he’d sworn to work for them and had carried out his oath time and again.

That promise wasn’t a two–way street, apparently. The Ash would have given him up without a fight, no matter what he had promised regarding ’due course’ and representation. Dyson understood little about the machinations and intricacies of The Ash’s plans, but he’d understood that having blind faith in them offered him precious little protection against the Dark. So as he he’d entered The Ash’s home, Trick by his side, there had been an irritable swiftness to his pace that had Trick literally trotting to keep up with him.

“To what do I owe the honor of a visit from The Blood King?” The Ash intoned, gaze sweeping from Dyson to Trick, lingering with an amused smirk on the bartender’s grave expression.

Trick bristled, but never took his eyes from the Fae Elder. He knew that The Ash called him that to goad him, reminding him of things past and put aside, but never forgotten. Their histories had been long and lurid, pitted with conflicts and decisions that had caused heartbreak and guilt. But Trick had walked away from his power, fearing that it would consume him and make him more despot than deity. The hardest choices had always been the ones that affected those under his care and protection; he had, over the course of a life longer than most of them could comprehend, come to realize that having the ability to make those choices wasn’t what he might choose for himself. So he had turned his back on his true nature and cast off his title, retreating from the political world of the Fae and creating the persona who tended bar and offered sage advice to its patrons.

The Ash had not.

The Light Fae, under The Ash, adhered to rules and policies that their leader deemed ’safe’. And throughout the years, the safety of the Fae and their disguise, hiding them from the human world, had become paramount. Those who failed to follow protocol were dealt with, by any means. Trick had seen the harmony he’d created become fractured, allegiances creating a divisive society that threatened the peace that had slowly begun to appear after centuries of bloodshed and feudal battle.

Trick wasn’t afraid of The Ash. He wasn’t afraid of much. He’d lived too long and seen too much to allow fear to threaten his own sense of wellbeing. But he remembered the expression on Bo’s face, the frustration she’d exhibited at being forbidden to accompany them and the threat sitting high on her cheeks in a crimson flush of uncontrolled passion. She loved Lauren, that was evident. And she had sworn to him in a low voice that if anything happened to the doctor, then she would unleash almighty hell on The Ash. Looking up at him now, Trick realized that he wasn’t afraid of The Ash at all. He was afraid for him.

Ignoring the Fae Elder’s barb, Trick stepped forwards and fixed The Ash with a firm stare.

“You have Lauren.”

The Ash’s gaze flickered at the sound of her name, but he remained impassive. “And?”

Trick smiled, but it failed to reach his gaze and sat stony and cold on his lips. “Don’t play games with me. I came here to get her and offer her sanctuary.”

“Sanctuary is a privilege of the Fae,” The Ash said, his eyebrows rising imperceptibly. “Lauren is a human. My human, as a matter of fact. I own her and she’s mine to do with what I please.”

“If you kill her, it won’t go over well in the community,” Trick said slowly, using the only bargaining chip he had without revealing Bo’s true nature and purpose. “She’s well respected among the Fae. And I know that you value her work.”

“Ah.” The Ash put his arms behind his back, clasping them together and straightening slightly, drawing himself up to his full height and towering over Trick. “The work that she handed over to the Dark Fae for a worthless piece of information, you mean? I won’t be held to ransom by meaningless threats. Especially not over a human.” He chose his words carefully, emphasizing each one in an attempt to reassert his power. But Trick noticed the careworn expression that flitted briefly over the Fae Elder’s features at the mention of Lauren, how he seemed to wrestle with an emotion he couldn’t name and didn’t want to.

“Her intentions were pure,” Trick folded his arms over his chest and stood his ground. “Don’t punish her for your own frailties.” He could see that he’d hit a nerve, and a muscle ticked high up on The Ash’s cheek as the Fae Elder’s jaw firmed in acknowledgement and barely disguised irritation. Trick smiled again, this time, a genuine smirk of victory.

“You have no power here, old man,” The Ash took a step forward and gazed down at Trick imperiously. Behind the bartender, Dyson shifted, instinctively protective and ready to defend The Blood King, if necessary. The Ash looked up at him, surprised.

“And you, Dyson,” he directed his ire towards the Fae he’d considered one of his most dedicated cohorts. “What do you care about Lauren’s welfare? She’s nothing to you.”

Dyson’s face darkened and he shook his head briefly. “It’s not her I care about,” he growled tersely. When Kenzi had called him, he’d expressed grave misgivings about this mission of madness. But by the time he’d arrived at the bar, Bo’s demeanor had shocked him. She was desperate, becoming unraveled and frantic. And, despite his indifference towards Lauren and his ingrained distrust of her involvement with The Ash, never mind her motives when it came to being with Bo, he’d seen something real in the Succubus’ dark eyes. Something undiminished by all the warnings he’d offered and the disappointments Lauren had delivered. Although Trick had explained what had happened in clear, urgent detail, it had been Bo’s distress that prompted him to be here right now.

Sticking it to The Ash was merely a welcome by–product of those actions, he thought grimly, with a tiny smile tugging the corner of his mouth. But it soon disappeared when he remembered how he had literally had to restrain Bo to stop her accompanying them – how she had railed against them both and threatened to rain down her own personal Armageddon on The Ash if he hurt so much as a hair on Lauren’s head. It had taken some persuasion on Trick’s behalf and a lot of strength on Dyson’s to convince Bo that caution was the better part of valor in this instance.

Looking at The Ash right now, Dyson’s mouth tightened. He wasn’t so sure caution would be enough for Bo when – and if – they returned to the bar with Lauren.

The Ash’s mouth tightened in recognition of all that was being said, and all that was omitted. Evasion was the way they communicated – all of them. The truth lay in repudiation and political preclusion. It was how he’d held on to his power all these years; how he intended to keep it, too.

“You can’t help her,” he told Trick, turning his black gaze onto the diminutive figure below him. “Her fate is in her own hands. Her own will to survive. I gave her the luxury of choice. Her reward, if you like, for what she did.”

Trick’s eyes widened and he lifted his chin, staring up at the Fae Elder with a heightened gaze of anticipatory alarm. “What have you done?” he asked.

* * * * *

A faint buzzing in her ears filled her head with confusion. The far–off whispers of lost souls crept down her spine with a torpid touch. Lauren hugged her hands to her chest, seeking body heat and comfort in the contact that had offered that very thing to so many. But, shivering, she felt nothing. No succor, no solace. Only the chatter of voices in the far–off corners of obscurity and the dank recesses of her mind that she’d tried so hard to escape.

There is no escape. Not from yourself.

“Who are you?” she cried out, her voice horribly loud and pained. It hurt her chest to speak, throat burning with the effort.

I’m you. I’m nothing.

Was it one voice, or many? Did it belong to the ether, or was it from inside her own head? Desperately, Lauren scrabbled at the floor beneath her body and tried to stand, but her legs were weak and her spirit beset by doubt. That alone was enough to make her fall. Doubt had never entered her life before; even when she’d given up everything she’d ever known – her tangible reality – she hadn’t doubted herself. But second guesses were always the ones that cut the deepest. Barely scraping the surface of her fears had been painful enough, but now she was brandishing a scalpel over her sense of self, plunging the blade in deeper and bleeding out around its sharp edges.

No.

Lauren clenched her teeth together and moved with difficulty, shoving herself backwards until she hit a solid wall. Slumping against it, she felt the chilled expanse on her back, searing through her body with an unrelenting onslaught of bitterness. This was her punishment for betraying The Ash; the only way to atone for her humanity was to lose it. He was the life–giver, his roots found above the emptiness of death, his limbs spread across the only world she’d known for much of her adult life. And now he had condemned her to this…this nothingness. Not even an existence anymore. He had returned her will and taken away everything else and now all that remained was her abject humanity, trapped between the walls of conviction and confusion.

She’d always been so strong – always had to be. It was the only way that she could navigate the perilous track of her life, isolating herself from the weaknesses that were always there at the back of her mind, ever–present and hard with indifference. But now they swarmed around her, scraping at her with sharpened talons and whispering lies in her ears. Courage was easy in the light. In the dark, bravery lay only in the cold facts that offered little protection from the fears that were unseen and unknown. Lauren felt alienated by them, set apart from the experience that other humans nurtured every day, stumbling through their lives without direction and form.

You chose that life. You isolated yourself. You only have yourself to blame for this.

“That’s not true!” she shouted. Blame was a shared burden, but her aching shoulders and hunched back suggested otherwise. She had blamed herself for losing her sister, for not being talented enough or good enough to save her. For giving up everything without consideration. For being alone and lonely. She had filled the aching maw of separation with a stoicism that had always been her touchstone, and it had given her some semblance of life, at least.

But you’re lost now.

Yes, she was. Utterly lost, spiraling down throughout her years of solitude without a foothold to break her fall and give her something…anything to cling onto. And around her, memories and people slipped by, blurred and indistinct as she was unable – forbidden – to connect to them and engender a realization of her place in the world. It was beautifully ironic, that only by engaging in feelings was she able to understand just how devastating they could really be. Lauren had always held them at arm’s length and dissected them until they were no longer dangerous, but now she too was no more than a sum of her parts, fatally splintered and steeped in the cold dread of acceptance.

You don’t have to feel. You only need to let go. Let it all go.

She started, lurching to one side as the whisper in her ear was loud and dissonant. It hissed with the seduction of release, the promise of relinquished pain. It was the temptation she’d never permitted herself to consider and the conscience that urged her to repent. She had removed herself from the world once before and closed her heart to the possibilities it craved. She had tried so hard to silence those possibilities, fought against them as though they were the very heart of darkness itself. And even now, in this place that offered her the peace of obliteration and the silence of nothingness, her heart still resounded in her chest and brought a sighing name to her lips. It slid from them covetously, drowning her in a sudden rush of emotion that quieted the insinuations in her ears for a fleeting moment.

Hope thrust a shard of sunlight into her chest and she pushed herself back up against the wall.

Bo.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Bo?” Lauren called out, straining towards the Succubus’ voice. But all that answered was the sound of her own cry, a taunting echo that resonated in the emptiness that rushed in to quiet her. And with it, the icy tendrils of fear, of failure, of love and loss. They swirled like a snowstorm around her head and plucked at her senses until she was disoriented at feeling so much, so quickly. Swaying, she clutched at herself again, curling her fingers into a fist and clenching it so tightly that she could feel her blunt nails digging into her palm. Her will was her own. And so was her heart, its tremulous pace keeping time in this endless void where time no longer existed. It was her only link to reality; the connection she had made and clung to in desperation and desire. But it was hers, and hers alone to want. Her will to sustain it and keep it alive.

Poor Lauren.

The voice came at her again, not like before. This time it was insistent, low with the thickness of mocking laughter and the cruelty of the facts that she had always relied upon to give her strength.

She will hurt you in the end. They always do. There’s a darkness inside her that not even you can cure.

“You’re wrong,” Lauren said, panic rising in her tone. There it was; the one emotion she’d resisted until now. It clawed its way up from her gut and lodged in her throat. If she were to give voice to it, it would overwhelm her completely. The fear of vulnerability and allowing herself to love someone terrified her. Because if she were to give herself to someone so entirely, then how could she ever mend what was broken?

You’re already broken. Can’t you feel the pain of it, Lauren. Don’t you already know that you’re beyond saving?

“No…” She shook her head, but the frost was hardening around her heart, chilling her blood and making her reactions sluggish and thoughts encumbered. Her will, always her greatest strength, was sliding from her as surely as the sun slipped behind the horizon, allowing night to take its place. With it came hurt and the fear that she’d resisted for so long. But now her arms were wrapped around her body as a paroxysm of agony seared into her stomach. Bending over at the waist, she cried out, biting at her lower lip and squeezing her eyes tight shut in an effort to breathe through it.

Hurts, doesn’t it? And you’ve kept it inside for so long, Lauren. Don’t you want to be rid of it?

She did. Eljudnir was the realm of those who chose to die; the final barrier where lost souls disappeared into an eternity of wandering the netherworlds. She remembered reading about Fallandaforad – the fall to peril. And hadn’t she been doing that ever since she’d met Bo anyway? Crossing the threshold seemed only a matter of course now. She had betrayed the one who had given her a new life and failed the one who had given her a new love. There was nothing left now, only the dark and the pain…oh, the pain. Doubled over, Lauren let out a whimper and pressed her hands against her stomach again as though it could ease the convulsive pain there, stabbing at her senses. Stabbing at her conscience. It was as though the guilt she carried within was tearing its way out of her, ripping her apart from the inside out, laced with despair and regret.

The fall to peril. Falling in love. It was one and the same now.

Yes. You knew that. And you let it happen anyway because you wanted this all along. An end to pain. An end to grief. No more waiting, Lauren.

She was fading. Even in the pitch black, she knew that her will was weakening; her resolve to stay alive subsiding only to be overwhelmed by the pain that was, it seemed, everywhere. It raged through her veins, replacing warmth with cold; hope with despair. And the Mist World gaped before her, opening up to enfold her in its black emptiness. Perhaps this was always meant to be; perhaps this was always destined to be her fate. Not one that she created for herself, but one that was a preordained consequence of her emotional isolation from the world. And from Bo.

Bo.

Again, the name brought a flare of hope to her chest, but the heavy weight of years of hurt smothered it and the flame went out as briefly as it had appeared.

She can’t save you. You’re not like her. You’re not like them. You never will be. How can she ever love you?

Lauren lifted her head and looked into the expanse of darkness around her, wildy searching for some sort of recompense, a reason to believe, a reason to stay.

She was met only with the heavy air that whispered around her, trailing lies across her shoulders and sighing the seduction of oblivion into her brain. Lauren had always sworn to herself that she would bend for the Fae, but that they would never break her. Life had already done that in so many ways, anyway. When she had become a ward of The Ash, she had stiffened her resolve and remained aloof, stoic, untouchable.

But love had torn away any semblance of that and had led her here, to the place where capitulation drained will. If she’d believed herself worthy; if she’d considered that Bo might return what she had given so freely – so foolishly – then she might have had enough faith to get to her feet. Her fall to peril was a fall from grace – from the delicacy and intricacy of her relationship with The Ash; from his tutelage and knowledge that he had seen fit to impart to her. From all the things that were once so important, now ransacked and overturned by an emotion that she had failed to resist. And grace was a distant memory in her frenzied brain now, delirium overtaking reason and urging her to submit.

Throwing back her head, Lauren screamed into the darkness. One long keening wail that escaped from her lips before she finally, gratefully surrendered to the dark.

* * * * *

“Lauren broke her pledge to me by going to the Dark without my knowledge.” The Ash’s voice was harsh and he frowned at Trick. “What other option did I have but to punish her accordingly?”

“What have you done?” Trick demanded, his voice stentorian and abrupt.

The Ash lifted his head, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. He shrugged slightly, shadows flitting through his gaze. “She wanted to assert her will. So I allowed her the opportunity to do that. She’s in Eljudnir and only her own will can keep her from Niflheim.”

“Niflheim?” Dyson’s head jerked forwards and he frowned, glancing down at Trick.

“The Mist World,” Trick explained. “One of the primordial realms. It’s where we go if we fail to die a hero’s death.”

“Nice,” Dyson muttered, scratching at his chin. The Ash smiled at him and tilted his head onto one side, looking curiously at the Fae with renewed interest.

“Better the realm of ice than the world of fire,” he said with a satisfied smirk. “She’s always been rather… cold–blooded, don’t you think, Dyson?” He even had the temerity to chuckle before Trick stepped forwards, his figure almost overshadowed by The Ash’s looming presence. But Trick was no stranger to this; he’d met The Ash in combat before, both verbal and physical. The power of the Light Fae carried no threat to him and he steeled himself, meeting the Fae Elder’s eyes with a look that resonated ancient power, crackling suddenly between them with intensity.

“Where. Is. She?” Trick forced out. “You might own her, but if she dies, you may find that your position becomes untenable.”

“Threats, old man?” The Ash let out a burst of laughter that rocked his head back on his neck. “I merely gave her a choice. If she chooses to live, then she may resume her work under my protection. If she chooses to die, then her blood will be on her own hands. Not mine.”

“And what about your blood?” Trick asked. “Whose hands will that be on?”

The Ash smiled indulgently, ignoring the pang of concern that squirmed at the back of his mind. “You’re wasting time. She’s a human. I’ve always found their resolve quite easy to break. I’m certain that this,” he reached around from behind his back and gestured almost carelessly at Trick and Dyson, “is already too late.”

From behind the heavy doors of The Ash’s study, there came a horrifying sound. A cry of pain, so primal and unfettered that Dyson winced and held a hand to his ear. His startled gaze met that of Trick’s, mirrored in solemn eyes and a pale expression. They moved at the same time, throwing themselves towards the door under the watchful eyes of The Ash.

“Dyson! Help me!” Trick gasped, grabbing at the door handle and finding himself unable to open it. A pair of strong hands reached down over his own and a firm shoulder thudded against the wood as Dyson flung himself against it. It shuddered, but didn’t open and Trick let out a noise of sheer frustration, reaching for the handle again and even pounding his fist against the ornate woodwork.

Dyson growled, baring his teeth and shoving Trick unceremoniously to one side. Squaring his shoulders, he hunkered down and rushed at the door, a cry of pain escaping his mouth in a howl as he made contact. The doors groaned, wood screaming before it splintered around the lock and the entrance to the study flew open.

Panting, Dyson crossed the threshold and looked around the room, his eyes still glowing yellow, lip curled back over protruding incisors. His gaze flashed around the room, taking in the luxurious furnishings, the artwork, the garnish of a life that The Ash had created for himself. But it was only when he turned to the far corner that he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Trick,” he said in a low voice. “Trick, come here. Now.”

As the bartender moved to his side, both pairs of eyes roamed slowly over the figure in the corner of the room, crooked and slumped against the wooden paneling on the wall. Lauren’s hands were pressed against her stomach, smears of blood over their backs, scarlet against the pale white of her skin. Eyes closed, her head lolled to one side and the color was visibly draining from her cheeks as Trick ran across the room towards her.

Dyson was frozen to the spot. He’d never seen the doctor like this before. And for all the dissembling characteristics he’d attributed to her true nature, he felt a dread cold inch up and down his spine, spiraling something akin to shame into his brain. She looked dead. He sniffed the air surreptitiously and blinked, trying to discern what it was he could smell. Nothing. He couldn’t smell a thing apart from the traces of panic, fear and desperation. And even they were fading as he moved to stand behind Trick, crouched by Lauren’s body.

“Is she…?” he left the question lingering in the air as Trick leaned forwards and pressed two fingers against Lauren’s neck, narrowing his gaze as he concentrated intently.

“Sssh,” Trick hissed, peering into Lauren’s face and grimacing at the trails of blood that were even now beginning to dry and crust around her nostrils and on her upper lip. Pressing his fingers just under her jawline, he closed his eyes and offered up a silent evocation to any deity that might be listening. Even himself.

And then, there it was. A faint fluttering that was barely present, moving randomly and without regularity under his touch. But it was there. She was alive.

Raising his eyes heavenward, Trick muttered silent thanks, his lips moving soundlessly over the words. His hand moved briefly over her cheek, palm resting there and warming the cold flesh under his skin. She was alive. Barely, but alive.

Turning, he looked up at Dyson, frowning a little as he observed the myriad of expressions flooding the cop’s face. He’d known Dyson for a long time, longer than it was possible for anyone but a Fae to comprehend. And in all that time, he’d never seen Dyson so conflicted over a human. The cop might not think much of humans – and even less of Lauren – but as he stood in the middle of the room, Trick swore that he could see compassion, the hardest of emotions, flicker across Dyson’s face and through his eyes.

Returning to Lauren Trick patted her cheek again gently, whispering soothing words as he leant forwards and moved some hair away from her face. Lauren might be human, but, he realized, she was more Fae than any human he’d ever known in his long life. And he’d lived enough to know that that counted for more than any of his kind might understand.

Standing up, he swung around and stood up, catching Dyson’s eye and letting out a sigh of concerned relief.

“We need to get her back to The Dell,” he said firmly. “She hasn’t got long. Bo will want to see her.”

He took a pace backwards as Dyson moved in without preamble, leaning down and scooping Lauren up into his arms, lifting her from the floor and cradling her against his chest. He gave a curt nod to Trick, who led him out of the study with his precious cargo into the corridor outside, where The Ash waited.

“You may live to regret this, old man,” The Ash warned as they passed him, but he made no attempt to delay their progress as they headed down the corridor towards the stairs.

Reaching the top of them, Dyson began to descend with careful, measured steps. Trick turned and fixed The Ash with a baleful glare. All their history bled into his gaze and he puffed out his chest, feeling seniority and power flood through his veins, seductive and tempting as it was.

“I only hope you don’t live to regret this,” he answered in a measured tone. “For your own sake, hope that she lives.”

to be continued in

The Fifteenth Way: Resolution