I knew what I wanted done to Dawn and Armond immediately. Ryder blinked once when I told him and some part of me wanted to be concerned about what he would think of me after this. But these people, these creatures, could have had a role in killing my parents. In fact, I was almost certain that they did. And if they did something to my parents, then they ruined the lives of countless others. They did not deserve mercy and if I was the one strong enough and angry enough to deliver violence, then so be it.

So, I watched silently while Ryder stood on a chair, looping a thick rope through a hoop in the ceiling. For how pretty the rest of the building was, this room had no pretense about what it was. No windows, poor lighting, cement floors with a drain. So, you could pressure wash the entire space and scrub out any evidence, I was sure.

Armond slunk into the room, Adrienne gripping his arm. He didn't protest too much when Ryder took over, pulling the man's arms behind his back. I knew the position well and just seeing it was enough to make the pain pulse down the length of my arms. If it worked on me and Milo, it would work on them. A protest crawled up my throat. I was being cruel. I was being unjust. I had no right to do this.

Then Dawn came into the room. Her hair was dirty and covering a portion of her face. She snarled insults at Adrienne. Thankfully, the wind howler looked entirely unbothered and dumped the fairy in the room. And I saw the horns that were sprouting from her head. Horns that hadn't been visible to me when she wrapped her arms around me, comforting me in the assisted living facility. And she had been the one who sent us to hunt the werewolves while being a magical creature herself. Wolf-drain aside, she had blood on her hands.

"Now what?" Ryder asked.

"Sit down, Dawn," I ordered.

Her chin ticked up, tipping those elegant horns back. "You think that you can order me about?" she hissed.

"I think me giving you simple instructions is the least of your problems," I murmured, the words coated in a softness that I didn't feel.

If Ryder could tie Armond up, I could handle Dawn. She sat down on a chair that looked like it had served more than it's time at a kitchen table decades ago. When it didn't crack under her weight, I took the remaining cord from Ryder and wound it around her wrists. She glared fiercely at me, but didn't protest otherwise.

"How do you want to start?" Ryder prompted again.

My attention settled heavily on Armond, the cold bastard, when I whispered, "Shift."

"What?"

"Shift. I want you in your wolf form," I repeated.

A quick scan of my features as if looking for doubt, then, he bowed his head in a brief nod. He discarded his shirt and shoes to save it them from being shredded, but sacrificed his pants. A quick roll of the shoulders and a sucked in breath. Then, the man I loved was a brilliant, black wolf.

I turned to the woman I had trusted with my entire world. "Tell me how awful the wolves are. Tell me how they destroy human beings," I snarled. She said nothing. She wouldn't even look at me, watching her partner instead. So, without tearing my gaze from her, I said to Ryder, "Start slowly. We want this to take a while."

It was hard to know if Ryder followed my instructions. I think the first scream from Armond was the loudest. Even I couldn't help but flinch while Dawn remained perfectly unbothered before me. Regardless of what I felt and what I wanted to be, pain was pain, and there was humanity in that. She watched on, though. Not an ounce of expression on her features. Her eyes were focused, not glazed, but there was nothing in her.

"Keep going," I said to Ryder.

He did. And I kept watching Dawn. So one little bite or scratch from a werewolf on her partner's body wouldn't make her crack? I supposed it was only fair. From what little I knew about fairies; I doubted that this woman was as young as she appeared. Was she hundreds of years old? If so, I was going to find out just how many screams it would take to make her crack.

I didn't know how long we went for. There would be a snarl from Ryder followed by a shout or cry from Armond. I would let the cycle repeat about five times before I would glance over my shoulder. The first glance I saw torn clothes. The second glance was when I saw blood on the fairy man. The third is when the blood now coated Ryder's mouth, his head low, long tail stiff. How long would it take for the blood to trickle down into the drain?

"Want to keep going?" I whispered to Dawn, grinning a little.

"I'm not afraid of you human, you can't kill us," she murmured back, her voice almost sweet. "We aren't fickle like humans, our rulers are treasured and valued. If you kill us, they'll come after you. And they will do much worse than whatever silly game this is."

"They might think they can come after me, but I don't think they'll want to come after an army of animals like him." I nodded my head towards Ryder. I felt the manic smile on my lips grow a little bit with every second that passed. "Besides, killing you would be no fun, would it?"

A scream tore through the air, punctuating my question beautifully.

They went back and forth for a long time. I became in tune with it. A growl from Ryder. A shriek from Armond. A threat from Dawn. I just stared at her, smiling a little.

It was when the screaming stopped that I turned my attention around again.

Blood was everywhere. In Ryder's fur. On the floor, inching towards the drain. Soaking what was left of Armond's clothes. Vile bite marks covered his body, the punctures from the teeth deep bleeding. An entire chunk of flesh was missing from the fairy's side. He must have been in unbearable pain, but I wondered if we had gone too far, his eyes rolling back in his head, his body swaying until he pulled against the ropes holding him upright.

"I think we're done with him now," I said to Ryder.

Regardless of whether the human within him had come to the same conclusion, the outer wolf snarled, silver eyes flashing. Still, I knew that he would listen. I didn't doubt that there would be hell to pay if we accidentally killed one of them. We might have been justified, but the less consequences that came out of it, the better.

There was no visible change in Dawn after the announcement, no relief like I expected. I still couldn't decide if she was impeccable at hiding any sliver of feeling or if she really was just this heartless. Regardless of their relationship, regardless if they were together romantically or just ruled together, she watching him be tortured – torn apart really – and hadn't batted an eye so far.

"Your nails are so pretty," I stated, cocking my head a little to get a better look at her long fingers. The nails were coated in a pearly pink polish that was so subtle, I almost didn't notice it was there. "Ryder, I think it's time that we let poor Armond sit down and have a little chat with dearest Dawn."

Ryder stayed in his wolf form which meant that I had to get involved. I knew that I should have been feeling some kind of aversion. I should have been fighting bile trying to claw its way out of my throat. I should have felt nauseous, should have been concerned about all of the blood and gore that I was seeing. But I had a purpose and my mind was only filled with the next step in the process: untie Armond, wipe the blood off my hands on my pants, untie Dawn, tie her back up where Armond was strung up but I just bound her in front of her.

"Such a brave little wolf hunter," Dawn purred in my face. "Do you want to tell him how you killed all those wolves? Do you want to tell your wolf how you looked in the face of his brothers and sisters and struck them down? Come on, Huntress, you were so proud of your kill ratio. Why not share it?"

I didn't allow my gaze to even flicker towards Ryder. He knew. I told him everything he needed to know and he had seen me in action. Her tactic wouldn't make me falter. I couldn't.

"Do you want to tell him how you trained me so damn well? Do you want to tell him how you found me outside of a hospital? You knew you were creating a heartless warrior when you took away my parents," I countered.

She said nothing. I let her stew in the moment, leaving for a brief second to gather some supplies, namely a pair of pliers. I saw dear Adrienne briefly and asked her if the small cameras in the room were indeed hooked up and functional. She assured me they were. If she was worried about the instruments in my hands, she said nothing.

Ryder was pacing when I returned to the room, his gaze focused on Armond. When he saw the pliers in my hand, he paused for a brief second.

My focus didn't let me consider what he was thinking. I would get this done one way or another. Dawn tipped her chin up as she watched me approach.

"Are you and your partner behind this wolf-drain bullshit?" I asked.

Her lips stayed pressed together stubbornly.

The first nail was pulled out. Nightmarish and messy. The phantom pain coiled around me, but I pulled and pulled, never letting my grip loosen, until it gave way.

She wailed.

"Tell me why you wanted us to hunt the werewolves," I demanded.

Tears were gleaming in her eyes. Her skin had grown pale immediately. But she said nothing.

The second nail was cleaner, but still violent and awful.

The noise that came out of her was even worse.

"It started with King Archer."

It took me a moment to place the voice because it certainly hadn't come from Dawn. She was panting hard and sweat was starting to show on her forehead.

"Shut up, you idiot," she hissed through clenched teeth.

Armond didn't listen. "The treaty prevented us from ever touching the wolves. We needed the humans in between. We couldn't do it ourselves."

"Shut up!" Dawn screamed.

I ignored her. "So where did the wolf-drain come from?"

His partner's rough barks had gotten to him. His eyes flickered to her, stalling. I gripped Dawn's hand hard, getting a hold of her third nail. I stared at Armond, unwavering.

"Where did wolf-drain come from?" I repeated.