Fallen Into Hell: Fallen: Book 2, Layna Snow [the mitten read aloud .TXT] 📗

her people out. She had been a child and had been rejected by the people that were supposed to protect her.

She knew torture, and although she used it on the enemy, he didn’t think she could do it to her own people.

It would be a betrayal.

Jai sighed and shook her head. When she looked up at him, he noticed that she looked exhausted. It seemed as if these last few moments took more energy out of her than she should have allowed. “No, I’ll do it. I don’t trust Malyk with this. I don’t know much about him.”

No one knew much about Malyk. He kept his life secret on purpose, Gage thought. He was the only member of the main team that didn’t stay in the compound.

Gage didn’t know why Axel trusted him. Maybe he should be watched closer. Right now he was shadowing a Fallen, the one that Axel had asked him to watch.

When he came back, they would need to do some thorough training. All the teams needed to be tested again. It might stop mistakes, like the one with Connor, from happening again.

Speaking of mistakes, Gage turned to look at Jai. In this condition she couldn’t work efficiently. There were too many errors that could be made. All the teams understood the need for self-care. If you were not in peak condition, you could become slow, or make the wrong decision. You were too easy to kill.

“Alright, as long as you are rested. When was the last time you shifted?” He asked, only too aware how an extended period of time in a Human body could exhaust a Shifter. He had witnessed when Jai went to long between shifting. He had questioned her about it until she explained to him about the cat spirit inside her and its need to be free.

“It’s like a part of me. There is the Human and the cat. She wants her freedom just like I want mine. When she doesn’t get it, she scratches me up inside, attacks the walls of my brain. She doesn’t like confinement either.” Gage remembered Jai mentioning before.

Gage knew how trying to control yourself took a toll on the body and mind. He had felt the frayed nerves as his body struggled to bulk up and shut his mind off.

He also understood the fear that you might not make it back into your body if the other side took over. That might be why he got along with Jai while the other members of the Hunters thought he was—what’s the term they used? Oh yes—a hard-ass.

They had something in common.

“My cat doesn’t trust the Human half of me. It thinks that I’ll get it captured again. It prizes freedom and I don’t have any to give it right now.” She told him, her voice pitched low so that the others wouldn’t hear. He understood her need to protect her weaknesses. There were people who would do whatever it took to expose someone’s vulnerabilities.

They fought those people every day.

She had power here, and she didn’t want to let others think that they could take advantage of her. It was why she shifted rarely. If someone saw her struggle to get back, they could exploit it.

“Shift tonight. The men will be in training still and the others are on assignment. I’ll be here to make sure that you get back.” He promised.

Jai nodded and stretched her back, her eyes moving over the group training. “Alright, I’ll do it. Now, go talk to Sasha before she leaves. She and Julian are going to some party.”

It had been a close call when Connor and Julian had practiced. He thought for a moment that he would lose one of his men.

Connor could have died that night if Gage hadn’t controlled his anger. Julian was an Animal-Shifter who was 50 years old. He healed from his wounds quickly, but if Gage had let his rage mount anymore, he would have torn the Vampire apart. It would have been simple to kill the newly created Hidden. It was not simple to hold himself together.

Then he’d, unknowingly, take the whole building apart.

He would need to be more careful from now on.

This leadership role had him too invested in what happened to these people.

Axel needed to return because Gage didn’t think that he could hold it together much longer.

24

The man in the grey suit leaned back in his chair. It was time. He didn’t want to do this, but it needed to be done. For some reason, his men were not getting the results that he needed. They had never failed before, and they will never fail again.

He brushed his expensively cut brown hair with his fingers, just in case any of it had escaped from the style that he had perfected. He doubted it had. His assistant would have fixed it right away.

He would have done anything that was needed. He was a useful piece of furniture that way.

He smiled a bit to himself. He was a business man, someone who dealt with millions of dollars every day. His company took control of others effortlessly and he held each of those lives in the palm of his hand.

He was working his way through the system, owning politicians and business men alike. None of them knew who he was. They had a name that wasn’t his. They knew a face that was often forgotten. They didn’t even know his species.

He was sure that they would be horrified to know what he really did with their money. The research facilities, the investments into enterprises that were guaranteed to make money, because there were no legalities to restrict them. He made people think that they were entering into safe business deals, but that wasn’t the case.

All those people answered to him. He had them in binding