“I appreciate the support,” she accepted. “And the lack of judgment that I used an interrogation rune on my lover, but I’ve been feeling off, as if magic has been used on me. Given my level and abilities, I’m sensitive to that, so I’m surprised it took months for me to notice. Apparently, it’s because someone from the council gave him a magical item to aid him.”
“Jesus Fucking Christ. How many laws are they going to break?” I couldn’t even hide my shock, and once again cursed I wasn’t old enough to drink.
“All of them, it seems,” she drawled.
I winced. “Didn’t you break one doing that?”
She smirked at me. “Have more faith in me than that. He won’t remember it. At. All.”
“Nice.”
She bobbed her head and finished her drink, smoothing back her hair. “They are not going to be happy that Calloway and I are sidestepping their moves. We need to get the others out of the line of fire.”
“I was thinking the same,” I sighed. “Izzy, Natalie—all of them. Even I never thought they’d go this nuclear. Forced matings? That’s like your guys’ most sacred law.”
“Indeed. And from what Calloway says, it was flippant and a given, so it was not a first time, but default on how to handle witches with power. She was truly sickened to see a dirty underbelly she hadn’t realize existed. Pressure and pushing from families? Sure, we all know that. But a council setting it up and ordering it all as if we’re theirs and they own us? That’s so far over the line of corruption, she’s sickened.”
“Yeah, I talked to her,” I muttered when she started to ramp back up, the booze setting her up for Mel-level tirades probably.
Or I heard most adults were like that.
“I already spoke with the Diazes, and they will help the Higgenses,” she told me after a moment. “They will be working jobs for them in the foreseeable future and helping on Cherrywood renovations down there.”
That had me raising an eyebrow. Her council was global, so being in South America wouldn’t help them, like Calloway staying in the dragon royals’ castle.
She smiled behind her glass. “My council pissed off several shifter groups in South America a few years ago, and they hold grudges. It was made very clear, very loudly that the next time they or council guards step foot in South America, that it had better not involve any other supe groups, or they will get eaten.”
There it was! “And the dragons own Cherrywood with me and we employ lots of supes, even more now that they’re hiring more with the expansions instead of humans. Yeah, it was a lot of jobs for a few shifter groups, if I remember from my summary reports.”
“Yes, lots. And renovations and expansions of existing resorts will bring in more income, and possibly more jobs, to those groups, so they will protect that and the people on the project. The council has started a lot of shit—all of them have. That is what has kept balance.”
I sighed, having heard this lecture several times. “Yeah, they all fought for their own, and pissed in enough cereal, that it was a delicate balance of not doing much of anything and keeping hands off. But they see me as a free agent with not declaring, and are not acting rationally then, as they assume I’m lying and not talking to my council, but they can’t risk being wrong on that bluff.”
“They’re not wrong, simply they aren’t adding in the option your council is stuck in Faerie, which makes you the Queen’s advisor here and thus, your own voice at the moment. But yes, that is where we are.” She tapped her fingers on the desk. “The Kincaids will be trickier. They want to become elite and be council lapdogs if needed. They were willing to sell their daughter already.”
“And sell me out,” I drawled. “Excited to. The one brother still idiotically boasts I sobbed in the corner and cried for the guards, which even the dumbest doesn’t believe after the Power Playoffs. It makes them look like idiots, so really, they’ve done a lot to themselves.”
“Of course, but they won’t protect Izzy as the Higgins, and others, will their daughters. They will hand her over and do anything they can to get you and what they want.”
I nodded. “Her phone is changed and bounced around like all of ours. We’ve scanned everything she got out of there with Claudia’s help for runes and human electronics. I can’t see how they can get an in without abducting her off and trying to crack her mind like they did Calloway. She’s got the tat too, but she would be easier than Katrina.”
“Undoubtedly,” she agreed.
“What would you suggest? No matter how much I wouldn’t like it—where is your head?”
“Make a better alliance with the wolves. It will take the Kincaids a bit to realize they will truly have to resort to having their daughter dragged into the council to use her. That gives Geiger time to set up what he needs to. You might not be with a wolf, but you are mated to a bear.”
Horror filled me when she said that so easily. “You—no one else can know that!”
She did a double take and pity filled his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ve had a few drinks, and for a moment, I forgot what a monster the
