Mrs. Brooks snorted, shaking her head at my antics. “And from what I hear, he’s even more sexist than most of the council.”
I rolled my eyes. “Once you hit the level of super-duper over-the-top sexist, I’m not sure it’s really worth the effort to bother ranking them or figuring out who is worse. They all truly believe power is wasted on useless witches who are only around to birth more warlocks and should sit there and wait for their masters, the warlocks who own them, to call upon them.”
They both looked ill to hear it spelled out that way and could tell I was serious.
“How would you like me to try and block this?” he asked me after a few moments.
“Push for them to follow their own laws,” I answered. “They are supposed to have half witches. Your own council can be a bit sexist, but you do rule most fairly in your judgments, as opposed to vampires, so I’m not trying to push for more women on the councils.”
Mrs. Brooks smirked at me. “Yet.”
I didn’t even deny it. “Yet. I’m not ousting people to get women in. When men retire, yes, it’s time for fairness. That’s reasonable. However, it’s in their damn bi-laws that it’s not a legally governing body unless half witches.”
He studied me several tense minutes. “But you don’t think we’ll win.”
“No, not at all. It simply buys me time. I need more time. I need to get stronger and get more help. If you are fighting them, instead of my having to always do it, I can focus where I should be. It’s a worthy fight and one others should be apart of, especially since one of theirs was selling females of all species to humans for death fights. I don’t think you’ll be fighting this alone.”
Mrs. Brooks was quicker on the uptake this time. “The dragon royals know who you are.”
“A few of them,” I confirmed. “You may speak freely with the Vogels and Diazes and their ninja knight clans. I believe Mrs. Courtenay has figured it out—or something about me—but honestly, I try not to add to the reasons I can’t sleep at night, so I’ve let that one go.”
“I would think any who realized there is still a fairy alive would be overjoyed,” Councilman Brooks muttered, giving me such a confused and innocent look I couldn’t even curb my reaction.
I burst out laughing. I laughed so hard, it actually hurt and took me a few minutes to remotely calm down. “The head of my school board wants to breed me. The bear who abducted me wanted to do the same and sell our children for alliances to repopulate the world with fairies. A vampire took me to be his property—that has not been what I’ve dealt with.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Brooks whispered. “No, there is too much evil in this world. More and more of what we’re learning about how people treat the hobgoblins is proof of that.”
“Don’t even get me started. I’m going to burn some people to the ground when I’m not alone,” I grumbled.
“Best not to tell us,” Councilman Brooks chuckled. “Let’s move on to dinner and take down your barrier before my security hits their limit. Yes, we will help bring Ainsworth justice and take his flesh for what he’s done. I will work on the others of the council on the rest. I think I can make it work as long as there’s a way to apprehend him without risking too many of our wolves.”
That was fair. Even if Ainsworth wasn’t as powerful as he should be to have a seat on the council, he was powerful.
“I think I can help with that.” I bobbed my head as I stood. “Yeah, I think I can get the right trap and bait to draw him out easily if one of your wolves doesn’t mind being at the center of attention to get pulled into this.”
He smiled at me. “You mean set him up? Make him think he caught you, but it’s one of our wolves there to spring the trap and then add on the layers of what we found?”
“Exactly.”
“Yes, that will do nicely if you can secure the area and keep our people safe.”
I snorted. “I can’t guarantee no boo-boos, but yeah, I’ve got lots of tricks up my sleeves.”
“Like those spy traps we’ve been hearing all sorts of things about,” Mrs. Brooks hinted.
“Uggghhh, I’m so tired of hearing about them,” I groaned. “Nope, I’m not going to even discuss them.”
They chuckled as they led the way to the dining room, the security relieved when I took down the barrier and we showed our faces. I was impressed not only by the food, but that they didn’t talk about traps, nor any other touchy subjects. We simply enjoyed the evening. They asked me about school and I learned a bit about their family.
Beside the reason I went there for, it truly was a lovely night. I genuinely liked the couple. I thanked them for a wonderful evening, promising to bring Darby next time and accepting the leftovers Mrs. Brooks had the kitchen box up for me. I didn’t get it at first, but then she winked at me.
Right, they knew I was a fairy now. She was teasing me I’d be hungry in a few hours.
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
“Drop it,” I told Zack and Ray when we finished with security and I handed over the food. I could feel them brimming with the need to say too much. We could discuss it later but right then, I wanted to bask in something going right.
So of course shit blew up in my face.
The moment I stepped through the portal, a hand grabbed my arm roughly,
