Besides, she could drink it from the cup without worrying about getting blood on or in it. She wouldn’t even have to clean up. Well, okay, maybe her face, but the rest of her could just wait.
It was one thing to get food, it was quite another to know what to do with it. It wasn’t like they could set up a dining table in the cafeteria when they were killing infected shifters in there. Where the hell were they going to eat?
“Dude, take that into her,” Ryan suggested, unusually sombre. “We’ll eat ours out here, and you send someone out to get theirs, we can trade out like that. So, she gets a discrete feed and we can eat out of sight.”
It was actually a good idea. “Yeah, okay, thanks.”
He headed back inside. From the looks of things, Melody had already dealt with more than half of the injured shifters. In the corner, sat a bunch of more alert ones, watching in terror. The counsellor steered clear of them for now, focussing more on the ones in the cots.
“You got her a coffee, while she’s killing people?” the provost asked him, not bothering to keep her voice down.
So, Oz replied in kind. “No, I got her some chicken noodle soup because she’s going into shock again, and she’s not allowed to pass out.”
Melody spun to face him, anger on her face and pulsing through his bond.
Shit, she’d heard him. Fuck. he was an idiot.
“I’m not eating while …” she gestured around her, but even Oz could see how much her arm trembled.
“Miss Canticum,” Councillor Argrum said. “Your familiar is right, we should both pause for sustenance.”
He took Melody’s elbow and guided her away from the row of cots. Behind them, the healers moved in, pulling up sheets on the latest batch of people to have been killed simply by having their bonds broken. There were more weakened shifters than the healers had originally indicated. Or they hadn't known.
“Melody,” one of the male witches said, stepping forward.
She held up a hand to him and went to walk past, but he grabbed it, halting her. Immediately Nick had him by the throat, lifting him from the ground.
“Clean her face for her,” was all the witch managed to get out.
Under other circumstances, Oz would have laughed at the lapse in Nick’s zen-like calm. As it was, all he could do was sigh and roll his eyes as Nick lowered the foolish man to the ground.
“You let your familiars have free run?” one of the men asked, sneering.
Melody rounded on him. “I let my familiars protect me when they feel it’s needed, yes. He grabbed hold of me and halted me. I did not give him permission to touch me, nevermind to force his will upon me, so yes, I think Nick was justified in protecting me. If you don’t like it in your little breeding females, there’s the door. I have fought too hard for my freedom to give it up to petty little men.”
So, she knew what they were there for too.
“Well said, Melody,” Mrs Hardinger strode up to diffuse the situation. “It always makes me wonder why men think they’re superior, just because they carry their reproductive organs on the outside, when they’d be much safer and more sensibly kept on the inside like we do.”
Or not.
The witch sputtered, unfortunately looking to the provost for backup.
He didn’t get it.
“As you can see, gentlemen, Melody is disobedient, uncouth and a poor choice for a wife. I’m surprised that Coven Canticum agreed to keep her, after she caused the death of Augusta. Although I guess you do need to get your pound of flesh out of her. As long as she doesn’t produce abominations, rather than purebred witches.”
If she’d thought to turn them against Melody, the provost had seriously miscalculated. Oz wanted to laugh out loud.
“I do not see that the inner dealings of Coven Canticum are any of your concern,” Alexander said. “If we wish to woo Melody, would that not be a matter between us, rather than something open for influence by outside forces?”
“Young man, I do not know who you think you are …” the provost started to rant, but he cut her off.
“If you know half as much about witch politics as you ought, you would know that I’m the heir-apparent to Canticum Coven, and as such, well within rights to defend my coven when it is so egregiously insulted by the likes of yourself. I will be notifying my coven mistress of the decline in relationships between our covens. I’m sure she’ll notify your coven leader forthwith.”
The provost paled. Oz didn’t know much about witch politics, but even he knew that Alexander held more political clout than she did right then, and all because of her attitude.
“Alexander!” boomed Councillor Argrum. “I haven’t seen you in years, I didn’t recognise you. I do hope you will me.”
“Of course, Councillor,” Alexander said, executing a crisp bow. “I only hope you can forgive our intrusion. We were given the impression that we would be having a private meeting with Melody to discuss our purpose here. Events, however, seem to have waylaid our plans.”
The two men then slipped out the doors, presumably to catch up in more pleasant surroundings. Oz wondered if the Councillor realised that his pants were bloodied from the knees downwards.
Off to the side, the male witches had surrounded Melody and Nick as she leaned against the wall, exhausted. Together the three men used their magic to clean the majority of the blood from her skin and clothes, although Oz could
