by Amy Lane
Our kiss was just for us, and it lasted just long enough for us to get hot and a little bothered. As one, we took a breath, stepped back, and looked around.
“Are we ready to go?” Cory asked, but we all knew the answer.
Mario—who was used to pairing off with Teague in the field—gave Teague a wistful look. “You sure you want to wear that monkey suit?” he asked plaintively.
Teague grimaced and looked at Lambent, who was coming with us to sit in the car with Nicky. “Sorry, man. I didn’t realize putting the suit on once doomed me to it forever.”
Lambent grunted and straightened his cuffs. “You don’t realize how lucky you are,” he said to Mario, his affectation of boredom as much a part of his uniform as the Savile Row brushed-cotton suit. “He’s bossy.”
Most of the room snorted, including Teague’s mates. Teague looked up and rolled his eyes.
“Time, people. We don’t want to be late, even a little.”
We loaded into the SUV and drove away, each of us double-checking visually to make sure we had our lookout sprites following. Most of the time, the sprites would be invisible to anybody from the fey or human worlds—but Cory’s sprite had saved her life once, and we weren’t taking any chances. Five of us were going into this particular field, and in spite of the yearning in pretty much everybody back at the hill, we weren’t taking backup. The exception would be if nobody heard back from us by the time the vampires awoke—in which case the entire kiss was backup—but until then, we were on our own. Green was sending his weapons into the field. He needed his family back to protect him.
Teague drove, Lambent in front with him. The two of them moved like partners, and not once did Teague say “I wish Mario was here,” which was encouraging. We had worried, when Jack had proven to be really bad in the field, that Teague wouldn’t be able to function without him. Then he’d managed to work well with Mario, and our next fear had been that Mario would be his only compatible backup. Unless the Avians were mated, they couldn’t really stay at Green’s hill—the atmosphere was sexually charged, so the likelihood that they might accidentally mate with someone was raised considerably. Since they mated for life—as Nicky had with Green and Cory—and there were complications inherent in mating with the wrong person, Green had taken precautions and secured them a perch elsewhere. Of course, in times of crisis, the Avians left the Eyrie (as they called it) and stayed at the hill, but it still meant that Mario wasn’t always as convenient as just down the hall.
And Teague was a warrior—anyone he could work with who helped him fight better was someone we needed.
Seeing him and Lambent mirroring body language was reassuring, like a sign.
Once we got to the courthouse, Teague and I put ourselves one step behind Cory. And Cory?
Straightened the stretchy waist of her skirt, arranged her jacket, threw her leather handbag over her shoulder, and made sure she was drawn up to her full height.
She looked like she was supposed to be in front of us, and if everybody who’d ridden in the SUV knew that she’d been our leader this summer while wearing an oversized T-shirt over a bikini just as much as she was now in a power suit with a maternity panel, well, we weren’t going to tell a soul.
She strode confidently up the sidewalk and toward the courthouse steps, but as she walked, we heard her talking sotto voce.
“The smell is going to make me vomit,” she said sincerely. “No lie, no exaggeration. I can smell the damned dogs.”
Suddenly Green was in my head. “There is a small bottle of fragrance in her bag. Ask her to stop and put some of the fragrance on the handkerchief that is also there. Act as though you are being courteous, as though it is a convenience only.”
“My lady?” I asked, then stepped forward like an aide. “If I may, you have something in your bag that might help.”
She opened her bag for me and kept watch in her way, looking around behind me as I made myself vulnerable on the very public walkway.
I busied myself with the little bottle and the handkerchief, knowing we were looking over each other’s shoulders.
“I’d say about a third, still,” I said softly.
“Good.” She took the handkerchief and inhaled. Some of the greenishness of her pallor went away as she patted her face with it and visibly relaxed. “And thank you.”
“Why didn’t Green tell you?”
She grimaced, and I glared. Of course he’d told her. She’d ignored him.
“Sign of weakness,” she said, almost too low for me to hear.
“So’s puking on someone’s shoes,” I pointed out meanly. “Let’s move.”
She turned back around and we continued, but now we were conscious of every third set of eyes boring into our backs. Cory didn’t falter, and Teague and I looked at each other. Suddenly the prospect of a fight was a welcome thing. They wanted a piece of us? Bring it on.
Cory stripped off her gun at the metal detector and presented her permit for inspection, as did Teague. I walked through the other security gate, not even a jingle of change in my pocket.
There were a handful of guards waiting at the end to frisk me. They all smelled of the werewolf sickness.
Cory stood waiting, glaring at them as they tried to insinuate foul fingers in the spaces of my suit. One of them grazed my crease and got perilously close to my balls through the fine wool, only to snatch his hand back with a muffled oath.
He popped his finger in his mouth while I looked at him impassively.
“Was there a pin left in the suit?” I asked blandly, and he nodded, eyes large. I’d caught a torn nail on his left hand with my power. By the time we walked away, he was swallowing to contain his own blood.
“Too handsy?” Cory asked, her voice barely a pitched whisper.
“I like those bits,” I told her with a false smile.
She looked over her shoulder and winked, and we boarded the elevator—alone.
“You couldn’t let them grab your nuts for a little bit of surprise?” Teague demanded once the door shut.
“Consider them surprised,” I said. “Nobody puts their hands on me without my leave.”
“Nor should they,” Cory said, casting a hard look at Teague. “That goes for any of us. This is a pissing contest. Our dicks are bigger—don’t let them forget it.”
Teague looked at her doubtfully. “I think it bears repeating, my lady, that none of the main players in this little shindig have dicks.”
Cory’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “Oh? I thought you said there were male elf twins.”
Teague nodded, unperturbed. “Muscle, and intelligence. But not leadership. This battle right here is all women—she doesn’t think much of us, remember?”
Cory swallowed, and I watched her hands—unconscious and supremely protective—cover the tight bulge under her skirtline. “Lovely. Well, then, let’s see who’s got the biggest ovaries, right?”
“At least we know yours are fully functioning,” Teague said pragmatically.
“And very aggressive,” I added. Goddess—nobody had ever accused me of being weak willed. The night she’d conceived, I’d used every fiber of my being to simply will her to protect herself.
She’d won, and the results were our children. I couldn’t regret that, but nobody could say Cory hadn’t actively sought out conception.
The door dinged before she could formulate an answer, and we soldiered our way down the halls in the Cory-as-alpha-bitch formation. We’d come quite some way from our first battle together, where she’d hidden in the background until she’d set the enemy’s hair on fire by accident.
It was good to see that some things had changed for the better.
The receptionist—a tiny, wren-like woman in a bright red suit with very, very blonde tresses—smiled at us chirpily. “You must be Judge Griffith’s three o’clock. Ms. Masterson wanted you to meet in here. She and the judge will be there in just a moment. Can I get you some water?”
For a gut-dropping
moment, I thought Cory was going to say yes. We hadn’t discussed it, but the idea that there could be elf blood in the water, in the food, just enough to taint a suggestion or weaken our will—that was something we were still cautioning our goblin and troll children about, even while they weren’t allowed off the hill.
“No, thank you,” Cory said. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a big plastic bottle, shaking it cheerily. “I’m drinking tea, and my aides are just fine.”
We were shown into a featureless room, obviously old and well used, and we stood awkwardly until the receptionist left us alone.
We all looked at each other, and Cory grimaced. “Teague, do you have any work gloves in your suit pocket?”
He narrowed his eyes. “No….”
“Because I’m betting there’s blood traps under the table or on the chairs.” The chairs all had soft seats—it would be easy to put a pin or nail there to leap out and get us.
“Good thinking, beloved,” I said softly. “What made you—?”
“When the guard started bleeding,” she said, frowning. “Everybody looked like it was a big deal, and they all assumed you’d done it. They work with blood magic, so….” She shrugged. “And that fairy tale with the three drops of blood always fascinated me.”
I nodded and closed my eyes. Maybe, since blood and I had an affinity—and iron and I didn’t….
“The seats. There are needles in four of the six seats,” I said, feeling a heat emanating from them, an unfulfilled purpose calling to my power, and alien metal repelling me. And… “The underside of the table is torn to hell.” I bent to look, and grimaced. The little aluminum ridge that helped support the Formica tabletop had been distressed and ripped up.
Cory grunted. “Okay—Teague, you get the needles. I’ll secure the table.” I watched as she cupped her glowing hand under the tabletop and concentrated. Where she passed her palm, the metal glowed red—but smooth. She moved quickly but carefully, and only around three-quarters of the table. She looked up at Teague, who had extracted pins from both the seats and backs of the chairs.
“Should we throw them in the wastebasket?” Teague asked doubtfully.
“No,” Cory said grimly. “Put them in front of the two chairs.”
We dumped them in a little pile, and she had us back off. Then, in a tiny controlled burst, she melted them into the table, where they coiled, running like quicksilver before they cooled.
I grabbed the back of the chair in front of me and gave everything one more sweep with my power. Then I nodded, and we sat down. Cory made a show of pulling out her bottle of tea—and two sealed bottles of water for Teague and me.
I stared at the bag as it sat on the unused chair we’d swept. I’d gone through it to get the handkerchief that Cory was still occasionally fluttering in front of her nose, and I hadn’t seen any of that.
Cory looked at my glare and then to her other side, where Teague was glaring the same way. She snorted softly. “Green’s idea,” she told me. “I don’t know—he skinned a unicorn and cooked a newt in it or something.” She gestured loosely to the black leather professional-style handbag that apparently held the eight wonders of the world. “The only thing I can’t keep in it is the gun.”
At that moment there was a rustle at the opposite door, and we all stood while the judge and his assistant walked in.
Cory’s eyes hooded almost immediately.
Iris Masterson was just as Teague had described her—willowy, with dark hair, dark eyes, a pale oval face, and a flawless, fitted black suit with a white collared shirt underneath. She looked like Snow White’s older sister, or the wicked queen’s other daughter—the one she didn’t want to kill because she was heir to the throne. There were no giant sidhe warriors behind her, but then, she didn’t need them. Right now she had all the power.
Behind her, in toddled a man in his fifties with fading brown hair and a face too ruddy from drink or poor health. He looked… doughy, somehow, as though his flesh were not fully cooked on his bones. A part of me recoiled from the thought that Cory would have to shake hands with this person.
There was something about him that felt unclean.
But Cory was smooth. We all stood up, and she smiled coolly, waiting for Iris and the judge to take the two seats we’d left. Iris didn’t extend her hand in greeting, and Cory didn’t make any such overtures herself. She watched as the judge and his assistant stared curiously at the running stripes of metal on the tabletop as though trying to figure out what they were.
Cory’s bland expression gave nothing away. When our opponents were seated, we sat down once again, and when nobody yelped or complained, Iris’s eyes narrowed.
“Miss Green,” she said, voice glacial. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I have to admit, you look very young to represent a corporation like Green Enterprises. Have you been in this position long?”
“Going on three years now,” Cory replied. “There was an expansion a couple of years ago in December—I was on board for that.”
Iris looked visibly startled. “Really? You can’t possibly be that… old,” she finished lamely. I filed the remark away. Cory’s age confused her—she’d been expecting someone older, and someone who hadn’t been there since Green had expanded his power base.
Interesting.
“Well, Ms. Masterson,” Cory said, the droll sense of humor I knew she was capable of coming out to play, “I do tend to grow older every day, so I’m doing my best to correct that youth thing.”
I kept my face impassive, but Teague had to rub his nose to hide the grin that threatened to break out.
Iris gave a thin smile. “Charming,” she acknowledged. “But you don’t need to be so formal—you may call me Iris, and I can call you…?”
“Ms. Green is fine. Like it says on the business card, Cory Green.”
“Interesting. Is Cory your full name, or is it short for something?”
Cory bared her teeth, and I didn’t blame her. When she’d first signed up for school, we’d drilled the importance of keeping her name—the entirety of her name—secret. It was a lesson none of us forgot, that the people who knew your entire name had power over you.
Apparently Iris Masterson wasn’t getting any more of Cory’s name than the authorities at school or the people who issued her driver’s license.
“All the name I need,” she said, finishing up with a laugh that was patently false. She reached into the bag at her side and pulled out the two folders that Teague and I had memorized by this time, and she was about to put them in play when Iris interrupted with a genteel clearing of her throat.
“What about your two companions?” she asked, as though this were a dinner party and Cory had committed a faux pas. “Don’t they have names?”
Cory’s return smile was thin and guarded. “My bad. On my right is Mr. Sullivan.” Teague inclined his head. “And on my left is Mr. Kirkpatrick.” I nodded as well, surprised. We hadn’t discussed names—but since we’d both taken each other’s names in the binding ceremony, she could give any of the names mentioned and she’d still be keeping the bounds of propriety. It was just that we both generally went by Green.
Oh, she really didn’t trust this woman.
“They’re my aides,” Cory said, making eye contact. “You don’t need to worry about them.”
Iris’s eyes unfocused, and she shook her head as though trying to clear it. “I’m not worried about them,” she said vaguely, then shook her head again.
“So, about these two boys you let escape,” Cory said, holding the jackets out. “My outfit is very curious as to why they were imprisoned in the first place.”
“Your outfit…,” Iris said leadingly. “Who is that again?”
“We’re a collective of businesses,” Cory replied smoothly. “Gas stations, bakeries, craft stores, hotels—you name it, we own at least one. We’re all over the state.”
Iris raised her eyebrows. “And why are you interested in these two petty criminals?”
>
She hadn’t even looked inside the incriminating folders.
“Because they work for us, and their charges are specious at best,” Cory replied simply. She seemed inured to Iris’s disdain—but then, it was the sort of thing she’d lived with all her life before she’d come to us. She must have been bored with it by now.
“What a wonderfully caring employer you must have,” Iris said with a lip curl. “I don’t see why that warranted a meeting.”
“Well, considering that all the other boys like these two who didn’t work for us ended up dead, I’m thinking a meeting should be held somewhere, don’t you think?” Cory asked acidly. Well, maybe bored wasn’t the word.
“Are you implying we had anything to do with—”
“Yes.” Cory tilted her head as though she’d come to a decision. “Judge Griffith signed off on a specific number of people with small offenses to be defended by the world’s least functional alcoholic. They were moved into the system and killed.” Cory’s mouth tightened. “It was senseless and stupid, because it attracted our attention. All these people wanted was to fly under the radar and not get noticed. Well, you noticed, and now we’ve noticed, and we’d like to know how deep this goes.”
“I think this meeting is over!” Iris stood up in a sweep of rage, and Cory didn’t follow her.
“Sit down, Iris Mallory Masterson and George Shaw Griffith,” she said, and the power in her voice was enough for me to feel it in my stomach.
The judge sat down quickly, like a collapsing puppet, but not Iris. She sank down stiffly, her eyes fixed on Cory as though she couldn’t quite believe what she was doing or why she was doing it.
“I beg your pardon?”
Cory, to her credit, managed not to look surprised. “We know you tried to hide them,” Cory said, nodding. “You recognized them in the system and knew they’d recognize the infiltration, and you wanted them to get lost and die. But—” Her lips quirked up, and I could tell she was suppressing some genuine glee. “—someone crashed into your jail and stole two of them, and your secrets… they’re at risk, aren’t they?”
