“Would you have wanted to be a Williken?” He failed to quash the thread of fear that he couldn’t measure up to a rich, powerful family.
“Hell, no.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “Shoot me now.”
He laughed and tightened his hold on her. “Congratulations, then.”
Shiloh poked his head in. “Showtime.”
Jackie slid off his lap to stand. “Let’s get this over with. I want to move onto the next chapter of my lifebook.” She picked up a messenger bag and slung it on her shoulder.
After a stop at the restroom, and just before they entered the gym, he pulled Jackie into a long hug. He meant it to be reassuring, to tell her he’d always be in her corner, but her fantastic scent and the feel of her skin on his again woke up his ever-hopeful dick, leaving him hard and wanting. He tried to hide it from her, but she’d laughed and kissed him hard and fast. “Save those naughty thoughts, darlin’.” Her whispered Texas drawl made his full-blown erection throb.
Just how he wanted to walk in and be seen by the entire frickin’ town.
On the way in, Shiloh pointed out the witness area, which was ordinarily the basketball free-throw zone painted on the gym floor. Once again, magic made it possible for everyone to hear anything said in the witness box.
The town council, seated at long tables, was now twelve. Guivre Gul-Vert, in a dress made of deep red and white flowers, presided. New faces included a dark elf who specialized in the study of magic and a pale, terrifying-looking gothic wraith with an incongruously warm smile. Shiloh mentioned their names, but Trevor couldn’t remember names of people he couldn’t smell unless he wrote them down.
The area set aside for Jackie to wait was behind a defensive magic perimeter, designated by orange hazard cones. He held the folding chair steady, so Jackie could sit, then sat in the one beside her. He threaded his fingers through hers and rested their joined hands on her thigh. She glanced at Roehm and the front row of his crew, then focused on the council. Her serene outward appearance belied the tension he felt in her. He squeezed her fingers gently.
For his part, Trevor counted over forty pride members in the roped-off bleacher section, then studied Roehm and his half-naked enforcers with a careful eye, especially the ten crammed into three rows in Roehm’s waiting area. Trevor had several permanent scars from his younger, wilder days, when he’d naively underestimated his opponents. Just because he didn’t see any weapons didn’t mean they weren’t carrying.
Deputy Shiloh stood to Jackie’s left, his thumbs tucked into his utility belt. He gave them a knowing wink, then settled his face into a neutral expression.
At fifteen minutes after noon, Roehm stood and began pacing, once again healthy and looking twice as pissed off as he had before.
Trevor had never wanted to kill anyone before, but he’d make an exception for Roehm. During their final dominance battle, Trevor had taken the measure of the shifter and found him corrosively corrupt. He gave alphas a bad name, surrounding himself with the weak and damaged, and making them worse.
Trevor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He’d learned the hard way he couldn’t fix everything, and patience worked in unexpected ways.
Four bell-like chimes sounded, and the room quieted.
Pendragor, the fairy with the wand, and dressed in lime-colored corset-vest over a dark tunic, and thigh-high boots, explained the rules for the hearing, including the prohibition of unauthorized magic. Jackie would speak first, and everyone else should sit down and keep quiet, or else. He looked pointedly at Roehm. It took a long moment for Roehm to realize that meant him, too. He sat, legs sprawled in front of him, arms crossed, and glared at anyone who caught his eye.
Pendragor invited Jackie into the witness box. “Consent for a geas spell of truth speaking?”
Jackie nodded.
Pendragor sketched a movement with his wand. Trevor felt the power of it as a thrumming against his chest.
It suddenly hit Trevor why she was willing to undergo the truth spell, even though the unpleasant facts might open her to other charges. She’d trapped Roehm into either submitting to the spell and being condemned by the truth, or refusing the spell, and being condemned by his own lies.
That was it. He loved her.
He’d already been half in love with her by the time he’d held her in his arms and promised to help her keep her child. His heart swelled when she’d helped him keep his head in the fight. But smart, clever women had always been his honey, and she had that in abundance.
The woman he was in love with sat with her bag in her lap, proud and brave, in the center of the witness box. She told her story.
When she got to the part about finding the secret accounting ledger, she pulled a slim black-and-red journal out of her bag and gave it to Pendragor.
Roehm jumped to his feet with a loud verbal barrage, claiming she didn’t know what she was talking about, they were confidential, she forged them, and they weren’t his.
Tiny golden elf Guivre frowned and gestured with two fingers. “Sit down.” His chair slammed into the back of his knees, forcing him to fall back into it. The chair slid back into its place. Roehm snarled and struggled to stand again but seemed to be fighting invisible shackles.
Jackie’s lips tightened in annoyance. “I’m a certified public accountant with criminal forensics experience. I know a ledger when I see one.” She nailed Roehm with her gaze. “Alpha Roehm has been skimming seventy to eighty percent of the pride’s gross income from stolen cars, and illegal gun and drug sales, then taking his ‘lion’s share’ of the puny profit he reported to the pride in the spreadsheet program on his personal computer.” She turned her attention to several of the pride who’d been allowed to sit behind Roehm in chairs on the gymnasium floor. “Ask the Shifter Tribunal for an outside audit if you don’t believe...” Her words trailed off, and she paled.
Trevor focused his predator’s gaze on the pride members, wondering what had shaken her. The lynx-shifter enforcers sat together like the juvenile delinquents they obviously were. The jaguar looked pissed off. The sad cheetah shifter stared at his feet. An obese leopard shifter sat uncomfortably on a chair that was too small for his fat ass. The scarecrow-skinny leopard shifter next to him yawned and scratched under the kerchief at his neck, revealing a recent, still-unhealed scar.
Realization slammed into Trevor. He was looking at Ricardo, the obese leopard shifter who’d planned to sell Jackie’s baby at auction, and Ruben, the skinny leopard shifter who she thought she’d killed. Who was obviously very much alive.
Trevor ruthlessly sat on his bear to keep from whining and distracting Jackie even more. He didn’t know what else to do but pump every bit of love he had into the thin mate bond that was growing between them, and hope she’d feel it and draw strength from it.
Jackie straightened her shoulders. “I admit I stole from the pride. They already took back the motorcycle with their harpoon, and I will gladly return everything that’s left.” She gave Roehm a sharp smile that had nothing to do with humor. “Especially the ledger.”
“What about the money we paid for you?” demanded skinny Ruben. “We bought you food and fat-girl clothes, too. And what about the money for that illegal shifter child you’re carrying?”
Ricardo elbowed Ruben hard. “Shut up, you moron.”
“No, you shut up.” Ruben elbowed Ricardo back. “We’re out twenty thousand for a worthless skank.”
Jackie’s harsh laugh cut them off. “Check the ledger. Roehm only paid fifteen thousand for all six of us he bought from the auction and pocketed the rest.”
A large, well-dressed man with brown skin and long, straight black hair rose from the first row of the bleachers and stepped into the witness area. Trevor’s bear nose told him the man was a shifter, but of unknown species. “Who is the father of the leopard child you’re carrying? Does he know where you are?”
“Who are you?” asked Jackie. She seemed calm, but her fingers knotted together in her lap.<
br />
The man frowned. “I am Florinel Brooker, and a member of the Shifter Tribunal. Answer the question.” He oozed authority.
Jackie jutted her chin out. “No. It’s not germane.”
Trevor stood and drilled Brooker with a warning look. Brooker frowned and opened his mouth to speak.
Guivre’s voice interrupted. “Enough, Mr. Brooker.” A core of iron underpinned her golden-soft tone. “We invited you out of courtesy to your Tribunal. You have no jurisdiction in sanctuary decisions.”
Brooker’s expression stilled. After a moment, he gave a curt nod, then returned to his seat.
Trevor turned to catch Jackie’s eye. He nodded to tell her he’d always be there for her, then sat down again.
Guivre rose from her chair and crossed to Jackie. For the first time since they’d arrived, and all the events of the afternoon, Guivre’s expression bordered on sympathetic as she looked at Jackie. “We will not compel you to speak of how you became pregnant. However, if we grant you sanctuary, you may never be able to leave Kotoyeesinay again.”
Jackie flicked a glance toward Brooker, then back to Guivre. “If the Tribunal takes my child away, what will happen to her?”
Guivre rocked back on her heels, a shocked look on her face. “I was under the impression the Tribunal stopped that centuries ago.” Her lips thinned as she turned a frosty gaze on Brooker. “Am I wrong?”
Brooker shook his head, clearly appalled. “We don’t take away children.” He shot a narrow-eyed, speculative glance at Roehm.
Guivre turned back to Jackie. “The choice is yours.”
Jackie looked to Trevor. Damn, he wished they’d had more time to talk. He tried to convey without words that he would love her feline child as much as he already loved her. That was part of the magic of shifter mates.
Jackie closed her eyes for a long moment, then sighed and opened them. “The father of my child is a leopard shifter named Barry Williken. He claimed I was his mate.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “When I accidentally became pregnant, he sold me to an auction house in Las Vegas because I have shifter-mate potential. That’s why Roehm bought me for his pride. They were going to sell my baby, then force-change me so I could breed again.” She wiped away the tear that fell and caught Trevor’s gaze with her own. “Barry wasn’t my mate. I know that now, after having met Trevor.”
Trevor crossed to her and knelt by her side. He held his hand out to her in invitation. She put her hand in his, and he pulled it close, so he could rest his face against her palm. “I love you, Jacqueline Breton. And Princess, too.” His words boomed throughout the gym, but he didn’t care. He’d shout it from the mountaintops if he had to.
She smiled at him and used her thumb to brush the tear that fell down his cheek. “I love you, Trevor Hammond.” She put her hand on her stomach. “We love you.”
He kissed the back of her hand. “Marry me.”
She laughed, though it sounded wet from her tears. “Of course, I’ll marry you. I can’t tell a lie: You’re my mate.”
The tenuous bond between them strengthened and widened. She was without a doubt the most remarkable woman in the universe, and he hoped he could give her everything she deserved.
Noise impinged on the little world that held only him and the mate he would love the rest of his life. It sounded like… cheering?
He looked around and saw the people in the bleachers standing and clapping. Some whistled, and others stomped. He saw happy faces as wet with tears as his and his mate’s.
Closer movement drew his attention. Brooker dragged a struggling Roehm to Pendragor, who was still holding the ledger book, and demanded a truth spell so he could get details. A host of djinn guards surrounded Roehm’s pride, but only dimwitted Ruben tried to get past them, and nearly lost an ear for his trouble.
“Ow!” Jackie put her hand on her stomach.
Trevor gave her an alarmed look. He suddenly realized he didn’t know anything about pregnant women, or babies, or even how to change a diaper. Babies needed cribs. Leopards needed trees to climb. Houses needed beds and flowers and curtains...
Jackie took his face in her hands. “Don’t panic. I’m fine. That’s just Princess, giving me the elbow, letting me know she’s still here. We’ll figure this out together.”
“I don’t have anything to give you,” he admitted. “My parents’ clan kicked me out because I’m not like them. I only have my truck.”
“Silly bear.” She leaned over and kissed his nose. “As long as we have each other, everything else is gravy.”
The loudest, longest whistle Trevor ever heard in his life had everyone in the gym holding their hands over their ears or covering their heads with their paws. Even the wyvern tried to bury its head under its wing.
Guivre waved delicate fingers, and the noise stopped. “Thank you.”
The only sound in the room was the air conditioning as she glided to the table where the council sat and faced them. She spoke to them in a language Trevor didn’t recognize. After a moment, most of them nodded.
She turned to face Trevor and Jackie. “Full sanctuary is granted to Jacqueline Breton and her child.”
Pandemonium erupted in the room, making it impossible to talk. Trevor pumped fists into the air and roared his happiness, then folded Jackie in a tight embrace and kissed her soundly. She kissed him right back, then said something he couldn’t hear.
“I love you, too.” That was safe, right?
She laughed and pulled his head toward hers, so she could yell in his ear.
“I need to pee!”
He laughed as he scooped her up into his arms and started carrying her toward the double doors. If his mate needed a bathroom, that’s what she’d get. And anything else it was his power to give.
7
Jackie’s fervent desire to be alone with her mate after the hearing was frustrated by a request from Brooker to tell him what she could about the auction.
Then she had to talk Trevor into letting her go without him, because he’d promised to defend her and her baby from the Shifter Tribunal. “I love you, but you can’t protect me from the past or my memories. The sooner they know, the sooner they can act.” She gave him a long kiss that left them both panting, then handed him the key to her room. “If you buy enough food for us, we won’t have to leave the motel for days. I’ll be there as soon as I’m done with Brooker.”
She’d set the meeting at the sheriff’s station just in case she needed backup. Despite the confidence she’d shown to Trevor, she wasn’t one-hundred-percent convinced the Shifter Tribunal wouldn’t try to steamroll her because she was a human who would soon be raising a leopard shifter daughter.
Deputy Shiloh showed them to an empty office that belonged to the vacationing sheriff and left them alone. She sat in one of the two visitor chairs and put her bottle of water on the big mahogany desk. Brooker sat in the other, then set a small tape recorder on the desk. It had the subtle feel of talisman magic.
Seen up close, Brooker was younger than she’d thought, though it was hard to tell with shifters. He had impressively wide shoulders and was handsome enough to be a movie star.
He waved toward the tape recorder. “This is spelled to transcribe and transmit what we say to the enforcement office in Chicago. But first, I owe you an apology for asking about the father of your child.”
She tilted her head. “You do?”
“We had a case last year. A wizard recruited human women with shifter-mate potential to have sex with shifters, paid a witch to ensure they got pregnant, then blackmailed the fathers. Some of the women knew exactly what they were getting into and went along with it for the money.” His lips curved downward in a thin, tight frown. “I let my suspicion runaway with my good sense. In short, I fucked up, and I’m sorry.”
“Forgiven.” Empathy rose in her, and she sighed. “It’s hard, facing up to your own prejudices. I wouldn’t be with Trevor if I hadn’t faced up to mine.” She pointed her chin toward the small, shield
-shaped gold pin on his lapel. “Besides, you’re in a lonely business, where you only see people at their worst. I couldn’t do police work if my life depended on it.”
“Thank you.” After a moment, he reached out to turn on the tape recorder, but she stopped him.
“What are you going to do with Roehm and his pride?”
“Arrange to have them ported to holding cells in Chicago.” He smiled reassuringly. “They won’t be anywhere near you for a long time.”
“That’s good to know, but I’d like to ask that you look at the pride members as individuals and see if they can be… rehabilitated, I guess. Find new prides or clans for them.” She pulled the bottle of water off the desk and held it on her stomach. “A few are just as bad as Roehm, but most are Roehm’s victims, not his supporters. The young lynx brothers are orphans who don’t know anything else. The cheetah mourns his dead mate, who he thinks he killed, when it was actually Roehm who did it. I bet the compound still has the tiger guard in the garage, chained with magic so he can’t shift, and starved so he’ll eat anything he can catch.”
She took a deep breath and shook herself, to keep the tears at bay. “Most were hurting, damaged, just trying to get by, looking for the safety of the pride, hoping the leader would help them. Instead, they got a got a greedy sociopath who fed on them, worse than any blood-mad vampire.”
Brooker’s expression went flat, which she suspected meant she’d surprised him. After several long moments, he nodded. “I can’t speak for the Tribunal regarding what will happen to Roehm, but what you’re asking is the right thing to do.” A corner of his mouth twitched with what may have been a smile. “I’ll assign it myself, so I know it’s done right.”
She pointed to the tape recorder. “So, speaking of greedy sociopaths who run auction houses in the basement of a Las Vegas hotel…”
Shifter Mate Magic Page 8
