The police, however, contacted us shortly afterwards, to say that they’d managed to secure Roze, and take down a few suspects to the bargain. Something about a shootout happening in the highway which alerted them to Roze’s position.
And that she was at the public hospital, currently using her magic to heal others.
In a slight daze, I follow Beron out of the estate after informing Alex and The Morrigan of the disappearance, since Alex came clamoring to knock when she couldn’t find her friend anywhere.
We are escorted to the hospital, and eventually find her taking a recuperation break, snug in the hospital’s cafeteria, talking to what looks like a journalist of all people.
First things first, I rush to her, and envelop her in a hug when she registers what’s happening. Beron hovers anxiously behind, desperate to check in on her too, but self-conscious of the people around us. Eventually she solves the dilemma for him, leaping at his big chest for a hug as well. I know Beron’s worried about how it looks, but to me, it’s a friend greeting a friend. He still needs to wrap his head around the dynamic we share.
“Gentleman’s dead,” she says with some relish in her voice. “Seems demons aren’t invulnerable to a hail of bullets.”
“Are you serious? That cockroach survives everything!” I say.
She shakes her head. “Not this.” She then awkwardly brushes the back of her head. “I survived it, though. I was just healing myself if I got hit. If any of the hits made me unconscious, though, I don’t think I could have done it.”
“Sounds like you’re tougher than a shifter,” I reply, though now this puts me in a different sort of dilemma. What becomes of the contract if Gentleman is gone? And if the Contract is eliminated, then what’s to stop The Morrigan from disappearing on us? I internalize the questions and smile, relieved beyond measure that she’s okay, frustrated that I was helpless to stop her abduction. She should have been safe with us.
The tale she tells us afterward, though, in the car as we return home is interesting.
“I forgot about the opposing buyer,” I admit, hand covering my mouth. “I honestly forgot. Gentleman was our problem. He was the one threatening us.”
“Yeah, well, apparently this organization was trying to keep the bones out of people’s hands. They obviously had a mole in Gentleman’s entourage, but it seemed he found out about the abduction. He must have been watching us. Both of them.” She appears slightly green as she says this. “How can we be safe like this? If they’re going to hunt me down for this magic. And I can’t remove it, not without dying myself.”
“Well, if Gentleman and the Order member is dead, then we have two less threats after you. I can focus on trying to procure the contract. Once we have it, we can then look to see if the terms can be legally changed.”
“I’d like that,” Roze says, now looking exhausted. “I’m tired already of the idea of looking over my shoulder.”
Beron places a hand on her knee. “I’ll protect you. Whatever it takes.”
“Thanks, but there are some things you can’t protect from,” she says, and Beron flinches back in shame.
“That’s not fair,” I say to her. “He was worried out his skull when he couldn’t find you.”
She has the grace to look guilty, some of the anger bleeding out of her face. “Sorry.”
We remain silent for the drive home. She’s mobbed by Alex when they meet up, and The Morrigan is icily indifferent to the ordeal, aside to congratulate us for continuing to remain alive. My father’s canceled all appointments for the day, though he’s still sour about it, since he hates unexpected things throwing a wrench in his precious plans. It’s only when we sit down to talk to The Morrigan that a few sparks fly… and not the pleasant kind.
“He didn’t say which organization he was a part of,” Roze says to Alex and The Morrigan, rubbing her hands anxiously on her knees. Sometimes glancing at Beron, sometimes at me. My heart aches for contact, to close the distance and comfort her, but I give her the space for now. “But he said he was protecting the bones. Stopping them from being used by people who would abuse your powers, I guess. And maybe I told him that you were living… but he’s dead. They’re both dead. No one knows who you are.”
The Morrigan hisses. Honest to god hisses.
“Defilers,” she whispers. “Murderers. This Order you speak of, Roze – I believe they are known as the Order of Bones. Ghastly, horrible people.”
“Come again?” Roze says, utterly baffled at The Morrigan’s sudden aggression. She’s not alone in that. I’m pretty baffled as well.
“The Order of Bones have been around for centuries,” The Morrigan bites out, eyes glittering in fury. “They kill beings of potent magical power, beings whose bones can’t be destroyed – and then keep the bones out of public reach. They target people who can grant immense powers like me. What they don’t know, or care,” she says with a shudder, “is that we can still feel everything. There’s still a part of us aware and conscious. They stored me with the bones of someone called Bouddica – she used to have the power to galvanize thousands of people with a single speech. And they thought she should die. We should die.” The Morrigan’s all puffed up, and my mouth’s hanging open, speechless.
“These people killed you?” Roze threads her hands together. “Do you think, maybe your powers are too dangerous?”
“I was careful,” The Morrigan spat. “But there were still people who managed to use my powers for their own gains. Men – and women – can’t be trusted. Humans are greedy little bugs.”
The suite falls into a rather ominous silence.
“Glad to see what you think of us,” Roze says lightly, though there’s no mirth in her features.
“I refuse to be sent back into that cursed state. Move me if you must. Obscure my location. But I will not go back. Let me grant this fool’s wish,” she says, pointing a finger at Roze, who shivers in offense. “And then it won’t matter anymore. The mistake the men made is that they need all my bones. Not so. All that is needed is my consciousness.”
“Fool?” Roze seems seconds away from lashing out, before Alex restrains her.
“Is this really true?” I say. “There’s really a bunch of people who guard the bones of powerful magical beings?”
“There is,” The Morrigan says. “Perhaps they call themselves something different. The Order of Bones. You will not find information about them in a book or scribed in any form. But I can tell you this – they lost all my bones some years back. A break-in to one of their precious vaults.”
“Wow,” I say, seriously impressed at the idea of these protectors, keeping magic like The Morrigan’s out of harm’s way. Because I agree that her magic is dangerous. But I’m not about to say that to her face. “I’m surprised. Don’t usually have run-ins with secret societies.”
“Will we need to move?” Roze asks. “Should we no longer live here?”
“It should be fine. I’ll increase security and see what I can do about sneaky people attempting to tranq us in the middle of the night,” I reply, which prompts a small laugh from her. She then claps a hand over her mouth.
“That’s the first time I’ve laughed all day. Been a hell of a day, if you ask me.”
What can I do but agree?
The “hell” of a day transforms into something better once we’ve all eaten, washed, and thoroughly rested from the chaos – though it was more chaos for Roze. We catch on the news about the accident, and of the “human angel” that healed several victims, saving some from certain death and lowering the final death toll completely.
“You’re famous now,” I tell her, giving Roze a gentle nudge in the side. She’s not happy, however, to see herself plastered on the news, as they managed to get a shot of her face.
“I’m going to have an even harder time hiding now than I already do,” she grumbles. It’s true. But with the way my father was handling her anyway, I don’t think the situation could be avoided. Someone with her kind of p
ower, with The Morrigan fueling inside, would always eventually become a target.
I wish I could make it all easier. Find and rip up the contract, if we know where it is. Let her have her freedom, let her fly and never feel beholden to me.
Or maybe I could fly her around. Demonstrate to her that I can protect her, along with Beron.
But all we can do is hug her, and comfort her.
The next few days blur past as my investigators attempt to dig up the contract but fail to do so, as Roze gets back into her client sessions, arranged by my father, and I arrange in return for her to visit the local hospital, with the express purpose of her dealing with critical cases that the hospital is unable to manage.
She comes out of her sessions exhausted but happy, finally motivated from the fact that she’s doing something close to what she’s always wanted.
I’m happy for her. She makes a good doctor, a good person. Although I work in my father’s campaign, sometimes I still don’t know if it’s really something I want to do or not. But it also remains one of the few things I can do, and it makes sense for me to follow in his footsteps. That path’s already made.
I’m a little envious of her, really, but not in a bad way. I think it’s amazing. I think she’s amazing. I just wish we could have been together in better circumstances than this.
Alex is beginning to be a lot happier with her situation, too. I’m bending over backwards to make sure the contract doesn’t feel too much like slavery, though I still have to give them orders to stop the thrash of pain hitting their bodies. The Morrigan, at first refusing to leave the estate at all, becomes a little more confident once she decides that people aren’t lining up to kidnap her. Meanwhile, all traces of Gentleman and his operations seem to have disappeared. I’m determined to get my hands on that contract if it takes all my energy to do so, because I want more than this for us.
And maybe there’s a small part of me that thinks she won’t ever be able to truly love me or Beron unless she’s free. There would always be something forced in our interactions.
She assures me it’s not like that, though. “I’m finally getting some sort of equilibrium in my life,” she admits to me. “I dropped out of the residency, but I found a chance to live a life as a healer, instead. Actual magic. I can have a career here – the hospital offered me a salary to come in a few times a week.” She’s smiling as she says this, her legs swinging from the chair she sits within the estate garden, sunbeams falling on top of us. It’s me, her and Beron – Alex and The Morrigan are on the other side of the garden, watching watermelons magically grow under The Morrigan’s borrowed greenfingers.
“I’m inclined to agree with Cato,” Beron rumbles, his huge form somehow shrunk in. He usually manages to look intimidating without even trying, but today there’s something subdued in his mannerisms. “Regardless of how well you believe yourself to be now, the fact of the matter is, you were forced into this position.”
She pauses to chew over our words. “I know. It’s not something I would have chosen. But I’d have to be a fool not to see the current benefits of what I now have. As long as nobody else tries to abduct me in the middle of the night.”
Beron rubs the back of his neck, awkward but with a slight smile. “I was wondering, what will happen with us?” He blinks and looks down at the green, rather than into our faces.
“What do you want to happen?” Roze asks, deadly serious. I hold my breath, wondering, wondering.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I’ve never done anything remotely like this before,” he says, thrusting his hands up in the air. “I know I’m not attracted to Cato in that way. No offense, sir,” he adds.
“None taken.”
There’s a beat of silence between us, as we wait for what Beron has to say, as I wonder if the next words will make or break us, confirm all my feelings or feed into my doubts.
“I know I’m attracted to you, Roze. But am I really that attracted if I don’t mind sharing you with Cato? Shouldn’t I be insanely jealous?”
“I admit,” I say quietly, “sometimes I feel this tiny stab of jealousy, when I see her with you.”
Stricken, Beron holds my gaze. Roze is silent and calculating.
“But it’s just a flicker. My mind overrides it. So all I see is two people enjoying each other. Showing me their enjoyment. Willing to share it with me,” I manage, not sure if I’m expressing myself right. “I don’t begrudge one of my oldest friends having a chance at something like this.”
The silence this time has a hidden noise, as if all our brains are working overtime to answer this. Roze looks so lovely in the sunlight, casting sculptured shadows over her cheekbones, giving her skin an almost ethereal glow, as if I could see the magic within dancing over her flesh.
“Sometimes I like one person more than the other,” Roze admits then, and I fight hard, hard as I can to control the sudden, icy fear that shivers through my body. “It depends on my mood. It’s not to say I don’t like you both. Sometimes I’m just in the mood for light, or for rough, for peace or for conversation, and you each have a different… style and presence about you. There’s joy I can find in each of you. But I don’t want to be the cause of some great rift, so I understand if it becomes too much. All I know is that I’m willing to go for this. I’m willing.”
At this, I breathe a sigh of relief. “Well, to whatever this is, so am I.”
It seems only natural then to progress from conversation to kissing. We keep it light and chaste, because there’s a high possibility of being watched from servants or even my father. And I’m not about to explain to him the merits of a threeway relationship. Polyandry as the official name – one woman with multiple male partners. It exists. There’s good reasons for it to happen.
At least now with us, the panic of abduction from Gentleman and the buyer from the auction is over. The Morrigan likes to ominously hint that the Order of Bones will investigate the deaths of their colleagues and maybe connect the dots, but for now, our protection over the estate is absolute. We have a Scryer now who can anticipate invasions before they happen, who charges way more money than they should, but it’s worth it for the added security.
Alex has crawled out of her shell enough to decide that she’ll be happy to make a career out of her singing. The media by now has leaped on the fact that our anti-slave family has slaves, but the clients my father’s been cultivating help to counter the negative sluice of information, so that in the end, no one really cares, because of the amazing things we’ve achieved together.
My father has the vote on his bill – and it passes. By only three votes, barely skimming the status quo – but it happens. Slavery in our district is completely abolished, completely illegal, and we have powers to extricate slaves from other districts if suspected of it, and to work on freeing their bonds. Severe punishment awaits those who think it a good idea to keep doing it, while there are extenuating circumstances such as mine, if we buy a slave with intention to free them.
Celebrations from humans and supernaturals flood up the streets. The media declares it as a step forward to a bright and shining future. Roze is featured prominently in some interviews as the beaming, charming doctor who uses her stolen magic for good, with a talented set of friends who might surely pave the way for more freedoms in the future.
Gentleman’s slave contract is never found, which means we have to wait out the original terms until expiry, and then test for freedom. The Morrigan takes on a slow slant of learning how different the world is, though there’s always something archaic about the way she speaks, and the way she thinks.
Roze, Beron and I are still figuring out the proper dynamics of our relationship or whatevership, but it’s clear there’s something between us that is reluctant to break, to vanish. The whispers of love at night, the caress of skin and warmth and heady passion, of the dance of pleasure with hands, lips, tongues – and promises, so many promises, to make this work, no matter what.
W
e have insecurities that bloom. Insecurities we attempt to talk out with one another. We have periods where we can’t take our hands off Roze, and periods where we don’t touch at all. Sometimes we’re busy, sometimes we’re not, but we always, always seek to have time to communicate, to iron out the insecurities, to make an effort if any is lacking.
My father’s roping me up in his next project, a far more risky one to legalize magical implants. We already have laws that rescuing someone implanted without their consent is considered fine, that we will not sacrifice the human to prevent them from using their magic unless it is deemed a risk for them to possess such – but legalizing is a whole other ball game.
I’m determined, however, to work towards a future where shifters and humans can be side by side, without judgment or fear of oppression. I’ll do it for Roze, and all the other Roze-like humans out there. I’ll do it for myself, because I want the world to be better.
I’ll do it because it’s right, and because we love her.
Bought By The Masters Page 15
