by Kyle, Celia
It was unusual, the peace he felt, even as he faced his own imprisonment. If they allowed him to walk free in under a century, he would consider it a victory. Perhaps once the latest machinations were resolved and memories had dimmed, Alena might quietly petition her master for his early release on account of their connection. If not…well, a century was a small price to pay for finally finding the woman who would be his for all eternity.
Living without her would be difficult, though, now that her face, her touch, her taste were seared into his mind. Just the few seconds they’d been separated while the guard chained him to the chair were torture. Where was she anyway?
With the prosecutor watching him closely, Luca sat in his chair with the stillness of the final death, eyes and expression outwardly icy. They would not know how much it pained him to be ripped from her arms.
The side door of the courtroom opened, and the Triune filed inside, their paces stately. He nearly sneered at the melodrama but recalled he was supposed to be on good behavior. Not even an hour in her company and already his beloved had him on a leash—and he was content to be under her rule.
Luca smiled.
The prosecutor eyed him sideways, frowning. Luca ignored the man, turning his head as Alena rushed through the door he’d just come through. A pretty young woman was at her side, golden-haired and wearing pink PJs and fluffy pink bunny slippers.
Alena refused to meet his gaze as she and the woman whispered furiously on their way to the defense table. As with the Triune earlier, he could hear their voices but their actual words were obscured, even from keen vampiric hearing.
Another enchantment, which meant the blonde was a witch.
The cheery post-claiming glow in Alena’s cheeks had faded to a stark pallor. Her anxiety leached into him, setting his fangs on edge. She shot Malone a narrow look as she took her seat next to Luca, the witch sitting in a chair directly behind the defense table.
Alena leaned back, draping an arm over the railing, her forehead close to the witch’s as they continued their discussion. The blonde must have extended her enchantment to include him because this time he understood their words.
“Can you do it or not, Kelly?” Alena asked tersely.
“Of course, I can, but it’s illegal as hell.”
“Better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” Alena replied. “Besides, you’re a ward of the coven’s council until your twenty-fifth birthday. You won’t get into too much trouble.”
The woman, apparently named Kelly, sighed. “This is a big favor, Alena.”
“Correction. This is payback for the many, many, many times I’ve saved your ass. This one act wipes the slate clean.” Alena gave her friend a bright smile. “Besides, I’ll love you forever. Literally.”
Luca didn’t want Alena to put herself on the line for him, and calling in favors and shielding the witch from whatever trouble she could get into might put her own freedom in jeopardy.
“What are you about to do?” he growled, narrowed eyes bouncing between the women. “We agreed you’d focus on reducing my sentence, Alena.”
She returned his edged look. “No, you demanded. I didn’t agree. I’m not going down without a fight, Luca.”
“This is not a moving picture show, woman.”
The witch smirked at him. “How old is this guy, anyway?”
Luca would have said more, but Alena silenced him with a kiss. He was a weak male. It took only her soft lips and her fingers on his cheek to distract him. He deepened the kiss, claiming her tongue as his own, his body roaring to life in a way entirely inappropriate for a courtroom full of his enemies. A gavel banged several times, but Alena paid it no mind.
“If we might have your attention,” Judge Soren called, pounding the gavel a few more times.
With a defeated sigh, Alena finally released him from the kiss but maintained her hold on his face. Love poured from her eyes into his soul and he knew in that moment he’d do whatever she asked.
“Trust me, Luca,” she whispered and then stood to face the Triune.
His beloved pulled aside the locks of hair covering the mark on her neck. The wound had healed, of course, but whatever chemistry or magic fueled their mating caused a scar to remain, proof they were bound to each other forever.
“Satisfied?” Alena asked, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
The crowd, which had grown since the recess, broke into loud murmurs of astonishment. Even Kelly made noises, like she was whispering to herself. Judge Falkov called the room to order as Judge Soren banged the gavel again.
Luca eyed the werewolf, wondering if she had anger issues. She wielded the instrument with the glee of a toddler shaking a rattle. His internal amusement faded when his attention briefly rested on Stefan, the only member of the Triune who remained silent, focused.
On Luca. And now Alena.
“If we are quite ready to proceed,” Judge Soren prompted.
“Absolutely,” Alena replied and turned slightly toward her witch friend. “I would like to call a special expert witness, Kelly Holloway.”
When would the torment cease? First, fate gave him a Falkov as his eternal mate, and then that Falkov called in a Holloway witch under the care of the coven’s council? The female was a baby compared to him and Alena. If he didn’t trust Alena entirely, he’d be certain it was a conspiracy. Well, he already knew it was a conspiracy.
More of a conspiracy.
Kelly rose from her seat and joined Alena as his beloved began to speak.
“In questioning my client regarding his whereabouts on the night in question, I discovered several irregularities, which cause me to doubt the legitimacy of his statements.”
What? They’d had no time for questions. They had been too busy with other things.
“In the interest of clarity and justice, my colleague has agreed to assist the court in ascertaining the truth.”
Alena turned to him and Luca felt the subtle needle prick of magic descend over him like a silk shroud. A warm summer wind emanated from Kelly, a glow under her skin signaling the rise of her magic.
“What is this, Alena?” he whispered, alarm rising in him.
He was not yet ready to distrust her. Distrusting his beloved would feel unnatural, foreign. But he also knew the feel of a powerful casting when hit with one.
The spell expanded, creeping forward to touch every individual in the room. He kept his expression neutral by sheer force of will. Is this what she’d meant by better to ask forgiveness than permission? He was no lawyer, but even he knew paperwork was involved before casting a spell during a court case. Otherwise people would throw enchantments at will, with no oversight.
“This is your freedom,” she whispered.
The glint in her eyes foretold that in another one hundred years, maybe even less, she would be a force for her enemies to reckon with.
He touched the tip of his tongue against his retracted fangs. A force for him to reckon with. May his foresires help him.
Luca considered Kelly, suppressing the urge to put himself between her and his beloved. He didn’t know the witch—therefore he didn’t trust her—and Alena stood by far too placidly in the face of such a powerful arcane. Luca didn’t even trust his friends to cast such spells in his presence unless he already had some method to defend himself against the effects. Sitting there, trussed like a turkey in silver chains, filled him with the urge to howl at the full moon in frustration. He was beginning to see why the shifters loved to do so.
“What are you up to, Alena?” Malone demanded, stepping from behind his desk.
Luca hissed at him. “Stay on your side of the courtroom, counselor.”
Alena placed a hand on his shoulder, fingers digging in with delicate strength. “Excuse my client’s outburst, Your Honors. He’s under tremendous stress.”
She gave him a commanding look and Luca wanted to remind her she wasn’t his governess, but now wasn’t the time. He’d do it later, with his face buried bet
ween her thighs and his tongue on her clit. The faint pink rising in her cheeks proved she sensed some of what he was thinking. Luca smiled, satisfied and a little less tense after letting out some energy by aggravating his lawyer.
“Prosecutor Malone asked a question,” Judge Falkov snapped at Alena. “Answer it.”
Aya Holloway rose from her seat slowly, eyes fixed on Kelly. “It’s a truthspell. And a powerful one.”
Chapter Seven
“I object!” Malone shouted, his face flashing an alarming red while his eyes bulged from their sockets. “A truthspell wasn’t cleared by the court. This witch hasn’t been sworn in, and who is paying the exorbitant fee? There are reasons we don’t utilize truthspells for common court cases.”
Those reasons would be mostly due to corruption, but let’s all pretend otherwise, Alena thought as she maintained a poker face.
There would be the devil to pay once this was all over. She didn’t relish the prospect of having to ask for the protection of Clan Ravenna in case her own elders were unreasonably galled. She’d always preferred to stand on her own two feet, but that wasn’t always possible when dealing with creatures that could rip your head off like a Barbie doll.
“Ms. Holloway’s services are at my expense,” Alena sniffed. “And Ms. Holloway happens to be an officially licensed expert in corporate and private truthspell casting. We can present her credentials if needed, but Judge Holloway can vouch for her, as the original license would have been approved by her or a colleague.”
The older witch nodded though didn’t appear happy about it. “I can vouch for my coven member. She is fully qualified and licensed to cast a truthspell in legal and corporate proceedings for profit purposes.”
“I demand a recess to verify those credentials,” Malone howled. “The defense is scrambling to pull a turtle out of its bonnet.”
“It’s a rabbit out of a hat, Malone.” Alena kept her opinion of his ethics off her face and maintained an innocent, slightly vapid but determined expression—just the sort of look a newly mated and somewhat naïve law student might have had under the circumstances. Not someone about to pull a fast one.
He sneered at her. “You slink off for a thirty-minute fuck-fest and come back with a witch. Convenient. Did you happen to recess with Judge Holloway as well?”
“Are you doubting Judge Holloway’s word or just her integrity?” she asked, astonished. Just astonished. “Your Honors, I move to cite prosecutor Malone for his outrageous insult against the judge and Clan Holloway’s honor. He’s all but accusing her of corruption. And furthermore—”
The woman seated behind Malone, the prosecutor sent to babysit him, frowned, staring hard at the prosecutor’s back. Malone flinched.
“I withdraw my demand,” Malone said quickly. “Of course, Judge Holloway’s integrity is not in question. You took my comments out of context.”
By the blood, Malone was stupid. She’d walked back into the courtroom half-expecting a call from a clan elder having her removed the case. But Malone underestimated her because she wasn’t technically a lawyer yet. He saw her simply as Luca’s beloved and someone to be reprimanded later in private for acting against clan interests, albeit unintentionally. He hadn’t seen her as a threat.
Alena smiled at him. She was about to teach him, with Kelly’s help, the error of his ways.
Alena kept her eyes wide and innocent. “These are unusual circumstances, Your Honors. With so little real-world experience, I need assistance to know whether or not my client and other witnesses are being truthful. I beg the court’s indulgence.” She paused, allowing her blush to brighten, radiating naïve embarrassment. “At first, I didn’t really think forcing someone to tell the truth would be so controversial.”
Her qualifier of “at first” kept the whole statement from being an outright lie.
Alena glanced down at Luca in time to see him control his amusement. His brow had begun creeping upward as she’d delved deeper into her Pollyanna aw-shucks routine. She squeezed his shoulder once more and then released him.
“I object most strenuously,” Malone said, his previous outrage muted by his idiocy.
“Oh, well, in that case,” Kelly muttered, ending with a quiet snort. “Not just strenuously, but most strenuously.”
Her voice was low enough that everyone could pretend not to hear her. Alena winced as Kelly’s coven-mate almost glared at her. This wouldn’t be a clean slate after all. Alena would owe her friend big-time, especially since she’d likely be yanked in front of the coven’s council to explain herself.
Well, they could make bets on whose wrist would get slapped the hardest. Alena grimly hoped wrist-slapping was all that would take place. The covens were a little less macabre than vampires. Vampiric elders had been known to dream up some truly gruesome, but ultimately nonfatal, punishments to reward clan members for annoying little infractions.
Judge Holloway turned her attention on Malone. “Why do you object? Surely this would simplify the proceedings. If the Triune were allowed to cast truthspells, we likely would.”
Alena highly doubted that, but okay.
Malone wrapped injured dignity around him like a royal shroud. “Your Honor, how am I supposed to prepare my arguments ahead of time against a truthspell?”
Scratching her head like a dummy, Alena asked, “So you don’t want the truth presented in this courtroom because you haven’t had enough time to decide how to twist it into a lie?”
Malone ignored her, but his face turned an even darker shade of red.
Luca snorted softly. Alena turned her head slightly and silently told him to shut the hell up. Her beloved grinned up at her, shifting to stretch out his legs underneath the table as if to say he was going to relax and be a good boy. Sure.
“I vote to allow it,” Judge Holloway said, surprising Alena. The witch wasn’t normally the most assertive person in the world, but maybe having a fellow witch present helped to strap some steel to her spine.
“Ditto,” Judge Soren said. “This should be interesting. Stefan?”
He made a noise, turning his head to look moodily out a window, as if to say the entire discussion was beneath him. “If I object on any grounds, I will only be accused of malfeasance. Of course, I do not object.”
She wondered if he was being so honest because of the truthspell or if he just felt like being blatantly truthful for once.
Alena wanted to rub her hands together in glee, but she heroically restrained herself, especially when the vampire judge turned to her with a murderous attitude. Luca stiffened beside her—and not in the good way.
The spell finished expanding throughout the room and snapped into place. The hair on the back of her neck stood at attention for a split second.
“Your Honors,” Alena said. “I would like to call my first witness, Luca Ravenna.”
“Luca Ravenna is not on the approved witness list,” Malone barked, banging his fist on his desk.
“Since when does a man have to be approved to answer questions in his own defense? If the prosecution is so certain he is guilty, they should be more than happy to have Mr. Ravenna take the stand amidst a truthspell.”
Malone sputtered. The woman behind him looked pissed. But when the Triune said nothing in response to Malone’s half-assed objection, Alena nodded at Luca.
The guard unshackled Luca and led him to the stand. Alena glanced at Kelly, who nodded. She’d be able to hold the spell for as long as Alena needed.
After Luca was sworn in—completely unnecessary since they were all under the influence of the truthspell, but customs were customs—Alena dove right in.
“Your full name, please?”
“Luca Ravenna.”
“Mr. Ravenna, can you tell me your whereabouts on the night of…oh!”
She dashed back to the desk, picked up the file folder and began rifling through its contents. Malone’s alternating waves of frustration and sneering contempt bathed her in the stickiness of his aura.
&n
bsp; Keep thinking I’m an incompetent newb, she thought. The more rope to hang yourself with, asshole.
“Mr. Ravenna, your statement says that on the night of the attack, you were walking around the lake—”
“This line of questioning is repetitive,” Malone interrupted. “The accused has already entered his alibi into the record, which was summarily debunked by our witnesses. We should move past exploratory—”
It was Alena’s turn to interrupt him. “Hardly exploratory when we have a truthspell that can establish instantly whether my client’s alibi is truth or lie. Or do you not want the court to know the truth?”
“Of course, I don’t want the court—” His words were cut off when he snapped his jaw shut and winced. The truthspell at work!
“I agree with Prosecutor Malone,” Judge Falkov said, covering for the prosecutor. “We have moved beyond this stage in the trial. It’s unfortunate Ms. Falkov came too late to the proceedings to mount a proper defense. I am satisfied with the case built by the prosecution.”
Alena pressed her lips together. “Are the witnesses who saw my client attack the victim present in court?”
“No,” Malone snapped, panting as he regained his composure. “We have their sworn statements.”
“So, I am unable to cross-examine them. In that case, your Honors, Mr. Ravenna is the only person present who is able to be examined while under truthspell. If the court will not allow him to answer the question, I move for immediate dismissal.”
“There are procedures we must follow,” Malone blustered.
“I agree,” her great-uncle twice removed said. “Alena, move past the alibi.”
Dammit! It wasn’t the end of the world, just annoying. The more evidence produced under truthspell, the harder it would be for the Triune to legitimately find Luca guilty.
“Then let’s turn to the other evidence presented by the prosecutor.” She paused to sort through several sheets of paper. “Huh. It appears there is none.”
