by K. N. Banet
“Oh, Kaliya,” Cassius whispered, sitting down slowly. “You’re being paranoid—”
“I know Adhar. He’s not a bad man, but he’s a desperate one. He’ll want Raphael picked apart and studied because maybe it’ll find him the mate he’s never had. As far as we’ve always known, nagas can breed with other nagas or humans. Humans are harder to have children with than a pure naga pairing. What would that mean for Raphael? He presents human, smells human, looks human…until he isn’t. This rocks the foundation of my species to the core, and I can’t trust my own kind with him.” I looked away, feeling the weight of rule on my shoulders, a rare problem, one I avoided with a passion. This was my call to make, and I was going to do the best I could with it, even if it meant setting back the nagas by potentially decades. “I have to keep this from them, so I have the chance to find answers without outside help I disagree with. I have to do this on my own.”
“Not on your own. If we can find a way to protect him, I’ll lead a formal investigation into what he is. I’ll feed you information to do with what you will, even if it means fighting battles you shouldn’t.”
“You just said I was being paranoid. Now, you’re deciding to help.”
“I told you I would support whatever decision you made, and I’m doing that. You don’t trust Mygi, the Tribunal, or the other nagas with Raphael. That means he’s going to stay with you or me because I know you trust me.”
“I do.”
“Then we’re going to work this out. Let’s look through the Laws and see if we can find some protection for him.”
“Mygi is trying to make it sound like what they did to him doesn’t matter,” I said softly as Cassius floated a book to me. I flipped it open and sighed. “There’s going to be nothing in here to protect him. Without knowing his species, we don’t have any laws that would cover him from their activities. He’s not dead, therefore, they didn’t really do anything wrong. It’s so fucked up.”
“I know,” Cassius agreed.
“And because he is an unknown supernatural, going to Mygi will seem like the safest option. They can study him and try to give him answers. The Tribunal will probably be watching them closely, so the fucked-up experiments would probably stop, but…I can’t send him back there.”
I kept flipping through the pages, not really looking at them. My mind wandered.
Naga protection might be all I have. Declare him a compatible mate and tell them to shove it. Take him home and kill anyone who tries to come on my property, the way every naga does it. Seven hundred years as a Tribunal species has given us certain allowances, since we only joined and accepted the Tribunal authority to have those protections granted. They granted the demands because we were one of the first to join who wasn’t one of the founding species.
The Laws don’t stop anyone from trying to kill us, but they give us legal protection to fight back without anyone being able to demand reparations.
I frowned.
“Can Raphael declare his species and become a protected species of the Tribunal?” I asked myself. I flipped through the book of Law and found the portion about new species’ admittance into the governance of the Tribunal.
It required one of two species leaders to declare intent. If the species was democratic or had shifting leadership, there was a trial period for any of those in the species to fight for the right to lead and remove the application.
None of that mattered for Raphael, though. There was nothing like him in the world, not that we knew of.
“Kaliya? You were saying something?”
“I think Raphael should go in front of the Tribunal to ask to become a protected species,” I said, looking up, the idea settling. I had a good feeling about it. “He could be a species under the Tribunal, then apply for protections under the Endangered Species Law, like the nagas and kitsune. Mygi wouldn’t be allowed to come near him without his permission. He would be allowed to defend himself with deadly force.”
“You can’t declare a species you don’t have a name for, and he’s not the leader—”
“There’s no requirement in the Laws for a name of the species,” I said, pointing at the book in my lap. “None! Because everyone assumes every species already has a name. So what if Raphael’s doesn’t, so far as we know. And for leaders? I’m the de facto female leader of the nagas because I’m the only one. Why can’t Raphael be considered the de facto leader of whatever he is because we don’t know if there are others?”
“You’re mad…” Cassius said, standing up, furiously flipping through the pages of his copy. I watched him read through once he was on the right page. “It might just work.”
“It just might,” I said, grinning. “Cassius…he wouldn’t need either of us. He would have protection on his own. He would be able to go and do as he pleased within the confines of the Law, and the Tribunal could treat him the same way they treat every supernatural, except he’ll be endangered and have all the same protections I do.”
“They would have to give a placeholder species name…but…” Cassius nodded quickly now. “Go get him. Get him in here. We’re going to start working this out. Kaliya, this is genius.”
“I have my moments,” I said, grinning wildly. I ran out of the office and stopped in the hall. “Raphael! We might have an idea!”
He was coming down the hall seconds later, taking long strides.
“We can protect me from Mygi without breaking a bunch of Laws? I don’t really want to have to fight it out for the rest of my life.”
I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the office. I didn’t want any Tribunal people who might be wandering Cassius’s house to overhear. I hadn’t seen any yet, but I had a feeling they were there. Relocking the office door, I let him go and grinned at him.
“We can’t stop people from attacking you, but we can fight to get you legal protection and certain privileges reserved for only a few species.”
“What do I have to do?”
“You’ll have to put in a formal request to the Tribunal to become a species that submits to its authority. That means you’ll be completely beholden to the Law, but you’ll also be granted all the protections of it. If someone outside your species attacks you, you can defend yourself. Mind you, you’ll have to pay reparations for the death if one occurs. But I think we can go a step further. I want you to ask for protection under the Endangered Species Law.”
“What?” I knew I had lost him by the look on his face.
“Some species are given special dispensation to kill at first sight for trespassers or attackers with no legal ramifications. No reparations, no talking it out with the Tribunal to see if you accidentally committed murder. Nagas are one of them. If anyone comes on my property without my permission, I’m allowed to kill first and ask questions later, and no one can try me for murder.”
“It’s based on the werecats,” Cassius added. “They have land magic, a territorial thing they do where any supernatural that crosses into their territory can and probably will be killed on sight. Other species asked to be allowed to protect themselves like that, but they have to have good reason or unfair wars over land would pop up. Generally, a werewolf pack and a vampire nest can’t fight over a city just because they want to. Both the pack and the nest would be put down for such an egregious display of bad behavior. But species low in numbers, under undue threat of extinction, are given permission to defend themselves like werecats do.”
“Werecats aren’t protected under the Law, but no one is going to stop a werecat from killing anything on its territory,” I said, shrugging. “It’s your choice, Raphael, but this is the best we can do. This isn’t a world where the fighting ever truly stops. There’s always something or someone that wants to kill you, but this will allow you to fight back every time. If someone tries to capture you, kill them. If someone comes into your home, kill them. No guilt, no possible repercussions. They know what they’re doing when they go after you if this becomes a thing and goes public.”
&n
bsp; “I…” Raphael sighed. “This is really it, isn’t it?”
“Right now, you’re an undeclared species with no protections from the Tribunal. Without those, The Tribunal and Mygi can put you in a dark room and experiment on you until their hearts are content. The Tribunal makes it a point to treat species who aren’t loyal to them badly, as a way to say, ‘join us, and we’ll stop this.’ It’s cruel, but it got several very dangerous species in line. Pocket populations, mostly, like you. The Tribunal had no legal right to tell Mygi to stop, even if they wanted to.” Cassius closed his book of Law. “It’s the right decision, Raphael. By agreeing to the rules, the rules also protect you.”
“This sounds like something that came up in my human rights class,” he muttered. “Everyone has rights except those people who aren’t ‘us.’”
“That’s exactly what this is,” I agreed, feeling bad. “But it’s worked for our world for a long time. The Tribunal is eight hundred years old, and it’s the first attempt supernaturals have ever made to have a centralized ruling power to keep us all in line. While it keeps us in line, it also protects all of us from exposure.”
“What would happen if I exposed it all?”
“Don’t consider that,” I whispered.
“Why not?”
“They would order me to kill you, and I…” I couldn’t say that I would. I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t try. “An Executioner would put you down, and you would be written off as a deranged mad man with no idea what you’re talking about. The species who don’t want to go public shouldn’t be forced to.”
Cassius caught my eye.
“It worked for someone else,” my ex-lover pointed out.
“Hasan is a Tribunal member, and he was fighting to keep one of his own alive. They wouldn’t be able to write him off as an idiot, either. Not if his entire family went public and took the Tribunal with them. Raphael is one man. His case would be the same as everyone else’s.” Hasan had threatened to expose everyone if a werecat was put to death. It was what brought him out of hiding only a few weeks ago. I had been at that Trial.
Fuck, it was the business trip I was on just before this mess started.
“Fair points,” the fae conceded. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to start considering his idea. It would also look like a ploy because someone else just held the Tribunal hostage with that very threat.”
“Exactly.” I nodded, sitting on the edge of his desk. “So, Raphael, your choices are to make an attempt to submit to the authority of the Tribunal and be given protections or run for the hills and go back into deep hiding.”
“Would you two keep helping?” he asked softly. “No matter what I choose?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I’ll always help you. That’s a promise.” It was the only one I could give.
“I’ll ask them for the protections, see if I can do this the right way before doing anything else,” he decided. “How do we do this?”
“Let’s get to work,” Cassius said, a smile in his voice.
31
Chapter Thirty-One
One minute before the recess ended, I walked into the Tribunal Chambers with Cassius and Raphael behind me. Ardghal was already waiting, and so were most of the Tribunal members with the exception of Hasan. Cassius led Raphael to sit down, and I took the floor beside Ardghal. Since we were the last two speaking to the Tribunal, we would have to be the first two. It was protocol.
Five minutes after the recess technically ended, everyone was still waiting on Hasan. While no one voiced a complaint, I could see annoyance on the faces of a few of the Tribunal members, especially the werewolves. I could imagine they didn’t like waiting around on a werecat. Then again, Hasan had been an enemy of Callahan and Corissa once, eight hundred years ago. The two most powerful werewolves of their time and the oldest werecat on the face of the earth, they had been the leaders of the werewolf-werecat war.
There was old animosity there but it wasn’t my business.
When Hasan came in ten minutes late, everyone stared at him. He walked slow, seemingly unperturbed by the looks, and sat down in his seat without any sort of rush.
“Sorry. One of my children and I were speaking.” He turned to me and tilted his head. “You never told me you were trained by my son.”
“Excuse me?” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this. I knew what he was talking about, but I didn’t see how it pertained to anything.
“You were trained by a werecat named Hisao. I’m certain you know his reputation.”
“Hisao the Assassin. Yes, I know his reputation. I also knew he was your son. I just didn’t think it was worth mentioning. He found me doing something stupid and took me under his wing. When he finished training me, he pointed me to the Tribunal to apply to be an Executioner. I got the job. Was there a reason you were speaking to him about me?”
It wasn’t exactly proper to question a Tribunal member like that, but he was digging around in my personal business, so I felt I had the right.
“My son makes it a point to know about everyone who excels in his line of work. I inquired about you because you made a very distinct impression earlier. I wanted to know who I was dealing with.”
I hated that. Hisao knew me better than most people. He was the one who found me after I ran away from Adhar. I had decided I didn’t want the life Adhar thought was right for me, keeping me locked away, even though I’d already had a taste of the world. He wanted me to find a breeding mate and start having kids as soon as I could. I had to be respectable and demure—perfect.
Hisao had watched me grow from an awkward, angry teenager into what I was today. He’d seen my hair go white of all things.
And he was telling Hasan, Tribunal member, about me.
“He says you have a knack for troublemaking. You have a general lack of regard for authority. Let’s not forget, you sometimes take the Law into your own hands.” Hasan considered me. “He also has a high amount of respect for you.”
“That’s very kind of him.”
It was Ardghal who decided to cut into this before Hasan was finished.
“Can we get started? I don’t want to waste my entire night with this affair.”
Hasan turned to the fae and snarled. It sent shivers down my spine.
“You hold no power in this room, young man. I don’t care who you’re related to,” Hasan snapped. “For that, Kaliya, you may start with your final argument first. I see you’ve brought Investigator Cassius and…that must be Mister Alvarez with you.”
“Yes, sir. I would like to call both Lord Cassius and Raphael Alvarez to the floor to speak to the Tribunal of their own accord before I make my final argument against Mygi taking custody of him,” I declared. “Will you allow it?”
“We’ll allow it, but only for Mister Alvarez. He’s due his moment in front of us since we’re passing judgment on his future. I’m going to assume Cassius has the same things to say that you do,” Callahan said, glaring down the table at Hasan. “You need to remember that you don’t speak for the entire Tribunal.”
“You would have let her go first if Ardghal had cut into your conversation,” Hasan countered. “Forgive me, though. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat with equals on this bench.”
“Forgiven,” Corissa said quickly, resting a hand on Callahan’s shoulder. “Let’s not get into arguments over this, friend. This is a serious matter that deserves our full attention.”
I caught the male witch rolling his eyes and wondered if the witches, for all their silence, always had such strong opinions about the other creatures on the Tribunal.
“Well, let Ardghal and I clear the floor so Raphael can speak.”
“I can’t believe this,” the fae beside me muttered, shaking his head, a dark look on his face.
I hurried toward my guys. Cassius was tense, but there was nothing I could do to relax him.
“Sorry, it looks like this is just going to be Raphael,” I said softly. “Raphael, you know
what to say. Just…good luck.” He didn’t look worried as he stood up, adjusting the blazer of his suit. Cassius had gotten him one, and gods, it looked good, but I couldn’t sit there drooling over him all night. “You feeling good about this?” I asked as he started walking down the stairs to get to the center floor.
“No, but I know if this goes wrong, you and Cassius have my back. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since this started, it’s that you two are some of the best people I’ve met in ten years, and I’m glad to have that support,” he said, swallowing. “How bad can this get?”
“They won’t be able to take you anywhere tonight, no matter what, but depending on how this plays out, your future could get a lot more dangerous.” This wasn’t the first time he’d asked, but I gave him the same answer each time.
So could mine.
He walked past me, and I fell into the seat next to Cassius. We watched in silence as he stood alone in front of the Tribunal. One of the vampires waved for him to begin speaking.
“I’m certain Kaliya and Cassius can tell you everything that’s happened over the last few days. I just want to make it clear, I don’t want to go back to Mygi. What they did to me was against my will, and I have no intention of going back to their laboratories. If it’s decided tonight that I will, you will be forced to fight for it.” Raphael started walking, and I smiled. He was starting off strong. Since the Tribunal didn’t know what he could do, they didn’t know how serious his threat was. They would have to treat it seriously.
“I would like to avoid conflict, though. Before coming here tonight, Executioner Sahni and Investigator Cassius walked me through some of the Laws of the supernaturals. So, under the Laws you enforce and rule through, I would like to put my species in for consideration to join the Tribunal’s authority.”
“Excuse me?” Oisin snapped. Hasan started to laugh at the end of the bench. Callahan and Corissa were staring at each other with wide eyes. Isaiah, the male vampire, was sputtering, while the female vampire was frozen in shock. It was one of the witches who decided to speak up since Oisin didn’t continue his questions, and Raphael made no move to repeat himself.