Henry sighed. “Seriously?”
Curiosity officially piqued, Emma stood rooted to the spot like a stiff, silent Saguaro. The door was only open by a few inches, so all she had was a less-than-stellar view of Henry’s desk. He was leaning against the front of it with his arms crossed over his chest.
“It’s not like it’s my fault,” Wendell protested from somewhere off to the side.
“It’s exactly your fault. You and all the other supernats who are dumb enough to get caught.” The unknown man’s voice was dry and calm, but he sounded like he could break someone’s legs without a second thought.
Emma narrowed her eyes. Supernats? What were they talking about?
“Charlotte has been helping,” Henry insisted.
“It’s not enough if LA is noticing,” the brusque man said. “As far as I know, you’re Tucson’s only supernat lawyer, so you’re the only one with a decent enough chance of making sure humans don’t discover us. She needs to do a better job, or you need to fix it another way. Use mind control on the prosecutors if you have to.”
Henry scoffed. “Do you realize how unpredictable mind control on a prosecutor could be? They could resist it, or worse, middle management could question their decisions. At least Charlotte has more power.”
“Then find something else that’s more permanent.”
“I am, Roy,” Henry snapped. “I’m this close to hiring a mortal lawyer. She has criminal defense experience, so she’ll do a better job than I have.” He glanced at his watch and winced. “She’ll be here in less than half an hour. You all need to leave soon.”
A broad grin crossed her face. She’d been right. It was all but a done deal, but…what the hell did he mean by a mortal lawyer? And what was this talk of mind control? Her smile faded as tendrils of cold fear snaked their way through her rib cage and blossomed in her chest. Part of her wanted to go back to her car and leave the weirdos to their weirdness, but a dumber part of her wanted to know exactly what all this meant.
Wendell interrupted her train of thought. “You mean that Emma woman?” he said, sounding more surly than she would’ve liked, considering they’d been plenty friendly yesterday.
“Yes, she’ll be handling your and the rest of the criminal cases.”
Wendell and the stranger let out variations of the same sound: disbelieving, horrified laughter. When Henry didn’t elaborate, the shouting started.
“Are you out of your mind?” the unknown man said.
“Duh Domyerr, the whole reason I hired you is because you get it,” Wendell said, absolutely butchering Henry’s last name in the process.
Henry lifted a mug from his desk and sipped some coffee. Except…except said coffee stained his lips red. “It will be fine,” Henry insisted, though nothing he’d said made her believe that.
“I’ll be damned if you think you’re gonna pawn me off onto some know-nothing mortal girl,” Wendell said between gritted teeth.
“Maybe if scumbag werewolves like you would stop risking our entire existence, we wouldn’t be in this position,” the stranger said. Emma imagined he was idly examining his fingernails.
“Did you call me a scumbag?” Wendell barked.
“It is what you are, isn’t it? Did you shoplift a fifth of cheap vodka or something?”
“You have no idea what I am or what you’re dealing with,” Wendell said. “You’ve totally hijacked my appointment, so you can get the hell out of here until I’m good and done.”
“I’m not leaving until I know Henry is competent enough to get this situation under control,” the unknown man said.
Wendell growled. “Get. Out.”
Emma frowned. Had he actually growled? Like a dog, but scarier? His back to her, Wendell entered her field of vision and tried to grab Henry’s mug from his desk. He held it aloft as if to throw it, but Henry grabbed Wendell’s forearm. The mug fell from his hand and spilled its contents all over Henry’s shirt and slacks before dropping to the floor. The coffee was not coffee. The liquid was red and viscous and bled into the pristine fabric of his white button-down. It’s bleeding because it’s blood, she thought inanely.
Suddenly a fluffy calico cat came out of nowhere to leap onto Henry’s desk…and promptly launch herself at Wendell’s head. Her screech rent the air, followed by what could only be described as a feral roar from Wendell.
The door swung completely open, and a man stopped short in front of her. His eyes widened with the same measure of panic she felt. He couldn’t be the stranger who’d been goading Wendell—he had a pale, boyish face and wore khakis and a simple blue button-down. Maybe this was Henry’s assistant, she thought numbly. Emma shook her head vehemently, silently begging him not to give her away.
He turned away from her, presumably to get the attention of the roomful of men, but he froze at the chaos unfolding before them. “Oh, barnacles” was all he said.
Her mouth fell open while her tote slipped off her arm, dropping uselessly to the floor. If she could’ve spoken in that moment, she would have echoed his sentiments.
The cat gripped the top of Wendell’s head as she scratched and bit at his ears and forehead. Faint lines of blood trickled from the scrapes. Henry reached for the cat, but both she and Wendell were moving around too much. An older man stood to the side, unimpressed. His white hair was as neat as a fresh ream of paper, his slacks ironed into submission. That had to be the stranger. He noticed Emma, but all he did was pointedly raise his brows at her.
Law school had not prepared her for this shit.
Wendell grunted. “You’ve got a death wish, Furball.” He grabbed the irate feline by the scruff and yanked her away from him. She let out a pained yowl.
“Back off my fucking cat!” Henry spun around and grabbed a thick leather-bound tome from his desk. He threw it straight at Wendell’s head.
Stunned, Wendell dropped the cat, who landed on her feet and sprinted out of the room like the hounds of hell were on her tail. He pressed his hand to his bleeding forehead, and then he too noticed her. Still, she stood there, too terrified to move. Wendell lumbered toward her, and the young man beside her bolted out of the way.
Gray fur sprouted from Wendell’s forearms, and his nose suddenly looked longer. He still looked human for the most part, but there was something…seriously wolf-like about him.
Henry followed Wendell, and his jaw dropped at the sight of her. He may have been a charming, if harried, lobster-faced lawyer yesterday, but today he was…something else. His teeth had extended into long, sharp-looking points, his anger palpable.
“Think you can handle me? You want to defend this monster?” Wendell snarled, his teeth snapping at her. His eyes had turned an ethereal green—the same green she’d noticed in the courthouse but had brushed off like an idiot.
She felt far away from herself. Vampires were real. Werewolves were a thing. She was cold. Tight. Reality was disintegrating. Dread pooled in her chest.
“Emma—” Henry started.
Last night’s drunken conversation with her sister resurfaced. Oh God, was her sister a fairy? Daphne had tried to tell her the truth. Emma couldn’t breathe. Was that why she’d seen so much blue before passing out? Her wings? This wasn’t possible. This was. Not. Possible.
“What the fuck is going on?” she demanded, her voice too frantic for her own liking.
But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she decided she didn’t care to know the answer to that question. Her legs finally decided to work, and she darted into the hallway and out of the building.
Not a cloud in the sky. The sun shone brilliantly. She took huge gulps of fresh air that wasn’t thick with the smell of cinnamon and lavender. The purple-orange-yellow-green adobe houses and offices she’d admired on the way in seemed gaudy and harsh now. She turned around, and terror tore through her. Henry had followed her outside. He winced at the brightness of the day.
“Emma, come back inside—I can explain,” he said, walking toward her.
&n
bsp; Again, she stared, frozen. Why did she keep doing that? She wouldn’t last two seconds in a horror movie. Yet for whatever reason, the bloody monster in front of her wasn’t attacking her. They stood in a deadlock, and each waited for the other to make a move. And waited.
Finally, he said, “Emma, please. I won’t hurt you.”
Before he could say anything more, his face reddened and darkened. He clenched his jaw. Angry blisters formed and popped on his face and hands. Henry groaned and took a step back toward the safety of the office. Then his skin seared and began to char. Smoke rose into the dry air.
Emma screamed.
The young man ran out the door, grabbed the sleeve of Henry’s bloody shirt, and dragged him back inside. Emma ran. Her blazer pinched her shoulders and her heels dug and bit into the backs of her ankles. But she wasn’t stopping until she knew she was safe.
Daphne was going to have hell to pay.
“At least his skin doesn’t sparkle,” she muttered as if that were some sort of consolation.
Chapter Five
Her feet were blistered and bleeding. Sweat coated her skin as she stumbled through the door of the animal hospital. One of the vet techs was filling in at reception and speaking with the owner of a squirming Chihuahua. Was he the one who had asked about cocaine a couple of days ago? Jesus Christ. Ignoring the outraged gasp from the Chihuahua owner, Emma demanded to see Daphne.
“She’s in her office, but you can’t,” the vet tech warned.
“Does it look like I give a crap?” she snarled and hobbled to the back of the hospital.
Emma burst into Daphne’s office and locked the door behind her. Barely sparing her sister a glance, she yanked off her heels. She would need to wear flats for the next decade.
“Em—are you okay?” Daphne abandoned a breakfast panini mid-bite and tossed it on her desk.
“No, Daph, I’m not,” she hissed.
Daphne left her chair to approach Emma with wide, worried eyes. “What happened? My friends told me he was a nice guy. I didn’t think—he didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“Is that who you called last night? Are you friends with some of his clients?”
“…Maybe.”
Emma glared at her sister. “You knew. You knew he was a vampire working in some freaky paranormal law practice, and you didn’t think I should know? More importantly, you didn’t think to tell me you were a fairy until I was about to pass out drunk? Why…why didn’t you say anything sooner?” She dropped into a chair, deflated. “A werewolf, a vampire, a cat…I don’t even know.” She rubbed her forehead.
Daphne chewed on a nail and began to pace. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Then that totally makes it okay.” She stilled as her stomach dropped. “Wait, do Mom and Dad know?”
Daphne shook her head and averted her eyes. A small wisp of relief eased some of the tightness in her chest. At least she wasn’t the last to find out. She couldn’t decide if they were better off not knowing, safe and sound in their tidy ranch house in Tempe.
“I’m sorry. Let me tell my boss that I have a family emergency. We’ll go home. I can explain everything. But you need to rest. We’ll relax, kick up our—Christ, your feet!” Daphne cried when she saw Emma’s bloody, blistered red feet.
“Do you have any spare flip-flops?”
Her shoe size was bigger than her sister’s, but there was no way she was going to put the leather death heels back on. Daphne rushed to her desk and grabbed a pair of bright purple flip-flops from a drawer. She hesitated but then handed them to Emma.
Daphne knelt in front of her, hands held open in offering. “I can do you one better than shoes.”
Emma’s heartbeat was still erratic from fear, anger, and the run. But her feet were killing her, so she wasn’t going to turn this down. Plus she wanted (sober) proof that fairies were real, too.
“Fine.”
Daphne placed steady hands on Emma’s feet, and suddenly they emitted a soft glow. Her skin felt cool and tingly, then warmth spread through her. Like the scalp massage last night.
She resisted the urge to kick her sister away as the blisters and blood disappeared. The aching stopped. She sighed but refused to let go of her anger. Dropping the purple sandals to the floor, Emma slipped them on. She pursed her lips—more than an inch of her foot hung over the back of the flip-flops. Better than nothing.
“I thought he would give you a slow introduction to supernats before you started working with clients,” Daphne said.
“He didn’t really have the chance.” The price of being an overachiever.
“I’m so sorry.”
She did look genuinely contrite, but Emma wasn’t in a forgive-and-forget mood. Getting out of here was her first priority. She nearly screamed when she realized she’d left her bag at Henry’s. Relax. She’d figure out how to handle that mess later. For now, she needed answers.
“Yes, well, you let it happen. Did you walk or bike to work today?”
“Um, I drove. Why?”
She blinked, and a wave of judginess replaced some of her anger. “You live less than a mile away.”
Daphne threw up her hands defensively. “It’s hot out.”
“Give me your keys and your library card,” she said, though it didn’t carry the venom of what she’d been feeling earlier. She held out her hand expectantly.
“My library card? Em, please, let’s go back to my place. You’re shell-shocked. Get some rest, and then we can talk about all of it,” Daphne insisted.
Emma held out her hand, pale and stiff. “You bet your ass we’ll talk later, but…give me your keys. And card. Now.”
***
Henry tossed an empty bag of blood on the kitchen counter. He grimaced at the thick coat of aloe Solarcaine on his hands and face. His skin was healing quickly, but his nose still hurt like hell. Even with his recent trips to the courthouse, he wasn’t in the habit of injuring himself. Taking deep breaths through his mouth, he waited for the pain to ease.
He was angry—no, incensed—with himself. Even though the morning had been a total madhouse, he should’ve realized she was in the building sooner. He hadn’t thought she would get there so early, and Rick’s air freshener mishap had stunted his and Wendell’s senses of smell.
After arriving for his client meeting, the werewolf had complained the stench of cat was too strong for his liking, so in an effort to appease him, Rick had plugged air fresheners into nearly every outlet and sprayed the area with an alarming variety of Febreze scents.
Gritting his teeth, Henry chastised himself for not having more control over his surroundings. He should’ve used mind control to get her to come back inside. What was he going to do now? She didn’t have any actual proof to hand over to the media or the police, but a mortal who didn’t find out about the Underworld in calm, controlled circumstances could be unpredictable and dangerous.
Rick poked his head into the kitchen, and Henry stared at him, waiting. He held out a cordless phone to Henry. “A Daphne Parker is on the phone.”
“Who?”
“Emma’s sister,” he said, cringing.
Henry accepted the call and shooed his assistant away. He held the phone a few inches from his face so he wouldn’t get green goo all over it and steeled himself for whatever was coming.
“Yes?” That was about as good as he could give for a pleasant greeting.
“I’m so sorry. She came straight to my office. I gave her a mild sedative spell, though. I don’t think she’ll do anything rash. I’ll explain everything to her soon.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I’m a fairy.”
Henry sighed in relief. At least something was going right today. Then he frowned. “Wait…then why didn’t she know?”
“I hadn’t told her. I tried last night when she mentioned your name. I recognized it because you’ve helped a couple of my friends.”
“…I see.” The degrees of separati
on were unnerving. Couldn’t throw a rock in this town without hitting one of his clients.
“So what happened? It’ll help me talk to her,” she said.
“I was planning on telling her in the safety of my office to see if she would be a good fit. But she walked in when one of my clients was lashing out, so she had the misfortune of seeing a vampire and werewolf for the first time without any warning.”
“Lovely. I’ll make sure she stays with me tonight.”
Henry left the kitchen and retreated to his office. “Please let me know as soon as possible if she needs memory revisions.” He sat down in a vain attempt at relaxing and leaned back in his chair.
“That won’t be necessary.” After a moment, she added, “Look, I’m sorry I handled this so poorly. I should’ve called you to figure out what was going on, but I was too busy freaking out about what her reaction to me would be.”
“Please, it’s not your fault my office is in a near-constant state of chaos. Can you give me your address? I’ll have her things brought over.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that,” she said before giving him an address near Santa Rosa Park.
Another pause stretched across the line.
“She was so excited. I’m sorry it didn’t work,” she said finally.
Henry ignored the voice in his head that said he agreed. He really had thought she would be a good fit for his practice.
They said goodbye and hung up. If Daphne the Fairy was really this much of an Underworld neophyte, it was possible he would have to get his hands dirty to protect himself and his clients. He set the cordless phone on his desk before pulling his cell phone from his pocket to call Grant. He told himself it was to ask for help with memory revisions if they became necessary. Henry knew he already had a soft spot for Emma, so he didn’t trust himself to do a thorough sweep.
“You know I don’t call you in the middle of the night, right?” a groggy voice greeted him after several rings.
Henry started to apologize then scowled. “False. You are constantly calling after two in the morning to get me to come out.”
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