“You posted my bail?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “You’re our client now.”
I grimaced. “And Eleanor is...?” She had done so much for me already. I couldn’t let he continue to pay my legal fees too. Not for a law firm like the one Mr. Avery worked for.
“Oh, Dr. Hardin only brought you to our attention,” Bob Avery said. “X, Y, and Z has decided that representing you is in our best long term interest. This case is pro bono and we hope that you will come to us for future services as well. I understand you are launching an online modelling company. You will certainly want us to make sure your contracts are in order.”
“Uh…” It actually took me a minute to remember what he was talking about. The girls had been working with our neighbor Thomas to build some sort of website that they could model on and they’d named it after me. The Horned Mage. The whole thing sounded kind of dumb to me but I wasn’t really a part of it.
“There are going to be a multitude of opportunities and opportunists coming your way in the future, Mr. Marshal,” he said. “We would like to ensure that you are equipped to handle them in a mutually profitable relationship.”
I blinked at him. How the hell did he figure all this? Then again, he had who knew what kind of resources at his disposal. And I needed help. The fact was I was getting into trouble regularly and dabbling in legal grey areas, and some definite black ones, more and more often.
Slowly I nodded and we shook hands.
“You’ll receive an email shortly with all of our contact information,” Bob Avery said. “Please don’t hesitate to get in touch, day or night.”
We walked over to his car, a four door pickup truck that looked like it could haul freight. I glanced over at Bob in his tailored suit then at the truck. I wasn’t sure if they went together perfectly or not at all. Weren’t lawyers supposed to drive BMWs or luxury cars?
Once we were in the truck and pulling out onto the road he said, “Now that there is no chance of us being overheard, bring me up to speed. Please start with why on earth you felt it was necessary to go after Albert Marshal yourself and jump out of the window of a hospital to avoid the police?”
I took him in. Bob was a solid, older man. What Texans referred to as a Good ol’ Boy. He probably conducted most of his business on a golf course and held secret prejudices. Maybe he had a farm somewhere with a few cows for fun. Not at all the sort I associated with or had ever found myself inclined to trust. And yet…
“You’re my legal counsel, right?”
He nodded. “I am.”
“So everything I say to you is in confidence?”
“Absolutely. Though I have to warn you, I cannot know about any crimes you are about to commit before you commit them or I am obligated by law to report them. Also, I cannot help you plead innocent if you tell me that you are guilty.”
I hadn’t known that. I thought lawyers were supposed to be slimy guys who helped those who could afford it get away with whatever they wanted.
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Albert had…blackmail material. Photos and videos of Sarah. He’d been…abusing her for years.”
“I see,” Bob said. His face was a stony mask. “And you do not want this evidence to surface?”
“No,” I said. “Neither of us do.”
“Then is there any other evidence of abuse?” Because it would be hard as hell to prove without it and that would be my best defense in the case of his murder.
It wasn’t mine to say. But I had to say it anyway because it could protect all of us. I wasn’t worried so much for myself as for Sarah, Lexus, and Victoria. If Sarah’s secret could protect them all and keep them safe, I’d give it.
“She’s carrying his child.”
At that Bob Avery’s mask cracked. Only for a second. “I see.”
There was so much weight to those words. It felt like for a moment I got to see the real man. And he empathized with us.
“And your relationship with her now?”
“Is complicated,” I said.
He chuckled. “I have a feeling I’m going to be hearing that a lot from you. Thank you for trusting me with this. It might just be enough to keep you both out of prison.”
He pulled into a parking lot and I suddenly recognized where we were. I’d been so caught up in the effort of telling him about Sarah and Albert that I hadn’t paid attention. The word’s creepiest hamburger faced mascot stared down at us from above Happy Burger. Through the window, I could see Jadeite sitting at our usual booth. I hadn’t realized that they opened this early.
“Your support system let it be known that this was where you would need to be after you were let out,” he said with a grin. “You have some very special women in your life, Mr. Marshal.”
I grinned at him. “Yes, I do.”
#
When I slid into the booth opposite Jadeite her expression didn’t change. She didn’t say anything.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey,” she said back. “I wasn’t sure if you’d come in or not.”
“You’re my best friend,” I told her. “Of course I was coming in.”
She blushed and looked away, one of her braids sliding over her shoulder to dangle over her breasts. She was hiding her figure under an enormous football jersey today instead of a hoodie. Considering the heat I couldn’t blame her. It was a shame though that she hid her gorgeous figure. I stopped myself from continuing on that line of thought. She was my best friend. I was sleeping with her stepsister. My adopted father had just kidnapped her and threatened her life. I really, REALLY, shouldn’t be thinking about her breasts. Especially not with the hot water I was no doubt in with Victoria and Lexus.
“I’m sorry,” we both said at the same time.
She held up her hand. “Let me go first.”
I had so much I want to say but forced my mouth closed and gave a nod. I owed her…a lot.
“Thank you,” she said. “For saving me. That man…he was your…adopted dad. He said he was going to force you to pick between us, that—that I was going to die.
“In the months since you’ve broken your curse, I barely recognize you anymore, Caleb. But…I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I asked for space and you gave it to me. I’ve tried to be cool with what you’ve got with Lexus, I really have been and…I’m still trying to be. It’s just, a lot, you know?
“And you’re spending more time with your girlfriends now than with me and I missed you. I miss hanging out with you. I’m not sure if we can go back to that though.
I leaned forward, unable to hold back anymore. “Why not? I miss spending time with you, too. We can still be friends, Jadeite.”
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t think…I don’t know if I can do that. I used to think that there was more between us. I thought…but then you ended up with Lexus. And then with Victoria. And now…now there’s also Sarah.”
“Yeah but—
She held up a hand. “But nothing. You’re making it work with them. Maybe you even love them. But that’s the point. I don’t want to be with someone who has to make it work with me. I don’t want to be another accident, Caleb.”
Now she did tear up. “If you really wanted what I thought you wanted between us, you would have made it happen. I’ve seen what you can do, Caleb, and I’m not talking about your magic.”
Wait. Was she saying what I thought she was saying?
“Maybe I gave you mixed signals and that’s on me,” she said. “But…I’m not waiting anymore, Caleb. Not when being close to you hurts so much and puts me in danger. I know that’s not your fault but you’ve had how many close calls since breaking your curse?”
I stared at her. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying…it hurts too much to just be your friend. I’m saying that…since you don’t want more…that I need to step away from you. This, whatever is or might be between us, it can’t stay l
ike it is and we can’t go back to how things used to be. You’ve got three girls in your life now, not including your mother who’s going to need all kinds of help. Caleb, we can’t keep doing this. It’s not fair to either of us and it isn’t fair to Lexus.”
She stood up from the booth. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it.”
I stood up too. “Wait. The only reason I didn’t—I didn’t want to…we’re best friends. And then—“
She gently put a hand on my arm, cutting me off. “’And then,’ ‘and then,’ ‘and then,’ Caleb. There’s always going to be an ‘and then.’ And I wasn’t worth overcoming them for.”
She stepped around me and made her way to the door. “I’ll see you in class.”
I didn’t watch her go. I sat back down in the booth and let the tears come because I’d lost her. They came all the harder because she was right. And because I had no right to cry over her and that somehow made it worse.
Chapter Thirteen
I stayed in that booth for another hour and a half. I got myself under control and then had a burger. There’s a reason it’s called comfort food, after all, and no one made them better than Happy Burger. After I’d eaten and regained my composure, pulling together what dignity I had left, I walked home.
Between the time in the booth, the walk, and the time spent in the prison cell, I had a lot of time to think. Normally I’m pretty stupid about making good use of my time but this time I used it, thinking about what I needed to say to the most important people in my life. It hadn’t gone so well with Jadeite, but I still had words for Lexus and Victoria.
Even so I found myself frozen on the driveway leading up to Eleanor Hardin’s house and our loft over her garage. I would have to talk to her next and thank her for everything. The same with Reagan. It was sweet of her to come out to support her daughter’s boyfriend after what we’d been through together.
Eventually the heat drove me forward. If I stayed outside any longer the summer heat and humidity would melt me and then I’d never get the chance to say what I needed to say to my girls. Assuming they’d still have me. My feet had never felt so heavy as I made my way up the stairs to our place.
The door flew open and Lexus threw herself into me. I teetered backward on the edge of the stairs and nearly fell over backward. Lexus grabbed us and yanked us upright but I stumbled into the loft and fell on top of both of them.
“Um, hi,” I said stupidly.
Lexus gently pushed my head up and back so that my pronged antlers weren’t in danger of putting someone’s eye out. “Hey.”
“That was a damn long talk,” Victoria said. “Get off of us and start talking. Jadeite first then what the hell happened with Sarah.”
I pushed myself off of them and stood. “Uh, so Jadeite…she doesn’t want to be friends anymore.”
Only, that wasn’t quite what she’d said was it? I’d have to think over our conversation some more when I wasn’t so raw.
“What?” Lexus demanded. “Seriously?”
I shrugged. “I can’t say I blame her.”
“And you’re okay with that?” she said, standing up so that Victoria could follow suit.
“It doesn’t really matter if I am or not, it’s what she said she wants. I have to respect that.”
Victoria and Lexus exchanged one of those female-only looks that said that I, the man in the room, was being an idiot. Maybe I was.
“Anyways.” The weight of what I had to say came crushing back. Everything had felt so comfortable and normal and wonderful that I was tempted to just let that feeling continue. I shoved the temptation aside. I wasn’t hiding from this. It was my fault we were all bound together and I needed to own up to my part of things.
“I owe the both of you a huge apology.” I swallowed. “For cheating on you with Sarah.”
Both girls pursed their lips at that and exchanged another look. Dammit, I needed to get through to them. I needed to let them know….
“You two…you mean the world to me. I-I love you. Lexus. Victoria. I love you both. I love what we have. And I am so sorry that I jeopardized that.”
Lexus scowled. “How?”
I blinked. “How what?”
“How did you jeopardize us?” she said, speaking slowly, as if I was either hard of hearing or stupid. Oh let’s be honest, like I was stupid.
“I…I had sex with her,” I said. “I—it just sort of happened. I didn’t plan it and she didn’t either it just…she was there and I was there and suddenly we were kissing and one thing led to another.”
“Yeah, I’ll want those details later,” Victoria said with a smirk. “I’m more concerned that you bound her without even talking to us about it first.”
What? Okay that made some sense. Maybe. Sort of?
She rolled her eyes at my consternation. “You’re a man. Men think with their dicks. I don’t think beating you would teach you a lesson. I—I actually spent a lot of time coming to terms with the fact that you would never be loyal to me when I first mated to you.”
I didn’t know that.
She offered me a sad, almost sheepish smile. “Yeah, right after our first time together. When I went off on my own for a while. When a pair of werewolves mate it goes both ways. It’s for life. When a wolf mates with a human…only the wolf is in it for life. I figured I could either hurt you or your mistresses until you learned your lesson or I could get used to it. And then….” She looked at Lexus and blushed. Victoria, my tough as nails badass biker Valkyrie, blushed.
Lexus’s entire face lit up and she walked over to Victoria, throwing her arms around her shoulders, and laying a kiss on her mouth. “I’m not so bad, huh?”
Victoria wrapped her own arms around Lexus. “No, not so bad.”
She looked back to me. “Anyway, we both figured that your magic might bind others. We kind of hoped you could control yourself better when you didn’t bind Reagan—”
Lexus shuddered at that.
“—but…well, here we are with a new girl that neither of us know, part of our pack.”
“And she’s your sister,” Lexus said, giving Victoria a squeeze. My magic sent a little spark into my brain. For some reason Lexus liked that detail. I must have understood that wrong.
“Adopted sister,” I told her again. “No blood.”
Victoria bent down, kissed Lexus gently on the temple, and whispered, “Let it go, Sweetheart.”
Lexus pouted.
“My point is,” Victoria said. “We’re not traditional mates.”
No kidding.
“We’re…more like a pack of lovers. The pack is going to grow. One way or another, I think. And…if we’re going to add anyone else to the pack, I think…” she swallowed, as if nervous. “I think that I would like for us all to have some say in it. I mean…it’s not just you that the new person is bound to.”
Oh, damn. I hadn’t even thought of that.
“I won’t lie, I’m a little hurt but I’m more frustrated with you than hurt,” Victoria said. “You’ve potentially bound Lexus and I to someone we may not like and who might weaken the pack instead of strengthening us. I know now that Sarah is incredibly brave and strong, but neither of us really had a chance to get to know her first. You held off, binding Reagan, I would think that you would have done the same here.”
I opened my mouth to speak. Closed it. Then opened it again as something occurred to me. “I never felt the binding magic.”
Lexus wrinkled her forehead as if thinking very hard about that. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…I didn’t really know what I was feeling before when it was with you two, but I’d done it enough by the time I was…with Reagan…to recognize what was happening. There was no moment of recognition, when I could feel my magic connecting us.”
So then when had that happened? The blood drained from my face.
“What is it?” Victoria asked.
“I think…I t
hink we may have already been bound,” I said quietly. “I think some of my magic managed to get through the curse and connected us years ago.”
It would explain so much. Our closeness despite of everything we were each going through and had been through together. Especially in spite of our age difference. It wasn’t such a huge factor now but those years mattered a lot when you were a teenager. I know that as a senior in high school I had found freshmen to be among the most obnoxious creatures on the planet. Strong, beautiful Sarah had less than no business spending any time with me at all, let alone playing diary. Certainly not on top of protector.
“But, to bind someone you have to…” Lexus trailed off. “Holy shit! How long have you two been doing it?”
“That’s sort of why this whole situation got out of hand,” I said. “Albert he…he was abusing her. He made her…with me. We haven’t, with each other since. Not until just now. But he recorded us. I was a minor and she technically wasn’t and he was using it to blackmail her.”
I’d have to scour all of his belongings and destroy any more records he might have of us as soon as I could.
“Then it might not have mattered anyway,” Victoria said. “But I still think we need to set guidelines for next time something like this happens.”
I opened my mouth to protest but she forestalled me with an upraised hand.
“It is going to happen again, Caleb. And that’s okay. You’re not running around trying to get with every woman you can,” she said. “And what we’ve got here…it’s precious. It needs to be protected. And I think it’s going to grow. A pack needs to be able to protect and support itself. I think it’s time we sat down and had a long, deep talk about the future.”
Her serious expression softened into a grin. “Our future.”
I looked at her and Lexus, thought of Sarah and Caroline. Everyone was depending on me. I had come to college for two reasons. To get away from the Marshal household and to break my curse. Both goals were more or less achieved and I had nothing left to aim for. I’d been totally reactionary and now I had these remarkable women bound to me, depending on me for leadership. I had to step up.
The Horned Mage: Books 1-5 Page 31