by Erin R Flynn
“Yeah, that would work well,” Tommy agreed.
And for some reason, that made the last five get in line, because of all their misdeeds, having their spouse think they were cheating was over the line. Yes, because that was over the line in the list of all they’d done, one specifically embezzling millions of dollars in tax payer money, but cheating on his spouse was too wrong for him to live with.
Okay then, because that wasn’t fucked up.
By the time I finished with my part and pulling what we needed from their minds before the full inquiries so we could get them away, I was wiped. I’d used all three totems, and I kept having old wounds appear as a result of fucking with memories and people’s minds.
Because the payment of all the calories and wear on my body from that much energy going in and out of me wasn’t enough.
“Your job is to take care of her, and if you fuck up this time, we will skin you alive and then let you heal to do it again and again,” Helen told someone before she came over to me. “Boss, enough. We’ve got it from here. Crash, okay?”
“Fine, but hire people to help with the tribunal,” I muttered, wiping my eyes. “You know that can’t wait and will take a lot. Plus everything else we have going on. Hire that hive in…”
“Spain. Yes, good call,” she agreed. “I’ll call them and set up a meeting. Rest before you collapse, and we’ll get grease in the morning.”
“Mmm, grease.” I gave a wave before popping to my apartment, forgetting everything else but my bed as I yanked off my clothes the old fashioned way. I hissed as a knife wound from a few centuries ago appeared on my thigh.
“I don’t understand what’s hurting you,” a deep voice worried.
“Magic. No one is meant to alter the mind. This is the price paid to do something against what is labeled as ‘good magic’ even if I do it to help. I pay the price to save as many as I can, and all anyone wants is more or to hurt me.”
“Which is that healing cream?”
“Blue lid on the counter,” I mumbled, trying to figure out who was talking, but my brain and all of me was on empty. I heard something else, but I couldn’t even make sense of it, and then I was out.
I woke warm in a way I never was after using so much magic and with strong arms wrapped around me. I never let anyone sleep over.
So was I not in my bed?
I sat up with a gasp, afraid of what I could have done in my sleep, but I was in my room when I looked around… And found the strong arms belonged to Hunt.
He stared up at me with worry. “You kept shivering no matter how many blankets I added. Shifters run hot, and curling up with you was the only thing I could think of. You stopped shivering and moaning in pain. You were cold to the touch.”
I nodded, running my fingers through my tangled hair. “Using so much magic and high level magic like that affects us like a wounded shifter. It’s not blood loss, but we react like that when we expunge so much chi.”
“How are you not dead then? You don’t heal like we do, and your tank was empty but you didn’t eat.”
I met his questioning gaze and shut down. “I wouldn’t tell that to you before I found out you were a traitor. Now I really won’t trust you with anything you can use against me.”
“I could have hurt you last night but I didn’t,” he reminded me.
I leaned over and touched the collar on him. “No, you couldn’t have. You can’t hurt me or tell anyone anything while this is on. I own you, pup, remember?”
“I’m—” He frowned and tried a few more times.
I smirked at him. “I also made it so you can’t try to apologize. I don’t want to hear it. I’m not letting you by me for access to relieve your guilt. You’re going to help clean up your mess and witness all it took. Then I’ll decide what else I want to do to you.”
He nodded. “Whatever you think is fair.”
I threw back my head and laughed. “Oh, you really don’t want to push me, Hunt. There’s lots I would do that I think fair that wouldn’t do well with your moral compass.”
“Name one,” he challenged, sitting up and moving closer. “I already told you to slap me all you want. Go ahead. Hit me. Beat me. I deserve it.”
I leaned in so we were nose to nose. “You do. You so very much do, but if I give you that, it will help your guilt. You don’t deserve that.”
“It wouldn’t,” he argued, pulling away and looking at his lap. “I fucked up too big to ever not feel guilty. I just want to help you. I know I hurt you, so whatever you need that will help you, Soraya, I’d do it.”
“You’d let me change the magic on the collar so you could never orgasm? That I could use you like a toy for all my stress and you never climax? You’d accept blue balls for as long as I decide your penance lasts? It could be your immortal life, Hunt.”
He raised his head, tears in his once so angry and vibrant eyes. “I accept that. I would still enjoy every chance to touch you even if I never finished.”
“Oh, you’ve been broken,” I chuckled darkly, interrupting what else he might have said. “The asshole Hunt I know would never accept that. I don’t abuse the broken.” Honestly, I didn’t even enjoy seeing him like that, so I rolled off the bed and headed to shower. I had enjoyed an equal to play chicken with, strength of wills to fight against the chemistry we both felt.
It wasn’t any fun for him to just roll over and show me his belly when it all came from betrayal and a debt owed.
The shower door opened as I rinsed my hair, and Hunt walked in naked and hard. I raised an eyebrow at him, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“I might be broken,” he admitted quietly. “I might have been for a long time now, ever since my sister died. I don’t know. I do know that it doesn’t change my heart on certain things and what I want to do even if I can’t and don’t deserve to say the words.”
He knelt before me and kissed my pussy, making out with it as he had my lips before. I moaned, too shocked and too tired to have seen this coming. Hating him didn’t mean my body didn’t still want him, and I enjoyed everything he gave me.
Twice.
And then I finished my shower, not saying a word and simply leaving the water running for him.
I used my power to dry off and get dressed, having showered the normal way for the serenity of it and how the water helped my sore body. When he finished, he came out in a towel, giving me a hesitant look.
I opened my mouth to try and say something, but nothing came. I was exhausted and upset and afraid I’d go too far. I flicked my wrist and dressed him before picking up my phone and getting caught up on messages. We popped downstairs—the collar still bringing him with me—and found Walter standing there.
“He accepted your offer apparently,” Tommy told me, rubbing his face and looking like he’d had only a few hours’ sleep.
“Good, let’s take this to the large conference room of PI and I can tell you my plan for him,” I replied. I gave Walter the best smile I could as I went over to him. “Welcome.”
“Thank you. Victor has given me a year’s leave of the nest, but I am still a member.”
“I figured that’s what he’d do,” I chuckled. “I’m going to gag you though. He might have thought this would work well so you can update him on everything not his business now that I’ve made it clear I’m done with him and the nest, but I’m not stupid.”
“No, you are not,” he sighed, scrubbing his hand over his neck. “Yes, please do. I don’t want to be in the middle of this. I truly want to take this opportunity to see what else there is of this world. Maybe move on like you suggested.”
“Good. Give me a list of a few dozen words and I will exclude those.” I smiled when he gave me a questioning look. “So you can say ‘Soraya is working hard’ which is true but doesn’t give details. Happy, sad, tired, busy—use that one a lot, whatever.”
“Has a lover?” he checked, knowing that would be what Victor wanted to know most.
“I have at least fi
ve I promised to repeat with at the moment, but I can always find more on a whim,” I answered with a shrug. “Active. I’ll let you tell him I’m being active, and that’s more than he should even know. I’m not his business.”
“Agreed, but he’s over five thousand years old, Soraya. There’s not much he doesn’t feel isn’t his business.”
“Let’s just start with a list and make it clear I did it for your sanity so if he pushes this, I’ll just make you mute with him. He shouldn’t ask this of you anyways, and I’m not happy he would, as you’ve always been loyal to him.”
Walter simply nodded. What else was there to say? He loved Victor, and Victor thought he loved me. He didn’t, but he acted like he did. I honestly had thought some of this would end after he got the sex he wanted, the win of having sex with me. But maybe returning the gifts had pushed him. I had no idea when it came to most men, much less ancient vampires.
We headed over to the large conference room at PI, and I thanked the enchanters, bringing in a ton of fast food for the meeting.
“No problem, boss, the baby’s asleep and it’s nice to pop out even for a minute to pick up food,” the enchanter on maternity leave who normally worked the front desk said, showing me the baby monitor. Right, new mothers left babies in the other room. She could get back faster than a human mother could from the bathroom after all.
I immediately dug into some gigantic cinnamon rolls slathered in frosting, moaning at how good they were and debating whether to lick the plate when they were gone. Instead, Hunt set down another plate for me.
“Good, he’s already acting in the role we think he should,” Helen said, glancing between Keegan and Jerome.
“Oh no, it’s never good when you three combine up on me,” I sighed, reaching for coffee Hunt also brought me. It was perfect. I blinked at him and then shook my head. He noted how I took my coffee when I was recovering?
When had that happened?
“I spoke with the mayor, and he’s agreed to give Hunt a month’s paid leave because of the situation at CPD and the shitstorm around this new case. He is on furlough as of this morning. And we—” She pointed to herself, Jerome, and Keegan. “—feel he should take the role of your assistant while he’s off from SPU. It will not only allow him to help you and us clean this all up while understanding how badly he fucked up but—”
“But it’s fitting,” Keegan cut in with a big smile. Actually all three of them were smiling.
And I knew why.
“What’s the record as my assistant?” I drawled, stabbing another bite. I realized there was one thing to do first as I looked at Walter. “No killing the wolf. I will punish him, and I’m gagging you now because I don’t trust how fast Victor will ask for a report. We’ll add words later.”
He gave a slow nod, and I chanted under my breath as I magically gagged him from telling anyone about me. Granted, I knew he’d keep his mouth shut, but Victor was different.
“I believe five days,” Jerome purred. “Well, besides us.”
Hunt wasn’t the only confused one, but Walter was safer at the moment, so I focused on him as I answered the unasked question. “I’m not the easiest person to keep up with or take care of. Only three people have managed it, and they’re the vice presidents of my three main companies, as that’s sort of how it all came about. But that’s a long, long story. We’ve learned not to hire from the coven as we lose coven members that way.”
“And no one lasts,” Helen chuckled. “No one can keep up with her or not piss us the fuck off as they become a monster on power that isn’t even theirs, but as the gate keeper to her they get big heads and we get rid of them. Or they just run screaming from the crazy.” She gave Hunt an evil smile. “But he can’t run. He agreed to the collar. He’s yours. He’s your slave boy or whatever for as long as it takes for the debt to be repaid.”
“I just agreed to not torture him,” I grumbled, shaking my head. “I mean, besides dragging him all around and seeing for himself what it will take to clean this up. That’s torture enough and—”
“No, it’s not,” several people argued… Including Hunt.
“I’ll do it,” he added. “I don’t know how, and I honestly have no idea, but it’s the least I should do. I didn’t even think about work today, and fine, I’ve got a month paid and I have more vacation time I can add or whatever when you decide what happens after this mess is cleaned up. I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever I can, and if that helps you, even a little, fine, yes.”
“Why is the pup wearing a collar?” Walter asked quietly, his tone serious and scaring the shit out of several people in the room.
“No killing him,” I warned again. I waited until he nodded before I waved the others to tell him.
I wasn’t surprised that about halfway through Walter was up and over the table. I shoved Hunt back and moved in between them.
“No, Walter, no.”
“He dies, Soraya.”
“Maybe. Maybe I will do that in the end, but for now, he’s mine. Even if he deserves it a million times over, he wears my collar. I might even make that public and the debt owed. What will it say if I let someone wearing my collar die? After I said he doesn’t die, my friend and guest at my coven kills him?”
He gave a slow nod, looking over my shoulder at Hunt. “If you hurt her or betray her again, even my love for Soraya will not prevent me from giving you a very long and painful death, dog.”
“I understand,” Hunt accepted. “I thought I was helping put someone dirty away, a mob family that was untouchable because of the head’s magic, but being here, seeing what I did, I started to doubt it. I thought I was totally right and doing what was right. I’m—”
“He can’t say it,” I explained when people gave him shit looks like he really wasn’t sorry if he couldn’t even say the word. “I gagged him from apologizing. I’m not going to deal with it and let him unload his guilt.”
“Good. Punish him severely, Soraya, because you’ll still be nicer than any of us would be,” Walter replied before taking his seat again. “Okay, so I have more to get caught up on here, and you have other things you need to handle while I do. What are you thinking for this arrangement?” He gestured between himself and Tommy.
I sighed and focused on my head of security. “Walter is not here to take over. Not at all. But he won’t just be a guard only, we both know that.” I waited until he nodded. “We have been adding, and adding, and adding, and while we’ve also added security staff for you, we both know you’re being stretched too much. Enough of that. We now have a scary as fuck ancient vampire in our coven—even if just for a year.”
“You’re saying give him the issues that he could cut through the crap better on, as no one is scared of us lowly enchanters until they realize they were stupid,” he checked, nodding when I did. “Yeah, okay, that would help. I can give him that and a team to help.”
“Tommy is in charge though,” I clarified to Walter. “He’s head of security. He’s very, very smart and patient, so if you have a suggestion or you see something he doesn’t with your experience and age, tell him. He’s also very tech savvy, which I don’t think you are to the level we use, so listen to him. This is honestly a match made in heaven to get a lot done if no one flares the egos and testosterone.”
“We’ll be fine,” Walter promised. “I’ve had to take orders from Andrew for a few thousand years, and I actually like Tommy.”
I chuckled, the tension breaking in the room, and I kept eating as they brought him up to speed on what we’d done last night. Then Tommy updated everyone on the Colin situation and what we’d found at his mansion.
“Basically he was plotting hawk shifter world domination,” Jerome summed up.
“Some days I just feel like John Oliver,” I sighed, letting my head thunk on the table and holding up the “one moment” gesture from the Last Week Tonight promos. “Everything’s fine.”
“Yeah, right,” Keegan snorted. “Okay, so hawk shifter world dom
ination, which was an incredibly long game plan, as they were only infecting human women who they had by the balls and yet didn’t get them help with the birth rate because that’s pretty low and most are born men and they needed to grow up. So they didn’t think to infect more men for what reason?”
“Because men tend to start revolts and revolutions more than women, and it was in Russia and most of Eastern Europe, and they’re known for being rather good at that stuff,” Tommy explained, smiling when lots of people gave him blank stares. “Yes, it was a shit plan. Being born as hawks didn’t make them more compliant than the humans who lived there. He’s obviously fucking nuts.”
“But it means we’re hosting an elder tribunal, as Soraya was the one who busted Colin,” Helen continued. “And for those of you who don’t know, it’s a whole thing.” She gave Hunt and Walter looks, as they were the new ones. “It’s several days of submitting proof and listening to confessions and at night there’s chances for alliances and fancy, fancy, and as the whole thing was started by Soraya many, many moons ago, we always do it best.”
I decided to answer the unasked question, as it was just easier sometimes. “Our elders are useless except for passing harsh judgment and banishing people who don’t do everything their coven leader demands, even if it’s against our laws, so funny they ignore that part.”
“Funny, fucking disgusting, same thing,” Keegan grumbled.
“But they are not the only elders that pulled shit,” I continued. “And what elders do affects more than their own. A long time ago I stumbled into something tricky and instead of reporting it to those other elders, I told elders from other species and proposed a tribunal to handle the situation. That way elders who didn’t have to play the same species politics and would worry for their own too would be involved.”
“And it was a chance for them to have access to her and get on her good side,” Helen added. “It still is. They will try everything to tighten their relationship with Soraya, so from the moment the barrier is up, we are on high alert and watching everyone attending.”