by Celia Kyle
Fourteen
“Come on, one more!” Kelly’s eyes shone in the dim light of Talbot’s Tavern. She’d been putting back two drinks for every one Aurora could manage, so she was ready for someone to join her in the land beyond the gentle buzz.
“I don’t think I should.” She looked down at the ice melting in her sangria.
“Are you for real?” Tiffany tugged at her arm, just a wee bit more sober than Kelly. “The whole idea of coming out tonight was to get you drunk to forget your troubles!”
“That was your idea. I was ready to stay home.”
“I declare it a triumph, no matter who had it.” Kelly looked dangerously close to getting on a chair to make it all official. “Furthermore, I proclaim that we should adjourn ourselves to Talbot’s after every family dinner you attend!” The grandeur melted out of her voice. “Because you always look like you could use it.”
“That’s the truth,” Aurora admitted, treating herself to another hearty mouthful of sangria. The rich sweetness reminded her of Dane’s lips. Though, to be fair, pretty much everything reminded her of them. They were only ever a flash away from her mind.
The memory of how that kiss had shaken her only made the current situation sit colder in her stomach. With the key witness out of the picture, the trial was on uncertain footing, which was bad for her career prospects, and Dane sticking around. She drained her glass to the ice in hopes of dispelling some of the worry.
“That’s the spirit, girl! Yaaaaaas!”
Ryan flitted up beside her, and Aurora nearly spit out her drink, laughing. She stood with her cheeks puffed out, and a hand under her chin.
“Oh, no, babe! Don’t go wasting that! Here.” He gallantly scooped the glass out of her hands and sniffed it. “Sangria, huh? The next one’s on me.”
Nathan drifted up beside the fabulous fae, stopping just shy of putting a hand on his shoulder. They were in public after all. Not that he’d put a shirt on for the occasion. Luckily, Talbot’s didn’t adhere to a “No Shirts, No Service” policy.
“What are you two doing here?” Aurora asked, delighted at their arrival.
Nathan smirked at her question and nodded his head toward Kelly. “We got a text. Kelly’s not letting any of us miss out on a chance to get you drunk.”
Enough affection lingered in his voice to make Aurora blush a bit. After being at odds with her roommate for so long, it was beginning to feel like they might find some common ground after all. So at least something in her life was looking pleasant.
Ryan trotted off toward the bar, and Kelly started to flit after him. She hadn’t made it three steps before Ronun caught her by the arm.
“Slow down there, tiger.”
“But I thought we were getting another round?” She blinked innocently at him, clearly eager to turn this thing into a full-blown party.
“Tell you what,” he said with an indulgent smile. “Grab me a beer and we can share it.” She narrowed her eyes at him and pursed her lips, feigning a look of deep deliberation. Aurora couldn’t help giggling at their exchange.
“Okay,” Kelly said at last. “But I get to pick the beer.”
“Deal.”
He let go of her arm, and his eyes trailed after her with pure adoration. The clear love between them made Aurora ache to her core. But more than that, she was quietly warmed to witness the good effect he was having on her roommate. Kelly still lived to party, but Aurora doubted the girl had blacked out once since he’d come into her life.
Again, she found herself face to face with the cavity in her own life. She’d only allowed herself to be faintly aware of it until recently, but the handsome werewolf courting her had shone a hard light on it. When Ryan appeared beside her with a brimming glass, she was very ready to help herself to another gulp.
“Easy there, sis.” Aurora jumped at the sound of her brother’s voice, again nearly dribbling sangria down the front of her outfit. “Do I have to tell you that drinking won’t solve all your problems?”
She turned to see Rhys grinning down at her from his great height.
“Lord,” she sputtered. “Did Kelly text you too?”
His eyes flickered just a bit wider at this.
“Nope. Pure happenstance.” He leaned in a bit closer, a mischievous glint in his dark brown eyes. “I usually need a drink after those dinners.”
He stretched back up to his full height, and Aurora felt a goofy grin cut across her face. The booze had already loosened her up enough that she didn’t even try to hide her lopsided dimples.
“Ohmigod, hey, Rhys!”
Tiffany had abandoned the dance floor and materialized inches away from Rhys’s hip. The ink of their clothes nearly blended into one dark mass in the dim bar. Looking slightly stunned, Rhys rocked back a step to give himself a little breathing room.
“Oh, hey. Tiffany, right?”
“Yes! Tiffany, that’s right. Tiffany, that’s me.” The words tumbled out of her in a delighted garble, and Aurora had to put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Not that her roommate would have noticed. She was clearly far too enraptured that the lean, mean necromancer remembered her name.
Kelly’s voice rang from the bar. “You’ve gotta be shitting me! Tiffany! What did you do?”
Looking over, all the paintings behind the bar had abandoned their usual brooding landscapes and were awash with bright cascades of flowers and romping puppies. The bartender looked bewildered, and Rhys even more so.
“Nothing! Shut up!” Tiffany might have fallen into a full sulk if she wasn’t so visibly overwhelmed with glee. Well, glee and liquor. She turned her face up toward Rhys, all smiles. “So... were you going to get a drink or something?”
“Ummm…” He looked at his sister, who merely raised her eyebrows as if to ask, Well, are you?
“This is a bar,” he said at last before sauntering off.
Practically turning into a puppy herself, Tiffany pranced after him. From where she stood, Aurora could see that the poor besotted witch had actual, literal, honest-to-goodness stars in her eyes.
Almost as if to make sure she was following, Rhys glanced back, his eye lingering just long enough to appraise the girl in his wake. It was just like him, Aurora thought. Whether or not he had any interest in Tiffany—and she was reasonably sure he didn’t—he was quietly reveling in the attention.
“Something else, right?” Ronun was shaking his head with a wicked smile as he watched the two slink off. “Imagine being that mad over someone and they won’t give you the time of day.”
“If I remember right, Kelly kinda made you work for it,” Aurora chirped.
Ronun’s head spun around in surprise, and she cringed at how forward that was. The drinks were really loosening her tongue!
“You know what? Yeah. Damn right she did.”
He raised his glass, and Aurora lifted hers to meet it. A tiny chill ran through her veins, and not the kind that heralded Dane’s appearance. Before she could inspect it further, Kelly was upon them, pressing half a beer into Ronun’s hand.
“So, they’re just pouring half-beers now,” he smirked at her.
“Mmm-hmm,” she nodded vigorously. “But don’t worry, I’ll help you with it!” Then she linked her arm through his and tugged him along. “Come on, guys, a booth opened up at the back!”
Ryan arrived with drinks in hand and they moved en masse to the back of the bar. The moment of public solitude allowed the fullness of Aurora’s discomfort to wash over her. Ronun’s comment about not giving the time of day to someone who was mad about you stuck like a craw in her side.
Dane had made it abundantly clear from the first instant they’d spoken what his desires were. More than desires, really, it resonated inside him like solid fact. And here Aurora was, doing everything she could to push it back. Apart from kissing him that is.
But that was just a one-time thing. Right?
Looking at the rest of the group, something else bothered her. Ryan was walking briskly, holding tw
o drinks, but Nathan made no move to take one or to offer him any affection at all. Granted, he was taciturn by nature and not given to be public about much of anything, but it still felt off.
“Jesus,” Kelly said when they had all snuggled into the cracked vinyl seats. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna be a melancholy drunk. All we’ve done is show you a good time, and you look even worse than when we walked in.”
Aurora felt called out but had to admit it was true. While she hated to think the drinks were bringing her down, she quietly noted that they had been allowing her to examine things she’d been trying to keep tucked away.
“It’s just that… Look, with our witness gone, I can feel that the triune is going to call a mistrial in the morning. Then, it’ll all be over.”
“Oh, hell,” Kelly waved her hand in a broad dismissal. “It’s just a trial.”
“That’s right, sweetie.” Ryan reached across the table and patted the table in front of her. “It’s just the first one. There’ll be other trials.”
“Yeah, but it’s not just the case.” Her tone was so wounded, the others fell just a little quiet. “If the triune is disbanded, Dane’s going back to Florida. It’s the only reason he was here, and now he’ll leave.”
She hadn’t realized how miserable that thought made her until she really let herself mull it over. And in that moment, the others had to sit in it too. Kelly inhaled deeply through her nose and leaned forward over the table.
“Or, he could, you know...stay.”
The thought of it thickened in Aurora’s chest, and she wasn’t sure if that was what she wanted either. She wasn’t sure about anything, which was unfamiliar to the point of agony. She leaned back into her seat, shaking her head lightly.
“Listen, kiddo,” Kelly had her tough-love voice on. “If the guy thinks he’s fated for you, or whatever, why not pursue it? I think you should.”
“Me too.” Ryan raised a hand.
“I mean, come on,” Kelly rattled on. “He’s a judge, so he’s clearly got brains. Plus, he’s wicked hot. No offense, honey…” She reached over to put her hand over Ronun’s.
“None taken,” he muttered as Kelly rambled on.
“Besides all that, he’s clearly into you. Like, so into you that to say, ‘he’s into you’ would be a colossal understatement. Add those things up, and I don’t see what the hold-up is.”
“It’s just…” Aurora looked up into the air, trying like the dickens to quantify what exactly was keeping her from leaping into it with abandon.
“Look,” she said at last, “we’ve been over this. It’s not that I don’t believe in fated mates. I do. It’s just, whoever heard of a witch and a wolf together? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Okay, so,” Ryan proffered. “I grew up with this fae girl, and she was cute as all get out. We shopped together. She had the best taste in clothes. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The point is, she had a fated mate too, and do you know what he was?”
“No.” Aurora shook her head gently, which made it spin a little.
“One of the great cats. Panther or something, I forget. Handsome. So what I’m getting at is... isn’t that kinda the same thing? Fae, cat. Witch, wolf.” He leaned back, evidently satisfied with the case he’d just laid out. “Face it, girl, you can’t stop true love.”
“Yeah, well. That’s if it’s true,” Nathan quipped drily, and slowly lifted his bottle to his lips.
Ryan looked stung but did everything he could to hide it while a thick blanket of silence fell over the table.
If it hadn’t been for the bustling bar around them, Aurora was certain crickets could be heard chirping. With a sudden move, Kelly plucked the beer out of Ronun’s hands and chugged down the rest of it.
“Oh my god, would you look at that? Time for another round, huh?” She scrambled over her lover’s lap and stood brightly at the edge of the table. “Who else is in? I’m buying!”
Fifteen
Griffin Finch sat at the defense table, his chair rocked back on its hind legs, and his hands folded easily over his belly. He must have heard that the witness against him had come up dead, and he was the picture of cocky seediness. The guy reeked of guilt. Surely that alone would be enough.
But Aurora rubbed her damp palms across the fabric of her charcoal grey wool skirt and stared hard at the prosecution’s table. She knew as well as anyone that looking guilty wasn’t enough. In this world, you had to have an actual case, and the one on her plate had a gaping hole square in the middle of it.
Fuck. She was going to allow herself just one, but it felt so good that she took another. FUCK.
Sitting beside the spindly, sour-faced Finch was Urelia Mallow. Lord knew how a career criminal managed to land a defense attorney as skilled and powerful as Urelia, but there she was. She sat at the table, her straight spine and calm shoulders looking ever so poised in an expensive purple skirt suit.
She was everything Aurora aspired to be, and their first genuine encounter revolved entirely around Aurora’s failure. Going down like this in front of a hero only made her more miserable.
Dane sat to the left of the head judge on the dais, subtly trying to catch her eye. As soon as they met, he attempted a small smile and the barest hint of a wink. If anything, it sent the horde of bats in her stomach flapping so she snapped her eyes back down to the table.
Again she ground her palms against her thighs, hoping not to leave dark spots where she was wiping away the sweat. Surely some surprise had to be waiting in the wings, some detail that hadn’t quite cracked open yet. But that only happened in movies.
The sharp rap of a gavel sent a lightning bolt up her back.
“I call this session to order.” Judge Reed Molina, a warlock known for his fairness, sat at the center of the triune, his steely blue eyes set like diamonds in his broad, round head. “Will the prosecution please rise?”
Aurora’s stomach dissolved into acid as vampire Dante Calvo stood up and buttoned his jacket.
“Mr. Calvo,” Molina began, “in all the documents submitted, the prosecution has relied on the testimony of one Theophilus Abernathy to identify the guilty party and give particulars of the crime. Is that correct?”
“It is, your honor.”
Aurora’s heart sank. So much for her hopes of a hat trick.
“The court has also received reports pertaining to the death of Mr. Abernathy. Can you verify the truth of these reports, Mr. Calvo?”
“Your honor, I can. The body of Mr. Abernathy was discovered in the Sanguine Sea with his throat cut.”
Even though reports of Theophilus’s murder had swept through Othercross like wildfire, gasps still echoed through the courtroom. At the news, the head judge’s eyes flickered over to Aurora and a jagged knot tied itself in her throat.
“I am to understand that we have a member of your team who can bear witness to this.”
“Yes, your honor.”
Dante turned his eyes down to her and every hair on Aurora’s body stood on end. She had to double down to keep some wild display from breaking out and sending the courtroom into disarray. At Dante’s gesture, she rose to stand next to him.
“Please state your name for the court.”
“Aurora Imogen Rhonelle, your honor.” She kept her eyes fixed on Judge Molina’s face. If she wavered and caught even the merest glimpse of Dane, whatever tenuous hold she had on herself might unravel.
“Miss Rhonelle, would you please tell me about your encounter with the witness. I understand it was unique.”
“Yes, your honor.” Her face flushed hot. It was about to become a point of public record that she was a failure of a necromancer. “I was out at the Sanguine Sea yesterday afternoon, and well… I was bungee jumping.”
“Bungee jumping?” Judge Molina’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I must say, you don’t look like the type.”
“No, your honor, it was…” Her eyes flickered to Dane in spite of herself, and she had to clamp down to stay focused. “It
was a singular experience. At any rate, once the jump was completed, the entire situation was so intense that I accidentally raised Mr. Abernathy from where his body had been dumped in the sea.
“Accidentally raised him?”
“Yes, your honor. My skills as a necromancer are, as yet...unrefined.” Aurora stole a rueful glance at the stenographer.
“Please continue.”
“Of course. I had no idea he was down there. Nobody did. But in my excitement, I caused Mr. Abernathy to surface and saw that his throat had been cut. He was gesturing as if he had something very important to tell me, but I couldn’t understand him.”
“So, in fact, nothing from the encounter could indicate that the defendant is the guilty party. Is that correct?”
“Yes, your honor. He simply made some hand motions I couldn’t decipher and then sank back into the sea after a few seconds.”
“Mr. Calvo, I turn again to you. The authorities have recovered the body of Mr. Abernathy. Is that correct?”
“It is, your honor.”
“And after the event with Ms. Rhonelle, Mr. Abernathy has made no more efforts to offer evidence?”
Griffin Finch stifled a tiny snort of laughter.
“No, your honor.” Calvo slumped almost imperceptibly, and Aurora stood even firmer so as not to show weakness in front of Urelia Mallow. She did, however, flinch just a tiny bit when Judge Molina cracked his gavel on the bench.
“In light of these developments, and with no other evidence or witnesses against the defendant, this triune has no choice but to call a mistrial. This court is dismissed.”
Despite the sparsely populated courtroom, Aurora felt momentarily lost in a swirl of activity. Finch had fairly sprung from his chair and was out the door before the triune could change its collective mind.
Urelia rose and strode out, without even casting a glance at Aurora. Dane, on the other hand, lingered behind the bench, clearly eager for some sort of contact. She could feel his essence calling out to her from across the room.
And she was tempted. Sorely tempted to meet him in his chambers again. Now that the trial was officially out of the way, nothing would be between them. Except, that is, the very concrete fact that he would be leaving all but immediately for home. The whole situation soured her far more than she could have imagined. And she had imagined pretty far.