Dead silence. Well that can’t be good, I thought to myself, and opened my eyes. I would have sat up but Gareth placed his hand in the middle of my chest even though he was looking at Jace. “It would be so much easier if she was as dense as she is beautiful.”
I frowned up at him. “Gentlemen you have two options; either tell me what’s going on around here or don’t. You’ve opened your home to me and I’ve agreed to stay for a year. I can spend that time ignoring the clues you keep dropping in my lap or I can assist you however I can. Either way just know that I’m not blind and I fight better when I know what’s coming at me.”
Jace’s face lost color and he stared at me with stricken eyes. “What the hell does that mean… you’ve agreed to stay a year? With whom did you agree?”
“Lexi agreed to stay at least a year. After that we will… discuss it,” Gareth told him calmly.
Both men looked at me and I had the overwhelming urge to apologize, though I wasn’t sure what for. “So should I take the change of subject as an indicator that I’m supposed to walk around for the next year with my hand over my eyes and my fingers in my ears? Because if that’s the case let me warn you, I’ll be going out at night with or without you, probably while you’re working.”
“For what reason would she be going out at night?”
“Without one of us?”
“She will not be seeing others,” Gareth told Jace, though his eyes had narrowed and he was staring directly at me. It wasn’t really a comment, more a directive.
“I don’t think she’s taking up a new hobby. I sense its something she’s been doing for a while.”
“Well she wasn’t seeing others.” And this time when he said it the tension eased from him.
“What could she possibly do at night, all on her own?”
“Fly?” Gareth asked hopefully, and then added, “We can take you flying… in fact we should go tonight.” They both looked at me hopefully and I pressed my lips together and refused to look at them. I’d lifted my deeper shields and was this close to completely shielding and was busy concentrating on what they might be hiding to keep them from prying into my thoughts.
“That sounds lovely Gareth; I’ve never flown with other Dragons before… except in my dream and you both know how that ends. I would be honored to fly with you.”
“Not flying.”
“Not clubbing.”
“Not having sex.”
“She works from home.”
“She works alone.”
“The library is closed.”
“The zoo is closed.”
“Maybe running?”
“From someone or after them?”
“She scoffed at me.”
“What?”
“She scoffed at me and told me she’d been killing Vampires for years and that it would take more than an immature Vampire to hurt her.”
They both looked at me with serious expressions and I fought not to squirm under Gareth’s palm. Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts.
“That’s not going to work,” Jace growled at me.
“She was very quick with her little wooden pointy stick.”
“She could have killed Bobbie… but she didn’t.”
“Hmmm, she interrogated him first.”
“Not to mention how quickly she dispatched your buoyancy challenged friend,” Jace replied with a happy smile.
“Thank you for reminding me yet again,” Gareth nearly growled at him. He didn’t seem all that distressed over it, more like he was irritated over the loss of his house keys than he was over the loss of his girlfriend. And I had to wonder about that yet again. “She wasn’t my girlfriend. And I never slept with her! Even though she told everyone we had. And you should know that not everything is what it appears.” He nearly growled at me and I couldn’t help sensing the disappointment he was putting off.
Jace glanced between the two of us and sighed. “She fought Mark and beat him. And you should have seen her lead nearly the entire team in seventh and eighth level kata’s. I know for certain a number of them have never done higher than sixth level.”
Now that confused me. How could that be? There hadn’t been a single person out there that had taken a misstep! Come to think of it, that had been rather odd. Have to check that out tomorrow, maybe step up to the next level to see what happened.
Gareth flashed me a curious look at the thought and leaned over me. “So my beautiful little gold, just what have you been up to?”
I slammed my shields shut and stared back at him, ignoring Jace’s hiss. “Dammit, I hate it when she does that,” he complained.
“I warned you.” And I wasn’t going to feel guilty about it, no I was not.
Gareth actually smiled and told us. “She follows through, I like that about her.”
“Yeah great, that’s just great,” Jace muttered. “Would you please just tell her so she’ll stop splitting my head open?”
“In deference to Jace, I’ll give you the short version… we train hunters.”
Chapter 17
I pushed Gareth’s hand off me and sat up. This was too funny. “You train hunters?” I demanded bluntly and dropped my shield. Jace took a deep breath and muttered his thanks. “That doesn’t explain the conference room.”
“What is so funny?” Jace grumbled. He was likely misinterpreting my humor, thinking it was at his expense.
“You have no idea how refreshing you are!” Gareth ignored Jace to tell me. “Beauty and brains, I’d nearly forgotten what it is like to be with a female of our race.”
“The Everlasting changed not just their bodies. Mean and stupid is not an attractive combination,” Jace agreed with a nod. “Sometimes I wonder if it is a blessing they can’t reproduce. Surely the offspring would be monsters.”
“I think your Father was a genius.”
“Yes … yes and I’m young too, don’t forget that. And I have all my own teeth and no disfiguring scars and I can eat in public... well perhaps not without scaring the dancers. But I’m sure it’s no hardship that I can manage to defend myself against your adoring fans. Blah blah blah.”
“You know, she doesn’t really believe you,” Jace commented, his voice sounding puzzled.
“Must be all those years in someone else’s skin,” Gareth responded.
I waved my fingers to get their attention, but apparently they hadn’t beaten the subject to death yet.
“I suppose I always took this form for granted. Once I selected it, it just stayed with me until this and my Dragon form are all I have. Yet, I suddenly find myself grateful. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go about in an ugly disguise my entire life.”
“Guys!” I practically yelled. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“I think she protests too much.”
“Entirely.”
“Fine, whatever. Don’t believe me. But could we get back to the subject of you training hunters? I assume you’re sanctioned with the Government?”
“Why does she act like she knows about hunters?”
“I’m more concerned about her last comment.”
“Hello… can you say Mi? Or how about my Mother… and the fact that I spent a lot of time on military installations when I was a kid…a pale brown haired, brown eyed kid that nobody noticed?”
“I see her point. Perhaps having a non-descript alter-ego could have been an advantage. It might even come in handy. Can you change into other people or just this ugly brown person?” Jace wanted to know.
I frowned at him. My disguise was plain, not ugly! “Yes but what has that got to do with anything?”
Jace snorted inelegantly, but then does anyone snort in an elegant fashion? I thought, becoming momentarily sidetracked.
“Is it easy? Can you do it here… now?”
“What? Oh, no it’s not easy, and yes, I could do it now, but after my workout upstairs and then with you two I’d probably need a nap, and honestly I’m not really in the mood to humor you right this s
econd.”
“She’ll need to practice that. Hiding in plain sight isn’t going to be an asset if it leaves her weak.”
“Hey, I am getting better. A year ago shimmering would have knocked me out for hours. Lately it’s less than thirty minutes. I’m pretty sure with practice it will get easier. It’s just the change that exhausts me. Holding the shape is no problem.”
They seemed to mull that over for a few minutes and I took the time to pack the uneaten food back into the basket, munching on strawberries and cherry’s the while.
“So the vamps the other night, can I assume that was someone’s way of saying thanks for meddling, please drop dead?”
“Something like that.”
“Have you plugged your internal leaks now, or are there more that I should know about?”
Gareth just shook his head. “She goes right to the heart of the matter, doesn’t she? Amazing.”
Jace was staring at me as if he’d had an epiphany and I nearly swallowed my tongue. “Yes she is,” he commented. Lifting a knee and placing his elbow on it, he studied me silently while he mulled something over. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking but it was obvious he was onto something and I wasn’t certain I was going to enjoy whatever it was.
That thought made him smile… not a Hi there, I’m so happy to see you kind of smile either. More like… I’m the cat and I’ve just eaten your canary type of smile. Gareth was silent on the other side of me as I packed the last of our things away and sat back on my knees, tugging at my robe to cover my thighs before folding my hands calmly in my lap. I took a deep breath and looked back at Jace. I was going for serene physically because intellectually he’d set off alarms and I was practically jumping up and down. I really didn’t like the way he was looking at me.
“You do realize you’ve killed an unarmed citizen in an unprovoked attack? And you have used your will to cause several dozen individuals to perform acts against their nature? And that the penalty for said violations under the United States Civil Code allows for termination with extreme prejudice?”
Gareth sucked in a breath and frowned at Jace.
In my lap I felt my fingers clench and I nodded, looking down at the blanket in front of me.
“Except those laws don’t really apply to you, do they? Not any more than they do to Gareth or me or Nick or eventually to those men and women we’re housing upstairs.”
I shook my head and kept my eyes lowered.
“Because you operate outside the laws, above the rules, don’t you?”
This time I nodded.
“Seventeen, and graduating from Harvard, that’s fairly impressive. And since then you had another what… seven years trailing along with your Mother? A woman who is the estranged Princess of Faerie, and a very important person despite her family issues. Hell, she’s a decorated near national treasure, given her service during and after the plagues. She managed nicely to keep your parentage under wraps. I don’t recall ever hearing anything about you. Everyone probably assumed you were just someone else’s daughter or sister, or later on, just another secretary in her entourage, didn’t they? If they noticed you at all, and here I was feeling sorry for you,” Jace continued with a shake of his head. “And check out your body language,” he continued. “I bet you spent a lot of time looking young and innocent and submissive just like you are right now. Can this be the same person that leapt from the stairs and dragged a full grown Troll to her death?” he demanded, leaning forward and shaking his head at me. “You know what I think? I think….your Mother is brilliant. Tell me, was it her idea to hide you in plain sight, then protect you from the very people searching for you by having them train you so you’d be legally untouchable?”
I pursed my lips and nodded. “I’m not sure whose idea it was originally,” I told him calmly.
“I bet they recruited you straight out of school, probably sight unseen, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
“How did you account for your personal history?”
“Records get lost and everyone knows it is against the nature of Elves to lie. My Mother might have inferred I was a foster child and since she is who she is….they took me on her recommendation. Passing the written and orals were easy, and I’d been training since I was eight so the physical requirements weren’t difficult.”
“So what does the Government think you are?”
I took a deep breath and raised my eyes to him. I reached for my robe, and let it drop off my shoulders while pushing it off my thighs. I glanced down and started with my right knee. I shifted just a few inches at a time, running the shift up my leg, and the right side of my body, over my shoulder, across my back and then down the left side of me to the other knee. It was like I’d run a piece of scaly material up and over my skin, so that wherever the material was covering me, that was the only place with iron hard scales. And I did it fast. The entire demonstration took just seconds. Then I was pulling my robe back up and I blinked and told him. “They think I’m some kind of chameleon. They were intrigued, but not unduly so. It was enough to get me through the academy and into a program.”
“Yes, an interesting trick. There aren’t many that can pull that off without losing a limb. And I’ve never seen it done that fast, or with such precision. So, I’m guessing you graduated with honors?”
Actually I had worked hard to stay in the middle of the pack. Having to fight my natural inclination to excel had been difficult for me. I was looking for autonomy not infamy. The last thing I needed was to be assigned to the border, or be picked for one of the elite squads. Typically, once you became a hunter you went into an apprenticeship or supervised combat situations for several years before being allowed free reign. It was just the Government’s way to ensure that they hadn’t created the ultimate killing machine, and then set them free on the general population. Although, it had happened in the past, just after the plagues when we’d nearly been overrun. Then the elites that went into the field had been decorated veterans for the most part, or pulled from the newly created non-human military teams, yet they still had been selected carefully. .
Beside me Gareth nodded thoughtfully and spoke for the first time since Jace had started this conversation. “Did they assign you to your Mother?”
“No, she requested me and they were happy enough to accommodate her.”
“And when you left a year ago, did anyone contact you?”
“No, I believe Mi might have had something to do with that. I think she arranged for me to fall off their radar.”
“So what we have here is a fully trained and duly sanctioned hunter who’s in the system, but for who all follow up actions have been electronically eradicated. She is probably assigned to someone that doesn’t exist,” Jace commented. “I congratulate you. I believe you met your goal. I don’t think you get any more autonomous than that.”
“Yes and I imagine it explains the drop in crime over the past year, which is about the same time you moved here.”
I couldn’t help the wicked smile that slipped over my face as I nodded.
Jace grimaced and added, “And the reason we’ve been infiltrated.”
“Obviously they thought you were a rogue, one of ours,” Gareth remarked when I questioned him with a raised eyebrow.
“Irony at it’s finest.”
I glanced between them and realized I might owe them an apology, although why my helping to keep the slimy underbelly of the city from overrunning the general population should be a problem, I couldn’t really say. It wasn’t like I’d been taking out the big bosses; I’d just been chipping away at the petty criminals.
“And doing a damn fine job of it from what we hear. While managing to stay out of our sight, and yet right under our noses,” Jace commented.
“Perhaps if you got out more we might have met sooner,” I teased.
“Mmmm,” Gareth replied.
“No need to shove that in our faces,” Jace grumbled. “But seriously, these night raids have got to s
top.”
“Why?” I wanted to know. I wasn’t going to get upset, but there had better be a good reason or there would be no deal. I liked hunting and I was good at it. The fact that they’d been infiltrated indicated they needed to be a little less lax in their security and I wasn’t sure how that translated to me having to curtail my activities.
“You explain it,” Jace told Gareth, as he rose from the blanket and stripped off his t-shirt and pants.
Jace wasn’t wearing any underwear and I’m not ashamed to say I ogled him. Even though it was clear he was more frustrated with me than interested. He rolled his eyes and wandered down to the water and dove in. I craned around to see him break surface and then he was freestyling to the other end with clean powerful strokes.
“So what’s so bad that you have to deliver the news?” I asked, swinging back to Gareth and settling myself. I was still kneeling and took a moment to straighten my legs so I wasn’t cutting off my circulation.
He smiled half heartedly and turned around so he could lay his head in my lap. I fought my initial reaction but he remained silent until I gave in and ran my fingers through his hair. After the third or fourth pass he finally spoke.
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