And maybe supernatural society isn’t so different from human. ’Cause the minute a female is vulnerable, she’s not used to play tiddlywinks.

Shaking my head to dislodge unwelcome thoughts, I saw Caleb reach forward to pull the woman to her feet. Even the satyr, who was always so calm and kind, looked like he only barely managed to keep his actions from becoming violent. Then he frog-marched her to the SUV in which the Boston crew had arrived, placing her in the back, where he joined her. Ryu turned to thank Capitola, then nodded at Anyan before he got in the driver’s seat, Daoud sitting shotgun.

Anyan took Capitola aside to tell her everything we’d discovered in Rhode Island, and I took that moment to approach the “doctor’s” window. I stared inside until she belligerently raised her eyes to meet my own. She looked scared, and desperate, despite trying to maintain a mutinous facade.

I studied the woman before me, but overwhelming even my anger was a feeling of profound disgust for someone who could break every possible covenant invented by any society, even Alfar, through her sadism, her contempt for life, and a selfishness so profound it would kill any morality or conscience she might once have possessed.

For once, I didn’t loathe handing somebody over to Alfar “justice.” And I refused to feel bad about that fact.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

We were all staring at the good doctor’s door as if contemplating… well, murder. Mostly because I think we were all, genuinely, contemplating murder.

That was part of the reason Ryu had gotten the three-bedroom suite. We’d all been worn out from the past few days before driving to Pittsburgh, so, after a brief discussion, we’d decided to bunk down in the city for a night. Nobody else knew where we were or what we were doing besides Morrigan, as Ryu had immediately let her know because he was a good little investigator.

With our frayed nerves and our exhausted bodies, I don’t know if Dr. Death would have survived the car ride back to the Territory. She still might not survive our overnighting in Pittsburgh, but as long as none of could see her she was, if not safe, safer.

So we’d rented a big suite in a big hotel, asking for a room that was very far up off the ground. We’d stuck our prisoner in one of the bedrooms and sealed the door behind her. Then we’d tried to act like she wasn’t there, so that we didn’t kill her. That said, I caught even our equable satyr, Caleb, staring at the door with fire in his eyes.

When Ryu suggested cards, I think everyone was relieved except for me, as I sucked at card games. So I turned on the television to pretend I was watching Paula Deen add butter to sour cream, while the boys started playing. Julian also eschewed the game, coming to sit by me, instead. I watched him as he sat down. He’d been so quiet since joining us to retrieve our captive—very contemplative and dour. In fact, if I was reading him correctly, he looked a little lost.

So after a few minutes, I decided to take action, Jane-style. Sliding to Julian’s side of the couch, I cuddled against him, my cheek against his sternum. It wasn’t sexual, obviously: He wasn’t into lady bits. But I also knew he needed comfort, and I had a feeling I knew what was bothering him. Julian had caught a glimpse of another way to live as a halfling, but now he was back to his “normal” life. I knew the others on his team loved Julian, and they didn’t think of him as less than them because he was a halfling. But other people in the Territory undoubtedly made up for his cohorts’ acceptance by degrading his mixed blood, and I knew from my own experience how silent persecution could be just as painful and ostracizing as shouts and curses.

He stiffened when I first snuggled up against him, but after a few moments he dropped a kiss on the top of my head, and he let his arm fall around me to give me an admittedly rather awkward pat. Finally he relaxed, for what must have been the first time since I’d clapped eyes on him upon his return. We sat like that for about five minutes, before I sat up, leaving my warmth pressed up against him so that he knew I was still there, but no longer smothering him in selkie-halfling.

Unfortunately, while I’m glad I could make Julian feel a bit better, he was definitely the only one in the room who felt that way. Within fifteen minutes of sitting down to play cards, Anyan and Ryu were snipping at each other, while Daoud and Caleb rolled their eyes. Meanwhile, I was spending more time watching that door than I spent watching the Food Network’s fatfest unfold before me. I couldn’t stop thinking of our captive, and what she might or might not have done.

What if she was one of the ones who killed my mother? I thought. Or Iris?

My focus at that point was so riveted on the door, my hands clenching into fists, that when I felt a hand wrap around my hair and tug, I nearly leaped out of my skin.

“C’mon, starey-pants. Let’s go outside.”

Anyan’s rough voice instantly calmed me, as did the heavy weight of his hand in my hair. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d gotten until that moment. Of course, I realized I was tense because my body melted like a pat of butter on one of Paula Deen’s hush puppies at his touch, much to my embarrassment.

“Yes. Outside,” I agreed a little breathlessly.

The barghest smiled as the tip of his nose twitched. “We can work on your quick-draw mage balls, Jesse James.”

I couldn’t help but grin as I unfolded myself from the uncomfortable little couch I’d nestled into. Ryu watched our progress to the door from where he sat, still playing cards with Daoud and Caleb. Ryu’s expression was dark, but he didn’t put down his hand.

When we got out of the hotel I took a long, deep breath of the still-chilly, wet spring air, feeling my lungs fill and then release with a grateful sigh. It was a gross day out, to be honest: damp and dreary. But the water around me, and the storm brewing above, also made my water-magics tingle with the power in the surrounding air.

Anyan smiled at me, then nodded toward the little park that was across from our hotel.

“Let’s go over there. Work on some combat moves.”

After we’d wandered over to the park, we both boosted our shields and raised mage balls. I watched the swirling green energy of Anyan’s power, feeling how his combined air and water felt so different from my own water-based power. The orb I raised to match his was iron-gray, swirling with white like waves foaming over the sea.

My power is the same color as his eyes, I thought, just as the object of my affection lobbed a missile in my direction. My shields absorbed the impact without hesitation, and, with a sigh, I lobbed my own mage ball back at Anyan.

This one went wide since, once again, my instincts had overridden my training and I’d chucked it at him. Anyan shook his curly-haired head in response.

“Send it, Jane. Don’t throw it.”

I nodded, then did as he’d said. This time, my mage ball connected squarely with his shields right where I’d been aiming: about crotch level.

I winked when he looked up, startled, and sent a bunch more mage balls zinging his way. I laughed at the expression on his face, then swore as he returned his own barrage and I had to quickly beef up my shields. We stood there, lobbing power at each other for a while, eventually making a game of trying to hit each other’s mage balls in midair with our own. Anyan and I both laughed as two of our balls collided in midair and, for some reason, didn’t dissipate, but clung to each other, finally sinking to the wet spring earth where they sat smoking before melting back into the ground.

I watched the barghest watching the mage balls disappear, a smile still curling his wide mouth. Wanting more than anything to kiss those lips, and knowing I couldn’t, I fell back on playground tactics and sent a mage ball zinging at him.

His eyes, suddenly predatory, snapped up to meet mine and his smile turned into something other than humor. He raised another lovely green orb in his hand, but this time he strode forward rather than zinging it at me.

I started to backpedal, launching my own missiles at him, but he just kept striding forward. With a squawk, I turned tail to run, fleeing down the nicely manicured path on my right.

I’d spent so much time the last week sitting in cars, or on planes, that running felt good. Granted, I was never going to be mistaken for a Kenyan, but I was really going for it, enjoying the ache in my muscles and the expansion of my lungs.

And I was also getting nowhere fast compared to my pursuer. I could see a shadow in the very back of my peripheral vision. More to the point, I felt the barghest immediately behind me.

“Faster, Jane,” he breathed right behind my ear, causing me to squeal like a stuck pig and pump my little legs as if he really was the Big Bad Wolf.

Maybe if you stop running, he’ll eat you, my libido, ever libidinous, suggested.

My legs actually slowed down a little bit at that thought, before I cursed myself roundly and picked back up my pace.

I could hear Anyan chuckling behind me. I was starting to get winded, but this was the equivalent of a country stroll for him.

Damned tall people with their long legs, I thought, irritated.

With those marvelous thighs, the libido added. I couldn’t even get annoyed at that thought.

They are magnificent thighs, I admitted. Now get yours working…

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