Page 21 of Shifter Mate Magic
The town council, seated at long tables, was now twelve. Guivre Gul-Vert, in a dress made of deep red and white flowers, presided. New faces included a dark elf who specialized in the study of magic and a pale, terrifying-looking gothic wraith with an incongruously warm smile. Shiloh mentioned their names, but Trevor couldn’t remember names of people he couldn’t smell unless he wrote them down.
The area set aside for Jackie to wait was behind a defensive magic perimeter, designated by orange hazard cones. He held the folding chair steady, so Jackie could sit, then sat in the one beside her. He threaded his fingers through hers and rested their joined hands on her thigh. She glanced at Roehm and the front row of his crew, then focused on the council. Her serene outward appearance belied the tension he felt in her. He squeezed her fingers gently.
For his part, Trevor counted over forty pride members in the roped-off bleacher section, then studied Roehm and his half-naked enforcers with a careful eye, especially the ten crammed into three rows in Roehm’s waiting area. Trevor had several permanent scars from his younger, wilder days, when he’d naively underestimated his opponents. Just because he didn’t see any weapons didn’t mean they weren’t carrying.
Deputy Shiloh stood to Jackie’s left, his thumbs tucked into his utility belt. He gave them a knowing wink, then settled his face into a neutral expression.
At fifteen minutes after noon, Roehm stood and began pacing, once again healthy and looking twice as pissed off as he had before.
Trevor had never wanted to kill anyone before, but he’d make an exception for Roehm. During their final dominance battle, Trevor had taken the measure of the shifter and found him corrosively corrupt. He gave alphas a bad name, surrounding himself with the weak and damaged, and making them worse.
Trevor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He’d learned the hard way he couldn’t fix everything, and patience worked in unexpected ways.
Four bell-like chimes sounded, and the room quieted.
Pendragor, the fairy with the wand, and dressed in lime-colored corset-vest over a dark tunic, and thigh-high boots, explained the rules for the hearing, including the prohibition of unauthorized magic. Jackie would speak first, and everyone else should sit down and keep quiet, or else. He looked pointedly at Roehm. It took a long moment for Roehm to realize that meant him, too. He sat, legs sprawled in front of him, arms crossed, and glared at anyone who caught his eye.
Pendragor invited Jackie into the witness box. “Consent for a geas spell of truth speaking?”
Jackie nodded.
Pendragor sketched a movement with his wand. Trevor felt the power of it as a thrumming against his chest.
It suddenly hit Trevor why she was willing to undergo the truth spell, even though the unpleasant facts might open her to other charges. She’d trapped Roehm into either submitting to the spell and being condemned by the truth, or refusing the spell, and being condemned by his own lies.
That was it. He loved her.
He’d already been half in love with her by the time he’d held her in his arms and promised to help her keep her child. His heart swelled when she’d helped him keep his head in the fight. But smart, clever women had always been his honey, and she had that in abundance.
The woman he was in love with sat with her bag in her lap, proud and brave, in the center of the witness box. She told her story.
When she got to the part about finding the secret accounting ledger, she pulled a slim black-and-red journal out of her bag and gave it to Pendragor.
Roehm jumped to his feet with a loud verbal barrage, claiming she didn’t know what she was talking about, they were confidential, she forged them, and they weren’t his.
Tiny golden elf Guivre frowned and gestured with two fingers. “Sit down.” His chair slammed into the back of his knees, forcing him to fall back into it. The chair slid back into its place. Roehm snarled and struggled to stand again but seemed to be fighting invisible shackles.
Jackie’s lips tightened in annoyance. “I’m a certified public accountant with criminal forensics experience. I know a ledger when I see one.” She nailed Roehm with her gaze. “Alpha Roehm has been skimming seventy to eighty percent of the pride’s gross income from stolen cars, and illegal gun and drug sales, then taking his ‘lion’s share’ of the puny profit he reported to the pride in the spreadsheet program on his personal computer.” She turned her attention to several of the pride who’d been allowed to sit behind Roehm in chairs on the gymnasium floor. “Ask the Shifter Tribunal for an outside audit if you don’t believe...” Her words trailed off, and she paled.
Trevor focused his predator’s gaze on the pride members, wondering what had shaken her. The lynx-shifter enforcers sat together like the juvenile delinquents they obviously were. The jaguar looked pissed off. The sad cheetah shifter stared at his feet. An obese leopard shifter sat uncomfortably on a chair that was too small for his fat ass. The scarecrow-skinny leopard shifter next to him yawned and scratched under the kerchief at his neck, revealing a recent, still-unhealed scar.
Realization slammed into Trevor. He was looking at Ricardo, the obese leopard shifter who’d planned to sell Jackie’s baby at auction, and Ruben, the skinny leopard shifter who she thought she’d killed. Who was obviously very much alive.
Trevor ruthlessly sat on his bear to keep from whining and distracting Jackie even more. He didn’t know what else to do but pump every bit of love he had into the thin mate bond that was growing between them, and hope she’d feel it and draw strength from it.
Jackie straightened her shoulders. “I admit I stole from the pride. They already took back the motorcycle with their harpoon, and I will gladly return everything that’s left.” She gave Roehm a sharp smile that had nothing to do with humor. “Especially the ledger.”
“What about the money we paid for you?” demanded skinny Ruben. “We bought you food and fat-girl clothes, too. And what about the money for that illegal shifter child you’re carrying?”
Ricardo elbowed Ruben hard. “Shut up, you moron.”
“No, you shut up.” Ruben elbowed Ricardo back. “We’re out twenty thousand for a worthless skank.”
Jackie’s harsh laugh cut them off. “Check the ledger. Roehm only paid fifteen thousand for all six of us he bought from the auction and pocketed the rest.”
A large, well-dressed man with brown skin and long, straight black hair rose from the first row of the bleachers and stepped into the witness area. Trevor’s bear nose told him the man was a shifter, but of unknown species. “Who is the father of the leopard child you’re carrying? Does he know where you are?”
“Who are you?” asked Jackie. She seemed calm, but her fingers knotted together in her lap.
