Page 20 of Legally Mated
"I'm starting to wonder," Quin agreed, and accepted a cup of tea from one of the men hovering at the side of the room. "Thankyou."
The President waited until we were all served and were settled comfortably on the couches that lined his sitting room. "I have someone I think you should meet, but she's running a little late so we might as well start without her. I guess the best place to begin is to figure out what your goals are for your people, short term andlongterm."
Quin sipped his tea, and glanced at Holland, who shrugged and adjusted the baby on his lap, ceding the first of the negotiations to his mate. Though--knowing Holland—I doubted he was truly playing second chairtoQuin.
With a nod, Quin set aside his cup. "Understand, I can only speak for Mercy Hills, though there are a few of the Alphas who have given me rights to speak on their behalf. Short term, I'd like to see more opportunities for education, less interference with travel." He grimaced and reached out to touch one of the bright yellow squares of metal on Holland's collar. "I'd like to see these go. They make us different, and set up expectations that we have no hope of dispelling because the mere presence of these tabs eliminates those opportunities." He smiled briefly at Holland, and ran his fingers over the baby's head. "Long term--I want to tear down those walls, and the laws that made them acceptable. I want to be able to fly economy if I want, and walk through the airport without people inching away and reaching for weapons when I'm just trying to get a cinnamon roll before I get called for my flight. I want Dorian and Agatha and Zane to have the same opportunities that your children have, and for their circle of friends to include everyone, not just shifters. I want them to bring home their human friends for full moon and watch the grannies stuff them full of old familyrecipes."
Holland snorted a laugh here, which set off the rest of us for a moment, then we all sobered again. They were fine goals, but we all, every single one of us in the room, knew how difficult actually making them realwouldbe.
The President nodded in agreement. "I've had my staff start pulling together some political arguments for having the law struck, but it's going to take more than that to fully integrate yourpeople."
"I'm well aware of that. We've been isolated so long, we don't share the same experiences that humans do and it's obvious when you see us together. Holland and I and Garrick are, perhaps, the most integrated of anyone, barring some of the Salma Wood and Jordan Bay packmembers. But we have to start somewhere, and just allowing us to blend in, to move outside walls without a sign that essentially says ‘Leper! Unclean!’ would be a huge step forward." Quin took a deep breath in through pinched nostrils and reached for his tea, hiding his emotion behind the rim ofthecup.
"We have some ideas," Holland put in smoothly and I felt something brush past me, though it wasn't a physical feeling. I gave Holland a startled look, just to let him know that I'd noticed whatever he'd done, and he returned his own, more inscrutable one. For no reason I could figure, I thought about those journals that Holland guarded so jealously, the time he was supposedly spending translating one of them from the old pack language to English. And I wondered, as a frisson of anxiety ran up my spine, what he was learning in those oldwords.
Quin reached across to take Holland's hand and I watched as some silent communication ran between them and Holland shook his headno, then Quin turned back to the President. "I'm sorry. I've probably been thinking about this fortoolong."
The President waved that away with a casual brush of his hand through the air. "No offense taken. It must seem like an insurmountable mountain from your place, buried in it. It's daunting enough from my place atthepeak."
"Things we need," Holland put in, breaking into the conversation. "More people with medical training, especially in the poorer packs, the ones that are more isolated, that live in states where the level of prejudice is higher. Even if only one school in the country—a good school—would take them and train them, that would be enough. It would be the acorn that would spawn the giant oak." He shot me a smile. "More lawyers, for a more equitable balance of power between our people and yours, and the ability to take the bar exam. Which would make it easier to integrate--people are friendlier with those they see as being on their level, even if they aredifferent."
Quin nodded. "I can think of four young alphas who plan to join the military. At least two of them would make excellent officers, but they're barred from thattraining."
I noticed the President making notes on a small pad of paper that it felt had just appeared magically out of thin air. "Good, these are good. I'll put my staff onto these right away." He glanced up at me. “You went to law school—I had one of my staff look up your school records. Why didn’t you attempt the bar? You were certainly capable ofpassingit.”
Heat rose up my neck and flushed my cheeks. “I was told it wasn’t possible. I did register, or try to, but I could never manage to get the recommendations I needed. I was told it wasn’t appropriate.” With anyone else, I might have said something more, but I watched understanding grow in his eyes and knew that I didn’t have to—he’d already connected the dots, and movedpastthem.
He opened his mouth and took a breath, but a knock on the door interrupted whatever he was going to say next. One of the ubiquitous men in dark suits poked his head in the door. "Mr. President, the lawyerishere."
A lawyer? I sat up straighter and turned to watch the door with burningcuriosity.
A young woman with medium brown hair piled up at the back of her head and wearing a burgundy power suit strode through the door, her briefcase swinging briskly from one hand. "Mr. President, good morning." She held out a hand and shook his, then turned toward Quin. "Alpha Mercy Hills, I'm glad to finally meet you. My name's Eva Mutch, I'm a constitutional lawyer here in the capital. I work a little with the White House counsel's office, but I also have my own practice." She shook his hand, turned to do the same to Holland, then reached out to me. "I'm afraid I don'trecognizeyou."
"I keep a lower profile," I said and held out my hand. "Garrick Mercy Hills. I'm the pack's civil legaladviser."
Her brows rose and a smile spread across her face. "Excellent. I wasn't aware Mercy Hills had their ownlawyer."
I shrugged—I was getting tired of explaining my lack of qualifications. "Not a full-fledged one. I’ve never taken the bar, though I have all thecoursework."
That stopped her in her tracks and as her hand fell away from mine she narrowed her eyes at me. "Why would they let you go to law school if you couldn't pass the psychologicalprofile?"
"He passed," the President said in a tone full ofmeaning.
She raised her eyebrows again. "Interesting.” A light gleamed in her eyes. Another alpha predator in the room. I was definitely feeling outnumbered. She glanced over at the President. "I'll add that to the top ofthelist."
"I think that would be a good thing," he told her. "The more I hear, the more I wonder what the hell we've been thinking all theseyears."
"It won't be easy," she advised and glanced around, pulling a chair into the circle. "Let'sstart."
Chapter15
The President was called awaytwenty minutes after Eva arrived, but that didn't stop her. By the time the light had started to dim outside the windows, we'd worked through our long list of issues, plus a few things I hadn't even realized were problems but that, once Eva mentioned them, both Quin and Holland had pinpointed as being things that held our people back from fully participating in the country and our future. Things like the curfew made it hard for us to get to polling stations, and they were never set up in an enclave. I'd never realized that this was the main reason why so few of us voted. And because we didn't vote, no candidates ever campaigned with promises to make our lives easier. So fewer of us were interested in the world outside our walls--a self-perpetuating spiral intoinconsequence.
But Eva recognized it, as soon as the words came out of Quin's mouth. And the problems around medical care, the difficulty getting Green Moon's insurance company to pay out, the reluctance of the investigators to spend time out at Green Moon and to look for the source of the fire—almost certainly deliberately set by someone from outside the enclave. Her expression grew grimmer and grimmer, and the questions she asked grew more and more pointed, almost to an insulting degree, pushing and prodding in the same way that I'd seen Laine push and prod trying to discredit a witness, to show that they were untrustworthy, that they had ulteriormotives.
A couple of times, I opened my mouth to tell her to back off, only to have Holland or Quin tell me with a gesture or a look to back off myself. I wasn't certain what they were doing, but it seemed they had some plan in mind, and that this was not entirely unexpected. I’d rather thought that, at least at first, a lawyer working on our side would be more interested in getting the lay of the land, not moving directly on to shooting holes in our own case. Maybe they did things differently here. Or maybe I was losing my edge, staring at contracts and food production regulations alldaylong.
The porter started moving around the room, turning on lights scattered about the room. The First Lady brought the pups back, clamoring for food and excitedly talking over each other about the bowling lane in thebasement.
