Lauren Dane: Wild Darkness

Heads nodded throughout the room and Faine noted the pride on David Jaansen’s face. This was a man who’d raised his children from birth—if the stories he’d heard were true—to be hunters. Considering the performance of both Jaansen sisters, he’d done an exemplary job.

These hunters believed in her. Followed her orders without hesitation. That was rare. And important. He wondered if she even saw it.

“I need to get on the road now so I can get into Sacramento. John, you’re with me. Caspar and Bridget will be coming over from San Francisco to staff the Road Show team. I’ll be rotating staff through, so if you’re interested, let Sasha know. She’s keeping a list. The rotations will be in two-week increments.” Helena paused. “Any questions?”

A few hands went up.

“You’re guarding the human? Why not have his own take care of him?”

Helena tapped the back of her hand with her pen for a moment. “He’s risking everything to back us. We’re guarding the whole group, including the other legislators who are Others. It’s the right thing to do. He does have staff to guard him. But we’re better than they are.”

Her smile was cocky, but she told the truth. Despite the danger, it had been the Other guards who’d kept everyone alive, even in the midst of bombings.

A few more procedural questions and she was stalking to the car, her arms full of files.

Faine carried a big lockbox of ammunition that had been specially created to deal with the mages. The Others knew some of the mages still allied themselves with the human hate groups, and they worked on regular humans too. She used guns, knives and magick on her job.

A lot of Others hesitated in using human weapons on their law enforcement teams, though that was changing. In large part due to Helena and Lark.

Faine remembered the look on her face when she’d slapped a magazine of the special ammo in place. She told him she wasn’t about to waste a tool if she could use it to protect her people. He liked her ruthless streak.

A lot.

“I need to stop at my house to grab some clothes,” she said as she got in the car.

He drove the fifteen minutes to her apartment, noting that the warding was still in place and holding. The building was owned by a Clan family and was guarded, not quite as openly as the enclave he lived in, but it was a magickal fortress so he approved.

“I shouldn’t be too long.” The wards recognized her, flaring to life as they admitted her and Faine, re-knitting in their wake. “Sorry about the mess.”

He laughed at that; unless she described a glass on the counter as a mess, he had no idea what she meant. The place was ruthlessly neat and orderly otherwise. “I’ve seen how your sister is. This is positively orderly.”

She shrugged. “She’s a slob. Sort of an anomaly as most witches are orderly. But Simon is a neat freak so I’m sure she works to keep it in check. Mostly.” There was affectionate amusement in her tone but he knew things between the two hadn’t always been so easy.

He wanted her to share that story with him. Of how she and her sister had ended up falling away from each other for the last few years. He knew the details from Lark’s perspective, but he wondered how the story went from Helena’s point of view.

“Make yourself at home. I’ll be out in a few.”

She grabbed a suitcase from the hall closet and disappeared into her bedroom. He contented himself with wandering the living room, looking at her books and the pictures on her shelves.

The woman won a lot of stuff. There were blue ribbons tucked here and there. Not really on display, but in and amongst her things. Statues and plaques. Pictures of her on graduation day, with her arm around Lark, her parents standing with them.

She’d been a swimmer. A runner too. Certainly a prolific reader if her shelves were any indicator. Books were everywhere, and of all types and genres. All in ruthless order by subject and even in like spine colors.

But there was nothing on her walls. They were all the same basic white as most apartments. No pictures hung. No open books sat on the arms of the chair or couch. She lived there, but the space didn’t feel like a home.

Helena came out shortly with a suitcase, a weapons case and another smaller bag; given the scent, probably her toiletries.

“Your weapons case is larger than the suitcase holding your clothes.”

She laughed and the sound of it tightened things low in his belly.

“A girl needs priorities. Also, I have clothes in Sacramento. I’ve got a room there, at the Gennessee building I mean. Weapons? Well, those I keep with me because I have favorites. I can buy four of the same shirt in two colors, but my guns? Well, they’re a lot more expensive and I’m partial to how they fit my hand.”

He sucked in a breath and the moment between them stretched. “There’s a lot to be said for a woman who appreciates a weapon the way you do.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded but refrained from saying anything else. They needed to stop at his place and to get on the road. And he sensed the immensity of anticipation between them. Something was going to happen but it wasn’t the time, no matter how much he wanted it to be.

He cleared his throat. “Have everything you need?”

She swallowed hard and he tasted her thundering pulse in the air between them. “Yeah. If I forget something I can always pick up a replacement.”

He led the way out after she let him grab one of her bags.

SHEwasn’t surprised that Faine drove ridiculously fast. Or that he had the reflexes to handle the road at eighty without batting an eye.

At his place he exchanged her company car for his. A sleek and sexy BMW. The engine purred even as it roared down the freeway.

Settling back into the embrace of the seat, she pulled out her pad, a pen and her phone. She needed to call Agent Anderson because he’d left her a message while she was in her meeting back at Gennessee.

“Agent Anderson, it’s Helena Jaansen retuning your call.”

“Hello there. I just wanted to check in with you after last night’s events. I wanted you to hear this from me, but Gentry Fenton is out on bail.”

“What?” She wanted to turn the car around and go hunt him down so she could snap his neck. And then she wanted to find this FBI agent to do the same.

“This was over our objections. We argued that he be held without bail. But his attorneys were able to show a lack of an arrest record, no history of violence, he’s got a business in Signal Hill and roots in the community. They argued that he wasn’t a flight risk.”

“This is bullshit. Utter and total bullshit. One of my people died last night. Children were targeted! Or don’t they count because they’re shifters? No one gives a shit because only human children deserve to be able to play without being bombed by terrorists?”

“I understand. I’m pissed off too, Helena. I promise you this was not what we wanted. My people will keep an eye on him and the others to be sure they don’t leave the jurisdiction. Hell, maybe they’ll lead us to something useful.”

“The other ones were released too?”

He blew out a breath and she knew the magick threatened to boil over from her belly.

“The ones that weren’t in the hospital. I’m sorry.”

“What judge would allow that?”

He paused so long she understood it. That was the problem. The judge was a pro PURITY person and had acted accordingly.

“We were able to get an order for all of them to stay at least five hundred feet away from any known Other community centers or other organizations. Believe me when I say if they step one foot in that five hundred feet we will pull them in.”