When she woke up, she was in the bed that she’d been in since coming home from the hospital.Meggie found herself wrapped around Marshall and decided that he was simply too warm.Trying to move away so that she could use the bathroom had her so frustrated.The way he kept pulling her back into his arms, she finally punched him in the shoulder and told him that she had to pee.
“Sorry.I’m sorry.”She could tell that he was still sleeping or passed out like she was sure that had happened to her.But stood up to go to the bathroom so that she could get back into the warm bed with him.It was then that she realized that her body had been switched with someone else’s.A much more out of shape body that was sore from the top of her head to the bottom of her tender feet.
It took her nearly too long to get to the bathroom.She’d had to work her way around the room by hanging onto walls and the furniture that was there.By the time she got to the toilet seat, she was shaking she was so weak.Going back to bed it seemed impossible until Marshall joined her.
“I need a soak in a tub.”He told her that they had a hot tub that had been installed by the faeries when he’d brought her to bed.“Please tell me that they didn’t see us naked.I’ll never be able to look at them again.”
“No, I brought us here.You’ll be happy to know that we can do that popping in and out thing, too.Or at least I can.I couldn’t wake you up to ask you if you could.”She told him that she’d been worn out.“Oh honey, you and I both were.On top of getting the magic that came with you being my mate, we got the alpha magic as well.I had no idea that it would come to us all at one time, or I might well have put off you and I bonding tonight.”He looked like he was thinking.“Nah, I would have done it anyway.You made me feel like I’m the luckiest man in the world tonight.”
“I hope so.It’s doubtful that you’ll be getting that lucky again.At least for a while, anyway.Let’s hit the hot tub before I fall asleep right here.”They both staggered to the decking that was right outside their bedroom door and slipped clumsily into the tub.As soon as her body was deep in the warmth, every part of her body felt better.“I hope that you know that I’m never leaving this sucker again.This is heaven.”
“You wound me.”She laughed when he did.“I was thinking about something when I was dragging your lazy ass up the stairs.This house needed an elevator.The faeries were excited to do that for us when I asked them.Also, Pie has asked if she and her family can live in the butler’s house out back.Her son is going to be our butler.He’s nineteen and looking for something to keep himself out of trouble.”
“You seemed to have gotten a lot done while I was out.How long was I down for until now?”He told her that he didn’t really need to sleep all that much and had been up for a few hours before coming back to bed with her.That she’d been out about eight hours.“Eight hours?That’s the longest that I’ve ever slept in my life.I’m usually up with the sun even if I go to bed at midnight.”
They both relaxed in the water.It was really nice to have the hot tub, but she could also understand why there were warnings out about spending too much time in one.She was feeling light-headed again when Bounty showed up to talk to them.
She wasn’t embarrassed by being naked.Meggie had spent a very long time in the service and she was used to men and women going to the bathroom while out on duty that it didn’t phase her.But the little guy, he was slightly so.She sunk deeper into the water when he was standing on the side of the tub talking to the two of them.
“I’ve located the man who had shot at you, my lady.He is no longer alive.I wish that I could have avenged you, but I could not.Some animal had killed him, I think a bear that ended his life.This person took his throat out and left him to be found.”Marshall asked him what he’d done to make it so that the body wasn’t going to come back on any shifters.“He will be found in his vehicle, and he will look to anyone, including shifters, like he had had an accident.I didn’t have his car actually hit the tree, and she, the tree, was grateful enough for that, so she made a few of her leaves and some smaller branches fall onto the tree to make it look like it had.”
“Brilliant.”Meggie knew that faeries and brownies both didn’t care much for being praised.They did brag, however.When Marshall handed him the two dimes about all little Bounty could carry, she knew that every little creature around would know that the master had paid him for his brilliant work.After receiving his reward, Bounty left them.
“I need to make it so that I have small treats in my pocket from now on.I’ll have to have a variety of them so that they don’t feel like I’m slacking on the rewards.”She told him what Pie had told her about rewards.“That’s a wonderful idea.I would have gone out and bought something to give them, but you’re right.They’d much rather have things that they can put into their home to display.I love the idea of bottle caps that Hamish uses.Also, he had seeds too in his pocket.He told me once he was out, he’d forgotten to pick up treats but had seeds in his pocket that he didn’t know where they came from.His faerie was delighted to be able to show off the seeds that Hamish, the big vampire king, had given them.”
“I love this family.All of them.And I can’t wait…well, I know that I can wait but I can’t too.Anyway, I can’t wait to see how they help us with the president.He’s going to get his comeuppance Friday.”He asked her if she was nervous now.“Not anymore.I feel, I was going to say rejuvenated but it’s more than that.Maybe justified in doing what should have been done before.I think that Collin taking over the presidency will show just how much he was fucking up with things.And things that they can’t see will be taken care of as well.”
Making their way to the bedroom again, once they were dried off, the two of them crawled into the bed, and she noticed then that it seemed to be wider than before.Not only that, someone had made the bed.Asking Marshall about it, he told her that the towels that they had used would be cleaned and dried and put away because of the magic of the room.
“That’s awesome.I could have used that for the last ten years or so.I tend to get messy when I’m off someplace.Hotels don’t hate me because I tip very well but I know that they have to have extra people on to clean up my mess.”Marshall said that he was a slob most of the time but would clean up his room at least once a day.“And I hate doing dishes.I want you to remember that.”
“We have a staff, so you won’t have to do a single dish.And since we’re getting to know one another.I don’t like salads.Not one bit.Not even potato salad or whatever they call noodle salad.They’re only there to take up room in your belly so that you can’t eat as much meat.I’m the true meaning of a carnivore.”She told him she was a vegetarian.He looked so shocked that she had to own up to being a meat lover as well.“You scared me there for a minute.I thought for sure that you weren’t kidding.”
They were still talking when the sun came up.Once it was shining into their room, she took another shower with Marshall and decided that shower sex wasn’t something that she’d want to do very much.It was slippery and scary to be all soaped up and someone else with you.
Going down to breakfast, they ate a huge platter of food.She noticed that her own appetite was bigger than before, and she was glad that she’d not gain a lot of weight by eating a great deal.Life to her was suddenly just perfect.And when she was finished with Lowery, she was going to start a family with the big wolfie.
Chapter 6
Michael was wondering if and when they were going to come for him.He’d been moving money around all morning and had made sure that he had transportation so that he could get out of town as soon as they came after him.Right now, however, he was trying his best to get out of the White House before anyone showed up to arrest him.And they surely would.He’d done a great deal of shitty bad things since well before he was in office.
He didn’t want to answer his house phone, sure that it was going to be terrible news.Like they were there to get him.However, he knew that if he didn’t answer it, someone might be suspicious, and that would be bad, too.Picking it up, he tried his best to sound like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Mr.President, Generals Morton are here.They’d like a word with you about something that has come up on their end.”Closing his eyes, telling himself that it might have been terrible timing on their part.“Would you like for me to show them in or do you wish for them to wait?”Looking around the office, he realized that it was in a state and decided that he’d rather meet them when he wanted.
“Tell them that I’ll be out in a moment.I have some—” The door opened, and there they both stood.They were in full dress uniform, too.“I said that I’d be out in a moment.What gives you the right to barge into my office like you own it.”It was MJ who spoke first.
“We do.You’re paid with taxpayers’ money as well as the upkeep on this building.”They both sat down on one of the facing couches.“Are you heading someplace, Michael?It seems to us that you’re making plans for something.I hope that’s not true.I mean, you still have what, ten months left on your contract with the government.Speaking of which, we’ve turned the contracts that you had with my family over to the FBI.I’m telling you that in the event that you have questions about where they are again.Why don’t you have a seat here?I’m sure that your plans aren’t going not take you anywhere.”
“I don’t have time for this tomfoolery today.”He sounded like his grandfather at that moment.“Look.I think we got off to a bad start, the three of us and—She said that you were both Morton.Generals Morton.That’s not right.”
“Oh?Why is that?Do you think that I don’t have your permission to marry when I want?I’ll have you know that the two of us have been married for nearly a month now.We’re good for each other.”He knew that he’d regret it the moment that the question came from his mouth.He asked her in what way.“You know.I keep him happy in the sack, and he keeps me from pulling out my gun and blowing your fucking head off.”
It was the smile that terrified him.She looked maniacal right then.Not insane, far from it.She looked like she was happy to be there with him to see his downfall.Because he knew in that moment, too, that she was there to expedite his demise into some prison with no name and no way for him to get out for the rest of his life.
“Why don’t you just get it over with?Why are you playing this game when you think you have shit on me.You don’t, but let me hear what you have to say.”She just stared at him.It made the hairs on the back of his neck and arms stand at attention.It made him nervous the way she was looking at him.“So?You think that a few pieces of paper are going to frame me?Good luck with that.I’ve been a model president who has gotten shit done while I’ve been in office.Do you have any idea how well the economy is doing right now?I don’t either, but I’m betting that it’s good.”
“The economy, since you asked, is coming out of the shit hole you put them in when you started out with trying to start a war.You had every American in the country terrified, and this is your words—every man, woman, and child will be expected to be a part of the front line with guns and whatever else I think that will win this war.There wasn’t a war on yet and it looks to me like there never was one.Remember, jackass, I was out there in the front line, and there was never any indication that theUnited States was goingdown the tubes,as you so eloquently put it.”He told her to prove it.Instead of her saying more, she pulled out his remote from the middle cushion and turned on the news.It just so happened that they were talking about this very thing.“Is there anything else that I can dispute for you?Oh, and those contracts that you have with my father and uncles are valid.Just as I did, they were able to verify that the signature was yours.And it seems that the exact amount of money that you promised to pay is missing out from the capital funds that are reserved for your personal things.”