Page 31 of Furever Loyal
The Court was the body that governed shifters. Each of the three High Houses, Canis, Drakos and Ursa had three voting members upon it. The minor Houses, Raptere and Panthera, had one advisory seat each, though they weren’t allowed to vote.
Going to The Court presented another problem to him, however, one that would quite likely kill the charges.
Canis controlled The Court right now. As the most powerful of the Houses, their King currently sat as the final member of the body, the Viceroy—the tenth and deciding seat. It was a new addition to The Court, having been added after all the members of House Drakos retreated from all interaction with the outside world.
Left with three seats apiece, every vote had been deadlocked between Ursa and Canis. At the time, Ursa had been the most powerful, and so they’d exerted their will and introduced the seat of Viceroy. A tiebreaking seat.
Now the tables had turned, and Canis claimed the spot. A simple majority vote of four to three would kill any motion he brought against Laurent.
Still, that is the way the rules dictate it must be done, and if I’m to stay on Haley’s good side, that’s how I’m going to have to do it. At first.
It was odd how appeasing her was starting to work its way up his list of priorities. Why should he care? After all, she was the one who’d accused him of being a traitor, instead of bringing the information to him first and giving Kincaid a chance to investigate. He needed to focus on what was truly important: proving his innocence, not keeping a House flunky happy. That was the right thing to do.
Wasn’t it?
15
It took him the better part of ten minutes of being lost in his own thoughts before Kincaid came to the realization that Haley hadn’t spoken either. Glancing over while they were stopped at a red light, he noted the tautness of her jaw.
“You have something you want to ask.” It wasn’t really a question.
Haley started to shake her head, then stopped, then continued. “No, it’s fine.”
“Just ask.”
The light turned green and he was forced to pull his eyes away from the smooth, round lines of her face and the—stop it.
“Kincaid, if there’s one thing I’ve learned working with House Ursa over the years, it’s that when things are a little confusing, it’s best if I just don’t ask questions. Do my job and call it a day. I don’t need to know why you guys insist on ordering thousands of ugly brown sweatshirts and sweatpants on a yearly basis, for example.”
One side of his mouth twisted up into a smile. “Baggy, loose clothing is easy to slip in and out of. But we don’t always have time.” He frowned. “Or remember.”
“Remember what?’
“To strip down before shifting. The clothes don’t make the change,” he explained. “So, we tend to ruin a lot of them.”
“Ah,” she said. “That’s why you got naked in the warehouse. Of course. I should have made the connection.”
He took his eyes off the road for a moment, watching the color of her cheeks change slightly. Was she thinking about seeing him naked, he wondered? Kincaid was so used to nudity that he often forgot it sent most normal humans into a tizzy. Especially women who thought he was attractive. He’d not really expected that from Haley though, theconsidering him attractivepart. The getting worked up over nudity didn’t surprise him in the slightest.
“That wasn’t your question though,” he said, giving her a moment to collect herself. “You aren’t bothered by the fact we go through sweats that quickly, I know it.”
“No,” she admitted, shaking her head, a ghost of a smile crossing her face. “You’re right. Though it was one of those curious things about the job that I had been wondering about for a long time. Thank you for answering that.”
He inclined his head. She was stalling, avoiding the topic at hand, whatever it was. Why was she so reluctant to ask it? It couldn’t be that bad.
“You can ask whatever it is,” he urged. “I can tell you want to know, though I don’t know why you’re so hesitant. I already showed you our biggest secret. There isn’t much that can top that.”
Kincaid thought about how much of human history was related to shifters and their actions, or their war with the human-born mages that had ravaged the world around them for over a millennium.Okay, maybe there are a few things I shouldn’t share just yet.
“I was told rather forcefully, over and over again, by my old boss, that I absolutely mustnotask questions unless I genuinely needed to know the answer to do my job. It was dangerous, I was told. There were things in this world that I didn’t need to know.”
She expelled air through her lips. “I’m starting to wonder if maybe he had an inkling of your secret too and was trying to protect me.”
Kincaid had no idea, he’d never met the previous accountant, so couldn’t say one way or another. There were humans out there that knew he and his kind existed, but they were few and far between. Most of them were mates of full-blooded shifters or relatives of those mates who’d stumbled onto it by accident and been threatened with death if they ever told a soul.
“I promise you,” he said in a gentle tone, working to earn a bit of her trust. “You can ask, and you won’t get in any trouble. It’s okay.”
He didn’t expect the overture to work. Haley detested him, and though they were slowly growing more civil with one another, he didn’t doubt that she still harbored a lot of strong feelings about him that were not positive. Trusting him didn’t seem to be high up on the list of things likely to happen anytime soon. Still, it was worth a shot.
