Page 46 of Furever Loyal
“Well, tell us already!” Haley exclaimed. “Stop being all mysterious.”
He glanced at the Queen of High House Ursa. This wasn’t his decision right now. It was hers. “It has to do with my last mission in Europe.”
The Queen didn’t hesitate. “I suppose we may as well tell her about that side as well. I suspect she’s going to become more involved over the next little while.”
There was something in her voice, in the way she was hinting at the future. Kincaid couldn’t quite pick it up, but he was positive it was directed at him. The confusion must have shown because Kaelyn smiled briefly.
“What? Tell me about what side?” Haley asked, tugging on his shoulder through the bars.
“The magic side,” the Queen supplied when Kincaid couldn’t find his voice.
He was still trying to figure out just what the Queen had meant by Haley becoming more involved. How could she possibly know that? How muchmorecould she get involved than she already was?
“Wait a honkin’ minute here,” Haley yelped. “Did you saymagic? Like what, card tricks and stuff?”
Kincaid shook his head. “No. Like real magic. Mages and staffs and spells.”
“Rigghhht,” Haley said, scoffing at his explanation. “This is all some sort of practical joke, isn’t it? Magic, shifters. I’m on a tv show or something, right? Cause let me tell you, this has gone on too long, and I want out, okay? I’m done. It’s over.”
“It’s no joke, Haley,” the Queen said, also speaking quietly. “It’s quite serious, in fact.”
Haley was rubbing her temple with her free hand. Kincaid still had a firm grip on the other, and he gave it another squeeze now, trying to help her, to let her know he was there as support no matter what.
“Alright. So, magic. Shapeshifters. Little green men from Mars?”
Kincaid coughed to cover his surprise, and to prevent him from saying something he shouldn’t. “Ah, no. To my knowledge, little green men from Mars do not actually exist.” It was a roundabout way of answering the question, but he didn’t want to speak a lie.
“Well, that’s something,” she said, head bent over.
Risking a quick glance at his Queen, he caught the relief in her eyes as well, before they all returned to the subject at hand.
“What do mages have to do with this?” Haley asked, at last, looking up. “Because why wouldn’t this get any more complicated.”
“Well, for starters, you should know that magic users and shifters, they mostly do not get along. At all. There are very few crossovers as well. We tend to stick to our own.”
Kincaid wasn’t sure how best to phrase what he had to say next, and his pause gave Haley a chance to speak up.
“Right. I’m starting to realize that you don’t like to admit the truth. How badly do you not get along?”
The Queen spoke up now, relieving Kincaid of his decision of how much to reveal. “We were at war for nearly fifteen hundred years.”
“Oh,” Haley said in a slightly strangled voice. “Okay. Is that all?”
“We won,” Kincaid said. “Sanctions were imposed on the magic users, and we now enforce those. If a mage gets too powerful or practices spells that are forbidden, they are...”
“You kill them,” Haley said dully. “That’s what you’re saying. You hunt them down.”
“Yes.”
“My last mission in Europe before I was recalled, Kvoss and I hunted down a mage. A particularly powerful one who had come to our attention, though we didn’t realize at the time just how strong he’d become.”
“Right. What the hell does that have to do with a little restaurant all the way back here?”
“The mages name was Samuel. SamuelGirard,” he said quietly.
Haley sat upright. “Girard? Like the restaurant?” She whistled. “That’s a hell of a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe it to be one at all,” he said.
