Verando pulled outside the country club, I had migrated as close to him as possible, head leaning on his bicep as I attempted to pretend I was still asleep. Hoping maybe he'd take pity on me, but there was no such luck as he kisses the top of my head. "You smell so good." I sigh, holding onto his arm a little tighter.
"You're actually losing some of your scent, I think you're coming to the end of this madness." Brushing his nose against my hair, I can feel him smile as I glance up at him. Taking my chin with his index finger, he presses his lips to mine and I melt against him. "Tomas and Rowan are on their way to offer a bit of extra protection. They're going to pick you up and bring you to the concert tonight, unless you'd rather-"
I kiss him again, until I'm breathless. "Not a chance. I'll see you tonight."
Smirking, he nuzzles his nose against mine. "Perhaps a bit sooner. You think I'm a dictator, Tiberius can be quite the drill sergeant when it comes to practicing. I can only take so much of him."
I'd offer him entertainment if I wasn't so exhausted. Seeing Cleo on the porch of the club, I exhale heavily and Verando kisses my cheek with a chuckle. "Take me with you?" I mumble as he leans across my lap to open the door for me.
"Not a chance. Go mingle."
Leaving the car behind, I hesitate to glance back once I reach the porch to see him waiting for me to get inside. Cleo takes my arm, a bit too close for my comfort but she seemed like she'd already had a drink. "Finally. Lord have mercy, you sure do dilly-dally. That man of yours sure is handsome when he wants to be."
Smirking, I follow her inside, knowing with his hearing he was probably well aware that she found him attractive. At least from a distance. Most people did, to some extent, but I was also well aware of the fact that many found him terrifying with the scars and the unimpressed expression.
"Did you enjoy the entertainment last night?" I prompt as we sit on the back patio, declining a drink from the waiter as she refreshes her mimosa.
"Oh, it was wonderful. Interesting how a band can be so versatile, there's a lot of talking surrounding them... some hate.. but hell, honey, who doesn't have haters?"
Haters, hmm?
"Why because he's gay?" I snort, folding one leg over the other, it was a nice day out. I enjoyed the scent of the trees in bloom, though the pollen was much heavier here than it was in Europe. Leaning back into the rocking chair, it's all too tempting to curl up and go to sleep here.
Cleo giggles, sipping her drink, gesturing to me as the waiter pours me one, too. Placing a plate of various pastries between us, the man leaves and I snag a muffin. "No, nobody hardly cares about that anymore. I mean, you'll always have the occasional bible thumper... but it's because they're a lycan and a siren. Ya ain't human, honey. April is a good addition though, bring her around more."
Business is not what I thought we'd be discussing when Cleo invited me out. I consider seeing her with Foreman, how she did plenty more talking than him.
Taking a paper from her purse, she hands it over to me, taking another sip of her drink as I look it over. An old fashion newspaper, we didn't even have them in Europe anymore. Yet, as I look this over, I note that it's not printed as a form of casual local news. It had various headlines, and pictures and my eyes kept picking up on small details that looked or sounded off.
"Is this in code?"
She smirks slightly. "Depends on who's reading it, honey." Her lashes heavy, and she glances down toward a particular headline with a casual tip of her nose. "More riots break out every time y'all have a concert. Gonna be a hard sell to get investors with a reputation like that. But-" She flips the page. "Last night there was a rally in favor of magic users. We have hardly seen something like that since y'all first came to New York."
Scanning the words carefully, it would seem the article wasn't in favor or against what the rally had done. But looking at the faces, the individuals, it was nobody we knew and for that, I feel a small sense of pride. People were starting to act on their own, they were beginning to take matters into their own hands and speak out against the blatant favoritism that was still happening.
"Tiberius says you're worried that Tucci is a god?" The server returns with a simple course of two sandwiches, and cups of an orange liquid that they inform me is sweet tea. I tilt my head, taking a small sniff and wrinkling my nose at the thought of such a thing. My husband would be appalled, a tea that smelt like straight sugar water.
"Is he not?" I retort, watching her swallow some of the drink as if it were water. This woman couldn't be a mere mortal, and yet all sources said that she was.
Tonguing her cheek, she taps her heel lightly, sizing me up. "Nic, you really aren't giving me much incentive to tell you much of anything. You're like talkin' to a wall, all I have to go off of is recommendations but others and while that means a lot, I think I need a bit more from you." Glancing at the cuff on my wrist she looks back up toward me and I attempt to recall had much we'd told her about how I'd gotten the cuff.
"You want to know more about me?" I question, sighing, placing my hand over the gold band. Of course, she did, everyone did, and while she looked at me as if I was naive, it had slowly become common knowledge that Verando and I didn't do much socializing in an intimate manner.
We didn't have much for friends, my friends had a horrible habit of dying. While there was a plethora of public intel on us, nothing on a personal level and I suppose that's what Cleo was truly after. I suspect I'd be an interesting social topic for her, something that nobody else had, a King in her personal court.
"I'm trying to be friends with you." She points out. "If you're going to make it in this business, in this town, you're gonna needs some sort of friends. You don't have to invite me to your kid's parties, but I would like to know who I'm trying to get close to. We all respect what you're doing, and we want to help, but I've got to know who you are. Especially if you want to know about someone like Tucci."
So Tucci must be a good person, if she was willing to say something like that to me knowing the circles that I kept. Perhaps she felt she was more liked and could get away with it if she ended up insulting me, a true King probably wouldn't appreciate that kind of talk. Yet, I found it a reason to respect her. She wasn't turning over all her friends information as I thought she would, layers to this woman made her a more appealing prospect than someone like Chispa who kept no secrets.
"I'm a Solomonari and a Lycan, I was turned by my husband," I tell her simply.
Wide-eyed, she takes a sip, reactions like that make it hard to trust anyone. "So it's true. Some of you do have the ability to turn more into lycans."
"Only Verando and Helen. Verando has a-" I consider this, taking another bite of my muffin. "Verando is one of the gods in question. At least, he's harboring one."
I had to give her something if I wanted something. This seems to confirm for her suspicions, she sits up, attempting not to look too interested. "Are you a god?"
Scoffing, I run a hand through my hair. "No."
"But you got a gift from one." She gestures to my cuff. "My only god is Jesus, so it's not like I'm followin' much of this but obviously, there's something at work here. Hard believe beings like that walk among us, always just thought it was demons and devils." She shudders, leaning back into her chair as I take a bite of my sandwich.
"Rest assured, there are plenty of those as well. The fact you hold close company with a wraith is startling to someone like me."
Cleo pulls her lips into a thin line with a small chuckle, fiddling with the straw of her tea. "Part of doing this is learnin' to accept everyone. My family ain't just the owners of country clubs. We're descended from lifetimes worth of slayers, vampire hunters.. werewolf killers... but, time's are changin' and that means changing with 'em. We can't keep killing things if we want them to stop killin' us."
That was an interesting way to put it, while I felt similar I hadn't quite heard them in those terms from a former slayer, though judging by her body and her tone, she probably was not one herself. "You're a mouthpiece." I summarize.
Cleo nods, "Bit more tact than my family, I'd reckon. These country clubs create those papers to give intel to our members, your friend, Tomas, is the one who started the underground for magic beings with his pubs. We simply copied it with country clubs. Verando was the one who started the Italian chapter, bringing our attention to the fact that magic users aren't necessarily just blood thirst either."
Taping her long nails on her glass, she looks out into the expanse that was the green fields surrounding the large buildings. An artificial view to make the place look more normal, yet giving no place to hide on the perimeter.
"The main reason I've asked you here, in exchange for my support, is the questions I have to be answered. Jail does not seem like something that will work for the heavy hitters in the magical and mythical communities. How do you jail someone with the ability to transform into a lion... a giant wolf... or freeze an entire city?"
"Same way you'd jail anyone else, I imagine. We would need to revamp the prison systems for magic users, but it could be done."
Frowning, Cleo considers this, "Or they'd turn into test facilities."
"People can't be killed because other people might do bad things to them. That's equally if not more so unfair, we need complete system reform, to stop officials from doing horrible things to anything different from them." Much as it turned my stomach and boiled my blood, I was uncertain how I felt about being jailed myself. I didn't trust the system not to experiment, dissect and insert itself into whatever corner of my life it desired.
Verando and Marisol had faced firsthand what a curious facility was willing to do.
"Even if they, themselves, kill?"
Weren't we just talking about not killing for the sake of killing? Flinching, I run a hand through my hair again and adjust in my chair to face her. Her intent looked the same, gentle features, large eyes, and blond as any woman I'd ever seen. She was kind, it would appear, not trying to start a fight but merely understanding my point of view.
These were questions that nobody had really answered, so far we'd been letting the heroes scare magic users away from crime but it couldn't work one hundred percent of the time. There were failures, and casualties, there were elementals we ourselves killed.
"Are you asking if we need to have a 'euthanasia' protocol?"
She exhales, this brought her no pleasure. "I'm saying my family can't support you if you don't value human life as much as your own kind. Anyone who kills, in cold blood, should face justice. But those individuals might be too dangerous to put into prison. We are asking if you would be behind the elimination of those individuals."
How could you regulate that, how could anyone know for certain what a being's intentions were? A human would have a trial, but a scary mythical being would be shot on sight?
"I'm not sure how we could do it without making a mistake," I tell her bluntly, as she was being frank with me.
"There will be," she whispers, placing her drink down with a somber expression. "Someone is going to mess up, someone innocent is going to get hurt. But, taking a step in the right direction is something we have to do. It's a greater good type of situation, right now the police are doing what they can but it's not working and everyone is scared. If we could put a task force out, employ these people who are genetically inclined-"
I stop her with a hard look. "Inclined to kill magic users?"
With an equally firm expression, she meets my gaze. "Your husband did it himself. K. X. B. He dispatched X, did he not? We are held to those same standards, we would kill our own if we must and at this point, we must."
The gentle nature and the bubbly front seemed to fade away with a topic like this. But, I sensed nothing in her that made me want to retreat. She was scared, just like the rest of us. Someone needed to jump, we were just waiting for the first person to do it, and asking for funding seemed to be the seem as asking them to side with us politically.
"We've got to take a risk. But we need you and your husband to not slaughter us all in the process because we won't have a choice but to fire back. I want this Nicolas, I want to fund this and help you both, I want to see a magical school, but I also want justice when someone uses their god-given ability to kill someone in cold blood. Right now, we don't have that."
Even I hardly knew what happened to magical beings convicted for murder. We were running from that same law, Verando was doing almost exactly that when the government hired him as hit man to eliminate political figures who were siding against us. Could I fault these slayers for sniffing out his plan and running with it as their own? It might allow us to eventually return to Europe if this became a law, it would allow us some sense of justice and perhaps get us some real protection from those who were always hunting us.
How would Verando feel? He'd be hesitant, for sure. He would worry about corruption, our children, our family, and what those in charge might do. But, it was the only way we were going to create a world where we were equal. We had to be held to the same standard, a dangerous human would be dispatched... why not a dangerous magic user.
"The magic community is going to push back," I tell her.
"Not if you and Verando stand with us. They will trust you. There's going to be hard feelings, people will get hurt and we're going to mess up, but we're going to come out of this better for it in the end. This is the only way you're going to get humans on your side."
This seemed like a lot more than brunch, it seemed like a way to feel me out as Verando's keeper and see how capable I was of making decisions without my guard dog. Placing my hand on my stomach subconsciously, I think about our children and how they would be treated in our current world. It was my job to make their life safer.
"I'd be open to discussing it, to looking at your proposal."
"That's all I ask. In exchange, we would be willing to offer the same. Political and financial backing, whatever it takes to push that we are trying to make things equal." I did believe her, because she seemed as genuine as anyone else speaking to a stranger about changing the world. She didn't lie, or beat around the bush, giving me dreams and hopes of perfection. It would be dirty, and messy, but it would also be reform that we so desperately needed.
"What's Tucci?" I ask her again.
She shrugs one shoulder, "He's a Rougarou, it's a Cajun god.. or devil, I'm not really sure. But it's a form of lycan."
Interesting.
I spot the red haired man and offer a small smile as Tomas jogs over to us with Rowan in tow. Cleo looks up with surprise as Tomas grabs a muffin off the table and takes a sniff, offering it to Rowan before snagging the blond's tea to down it.
"Are you ever not a tyrant?" I demand with a sigh, making him grin, winking at me.
"Consider it a finder's fee." he chuckles, looking Cleo up and down. "You look familiar, lass."
"You've probably met my Papaw." She doesn't extend her hand, offended that he drank her drink, but at the same time she didn't recoil at the obvious vampire before her. "You must be Tomas."
"The only." he half bows, glancing around. "Where's Randal?"
"Randal?" Cleo raises an eyebrow.
"Verando." I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose.
"Randal is short for Verando?"
Tomas chuckles like a madman, I throw a muffin at him which makes Rowan giggle. Cleo tries to hide her embarrassment at the looks we get, throwing food and speaking so loudly in a private venue was probably frowned upon but I couldn't bring myself to care. "Nah lass, it's just a way to get under the old troll's skin. Funny ha ha."
"Tomas fancies himself a comedian," I explain, making Cleo emit a forced laugh. "You're early?" I glance at my watch.
"We're supposed to bring you to a place across town, Verando is doing a live performance there before tonight's concert and I thought you'd want to see it. It's a.. surprise.. for someone apparently." Rowan explains, the large light eyes reminding me so much of her father.