Courts and Cabals by G.S. D'Moore (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

“Agent Dud,” her reply was serious. “You might want to get back up here. Somethings happened.”

Chapter 18

I had to claw my way out of unconsciousness. Grogginess clunk to me like tar, and everything hurt. When I say everything, I mean everything. If you could break your dick, I broke it.

“Falling out of a window buck naked will do that to you,” I chuckled to myself, which only made everything hurt more. I winced, and slowly opened my eyes.

By the grace of the gods the shades were drawn, so light didn’t eye-fuck me. Even with semi-darkness, it was hard to focus. When everything did sharpen, the first thing I saw was the woman who’d saved my life. Lilith sat on a chair next to my bed, her eyes closed, and her head resting against the back of the chair. She looked completely gorgeous and at peace. She could have been there for an hour, or a week. Either way, it felt good that someone cared enough to stay by my side.

As if my own consciousness was a signal, her eyes snapped open. We stared at each other for a long moment, and then her face hardened.

“What the hell?” this was not the warm welcome for the Fae-killing hero I expected.

“Welcome back, Cam,” her voice wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t warm and comforting either.

“Hey,” I answered hesitantly.

“Is the slacker finally awake?” another voice asked in a familiar cavalier tone.

“Dani,” I turned my head, and powered through the pain, to see the dwarf lying one bed over. It was clear everyone involved in the fight was in the school’s infirmary now. “Thank god you’re alive.” A weight I didn’t realize lifted off my shoulders. Dani was a friend now, and I thought she’d died trying to save me.

“I’m fine,” she waved it off, but I saw the discomfort the small movement generated. “I’ll be good as new in a week.”

“Two weeks,” Lilith clarified in the same not-hard-but-neutral tone. “You can’t get out of bed for a week.”

Dani knew when not to argue, especially when she was so weak. I tried to sit up, and was surprised it didn’t hurt as much as I expected. The pain was already receding to bearable levels.

“I don’t know why she’s pissed at me, but her sex magic did the trick.”

Sitting up gave me a good view of the room, and there were two more people present. Jerome was sitting two beds down with the shifter who’d been on duty when Chloe attacked. The poor guy had white bandages wrapped around his throat. The Fae cut through everything; throat, windpipe, and spine. She nearly took his head off. There was no coming back from decapitation; supernatural or not. The injuries he had were going to take a while to heal, even for a shifter. If the blade had been silverbane, or she’d cut a few inches deeper, he’d be dead.

I wanted to call out to my friend, but Lilith’s hand on mine gave a jolt to my system. I turned to face her, and whatever was bothering her, it looked like we were going to have it out right here and now.

“What were you thinking?” she kept her voice down so the nurse sitting nearby couldn’t hear.

“I was thinking I was saving my own ass,” I could feel my stubbornness taking over. “I was thinking I was avenging Dani,” I gestured over my shoulder at her. “She got fucking gutted trying to protect me, and I thought she was dead. I was thinking that you were holding that psycho down so I could finish the job.”

I’d worked up a good head of steam, but while I felt better than I expected, I was still weak. A wave of lightheadedness hit me and I slumped back in my bed. It didn’t give my argument the teeth I wanted.

Lilith’s face softened a little, and she shook her head back and forth. “Cam,” she exhaled heavily. “I wasn’t trying to kill Chloe. I was trying to stop her from killing you. Those are two very different things.”

I didn’t understand. “You ran her through with a flaming sword, and were choking her out with a whip Wonder Woman would give her left tit for. How were you not trying to kill her?”

“Look at Dani,” she replied. “She got run through, but survived.” The dwarf gave me a little thumbs up. “I wasn’t going to kill Chloe,” Lilith reiterated. “I was just going to kick her ass, so she’d crawl back to Aveena with her tail between her legs and missing some teeth. Killing her was the last thing I ever wanted to happen.”

For a moment, the succubus looked completely exhausted. It was gone so quick I wondered if I’d even seen it. “If anything, you’re in more trouble now than before.”

I was lost. If saving my own life got me in more trouble then I couldn’t imagine what letting myself get killed would equate to. That was the thing with supernaturals; sometimes, they made no sense.

“I thought marking you would be enough,” Lilith said, more to herself than me. “She’s risking the covenants to come after you. You must have really pissed her off.”

“Covenants?” I was lost again.

“Relationships between the Fae and supernatural races predate the treaties and agreements signed by human authorities. A lot of what is incorporated into those treaties mirrors our own covenants, but theirs are just words on paper. Ours were sworn in blood and have been established tradition for millennia. That age and weight lends it the gravitas a human treaty can never hope to achieve.”

“Great; so, everyone is playing by a separate set of rules.” Was it just me, or was the whole supernatural world just one big clusterfuck?

“The real question is, what did you do to lead