Courts and Cabals 2 by G.S. D'Moore (best novel books to read .txt) 📕

with the pair of handcuffs and slammed the door closed with a clang of finality. He glared at Lilith for good measure before stomping off.

“Well shit,” she could hear Dani through the walls. “Now I wish I’d watched Orange is the New Black.”

Lilith could practically see the dwarf grin as she sat down on the bed.

“The good news is that if you need one, I can get you a shiv. Blademaster to shivmaster, the story of Danielle Underwood,” the dwarf’s hearty chuckles echoed through the space.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Lilith replied calmly. “They’ve got nothing on you.” That was probably true, but they were still waiting for the arraignment.

“I don’t know where Cam is?” Dani replied after a few minutes of silence. “They took him in that big wrecker and I lost sight of it. He’s not here, is he?”

“No,” Lilith had reached out through the mark, but she wasn’t getting a lot through the ward’s interference. What she could tell was that Cam was still out cold, almost like he was in a deep sleep, but the sensation of him was getting fainter and fainter. Whatever was going on, he was quickly moving away from her.

“Don’t worry. He’s part of the cabal. Wherever he is, my mother will find him,” she said as much for her own benefit as Dani’s.

“There is no way she’d let someone that interesting slip out of her grips.”

Her mother was a lot of things, but she was known for being a hoarder of impressive people. Cam definitely fell into that category.

“This is my fault,” Dani’s admission caught Lilith by surprise. “If I hadn’t gotten him that pass to the fucking porn convention, none of this would have happened. How could I be so stupid? Why the hell did I push you on that?”

“Because you like him,” Lilith answered bluntly. She’d known it for a while. The dwarf wasn’t exactly good at hiding things, and didn’t have that many people she cared for. It was easy to put two and two together.

“Don’t give me that Disney princess bullshit,” Dani shot back. “I don’t like like him. I don’t love him. Sure, he’s fun to be around. We’ve gotten into two fights together, and he’s held his own. Well, technically, he lost both times, but he put up a good fight. He bought enough time for me to take out the plant bitch, and he saved my ass from Chloe back at school,” Lilith sat quietly while Dani sorted it all out.

“I mean . . . he’s got a nice cock, and you could tell he didn’t get laid much before hooking up with us. It’s the sex-deprived ones who are always so eager to please, and I know I appreciate the extra effort. Plus . . .” she stopped talking, “ah fuck . . . I do like him,” she came to the undisputable conclusion.

Lilith smiled where the dwarf couldn’t see her. “If you want, I can transfer you to him once all the dust settles. It looks like I’m going to be spending most of my time getting introduced to the business. I won’t be at school anymore, so I don’t need a bodyguard.”

There was a moment of silence from the other cell. “End of an era,” Dani stated with a heavy sigh. “You don’t need to push me on him, that’s not fair to either of you. I think we both know I’m not the only one who likes him.”

Deep down, Lilith knew that was true. She’d just been trying to ignore that fact since she nearly saw him die in the battle against Ser Fredrick.

“I saw an email between you and the convention staff that set up some meeting,” Lilith quickly changed the subject. “Something about disclosures and filming rights. Do I want to know?”

“I was showing him a good time,” there was more than a little guilt in Dani’s tone, “but it was also going to be a Valentine’s Day gift for the two of you.”

Lilith knew all too well the dwarf’s twisted view of gifts, so that could mean anything. “Hopefully, we’ll both be out by then.”

Dani didn’t answer, and until they were arraigned on charges, neither knew what the hell was going on. Thankfully, they didn’t need to wait long. A few hours later, the guards returned to shackle them back up and take them to see the judge.

The supernatural judicial system in the United States was an institution that had only been around since the late eighties. It relied on a separate-but-equal principle – for lack of a better term – and that had a lot of people up in arms; both human and supernatural. Like the WRA, the judicial system took a lot of heat, and still did, but it was necessary.

There were a lot of connotations associated with that terminology; all of them negative, but people had seized on the differences in the systems immediately, and invoked the term coined in the late nineteenth century that divided the country by race. As far as Lilith knew, no one even remembered what the government’s less-offensive terminology was.

The bottom-line was that the separation had nothing to do with traditional human races. Supernaturals were black, white, brown, red, yellow, green, blue, and in some cases; colors you’d only find in a Crayola box. It had nothing to do with skin color, and everything to do with power. Supernaturals had it, some had a lot of it, and that made traditional judicial methods a problem.

At its core, government and justice was the use of collective force to enforce agreed upon social standards; but what happened when a government couldn’t bring that same force to bear on a segment of their population? A cop couldn’t pull over a shifter with a warrant for skipping out on child support and bring them in. The shifter could