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

fight with this Ser Fredrick. There was no picture of the challenger, but Ser was the lowest noble title given to someone in a Fae court. It allowed them a squire vassal, and to gain more prestige and power through their martial skill. Vernon had never faced a Fae knight. He didn’t think anyone on earth had, but everything they’d heard from the State Department said they were not to be fucked with.

That reality led to the primary mission of the operation. No matter what, the Fae weren’t going to kill an American citizen on American soil. It didn’t matter if they’d agreed to a duel by combat. Vernon would break this shit up, and they could figure it out later. The Fae’s feeling on their slighted honor were not his concern. Their armed resistance to him was. All of his planning went in to making sure that Dupree didn’t get his stupid head chopped off, and Vernon could bring in any Fae that resisted him. That was a tall order when it looked like the person driving this whole shitshow was a teenage noble Fae with serious anger management issues.

The surveillance reports were relatively standard, with one exception. There was another woman hanging around the cabal’s group more often. He ran the facial recognition software and pulled up a folder.

“This could be a problem,” he read the file on Amanda Springfield.

Anima mages were dangerous to go up against, but the Response Division had countermeasures against their mental attacks. The easiest way was to determine their range and tranq them from beyond that distance. Vernon had also been trained in shielding his mind if he had to get inside her range, and there were enchanted objects they could use to blunt the force of a mental attack. He also hoped that since she was only seventeen, she hadn’t progressed to a level she could be a real threat. In the end, it all boiled down to the agent and how mentally strong they were. Vernon was confident he could handle whatever the young mage threw his way.

“There is no clear intelligence that she’ll even be there,” he reminded himself, but you didn’t plan for the best-case scenario. You hoped for the best, but planned for the worst.

With a few days left before the duel, Vernon returned to Vincent’s Hollow with a truck full of tactical gear and magical items. In the passenger seat was another agent; a second mage to take on more of the magical load so Vernon could concentrate on command. She was a tall, leggy, buxom woman who he kept catching eyeing him appreciatively.

He just hoped his girlfriend didn’t punch the other mage in the twat after giving her a good sniff. Becky had sequestered herself and one other human deputy to keep the people in the know to a minimum. She’d also called in a favor, and Game Warden Connor Wood was assigned to them for the duration of the mission. They were the assault team, but they’d call on the rest of the county’s finest to do perimeter work when they were ready to go in.

By the look on Conner’s face when Vernon stepped out of the truck, he’d gone back to check on his sister after Vernon left, and he’d smelled that Vernon had fucked her six ways to Sunday during his stay.

“Connor,” he greeted the warden.

“Vernon,” the mountain lion shifter replied. They just sat there looking at each other. “If you hurt my sister, I will rip off your balls and shove them up your own ass,” he stated calmly.

“Seems fair,” Vernon answered just as casually.

“Good,” tension eased from both the men, and Connor grabbed a case that easily weighed four hundred pounds. “So, what’s the plan?” he asked like he hadn’t just threatened to turn a UN agent into a eunuch.

“Let’s get this stuff out of sight and I’ll fill you in,” Vernon didn’t want to be caught in the open with military-grade ordinance. He had the authorization, but rumors traveled quickly in a small town like this, and everyone knew loose lips sunk ships. “This one’s gonna be interesting.”

***

I didn’t think, I acted. I flowed through the forms I’d been taught and put everything else out of my mind. All that mattered was Dani and me. Our swords clanged together, and I sprang away. My new sight told me what she was going to do next, and I needed to get the hell out of there. The dwarf grunted in frustration as she missed me by a mile, but adapted. She charged me, and our clash echoed throughout the gym.

I ignored the small gathering of people. Lilith and Amanda sat on a pair of chairs at the corner of the mat. Both watched me closely. I could feel a slight tingle at the edge of my consciousness, telling me that the Anima mage was getting her thousand bucks worth of information. As Yule grew closer and closer, the mage had started to sit in on my practice sessions more often; like she knew her time was limited. She had her laptop open in front of her and was furiously typing away.

It made me feel like a lab rat, “A well paid lab rat,” I reminded myself. The more time I spent around Amanda, the weirder she got.

I was sure it was part of being an Anima mage. Unless someone knew how to shield their thoughts, she knew what everyone was thinking, all the time, no matter how stupid or unimportant. Since I was pretty sure a teenager’s thoughts revolved around sex, sex, more sex, and the latest cat video on YouTube; I couldn’t really blame her for not seeing people as people anymore. She’d divorced herself from the human condition, and thrown herself into purely intellectual pursuits. She even had a word for my state of mind at the moment: flow. I wasn’t