“I need to meet with a lawyer and I need to see them tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest. I need to set my affairs in order,” she explained and with a simple nod Tony made a call to set up a meeting with the pack lawyer in an hour.
“There is one more thing Tony and it has to stay between us,” Lily started and Tony gave her a hard look as he nodded silently. “If all else fails and the blood bond is complete….”
“You want someone to…” Tony’s voice trailed off and his expression grew pained.
“Please Tony, I will be dangerous to A. J., you, and everyone I care about and I don’t want to live like that. Nothing more than a pet, a threatening shadow of what I use to be,” she pleaded and Tony sighed. His eyes closing briefly and didn’t say anything for a long time.
“Alright, I’ll find someone that’ll take care of… it if the worst happens but for the love of God Lily don’t put your trust and safety in those Aequivalere fools. They can’t protect you,” Tony pleaded back at her and she smiled at him.
“I’ve got a plan in the works and no, they aren’t part of it.” She told him but wasn’t willing to admit that becoming James mate was said plan. She was afraid if she told him, Tony might not follow through with her wish of being taken out in the worst case scenario.
The lawyer Tony had set up a meeting with wasn’t anything like Lily expected. She expected a pale, thin, bookish looking man but instead Mr. Bryant looked like he was an offensive blocker for some NFL football team. He wasn’t very tall, but he was broad with the dark brown skin that was almost black and hair cut in a short professional style, but the small golden nose ring that glinted in the light possibly hinted that he wasn’t as uptight as he may appear. Or maybe it was a distraction tactic, she thought amused.
His savage wolfish nature came out in the fierce and thorough way he’d helped her arrange her affairs. He’d somehow managed to make everything air tight. Even to the point that if Tony backed out of their agreement and she still well undead she would at least be kept from getting near A. J. or being able to take him away from James or her family. It took them a couple of hours and she felt nearly cross-eyed when they were done, but a lot more relaxed.
Lily got up out of the chair and held her hand out to him, once they were clearly finished. “Thank you for coming over on such short notice and working so thoroughly with me,” she told him as he took her hand, giving her a firm, confident handshake.
“You’re welcome Mrs. Nawassa, I’m glad I could help and if I may be frank I’m glad I got to spend this time with you,” he replied and she lifted an eyebrow at him in curious questioning. He laughed in a deep baritone laugh that made her smile despite herself. “A woman who spends two and half hours making sure her son, family, and the pack are safe from her in case she becomes a mindless blood slave can’t be the same woman Hunter Roberts has so adamantly told me about,” he explained. Lily simply stood there not sure what to say or do.
Mr. Bryant rolled his shoulders before buttoning his suit jacket. “If you ever decide to join our pack, you’ll have my vote,” he went on, either ignoring or not noticing the impact his words had on her. “I truly hope that you’ll never need any of these legalities that we just went through and that undead piece of crap doesn’t get to you,” he finished for the kill then left the small office Tony had given them to use. Lily just stood there, still not recovered from her shock.
Shaking her head, she let a small smile cross her face and walked out of the pack’s meeting hall and even the dread of her next task didn’t take off the smile, meeting the Aequivalere. It didn’t surprise her when she was barred from actually entering the center of operations by two guards she’d never seen before, by the smell they were vampires. Hart must have called them in when she heard that Silvano fed on her again.
First and foremost Jessie had to protect the mission. Lily understood that but it still kind of hurt that she was no longer a trusted ally among them. Jessie came to meet her along with Dorin, Donovan, and Charlie. “Sorry Loba but it has to be done,” Jessie said as greeting and Lily shrugged in response. Lily looked over at Dorin whose face was still a little swollen with mottled colors of bruised greens and yellows. It must have been really bad if the vampire still had physical signs of the fight.
“I would like that you to express that to the alpha and especially his beta,” she said with unhidden bitterness. “That there was nothing we could have done yesterday. We didn’t even know that Silvano had made any moves against you since it was you who didn’t send out the signal.” Lily stiffened with the rebuke and took off her glasses to give Jessie a full on vampiric stare.
“I couldn’t send any signals or he would have had that monster Bianca drain my nephew and any other children that would’ve been in my parents’ house which included my son,” Lily shot back at her.
“Still it wasn’t our fault and I don’t take kindly to having Lacrosse barreling through here like some whirlwind storm and beating on my men because he’s not willing to lay the blame on himself,” Jessie argued and her lip curled in a silent snarl, her whole body stiffening with growing anger. There was no I’m sorry this happened to you, we’ll do what we can to keep you from becoming a mindless slave! Oh no, Jessie only cared about her own behind!
“Really? You want to blame James for this,” she snapped. Her voice had turned ice cold and silky, like a vampire in full hunt. “You promised the alpha that his pack would be safe, but yet his son was in very real danger. Where were you for that Jessie Hart! I wasn’t supposed to be in any danger, but now I’m in danger of losing everything that I am! What about that!” Before she realized it, she had the human by the throat and nearly lifted her up off the ground.
“Don’t,” she hissed at the others that started to come closer and they all stopped right where they stood. Charlie started to speak in his calming shrink tones, but she hissed at him. “I said don’t! I don’t want to hear any of your psychologist mumbo jumbo right now! What I want is for you all to wake up!” She yelled, looking at all of them then back to Jessie. “Silvano has been right under your nose this whole time and you’ve not even gotten a look at him!”
Lily dropped Jessie and took several steps back from her, worried that her sudden growing hunger might get the best of her. “You’re the most inept bunch I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m not even sure you could catch a cold at this rate. I’m warning you if Silvano succeeds and makes me his toy then you all better run back to Montana because he won’t need to command me to come after you!” She finished and walked off.
She returned to her car that she left at the meeting hall and drove around town, trying to calm her raging anger. She couldn’t believe that the Aequivalere, that Jessie someone she considered her friend, wanted to play the blame game instead of actually working on the problem. She let out a slow breath that sounded more like a hiss. There was one good thing to come out of all of this, she thought, realizing that her anger brought back to her a spark of the beast. She wasn’t gone, Lily thought with relief.
Her anger was replaced by nerves when she parked in front of James’ apartment building, having done all she could do for now. Her stomach tightened and did a somersault as she got out of the car and walked into the building. This is silly, she chastised herself. She and James had slept together before. There was no reason to feel nervous about anything. It’s not like it means something, she told herself. It’s just a protective measure.
However, as she entered the elevator and watched the doors slowly close, Lily didn’t feel convinced by her words. She fidgeted nervously as the elevator seemed to shoot up to James’ floor like a bullet. She growled, angry at herself for acting so stupid just as the doors opened causing a young couple to glance at her warily. She gave them a small closed-lipped smile, they didn’t need to see her fangs, and walked quickly out of the elevator and down the hall.
Her shoulders eased as the tension left her when she walked in the apartment and everything seemed to be normal like nothing had changed. She shook her head at her silliness, taking off her sunglasses, folding them, and tucking one arm in her front jeans pocket. “How’d it go?” She heard James call her from the kitchen.
“I got everything that needed to get done, done,” she called back, walking into the kitchen. James was in front of the sink, looking very domestic as he cleaned the dishes. “Though I don’t think I’ll be with the Aequivalere much longer if all goes to plan,” she told him and he glanced at her with a questioning look. “All Jessie did was get mad at you hitting Dorin and telling me a hundred times that it’s not their fault.”
James made a rude sound as he flicked water from his hands. “Yeah right, not their fault. They’ve only been charged with recapturing a vampire king. A king who might as well stopped and did the tango in front of them because God knows they can’t get their hands on him,” he replied and Lily sighed with a nod.