Shamira felt warm inside. Clara had stood beside her. ‘How could I ever have doubted her?’ she thought. “Maybe instead of worrying about who will come forward, maybe we should be worrying about who to come forward to. I mean, showing up on CNN or heaven forbid, (comma) FOX,” she continued, shuddering at the thought of the “fair and balanced” perspective they would get, “could be bad. There’s gotta be certain groups that would be more receptive to our existence. Come out to a few groups at a time, you know? Have some allies in the human world before going public.”
The elder statesmen nodded. “Good thinking. The Tribunal has considered some of this, but we may need to put more thought into it,” she addressed the entire throng. “This meeting will be to make the announcement and to begin a dialog on how to make this happen. If you have any ideas, please do not fear to bring them up. Each lord shall have a voice and shall speak for his or her people. I know that you all have a lot to think about, as this was probably NOT on your list of possible scenarios for this meeting. But I have faith that we can make this work. You all are the key to making it happen. And remember, speak not of this until after the meeting. Thank you. That will be all for now.”
Shamira could barely listen, as Shane and Clara were in an intense whispering session off to one side of the room. She was incensed. If he was going to punish her for actually standing up for Shamira — ‘No, apparently no,’ she thought as Shane finally nodded as if the two had reached some kind of agreement, then he went to attend Alessandra while Clara just stood there. Their eyes met, and Shamira stood up, walking over.
“What was that about?” Shamira asked.
Clara looked away. “He wanted to know why I challenged him. So I told him. Then we discussed some housing complications and –”
“Wait a minute. Why did you –”
“Oh, like you don’t know,” Clara said, turning to her and looking kind of pissed off. “It was bad enough that he punished you for being right without his permission, but now he’s behaving just like you.”
“Like me?!”
“Yeah. He’s sticking to his guns, whether it’s the right thing to do or not. He was going to ignore what you said just because he doesn’t want to look like he’s backing down or being a weak leader.”
“Hey, if he’d just admit –”
Clara was in no mood to let Shamira complete a sentence. “It doesn’t matter who’s right anymore! Don’t you get it? One or both of you are just going to have to let it go. But between your stupid pride and his stupid ego, you’re going to fuck up a perfectly fabulous team.”
Shamira actually took a step back. “But you’re not getting punished, right?”
Clara crossed her arms. “No. Part of that’s probably because the Representative agreed with me, which was pretty much the trump card.”
“Thank goodness.”
“Why? You going to give me another speech about not wanting me to get involved because this is between you and him or –”
It was Shamira’s turn to interrupt. “No, because you being locked up in a cell would piss me off and prevent me from doing this.” She grabbed both sides of Clara’s face. “This is NOT goodbye.” Then she kissed the beautiful Native American full on those amazing lips. Clara was surprised, but damn if she didn’t recover quickly. The two were so into the moment that they almost missed the authoritative —
“A-HEM!”
Both women slowly opened their eyes and glanced over to see the Representative staring at them. “Pardon us,” Clara said, her lips still touching Shamira’s when they moved. “We . . . uhm . . . we were just –”
“Young lady, I know what you were doing. I have done it a time or two myself.” To emphasize her point, she leaned in and kissed Clara, then kissed Shamira.
“Okay, she’s good,” Clara muttered.
“Just something for the two of you to work on,” Alessandra whispered. “Miss Shamira, I’m going to be retiring shortly, as my body is still on European time, but I wish to speak with you again tomorrow afternoon. Then I would like both of you to attend me tomorrow evening. Acceptable? Good,” she finished, then offered her arm to Shamira. “I’ll have her back to you in a moment. Now please, show me to the guest quarters.”
Shamira took her to the room that Shane had laid aside for her, which literally looked like it had been set up for royalty. Not that any rooms in this palatial estate were exactly shabby. “As always, my Shane displays his taste,” Alessandra murmured, looking around the room.
“It’s a step up from a roadside inn, isn’t it?” Shamira realized it was the first time that the Representative had called Shane by his first name rather than his title.
Alessandra smiled. “He could make me feel at home with nothing but a cardboard box underneath a bridge. A place that feels like home is hard to find. It is certainly a place worth fight for . . . worth sacrificing for. And of course home is where the heart is.”
Shamira blinked a couple of times. “Nine hundred years old and that’s the best line you can come up with?”
Alessandra’s eyes squinted. “See how wise and sage-like YOU are when you’ve been on a plane for nine hours. Be back here at five o’clock in the afternoon. Sharp.”
“Yes ma’am,” Shamira said as she retreated. She was on her way back to look for Clara when she almost ran head on into Shane. The two of them just stared at each other for a minute before Shamira gulped an unnecessary breath and then spoke.
“Sir,” she started, then couldn’t figure out how to proceed. She wouldn’t apologize, so maybe . . . maybe it was time to just get back to work. “I was discussing the morning star case with Sebastian, and he seems to think that the amount money required to set up the type of ambush that we encountered in Macon isn’t just floating around. Someone with deep pockets is behind it. And since the disappearances of the faeries started down close to Savannah, we felt that it is possible that Lacroix could be involved.”
Shane was surprised at the topic of conversation. He had expected her to chew him out, give an apology she didn’t really mean, or tell him to leave Clara alone. He hadn’t expected her to talk about work. But he’d go along, seeing as picking fights with this woman apparently was not going over well with the rest of the house. “That is possible. But if Lacroix has the wealth to start this operation, why does he need the morning star trade?”
“More money. I’m sure that greed doesn’t cease to be a personality flaw when someone dies. He may need the extra money to support these attacks on you. You even said that the Dark Pools and the Shell Walkers must’ve been brought in as hired help of some kind, and we’re willing to bet that this kind of help isn’t cheap. One vamp, one were, and two faeries are enough to make ten to fifteen million, based on the figures that Henry gave me.”
“True. How would you and Sebastian advise finding this out without alerting him?”
“Sebastian said that you can’t requisition his financial records through the Tribunal without him knowing, right? Well one of my donors works for Global Financial, and she says that she could check on the status of his finances without drawing any attention. I haven’t given her a name yet, because I don’t want her getting involved if it is possible she’ll get hurt. And I figured,” she said, giving an inch, “that I needed to ask you first.”
If Shane’s heart were still beating, it would have just stopped. Shamira was trying to be diplomatic? With him? “I appreciate your restraint,” he replied, and he wasn’t just referring to asking him about the job. He knew she was probably restraining herself from punching him. Or at least attempting to. “Do you really think that she could help? Your donor?”
“She seems to think so, and she doesn’t seem the type to brag.”
Shane steeled himself for what he wanted to say. “Maybe sometimes if someone knows how to do the job, then they should just be allowed to do it.”
Shamira wasn’t going to smile, even though she kind of wanted to. Shane had just apologized without actually say the words “I’m sorry.” It was as close as she was going to get. “I’ll talk to her on Tuesday.”