Under Her Skin (18 page)

“Do we have any evidence at all that Scott was the killer?” I asked Kade. “Or will this just end up as another cold case?”

He shrugged. “If nothing else, the families of the children know they got justice.”

I considered the statement. Before the last few days, I would have said that I didn’t believe in the death penalty, that it was too harsh, too cruel, too inhumane. Too close to the things my snake-self wanted to see done.

Now?

Now I wasn’t sure what counted as
inhumane
.

Or maybe even
inhuman
.

After all, Scott had been the only human involved, and of everyone I’d ever met, he had been the least humane. The least kind, the least forgiving. The least human.

I knew that some of the Council members might have argued that Scott’s lamia blood was to blame for his cruelty.

My counselor training told me it was nurture, not nature—that his mother had trained him into a ruthless killer.

Neither answer seemed entirely satisfactory. And my training and experience told me that they never would be. There is no good excuse for people who can hurt children. Scott’s parentage complicated the question, but didn’t offer any answers, only more questions.

* * *

A week later, Kade picked me up after work to take me to another Council meeting. It was the third time he had come to work to get me. Everyone at the CAP-C assumed we were dating. But whatever was going on with us was far from anything so simple or straightforward. The attraction between us still simmered under the surface, occasionally flaring up into something more tangible.

Whenever he looked at me with those swirling golden eyes, it sent of bolt of heat straight through me—and as often as not, my own vision grayed out and I had to fight to maintain control over my human form.

I saw him struggling, too.

But we hadn’t done anything about it recently.

I expected Kade was still angry about the disagreement we’d had, perhaps even more about my decision to go home with Scott that night, but he didn’t come out and say so.

I didn’t ask, either.

So whatever was between us just bubbled along underneath our interactions, inflecting every look, every word, every accidental brushing of our fingertips against one another. Eventually, we would have to deal with it—with
us
.

But not tonight.

This evening, we were meeting with the Council to decide what to do about me.

I didn’t belong. Not really.

The shapeshifters lived in groups, in tiny enclaves like the bobcats’ clowder, all their homes grouped together. The various clans had territory, and rules, and a definite pecking order.

I was a clan of one. Not a clan at all. Not right now, anyway. Some of the human women in Scott’s breeding program had opted to continue their pregnancies, despite the horrific trauma, after Kade reassured them that any children would be taken in by the Council.

The birth of another lamia therefore remained a distinct possibility.

I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone, but the thought of never being so alone again appealed to me, just as it had when Tanith had offered it to me. I might know why I felt that way—virtually every abandoned or orphaned child wished for family, and I had gone through plenty of counseling for it as I pursued my degree, but neither academic nor self-knowledge could completely eliminate that desire.

But this night’s meeting was about my place in the larger group of the clans, not about any smaller clan I might want to create.

Once again, I stood in the center of a group of shapeshifters in Janice’s living room.

“Okay, everyone,” the Council leader said. “Let’s get started.” She waved for attention, then read from a sheet of typewritten paper in her hand.

“We are here to complete the record of Scott Carson, human, lamia-born, sentenced and executed for the crimes of kidnapping, rape, and murder, particularly killing shifters without Shield or Sanction of the Council.”

Then she read the names of all the shifters Scott had killed.

At the end, she read the date of Scott’s death aloud, then asked of the room at large, “Does anyone have anything to add?”

Here was the part Kade had warned me about—the part where they got to decide if I could join them. Or even be left alone to live my life.

“You’re something new. It’s totally unprecedented for a lamia to want to be part of the Council,” Kade had said the night before. “There will be some shifters who want to block you from membership. We need to get you voted in while your role in taking Scott down is still fresh in everyone’s mind. Before any of the old guard has a chance to gather support.”

I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be part of the Council, but apparently, refusal wasn’t really an option, not if I wanted to continue to live my life unmolested by rabid lamia-haters.

Rabid in a metaphorical sense. Who knew if werewolves carried rabies for real?

My snarky inner voice insisted on offering commentary as I stood up with Kade and moved to stand with him, next to Janice.

“Tonight,” the leader continued. “We also vote on whether to accept the lamia Lindi Parker into the Council as representative of Clan Lamia.”

I knew there had been a lot of debate about this behind the scenes. Accepting me meant accepting the possibility of an eventual, actual Clan Lamia. Especially if any of Scott’s forced offspring were viable snake shifters.

In fact, several of the Council members had argued to have any lamia babies peremptorily euthanized. I had argued against that vehemently. I wasn’t certain how seriously they had taken me.

But any of those offspring would be babies—and not just snake babies, but human ones. As trainable as I was.

I had to believe that they could be saved, could be part of this community of shifters.

Otherwise, we were nothing more than our animal selves, and every part of me—even the snake part—rebelled against the idea that I was no more than my inner reptile.

Janice had responded by asking if I was prepared to stand in as a parent to any lamia children—and I couldn’t very well say no. No one was better trained for it, between my personal experience as a lamia and my professional training as a children’s counselor.

Even now, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to become an instant mother to a clutch of human-snake hybrid babies, or if I would rather go on being the only one—maybe the last one—of my kind.

In the end, almost half of the Council members had argued against my inclusion in their ranks, so strongly that the Council had finally decided to put it to an open vote.

As I stood there trying to prepare for the vote, the anxious scents in the living room intensified, now identifiable to me as shifter-scent from nervous human/hybrids. Primarily mammals.

For once, Kade’s spicy scent read to me as comfort.

I steeled myself for a long, hard verbal battle when Hank, the heckler from my first Council visit, climbed to his feet and took a breath to speak.

But then Eduardo Valencia, the fighter Kade had pointed out as a Shield, the man who had later stepped in to help me fight Scott and Tanith, also stood.

“Madam Chairperson.” Eduardo nodded at her, then at Kade and me. “I wish to speak.”

From the looks on everyone’s faces, this level of formality was unusual for the Shield. All around me, shifters held their breath, their eyes focused on Eduardo. I glanced curiously at Kade, who made the slightest motion with one finger, letting me know that he’d answer questions later without ever taking his intense stare off of the other man.

Eduardo continued in his slow, measured voice. “I speak now as First Shield.”

A collective gasp went up from the room. I frowned, trying to read the flavor of the room. Anxious, definitely. Frightened, perhaps? Excited even?

Janice nodded. “Yes.” Her voice took on an even more formal cadence. “Do the Shields wish to maintain their protection of this lamia?”

A sudden grin creased Eduardo’s face, the lines around his eyes almost hiding their twinkle.

“No, ma’am,” he drawled. “The Shields wish to recruit this lamia.”

It took several seconds for Janice to regain control of the room. “You wish to train the lamia Lindi Parker as a Shield?”

If I hadn’t been standing next to her, I might not have caught it as she glanced at me and her eyelid shivered downward just a little in the barest hint of a wink at me.

Holy crap. This was a set-up.

“We do. Lindi already works with the human police in matters of human crime, and with human children and their families in matters of pain. We believe she will be a valuable addition to the Shields.” As he spoke, several other people throughout the room began to move, gathering around him until they formed a semi-circle facing me.

The other Shields, I presumed.

Janice watched the group converging to stand with the First Shield, and turned toward me. “Lindi, does this work for you?” When she asked, she dropped the formal tone.

Did it? They wanted me to—what? Be the counselor for the shapeshifter Council?

“I don’t even know what a Shield does,” I finally protested, albeit weakly.

“We’ll teach you,” Eduardo said, his chocolate-brown eyes oddly intense on mine. He wanted me to say yes, very badly.

Flicking my gaze to Kade, I waited for him to send me some signal to let me know that this was a bad idea.

Instead, when he looked from Eduardo’s face to mine, he gave me a single, curt nod.

If anyone was likely to advise against it, it would be Kade.

I drew in a deep breath, squared my shoulders, stared Janice in the eyes, and said in as firm a voice as I could manage, “Yes. I will join the Shields.”

About half the room seemed to exhale in relief. The rest of the inhabitants virtually exuded anger. A low growl undercut the smattering of applause.

Eduardo held up his hand in what was apparently some sort of oath. “Then as First Shield, I will hereby take your vow.”

Nodding, I followed his example, and repeated the simple words after him. “I hereby swear to honor and protect the Council, its members, and all the shifter clans, to act as a Shield against any that would offer harm. This I will do in the name of all that is good and right.”

As I finished the oath, Janice gently gestured me back into the group. “Excellent. Now that’s settled, we can move on to other matters.

I let Kade lead me to a corner, where I discovered that my knees were shaking.

I hadn’t realized exactly how much of the tension I had absorbed from the room.

“What was that?” I hissed, pulling Kade into the small vestibule leading to the front door.

“The Shields police their own,” the mongoose shifter whispered. “If you’re one of them, the rest of the Council can’t touch you.”

“Did you know that was going to happen?”

“Not a clue.”

“Any downsides?” Our hastily whispered conversation was starting to get some glares from the nearest shifters, but I needed information now.

Kade chewed on his lip. “They’re absolutely scrupulous about their own behavior. They have to be. The Shields will turn one of their own over in a heartbeat. Other than that? Nothing.”

“So they follow a code?”

“A strict one.”

I could do that. It didn’t sound too far from my ethical responsibilities as a counselor.

But my job…

“Can I stay at the CAP-C?” I asked.

Kade shrugged. “Talk to Eduardo. But most of us have mundane jobs, no matter what we do for the Council.”

Okay. I could do this.

I could really be a member of the Council.

I turned my attention back to the meeting in progress. I had half-expected the Council to take up the issue of the potential lamia babies, but instead, Janice closed out the meeting without ever bringing them up.

Apparently, they really were going to be left to me.

As the crowd began to break up, more than one shifter snarled at me on the way out.

None of them dared cross the Shields by doing more, though.

I hung back, waiting for a chance to speak to Janice.

Instead, Eduardo approached me and drew me away from Kade to hand me a business card that had only his name, phone number, and email address.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we begin your training.”

“I work until almost six o’clock,” I said.

The older man’s nod suggested he already knew this. “At eight o’clock,” he said. “In the Holy Circle, where the doctor took you to train.” Without another word, he strolled away.

I watched the First Shield melt into the small crowd of people who remained, chatting in Janice’s front yard.

Some of them were still scowling at me, angry at the Shield’s move to protect me, but more—many more—were stopping to say hello, to greet me. To welcome me into their world.

For the first time ever, I realized, I felt like those greetings were possibly true.