Hunting Ground

She dropped back a dozen feet and let Tom take the lead. If only the sword had been a gun. She knew how to use a gun.

The back door of the car opened and Bran got out.

Tom didn’t look relieved. So A

“Tom Franklin,” Bran said. “Thank you. A

“Here.” She shoved the coat with sword and dagger at Bran. “You take these. I don’t want them. Someone is supposed to come pick them up later.”

“Ah,” he said, and looked down at the battered material. “Seattle is not the place I would have expected to encounter these.” He seemed to know what he held even though they were both still wrapped up.

Tom gri

“Get in the car,” Bran told them. “They’re all on the way to Angus’s house.”

“Charles?” A

“He wanted to come with me,” Bran said. “But I told him he’d have to wait until he could walk under his own power. He’s on his way to Angus’s if he’s not already there.” He got in the car, and A

Bran gave her a laughing glance. “He wasn’t happy with me. Or you either. Expect him to yell at you because you scared him badly this time.”

“Sounds unfair, to me,” A

“If it gets to you, just shed a few tears,” muttered Tom. “He’ll shut up. Works for Moira.”

“Arthur’s dead, Dana is dead. Five of the six vampires are dead,” A

“We don’t have to worry about the vampire who escaped,” Bran told her. “The local vampires found him and took care of it. They are apparently sending Angus proof.”

“Good,” said Tom.

“Good” was the wrong word, A

A

He must have heard her unspoken worry. “In human courts, the least of the charges facing Dana would have been conspiracy to commit murder. Charles confirms that she knew Arthur pla

“She was the Lady of the Lake,” A

“And being famous should have made her immune to the consequences of her actions?”

He pulled her head toward him and kissed her forehead. “Ego te absolvo. There is some Latin for you, my dear. I absolve you of your guilt. You did well. The only way I could have stopped her was the same way you did. And I would have been too late.”

“De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum,” she murmured. “Her death was the lesser evil.”

CHARLES sat in lone splendor on a huge couch in the middle of Angus’s spacious living room-while the other ten or twelve people present made themselves at home on the other side of the room.

A

He looked at her. For such a look, she thought, she’d have done a lot more than kill. He patted the couch beside him, but she crawled into his lap instead.

“I’ve had a really bad night,” she said. “Any chance we can get some sleep?”

Charles kissed her, a long, involved kiss that took no prisoners. When he was finished, she licked her lips, and said, in a voice that was a little breathless, “Does that mean no?”

“I would slay dragons for you,” he told her. “I suspect that finding an unoccupied bedroom will be easier.”

She pulled away a little, just far enough that she could see his face. “Dragons, huh. Well, I killed the Lady of the Lake for you, sir.”

He cupped her face in his hands, “I’m sorry, A

Te absolve, indeed, she thought. Faced with Charles’s warm and undeniably living flesh, she would have killed the fae over again. “I’m not,” she said. “I love you.”

Angus sighed. “Lovebirds,” he said.

Patricia Briggs

Until she learned to read, Patricia Briggs lived a mundane's life in Butte, Montana. Shortly after her sixth birthday, she discovered there were dwarves living in the mines and elves in the forests. The hob in the garage really startled her the first time she met him, but they've been good friends ever since. The urge to share her discoveries with the rest of the world led her to writing. She currently resides in the Pacific Northwest.