“Demre and Hill,” he said, “the Winter Court’s bankers.”
“Shit,” Somerset gritted out between clenched teeth. “Why the hell did you let him—”
“You can’t even stop him riding your cock,” Stúfur said. “How am I supposed to stop him doing whatever he wants? Are you coming?”
Somerset gritted his teeth. They didn’t have time to fight. It would take too long for Stúfur’s legs to mend. He reached into his pocket and grabbed the keys to his pickup.
“Lead the way,” he said.
“It wasn’t a Christmas party,” Lucas Underhill, the COO of the firm and adopted son of the founder, said dismissively as he turned his back on Somerset. Lucas was human…enough, a changeling reared by the Courts to serve as a go-between with what they needed of the mortal world. Finance. Trade. Property. The Courts had always kept them. Lucas brushed a tangled ball of paper strips onto the floor and shut a drawer. “We just had an end of year celebration. Not that I should have to answer to the likes of you. You’re unCourted. You’re nothing.”
“That’s under review,” Somerset said. He looked around the offices. Not that he really needed to. Office Christmas parties were just another ritual—with drink and effigies and the sacrifice of the occasional marriage. He could smell the Yule magic in the air as it seeped from the hastily denuded fir tree in the middle of the office and curdled in the half-drained shot glasses of eggnog. The point was to see how hard Demre and Hill tried to sell the lie. He ran his gaze over the wrapping paper shoved into waste baskets around the room and the single crumpled paper crown left on a chair.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” he asked with interest as he prowled along through the office after the man.
Dismissive or not, Lucas had enough sense to know that was a dangerous question. He stopped his half-hearted tidy and turned around to face Somerset.
“That’s…I…we are under the Winter Court’s protection.” He tried to visibly puff himself up with the change of subject, but Somerset didn’t know who the display wasfor. It didn’t fool him. Even Lucas looked like he could feel how thin his bluster was. “It’s a violation of our treaties for Yule to set foot on our territory without—”
Somerset leaned over and plucked the sprig of mistletoe from the lapel of the Santa coat. He twiddled it idly between his fingers as he said, “Invitation?”
Lucas pressed his mouth together, his lips pinched together in a thin, unhappy line.
Somerset flicked the sprig away.
“Where did he go?” he asked.
There was a pause, and then Lucas took a deep breath and visibly tried a different approach.
“The wolf is not our problem,” he said. “It wasn’t invited—who would?—and we might have broken the rules with—”
“Laws,” Somerset corrected mildly. It was a much bigger word than rules, and came from a less flexible time. The Winter Court might benefit from Yule, but it didn’t bend the knee to it or its trappings. That had been enshrined between them almost as long as the Yule Lads’ service to Santa had been.
“Laws,” Lucas conceded. His confidence slipped a little with the interruption. It took him a second to pull it back together. When he had he brushed a speck of something off his sleeve and shrugged. “But technically the party was for the mortal employees, not for those of us with other loyalties. It was all fine until the wolf got here. Once it saw the decorations, it kicked over the buffet table and started to threaten us. It had a pregnant woman with it and left her behind, so we had to deal with her as well. Why was the wolf even on this side? Who called it—”
“We can come back to the wolf,” Somerset interrupted him, and they would. “You called the paramedics?”
Lucas heaved an annoyed sigh and smoothed his hair back from his face. “Someone did, and then I had to deal with them.”
“Where are they?”
“I…what?” Lucas spluttered. He wrinkled his nose as he huffed, “I don’t know. I don’tcare. They got the woman and left. That’s all I wanted. Are we done here? I feel Yule’s invitation is running thin.”
“Good thing I’m still unCourted then,” Somerset said and grabbed the collar of the man’s jacket.
He dragged him over to what was left of the buffet.
“We saw them come in,” he said. “We didn’t see them leave.”
Lucas flailed around inelegantly inside his coat. He tried to grab at Somerset’s wrist and claw at his fingers.
“Get off me!” he said. “How dare you, what do you think—”
Somerset dunked him face first in a platter of seafood. He held him there as the man coughed and choked on the salt and spiced flesh. A shrimp fell off the edge of the plate, and Somerset grabbed it with his free hand and tossed it in his mouth.
He’d missed dinner.
As he chewed on the tender flesh he pulled the COO upright again.
