It went on a while though. I was pretty sure he sniffed my hair.
“Do you want to know the name of my shampoo?” I asked him when it got a bit awkward.
He flinched and moved back, almost taking me with him since I’d still been hugging him. He chuckled weirdly and made sure I was stable. “Sorry, too much going on.”
Oh, so he’d had a brain fart with all the drama? Right, people called it that.
Maybe?
I nodded like I understood but searched his eyes. “We’re good?”
“We’re good,” he promised, and I chose to believe him. He moved a bit to stop me when I turned to leave. “I’m sorry your helping me pushed over the domino of this madness. I-I’m struggling with that.”
That explained a lot. “Me too, Link, but it’s on them. It was their greed and choice. It was going to happen given the path after Alex came to school—all of it.” I shrugged. “I’m sorry I pulled you in and made you suffer this. I want to say I should have picked someone else, but then that’s dismissive.”
He didn’t say anything for several moments. “You understand a lot more than you think, Bev. That whole you aren’t socialized enough thing—you get a lot. You just see it four steps to the left a lot because you grew up talking to animals instead of people your own age. I think it’s one of the best things about you though.”
I wasn’t sure what to do with that. I knew it was a compliment and thanked him at least, leaving him out there to deal with what he was trying to process on his own.
I went back to find Winter who was frowning and looking behind me. I promised I’d been fine to walk the short way back alone with the lights we now had and enough people were around to have heard me if I’d yelled out. That seemed to chill him out and we sat down. I smiled when he had the pulled pork ready for me to try with his barbecue sauce.
And he didn’t lie. Winter was a man who knew how to smoke meat.
Add it to the growing list of reasons that I liked him because it was the best pulled pork of my life and my tummy was very happy.
13
A lot happened over the next few weeks and most of it good… Like a surprising amount.
Very surprising which worried me because nothing ever went that well.
First, real charges were filed against the two reporters who put their hands on me in front of Morrigan’s gates. They had to do community service as their punishment—but a lot of hours—plus take a new Harassment Prevention Training that the wives of the council were sponsoring. The teachers were certified humans to show how much more their world had progressed and we were lacking.
Good.
To be fair, I was also fined because I wasn’t allowed to silence people like that. Freezing them was forgiven since I’d been grabbed and scared for my safety with what had been going on. But silencing them all like that… Yeah, I had to follow the rules too and they were allowed to say disgusting things to me and get in trouble later.
However, it was a minimum fine, like very small because Jasmine made the point that the adults knew I couldn’t just circle away like others could when being harassed. Plus, they physically blocked me from getting to security and help.
So I think it was like parking ticket to humans. Totally worth it for the response to what I’d said live on the news while they’d all been silenced. The average witch—and even warlock—was disgusted at how I’d been treated… And they weren’t being quiet about it anymore.
Some of the top-tier families making public comments that they were glad to hear that I was back on the marriage market now that I wasn’t damaged goods was met with swift and harsh rebuke. It shocked the shit out of too many of them and several doubled down that the “plebs” should learn their place.
Yeah, that didn’t go over well either. Jean jumped on the chance and made it clear that any woman of the Shaw bloodline—Millen last name or any other—wasn’t a mare for sale and disgusting men should learn their places. Her popularity shot up because of it.
It made me conflicted given my feelings about her, but at least it was helping our society.
On the topic of my conflicted feelings… Conrad Hanson. I still couldn’t talk about him or his punishment. It really was the best the council could do without raising more questions. He was convicted of the big ones—breaking into my room, so it was clear that he hadn’t been there before and we weren’t involved.
Sexual assault to reinforce he was in the wrong and nothing was between us. Threatening me and whatnot. I honestly didn’t get into all the details and list. It wasn’t the big one of stealing sealed council hearings and records and threatening to expose them, threatening mylifeunless I serviced him and… Yeah, so it was hard.
But at least he was locked up and would be for years, unable to hurt me. He wasn’t allowed to have any visitors and the council all agreed everything was magically locked to his mind. Councilmen Reid and Oliveria demanded it be done or theywould out what really happened and let the chips fall where they did.
That helped.
What made it worse for me?
Councilman Hanson’s popularity rose. He wanted me under control, the council’s pet goddess witch and to force his son to be my priest and he was nowpopularfor how he’d handled all of this. He gave a press conference saying he was destroyed that his son had taken the wrong path and he’d failed as a father.
