“YOU ARE NOT the lion I am sensing,” Olaf said, turning so that he could keep an eye on both Nicky and the two SEALs.
It was Nicky’s turn to raise his face and take a deep hit of the air in the room. It hadn’t been a very human gesture when Olaf did it, and it wasn’t any more human when Nicky did it. It had bothered me when Olaf did it, but not when Nicky did it. But then I loved him, and I was sort of afraid of Olaf, which colored my interpretation of things. Weirdly, knowing that made me more patient with both of them. Or maybe it was my lioness that didn’t want to be angry at them. We had two big males in the room who could match the shadow male that she created inside me. She’d done it once before; it was like she was showing her wish.
Nicky gave a smile that was more snarl than happiness. “I’ve smelled that lion before.”
“Who is it?” Olaf said, voice gone even deeper with the nearness of his beast.
“Follow the scent. You’ll figure it out.”
Olaf raised his face to the air again, but this time he parted his lips so that he could draw the scent in over the roof of his mouth like a flehmen response in a real lion: Males will try in this way to scent females in heat. In human form Olaf didn’t have the parts either between his lips with their frame of black beard and mustache or inside his head. Human beings just didn’t dedicate enough of our brains to translating scent. Even if we could smell it, we couldn’t understand what we were smelling. We’d sacrificed too much of our brainpower to sight and abstract thought.
He moved farther into the room, still scenting the air in that not very human way. I started moving back toward the cells. I needed Leduc to put Bobby back in his cell so the rest of us could go somewhere more private to talk about my inner lion. But the moment I tried to move back from them, the big male inside me gave a coughing roar that vibrated through me, staggering me. I reached out to grab hold of something and found a hand to hold. Energy flowed down that hand to calm my inner lions. I knew whose hand was soothing me before I turned and saw Angel.
She drew me in to her body, putting her other hand against my face so that we stared into each other’s eyes. It must have looked like a prelude to a kiss to the rest of the room, but it was Angel soothing my inner beasts. The male lion vanished first, because he wasn’t really there. My lioness on the other hand snarled up at Angel’s calming energy. She didn’t want to be soothed; she wanted the reality of the inner beast she’d created, and just feet away from us were two of them. Except that Nicky was out of the running, because he was my Bride. It meant he was metaphysically compromised and could never be my lion to call the way that Nathaniel was my leopard to call, which left only one lion in the room as far as my lioness was concerned.
Angel put her forehead against mine, because more skin contact was better for most metaphysical powers. The lioness snarled and lashed out, claws extended. It made me stagger against Angel; she wrapped her arms around me while I fought the sensation of phantom claws trying to cut me up from the inside. There was never any real physical damage from the inner beasts, but it hurt as if there was for seconds, minutes, while my body had to realize we weren’t really hurt.
“Are you all right there, Marshal?” Leduc asked from the cell area.
I had to breathe through the pain to answer him. “Yeah, just . . . I’m fine.”
The lawyer actually moved around to distract Leduc. Ms. Brooks had been around enough shapeshifters to know an issue when she saw it. She started to try to argue that Bobby should be released into her custody now, today, which was ridiculous and had no legal standing, but she restarted her fight with the sheriff. It gave me time to stand up straight and pretend nothing had happened.
Angel spoke with her mouth touching my face so that her whisper wouldn’t carry to any of the humans and might not carry to Bobby. “We need to get you out of here.”
Pierette came to stand with us as if it were a group hug and whispered, “We all need somewhere private to discuss things with the big werelion.”
It took me a second to realize she meant Olaf and not Nicky. Out loud I said, “We need to leave at least one of you guys here with Bobby.”
“The case is solved,” Leduc said, “and as soon as we can get the legalities worked out, Bobby is going home. We don’t need the Coalition to babysit anymore, do we, Bobby?”
“It was my doubts that made me lose control of my beast,” Bobby said. “I don’t doubt myself anymore. I know that I didn’t kill my uncle.”
“If you weren’t a Therianthrope, you’d be able to walk out now,” Ms. Brooks said.
I nodded and walked into the cell area like my lioness hadn’t just sideswiped me. The dull ache of it was just that, dull. I wasn’t hurt. “Sorry, Ms. Brooks, but Bobby has to stay in the cell tonight. Hopefully sometime tomorrow he’ll be home and clear.”
“You know he’s innocent now. Why should he spend another night in jail?” she asked.
“Because he’s still a shapeshifter accused of a murder. I can refuse to execute him even with the warrant in his name, but until we’ve cleared him more publicly, he’s probably safer behind bars.”
“Are you saying that people who have known me all my life would hurt me?” Bobby asked from the open door of his cell.
“I’m saying that legally let’s not tempt fate. You stay in overnight and part of tomorrow, and by then we’ll figure something else out.”
“But no one is going to execute me?” he asked.
“You don’t have to worry when any of us come back here now. We aren’t here to kill you.”
“We will be working to get you free as soon as possible,” Ms. Brooks said.
“You know he has no legal right to counsel under the supernatural system,” Leduc said.
“And yet here I am,” she said.
“You’re here, but you have no legal rights, because Bobby has none,” Leduc said.
“Which is monstrous,” Ms. Brooks said.
Leduc shrugged, spreading his hands wide. “You heard the marshal. He has to be locked up for his own safety as much as anyone else’s.” He shooed Bobby back into the cell and closed the door with a resounding clang.
Bobby put his hands around the bars. “You promise that I’ll get out tomorrow?”
I wasn’t sure whom he was asking, but I answered. “Yeah, you’ll get out tomorrow.”
“Anita, you can’t promise him that. It might take a couple of days,” Edward alias Ted said from the doorway.
“I will keep fighting to get you out,” Ms. Brooks said.
“I’ll stay until you’re out of jail, too,” I said.
Bobby flashed a very warm smile my way. “Thank you. I really appreciate that.”
“She must stay nearby until she either executes you or the warrant is voided,” Olaf said. He’d walked back in so he could peer through the doorway to the cells.
Bobby’s face crumpled, going from happy smiles to confusion and fear. I touched his hands where they were still wrapped around the bars. He smiled at me again, but his eyes stayed scared. I squeezed his hands, and he moved his fingers so he could squeeze back.
“It’s going to be all right, Bobby,” I said. “We’re all working to get you free.”
“Thank you. Thank you all,” he said, still holding my hands through the bars, but looking at everyone he could see.
I fought the urge to rub my cheek against his fingers like a cat scent-marking. My inner leopard was trying to rise and comfort him, too, but I’d had enough of my beasts getting out of control. I took a deep breath and stepped back, letting Bobby’s fingers slide down my skin as I pulled away. He didn’t want to let me go. I knew it was part just human comfort, but part of it was his beast recognizing mine. Every shapeshifter I knew said it was lonely without more of your own kind around, and he had been alone a very long time.
“We have to go, Bobby, but we’ll see you tomorrow.” I smiled when I spoke, and he smiled back.
We left him in smiles. I tried to get Angel or Ethan to stay behind, but the sheriff didn’t want them there, and we were in a gray area legally. The case wasn’t a supernatural case at all, so technically it didn’t fall under the supernatural marshals’ jurisdiction. If I hadn’t still had a warrant of execution with Bobby’s name on it, we’d have had no rights in the case at all. But none of my bodyguards wanted to stay and babysit Bobby. They didn’t say it out loud, but I got the distinct impression that they were more worried about guarding me and one another than Bobby Marchand. I wanted to argue, but Bobby seemed relaxed and happy. Leduc had found a chessboard, and he was setting up the pieces for him and Bobby to play through the bars. The winner would play Deputy Troy. Apparently, Troy had been something of a chess prodigy back in high school, but football got him more dates than chess club. I just couldn’t picture the deputy being a deep enough thinker for chess, but then, maybe I wasn’t catching any of the locals at their best.
Ms. Brooks went to see if she could talk to the judge in person and get Bobby out of jail earlier. I took Leduc aside and asked him where Jocelyn was. I wasn’t sure how that reunion was going to go. She was back at the hospital under observation after her little fit with Muriel and Todd. They were talking about keeping her overnight under sedation. Bobby was as safe as I could make him. He’d be a free man in a day or two, and then I could go home with the first ever warrant of execution canceled without a death.
We all trooped out with Olaf and Edward joining us. It was time to talk metaphysics and dating serial killers. I’d have rather stayed and played chess or checkers or Parcheesi, and I didn’t even know how to play that.