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“Never mind. It’s not my job to comply with Aunt B’s body guarding. I didn’t agree to it.”
Andrea leaned toward me and spoke very slowly and clearly. “You need to call the Beast Lord. Before he skins my boyfriend’s mother, if at all possible.”
I dragged myself to the desk and picked up the phone. Call the Beast Lord. Right.
Trouble was, I wasn’t sure the Beast Lord and I were okay.
I dialed the Keep.
“Kate Da—”
The line clicked, and Curran’s voice filled the phone. “Yes?”
Here we go. “Hey. It’s me.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to call.”
Is that waiting good or waiting bad? “How’s it going?” That’s me, chipper.
“It’s been better.” He didn’t sound like he was in the middle of skinning anyone. Although knowing Curran, calm voice didn’t indicate much. I’d seen him calmly jump on a silver golem’s back and be completely rational about it afterward despite the excruciating pain.
Andrea paced the floor like a caged tiger.
“Me, too. I’m at the Order. Been here since last night.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
So they told him already. “Did you rip anyone to pieces?”
“Not yet. I’m thinking about it.”
I leaned back. “Andrea is wearing a hole in my carpet, because she’s worried you might be upset with her future mother-in-law. She is a little emotional about this issue.”
Andrea paused her pacing and gave me her thousand-yard stare. I’d seen this precise look on her face when she peered through the scope of a sniper rifle sighting a target.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Can I tell her to stop pacing?”
“Is that what you would like?”
“Yes. As a favor to me.”
“As you wish.”
I couldn’t figure out who was the bigger idiot, him for saying it to me, or me for wanting to drop everything and go straight to him because he said it. This insanity had to stop. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. A favor,” Curran said. “Would you let me pick you up at the Order today?”
He didn’t finish but I knew what he left unsaid: Let me pick you up and take you home, to the Keep.
“My shift started”—I glanced at the clock—“twelve minutes ago. It ends at six. If it’s at all up to me, I will be here waiting for you. I promise.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry about your place.”
“Me, too.”
I hung up. That was the second civil conversation we’d had since we’d known each other. Too bad there was no champagne handy to celebrate the occasion.
“He’s let it go. Satisfied?”
Andrea frowned. “The Beast Lord just asked you for a favor?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Were Aunt B and Jennifer there?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t think to ask.”
“I bet they were there.” Andrea squinted at me. “Curran doesn’t ask for favors. He doesn’t bother. And he just let this whole thing go without an argument. That kind of influence is something only a mate would have . . . You slept together.”
I gave her a blank look.
“You slept with Curran and you didn’t tell me? I’m your best friend.”
“It didn’t come up.”
“How disappointing for you.”
Ha-ha. “That’s not what I meant.”
She pulled up a client chair and sat down on it. “Details. Now.”
“We had a fight, screamed at each other for a while, I kicked him in the head, and then he stayed the night.”
“That’s it? That’s all?”
“That’s it.”
She waved her arms in the air. “How was it?”
Like fireworks, only better. “It was good.”
“Getting information out of you is like pulling teeth. Does Aunt B know?”
I nodded.
“That explains their collective panic attack. So did the two of you trash your apartment?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
That wasn’t a question I could answer with Mauro down the hall. I took a piece of paper from the drawer, wrote
“My Aunt Erra” on it, and showed it to her.
Andrea paled.
I tore the paper to pieces and threw into the trash can. “The good news is I know who the Steel Mary is. Her name is Erra. The bad news is I know what she can do.”
I gave her the rundown on Erra, her history, and her powers, keeping our family connection out of it in case anyone was listening. “She’s completely amoral. She has absolutely no connection to any other human being except Roland. For Erra, the world breaks down into family and not-family. Not-family is fair game. And just because you were born to the family doesn’t keep you safe. If she decides that you’re not up to snuff, she’ll fix the mistake of your existence. Her words, not mine.”
“She has a high opinion of herself,” Andrea said.
“Oh yes. When she gets into a car, her ego has to ride shotgun.”
She tapped her fingers on my desk. “Are you thinking direct challenge?”
“Exactly. Issue a challenge, throw a couple of insults, use me as bait, since she hates me, and she won’t be able to resist. If we do this somewhere outside of town, where she can’t screw with the crowd, and throw every female knight the Order can scrape together at her, we may have a chance.”
“I’ve asked Ted to let me assist you with this twice,” Andrea said. “The second time in writing. It was denied.”
“Ted went behind my back,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
I sketched it out for her. Midway through it, she got up and started pacing across my floor again. Faint outlines of spots ghosted under her skin.
When I was done, she unclenched her teeth. “What he did was against the code of knighthood. But you have no recourse. There is nothing in the Charter that protects your rights. You aren’t a knight.”
“I don’t want recourse.”
She spun to me. “Are you leaving the Order?”
Magic flooded the world. My heart skipped a beat. I chose my words carefully. “I have a problem with dedicating myself to an organization who considers my friends nonhuman.”
“Ted Moynohan isn’t the entirety of the Order.”
“You’ve gone through the Academy. You know he isn’t the only one.” I leaned forward. “It’s a deeply ingrained organization-wide prejudice. I understand why it’s there, but I don’t agree with it. Nonhumanity is a dangerous label. If someone is nonhuman, they have no rights, Andrea. No protection.”
