Page 12 of Tusks And Conditions

It is not a question.

"Of course." I step back, bringing Sabine with me, keeping her close. Meatball, bless his miserable little heart, chooses this exact moment to waddle out from beneath the kitchen island and press himself against my leg with a pathetic, burbling sound that I choose to interpret as moral support. Inspector Delacroix eyes the Snarbo with the faintest curl of distaste at the corner of her mouth but says nothing, stepping over the threshold with the careful, measured stride of someone who is accustomed to finding problems everywhere she looks.

Her gaze tracks across the living room. The temporary polymer patch over the window. The faint scatter of glass dust in the carpet that I didn't have time to vacuum. The dark shapes of my weapons cases stacked against the far wall. I watch her cataloguing everything, her expression revealing nothing, and I feel Sabine's fingers tighten against my ribs.

"Interesting decor choices," Inspector Delacroix says, pulling a slim pen from her portfolio. "The window?"

"Renovation project." I don't miss a beat. "The old glass had a crack. I'm installing reinforced material. Safer for the neighborhood."

"Mm." She writes something down. Her pen moves in precise, elegant strokes. "And these?" She gestures toward the weapon cases.

"Tools of my profession. Licensed and registered with the Bounty Hunters' Guild, permit numbers available upon request."

"I'm sure they are." She finishes writing and looks up, those winter-lake eyes fixing on Sabine with unsettling intensity. "Ms. Lin. How are you finding the cohabitation arrangement?"

Sabine straightens against my side. The same transformation I witnessed at the DMI office when she switched from panicked civilian to sharp-tongued professional. "It's an adjustment, but we're managing."

"Managing." The inspector repeats the word like she's turning it over for hidden cracks. "And the sleeping arrangement? I'll need to verify that you're sharing a bed, as required by Section 14-C of the Cohabitation Mandate."

The silence that follows lasts approximately one and a half seconds, but it stretches long enough for me to feel Sabine's entire body lock up against my side like someone just ran an electric current through her spine. I know why. I have been sleeping on her couch for the past two nights, my feet hanging over the armrest by a solid eighteen inches, my back protesting the indignity with every passing hour. Sabine's bedroom is a sanctuary of pale pink and cream that she guards with the territorial ferocity of a dragon sitting on a hoard of decorative throw pillows. I have not set foot past the threshold.

"Of course," I say easily. "Down the hall, second door on the right. Would you like to see?"

"I would."

Sabine's fingernails dig into my ribs with enough force to leave marks, but she says nothing, just walks beside me as I guide us toward the hallway, my mind racing through logistics. The bedroom is entirely hers. Every surface, every detail, every carefully arranged element screams single occupancy. There is no sign that a six-and-a-half-foot Orc bounty hunter has ever set foot inside, let alone slept there, and a Fae inspector will read that absence like a flashing neon sign.

I need thirty seconds.

"The bathroom is just here, if you'd like to freshen up after the trip," I offer, gesturing toward the bathroom door as we pass it. "Long commute from the DMI compliance office in this district."

Inspector Delacroix pauses. Her gaze flicks to me, sharp and evaluating, and for a moment I think she will refuse. Then she inclines her head in a barely perceptible nod. "How thoughtful. I'll be just a moment."

The bathroom door closes, and I move.

I release Sabine and cover the distance to the bedroom in three strides, throwing the door open and scanning the space with strategic urgency. Everything is exactly as pristine and feminine as I remember. The bed is made with hospital-corner precision, the pale pink duvet smooth and unwrinkled, flanked by matching nightstands with matching ceramic lamps. A single book lies on the left nightstand—a financial planning guide with a bookmark placed exactly one-third of the way through. The closet door is closed. The dresser top holds a small tray of modest jewelry and a single framed photograph of Sabine with an older woman who shares her sharp cheekbones.

"Get your things," Sabine hisses from behind me, and I get that she has already grasped the problem and arrived at the same solution. "Go. Hurry."

I am already moving. Back down the hall, into the living room, grabbing items with indiscriminate speed. My leather jacket goes over my arm. A pair of heavy boots. My knife belt, which I shove under the bed the moment I'm back in the room. I yank open the top drawer of her dresser—Sabine makes a strangled sound of outrage—and stuff my worn black undershirt in among her neatly folded blouses, then toss my leather bracers onto the nightstand, knocking the financial planning book aside. My shaving kit gets thrown onto the bathroom counter through the en suite door that connects to the bedroom, and I grasp the thick fantasy novel I've been reading on the couch—"The Siege of Thornwall," book four of a twelve-part series—and drop it on the right nightstand with enough force to shake the lamp.

"The bed," Sabine whispers frantically. "The bed is too neat. It looks like a display."

She's right. No two people who actually share a bed leave it looking like a furniture catalog. I lift the duvet and pull it back on the right side, creating an artful rumple, then dent the right pillow with my fist. Sabine, to her credit, does the same on the left side, messing up her own perfect arrangement with visible pain on her face, like she is desecrating something sacred.

"Laundry," I mutter, and strip off my belt, draping it over the chair in the corner. I spot one of my dark socks from the living room floor—I'd kicked it off last night on the couch—and toss it near the bed. Sabine opens her closet door, and we both stare at the interior, which is organized by color, season, and fabric weight with a level of precision that borders on religious devotion.

"There's no room for your clothes in here." She sounds genuinely distraught, and despite the urgency of the situation, a small, warm sensation blooms behind my sternum at the sight of her face.

"Push things to the left. Leave a gap on the right. Just enough to look like I've claimed territory."

She shoves an armful of hangers sideways with the resigned expression of someone watching her world order collapse, and I hang my second leather jacket in the gap. It looks absurd—one massive, scarred, dark piece of armor hanging among a sea of tailored beige and soft gray—but it looks shared, which is all that matters.

The toilet flushes in the hallway bathroom. Footsteps on tile.

Sabine and I look at each other across the rumpled bed, both slightly out of breath, and something passes between us that I don't have time to examine. A shared conspiracy. A silent acknowledgment that we are in this together, however reluctantly, and that the only way through is forward.

I move back to her side and settle my arm around her shoulders just as Inspector Delacroix appears in the bedroom doorway.