Page 42 of Tusks And Conditions

"Counterargument.No."

"That's not a counterargument. That's a single syllable."

"Efficient. Like Orcish."

I extricate myself through a series of measured rolls that would impress a gymnastics judge. He lets me go with a grumble that vibrates the headboard. I stand. Assess the damage. My blouse from Friday is draped over the ceiling fan. One of my ballet flats is on the bookshelf. The other is missing entirely.

The bathroom mirror confirms what I suspected. My sharp bob is no longer sharp. It is a bird's nest assembled by a bird with ambition but no spatial reasoning. I shower, condition aggressively, and blow-dry until something resembling professional competence emerges.

When I come out, Jagger is sitting on the bed, elbows on his knees, as I move through the room with that expression again. The one that makes my ribs feel too small for what's inside them.

"I need to call the DMI," I say, pulling a fresh blouse from the closet. "About the annulment papers."

His jaw tightens. The rune along his neck flickers.

"To tell them we're not filing."

The rune steadies. Brightens.

"Unless you've changed your mind in the last eight hours."

He stands. The room shrinks by half. He crosses to where I'm buttoning my collar and his hand covers both of mine, stopping them.

"I have not changed my mind in eight hours. I will not change my mind in eight years. Or eighty."

"Orcs live to be eighty?"

"Two hundred and forty, generally."

I stare up at him. "You didn't think to mention this before?"

"It did not seem relevant when we were discussing pizza toppings."

"A lifespan discrepancy of roughly one hundred and sixty years seems relevant to any long-term domestic arrangement, Jagger."

"We will discuss it over breakfast." He kisses my forehead and ducks into the bathroom. The shower groans in protest as six and a half feet of bounty hunter steps into a stall designed for someone my size.

I finish dressing. I then make coffee and place the call to the DMI.

The hold music is eleven minutes of panpipe renditions of popular Elvish ballads. When the clerk finally picks up, I explain that we will not be filing the annulment and request the appropriate form to convert our bond status to voluntary continuation.

"Form 16C," the clerk says. "Filed in triplicate. Notarized by a licensed blood-magic officiant. Processing time is six to nine business weeks."

"Is there an expedited option?"

"Form 16C-Expedited. Filed in quintuplicate. Notarized by two licensed blood-magic officiants. Processing time is five to eight business weeks."

"Five to eight weeks?" I pinch the bridge of my nose, glancing at the annulment papers that had arrived overnight. "A Penalized Severance processes in a matter of hours."

"The Department prioritizes punitive actions and supernatural incarcerations, ma'am," the clerk recites, sounding incredibly bored. "Voluntary continuation is considered a non-essential status change."

Bureaucracy is bureaucracy, regardless of species. The government is always infinitely faster at punishing people than it is at helping them.

Jagger emerges from the shower wearing a towel that barely qualifies as a washcloth on his frame. Water tracks down the rune lines, pooling in the grooves of old scars. He smells like my lavender soap. On him it reads less spa day, more extremely well-groomed siege weapon.

"I need to go to the office," he says. "Pick up my open case files. Renegotiate my contract terms."

"What terms?"