13. Cindercorns are not supposed to like being wet. #4
“She opted to become a gorgon, and she kidnapped someone else’s bride. As such, she was put to death according to gorgon law. Let’s just say she wasn’t bright, and she got a better end than she deserved.”
Kendra sighed. “I told her not to fuck around with gorgons. Gorgons make our worst laws look like child’s play.
She said she’d come up with some way to almost guarantee someone becomes a gorgon, and she wanted to test it on me.
I refused. She tested it anyway.” The woman checked her hands.
“Well, it doesn’t look like I’ve become a gorgon at least. Not like that poor woman over there. ”
“She’s a natural gorgon. Her name is Annie, and that’s her father. She was taken from his hive.”
“Oh.” Kendra had the base decency to grimace. “Then that was quite rude of me. I’ll apologize to her later. I thought she was one of the willing experiments. Still, your wife? Well, ex-wife? Pretty shitty.”
“Yes, she was. You picked a pretty shitty woman to be your friend.”
The pair looked at each other and burst into laughter.
I contemplated the various ways I could make my husband pay later.
“Who is your girlfriend? She looks ready to blow her top.”
“She’s always a little cranky,” my husband said, and without looking at me, he held out his arm and waggled his fingers at me. I considered biting him—or transforming into a unicorn and sitting on him.
I heaved a sigh and stepped closer, holding out my hand to Kendra. “I’m the nice woman who fixed your petrification problem, as I’m immune to gorgons and their various tricks.”
Kendra shook with me, looking me over. “You’re Bailey Gardener, then. I’ve heard about you. Audrey mentioned something about you corrupting her husband. In the next breath, she’d rant about how you’d be the perfect bride for her hive.”
Wait. I had corrupted him? I considered Sam with a raised brow. “I’m not sure I’m all that good at corruption. She’s not wrong about the perfect bride for gorgons.” I stared my husband in the eyes. “Right?”
“You did just fine with your corruptions.”
“Are you trying to be confusing on purpose, Sam?” I asked. Why hadn’t he fessed up to being my husband? Did he want me to show him how jealous I’d get in a heartbeat?
Oh. Right. My gorgon-incubus doohickey liked when I became jealous. Sighing, I shook my head at his antics.
“It is one of my joys in life. Don’t worry so much.
Kendra likes when I’m difficult. I’m just acting normally for her.
If I acted like we were best friends and showed too much concern, it might freak her out.
Now that I’ve confused you both, I get to enjoy the show while you two figure out what the reality of the situation is. ”
Rather than argue, Kendra shrugged. “The few times we’ve met, we have annoyed each other significantly.
It didn’t help I told him he would have been better off marrying me, and that I would have slept with him every night without complaint.
I was honest with him. He’d married a snake.
Audrey was a bitch, but my mother liked Audrey’s mother and wanted us to be friends, so I was friendly.
Little good that did me. If you get a recorder, I’ll tell you everything I know about the bitch and her plans.
Well, not that it will do you any good, seeing as she’s dead. Deserved if you ask me.”
“It’s more that we’re trying to figure out how often she was banging Morrison, his involvement with her plans, and how deep the rabbit hole goes,” I replied.
Kendra regarded me through narrowed eyes. “You learned they were sleeping together? How?”
“Receipts,” I announced with pride. “She liked buying condoms from the pharmacy near his house. We even figured out which brand from their cost. And since Sam knew when she was cheating on him, it was easy to piece together.”
“How did you know?” Kendra asked.
I grinned while my husband squirmed.
“You’re liking this too much,” he complained.
“Well, yes. There is a very good reason for this. I know who—and what—I’m taking to a hotel tonight, and I really couldn’t be happier about it.”
“I’m confused,” Kendra stated.
“My father is a gorgon king although he is categorized as a human, Kendra. My grandfather is a rather powerful gorgon. Archambault Quinn. Audrey was not invited to learn about that part of my ancestry. My mother is the product of a triad.”
Kendra’s eyes widened. “Oh. So you’re part angel.”
“And part gorgon.”
“Most importantly, he is also part incubus,” I announced. “Add angel and incubus genes together, and he’s a walking loyalty detector among other things. Because of that, he knew exactly when his bitch of an ex-wife cheated on him.”
“Huh. So her gig was up before she’d even started it, really.”
My husband nodded. “I started tracking her infidelity early, and when I tired of her and her home pregnancy tests, I asked Bailey to gather evidence. She’s been dubbed the Calamity Queen for good reason, as she’s exceptionally good at finding things while disasters happen around her.
She doesn’t even cause most of the disasters.
She just stumbles her way into them. Bailey acquired the photographs I needed to proceed with my divorce.
Audrey and I had a civil divorce, she walked away with a lump sum of my choice, which was lower than the half she would have received had she not been cheating on me. ”
“It looks like you got a slow screw, too.”
“Not at all.” As I hadn’t played his game earlier, my husband snagged me around the waist and pulled me close.
I did my best to wiggle free, but he opted to use his unfair manly strength to pin me to his side.
“Now that we’ve done the customary dance, this is Mrs. Police Chief Quinn, my wife and future mother of my children. ”
“Future mother? Oh! Do you mean you’ll be having children? I guess it has been a long time. I’m happy for you, Samuel. I knew you liked children, but I just couldn’t see you having any with Audrey.”
“I couldn’t, either. Hell, I couldn’t even take her home to most of the family. She met my mother and father, and they played stupid. The rest of my family hid.”
“Smart of them, really.”
I strained against Quinn’s hold on me. “Did you put steel bars in your arms this morning?”
“No, I just like you where I have you, and I’m willing to show off to keep you where I have you.”
“I believe he’s attempting to, in a rather odd fashion, show me you have a different relationship with him than he did with Audrey.
With Audrey, he could barely tolerating touching her.
You’ve made your point, Samuel. Honestly, you were never the type, and I just never understood what you saw in her. ”
“I didn’t see anything in her. That’s why I married her. She kept the other sharks at bay.” My husband released me, although he captured my right hand in his. “We’re actually honeymooning, as our first was rudely interrupted. By Audrey.”
“How?”
“She kidnapped Bailey.”
Kendra winced. “I’m sorry, Bailey. By the time she turned me into a statue, she’d become cruel.
Had she not, I would have exposed her. She’d caught a gorgon male.
I think she wanted better dust—dust that could guarantee someone would become a gorgon.
The dust she had hadn’t worked on her other chief. ”
My husband sighed. “You mean Morrison.”
“Yeah, him. Watch yourself around that man, Samuel. He’s bad news, and he was using Audrey as much as she was using him. Of that I’m sure. I don’t know why he wanted to rule a gorgon hive with Audrey, but they were up to something—and they were willing to kill to accomplish their goals.”
We’d already learned that lesson, and I worried what else we would learn from those who’d been petrified and left to become mysteries.