Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
Eric
No one had said anything about my disappearing act on solstice, mostly because the majority of the partners had called out sick anyway. Just like no one said anything when I left in the middle of the day and caught a cab across town to the CVPD station either.
Walking in, I went up to the officer at the desk. I kept all the rage I felt locked down tightly, but the human behind the desk still eyed me warily. “Good morning, I’d like to speak to Officer Nextra, if I may?”
“Is it in relation to a case?”
“Somewhat. Unfortunately, attorney-client privileges prevent me from telling you more, but Officer Nextra would wish to see me.”
The woman looked me over, and I could see long held prejudices in her eyes. I was an orc, I shouldn’t be wearing an expensive suit. I should be making moonshine in my bathtub and fighting in the parking lots of abandoned Blockbusters.
I wondered if Nextra faced that kind of judgment daily.
“I’ll call him down.”
I smiled at her politely, though maybe I showed a little more tusk than I normally would. “Thank you.”
Stepping back toward the waiting area, I pulled out my phone and answered a few emails. A message appeared.
Hailey: Heading home with Otis and Syke. Have a good day at work. XO
A smile curled my lips, and the rage that had been festering in my chest eased a little. I probably wouldn’t punch Nextra in the face within the first five seconds of seeing him.
Probably.
Me: Can’t wait to see you tonight. Let me know if there is anything I should pick up for our first official night in our home as a clan.
I added a heart emoji and pressed send just as someone muttered, “Voight.”
My eyes snapped up to a face that I knew intimately. Well, not Buck’s, but all the Nextra sons looked exactly alike, a copy/paste of each other.
Pain twisted in my chest. I’d loved his brother once, even though I now realized I had no idea what love was back then.
Freddie was dead, though, and it might have been indirectly my fault, but Freddie was an equal, enthusiastic participant in his own downfall. The only person who was truly to blame was my father.
“We should talk outside,” Buck said and walked toward the automatic doors. Leaving the precinct might be a bad idea, considering he could want revenge for Freddie’s death, but there were enough cameras around here that it should keep him in line.
We walked down a side alley, but I stopped before we were hidden from the street. “If you think I’m going down a dark alley with you, Buck, you’re fucking insane.”
Buck let out an annoyed grunt. “I’m a fucking officer of the law, Eric. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah, because that’s never happened before in the history of the CVPD.” I prosecuted a case of police brutality against a herd of satyrs last year.
“Get down here before you get another one of my mother’s sons murdered by your psychopath of a father,” he growled, and guilt flooded through me.
Freddie had loved his mother, an odd thing within the orc world.
Most of the time, female orcs moved as far away from their birth clan as possible.
Few bonded, but even if they did bond, a lot remained secluded from the clan and their bonded mates.
I didn’t blame them at all. Clan life was brutal and violent.
Most sent their sons back to the rest of the clan when they became teens, but I knew Buck and Freddie’s mom had kept them longer than most. Maybe that was why they were both different from the rest of orc kind.
I didn’t know the answer, and honestly, at this point, I didn’t care, but I walked farther down the alley.
“I know Freddie didn’t die in a car accident like the king said and that he was beaten to death. I had to identify his body. I know what a car accident looks like.” Buck took a deep breath. “And I know you and Freddie were fucking. I told him not to, but Freddie was young and stupid.”
Bile crawled up the back of my throat as I remembered the mess that remained of Freddie’s face. “None of that is my fault,” I choked out.
“I didn’t fucking say it was,” Buck growled. “If you’d just fucking listen—”
I’d had enough. “You listen. You fucking tracked down my mate, and then she was attacked less than thirty minutes later. Someone tried to cut her fucking throat with a knife, and she’ll be scarred forever.
I don’t believe in coincidences, Buck, so if this is some kind of sick retribution for Freddie—”
“Someone attacked your bond mate?” he asked, rearing back. “That had nothing to fucking do with me, I swear. I just wanted her to pass on a message.”
I snorted derisively. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you believe.” Buck sucked in a deep, steadying breath.
“I don’t have much respect for humans, but I don’t fucking hurt women to get my point across.
” Well, that wasn’t the standard orc response either.
“Look, Eric. What I want to talk to you about borders on fucking treason, and they won’t even try to fake my death as anything else but a stomping by the king, but you and I know that the clan needs to change.
Orcs need to change. We are a fucking cesspool on our way to extinction, and we believe it’s the way it’s always been, but it isn’t.
I’ve seen orc clans in other countries, and they aren’t run like a fucking lawless pack of rabid beasts.
That is purely because of your father and the king before him. They are keeping us down.”
I stared at the fire burning in his eyes and heard the earnestness threading through his voice. He really believed what he was saying. “I wish you the best of luck, but I don’t have a clan anymore. I have a family, and I am not risking them for whatever fucking bullshit you have planned.”
“No loyalty to your species at all?” he snapped, and I frowned.
“Because my species has treated me so fucking well all these years? When has ‘my clan’ ever shown any loyalty to me? Fuck you, Buck. I’m sorry about Freddie, and I hope you accomplish what you are trying to achieve, but leave me out of it.” I turned and walked back to the end of the alley.
“I’ll tell the COC that you bonded the girl without her consent.”
I froze at the mouth of the alleyway. Turning, I glared at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I can do math, read reports, and connect dots, Eric. It’s kind of my job.
I know the girl called the crisis hotline because her neighbor hadn’t appeared in a couple of days.
Her neighbor, not her mate. The dates don’t match up.
” He grimaced like blackmail was below him, when in reality, it was right in the orc clan wheelhouse.
“If you don’t help me, I’ll tell the COC where to look. ”
I hissed through my tusks. This fucking joker.
I marched down the alleyway. “What in the hell do you want me to do? I can’t fight a dominance battle for you, unless you want to lose.
I am persona non grata in the clan. I have no sway over the people there, unless you want them to turn against you by default.
If it’s the influence of my mother’s clan you want, I don’t even know the woman.
I wouldn’t recognize her on the street.” I was spitting the words now.
“So tell me, Buck, what can I do for you?”
“I want you to go to the Supreme Council and fight for the orcish right to vote democratically for their king rather than battle by blood as it stands now.”
My jaw unhinged, and I gaped at him. I couldn’t have been more surprised if he asked me to strip naked and do the hokeypokey. “What?”
“And then I want to run for king and bring the orcs into the civilized twenty-first century. I want the women to feel safe enough to stay within the clan. I want the kids to be able to go to school, get their arms set at hospitals, and have a life that is beyond running drugs for your father. I want someone to offer them hope, and until it’s someone else, I want it to be me… to be us.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” I hissed. “They’ll kill you, but before that, they’ll kill me and my mate and everyone I’ve ever had a conversation with.”
He shook his head. “They can’t kill you without breaking your parents’ breeding accords.
You might not know your mother, but I’ve done my research.
Their clan is stronger than we are. They have been looking for a reason to take over for decades, and your father knows it.
He’ll be between a rock and a hard place, but he’s a greedy fuck, so he’ll choose the devil he knows. You’ll be safe.”
But not my family, not Hailey. I shook my head, but Buck reached out and grabbed me.
“I’m just asking you to think about it. You could make the world better for orc kids like yourself and Freddie, for all the female orcs who live in fear that the rest of the clan will eventually tire of leaving them in peace and take what they want…
and for the kids like me and Freddie, who come from a mother’s love into the cold reality of selling crack on street corners.
It’s a long road, but we can’t take the first step without you. ”
Fuck. Fucking fuck. “I’ll have to talk to Hailey and the rest of my family first. This is going to affect them whether you believe it will or not.”
Buck raised both his hands like I was a spooked centaur. “That’s all I ask.”
I turned and left, moving quickly to the next street over. When I climbed into the back of a cab, I finally let myself breathe. I couldn’t do what Buck asked. I didn’t owe him, the clan, or orc kind anything. I wouldn’t do it.
Could I sleep easily, though, knowing there were orc kids of Central Valley who hadn’t yet been beaten into being something they weren’t just so they could survive, wondering why no one was coming to save them?