For starters, I’d killed people. Bad people, to be sure, people who would have killed me, but the thing is, nice girls don’t kill people. Ever.
And I’d kissed someone other than my husband before the divorce was final, which in some ways was worse. Because I’d wanted to kiss those lips that still hovered in my thoughts. I hadn’t wanted to kill anyone—that had been sheer self-defense. Even my mother couldn’t completely deny that I’d been fighting for my life.
Thoughts of said kiss warmed me from my toes right up to the tips of my ears in a flash of heat that had me struggling to breathe normally. I drew in three long breaths as I tried to cool my body and my thoughts down. But the remembered touch of Remo’s lips on mine was hard to banish. I fanned a few papers at my face, trying to cool myself.
“How can you be hot in this miserable weather?” Tad asked as we hurried through the building’s main doors.
I was not about to tell him that my face was flushed from my memories of a kiss that would have melted the ironclad panties off a nun.
Finally breathing at a more usual pace, I managed to get my heart rate and mind back to some semblance of normal. I needed to focus, not fantasize.
Ahead of us was a swell of bodies, people coming and going in the wide hallway and lined up against the walls, whatever chairs there were filled to the brim. Everyone was here for some form of justice, just like me.
I paused and shivered. The smell of body odor lingered heavily in the air along with stale smoke, bad breath, and too much cologne and deodorant applied in an attempt to cover it all up. I coughed and Tad shot a look at me, his eyes wide as he grabbed one of my arms.
He dropped his head so it was close to mine. “Are you sick?”
“No.” I coughed again, wishing I could cover my mouth with something, anything. With my arms full of paperwork, it was all I could do to tuck my face against the sheets. “It’s the smell. This many bodies stink.”
A grunt at my shoulder spun me around. The faint musk of bear rolled up my nose, making the Drakaina in me tighten in prep for a strike. The bear shifter nodded at me. “Humans do stink in large numbers. You’ll get used to it, though. Just don’t breathe deep.”
I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll try that.”
Normally finding any Super Dupers on this side of the Wall was rare, never mind all in one place like the courthouse. But with Oberfluffel gone and his team of enforcers in shambles, any serious cases were being shipped to the local human courthouses. Of course, no one had told the humans.
Two more Super Dupers passed us, their eyes carefully averted. One was a vampire I didn’t recognize, and I overheard him thank the court registrar for scheduling his date for after dark. I glanced at my watch. It was closing in on five in the afternoon, the end of the day for the court, the end of the sun for fourteen hours, and the start of a vampire’s day. Which of course made me think of Remo and that smile of his. Dang, I had to get that man out of my head.
Tad relaxed his hold on me, and his words brought me back once more to the here and stinky now. “The smell isn’t too bad. Can’t be worse than family dinners with Auntie Janice and her crew.”
I grimaced and then slowed my pace so we stopped by a small alcove, a little bit separate from the rest of the petitioners. “That awful lavender perfume she wears. It never covers up the smell of mold. You’d think they’d notice it on their clothes.”
He nodded and laughed. “It’s like they roll around in it, all four of them.”
I grimaced. “Mom wouldn’t like us bad-mouthing them.”
Tad pointed at me. “Mom’s not here. Unless you want her role of Judgy McJudger Pants today?”
My lips twitched and I laughed. “No, thanks. I’ll pass.”
My brother leaned back. “You know that Everett lit Uncle Robert’s hair on fire? On purpose while he slept in his chair. I watched him do it, couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
I spluttered, “He did not.” Then I amended, “When?”
“When he was about fifteen. Would have made me twelve.” Tad laughed. “That’s why Uncle Robert wears his hair long; it covers the burn mark on the back of his neck. After Everett lit his dad up, he tried to blow out the flames, but that only made it worse. Of course that lavender perfume shit acted like an accelerant.”
I couldn’t help the laughter; I could just see Everett frantic with his big bug eyes as he tried to put the fire out while Uncle Robert yelled at him. Dad’s side of the family was . . . well, it was hardly straitlaced. “You think that . . . with Dad being a Super Duper that Uncle Robert is too?”
Tad shrugged. “No, I doubt it. They had different fathers.”
That they did. But a part of me wanted to believe that Uncle Robert was a Super Duper too. Mostly because I didn’t want to be the only black sheep in the family. Okay, me and Tad, since Dad was in denial, but still the numbers were against us.
“Maybe we should go visit them.” I shifted my hands on the stack of papers.
“Alena, what the hell are you doing here?” Roger’s voice whipped me around so fast I slipped on the false tile floor. A few papers fell from my file folders and fluttered to the ground in between my husband and me. Soon to be ex-husband, if I had anything to say about it.
Roger had brown hair and soft brown eyes, and there had been a time when I’d thought he was the love of my life. Of course, that was before he’d turned out to be a total—
“Asshole,” Tad snarled, stepping between us. “You brought your girlfriend with you to your divorce proceedings? Really? How much of a douche canoe are you? Never mind, no need to answer that.”
I blinked and looked around my brother, recognizing the woman behind Roger. Bottle-blond hair and blue eyes, tiny waist and too-long nails, and a rack the size of my biggest mixing bowls. She was pretty, I would give her that. If you liked three layers of makeup and clothes that were tight enough to make you think they were likely painted on in places.
I smiled and kept my tone sweet, though it was a struggle. “Hello, Barbie, how am I not surprised you’re here? Making sure the money comes through to you? I mean, that is the only reason you’re with him, isn’t it?” Oh, there was more than a little sting in seeing her. Even though I wasn’t the mousy church girl I’d once been, the pain of knowing he’d chosen her over me—even before I’d gotten sick—still lingered.
Barbie’s baby-blue eyes narrowed so far I thought she might have closed them. “You’re a freak, and you’re going to get nothing. Because it’s the law, and Rog is in the right.”
A tiny piece of me cracked, and words escaped me before I could filter them.
“And you’re a whore who is sleeping with Roger to get my money and my house.”
Her eyes popped wide and Roger sucked in a sharp breath. Tad laughed. “Oh yeah, let her have it, sis. Both barrels—and go.”