Page 2 of Cruel Revenge (Jacky Leon #12)

CHAPTER TWO

W hile getting back to Denver was a long drive, once we got to the pack house, it was fast getting home.

We’d taken a Tribunal door to the pack house, and now we could use it to get home.

Heath talked to the Denver Alpha for just a moment, out of earshot of everyone but me, though I was surprised to realize the Denver Alpha, whose name I couldn’t recall, didn’t know this.

While they talked, the werewolves turned in all the equipment we borrowed from the pack, making sure everything was accounted for.

I was the only one who got to sit down and relax after the raid, a perk of being the only werecat in the building, perhaps the city at all.

“Heath… we just need a little bit of money. We’re not a wealthy pack. I would have better vehicles and gear for everyone if I had some extra funds to spend on them.”

“It can be arranged, but Callahan and Corissa implemented the accounting for those types of gifts and loans. You balked at the idea of that oversight.”

“It’s just foolish. I’ve been an Alpha for a long time and never needed help like this or oversight. Why can’t I just have the trust of the Tribunal, who is supposed to look out for us?”

“Those are just the rules,” Heath said mildly, and I couldn’t smell him.

I wasn’t too far away, which meant Heath was keeping how he really felt to himself, letting his relaxed body language and perfect, benign poker face do the talking for him.

Anyone who knew Heath knew he was the most dangerous when he seemed the least threatening in these moments.

Not everyone knew Heath that well, though.

He was certainly very famous, but most people only shook his hand a few times, promised to continue behaving as he entered the Tribunal, and moved on.

They didn’t know Heath Everson the way I did.

“Well… maybe there’s something we could work out,” the Alpha said, clearly not realizing he was dealing with a brick wall of an Alpha.

I knew the truth, which was that Heath didn’t like the werewolf. The reasons why I didn’t know yet, but that was only because we had been too busy in recent days for Heath to explain his distaste for the man.

“Has everything been given back to his second?” I asked Livia nearby, not bothering to try to keep my voice down for the quiet mood that had descended on the werewolves.

“Yeah, everything is accounted for,” Livia replied, looking over her shoulder at me.

“Heath, we’re ready for you to get us out of here,” I called out toward my mate, breaking the Alpha’s train of thought, making him narrow his eyes on me before he could try to offer my fiancé a deal.

“Wonderful. We’ll continue this conversation later, once things have finally settled down with our enemies among the witches.

” Heath patted the Alpha on his shoulder once before turning away, firmly dismissing the man.

“Everyone gather around,” he said, not raising his voice.

Thanks to me, every werewolf was ready to leave, waiting for his call to go.

I ignored the stink eye from the Alpha and left first, entering the pristine, expensive space of the Tribunal, the small world removed from the rest of the world, created by powerful fae magic.

It was a place I was growing more familiar with than I ever wanted to, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as it had been the first time I had seen the space—at my trial, the one that forced Hasan back into the public eye to keep me out of trouble.

And look how far everything has gone since then… It’s like I half live here now, like he does. The only thing stopping some of us from staying is the lack of beds at this point.

There were no bedrooms in the Tribunal unless a room was quickly made into one, thanks to extenuating circumstances.

It was always active here, a place that never slept.

There were always staff members on duty, dealing with requests, looking into different problems around the supernatural world, and coordinating the Tribunal’s rule over the entire planet.

Each Tribunal member brought in their own staff, carefully chosen and paid by them, and then they came together, started a fund that was the Tribunal’s as a collective, and paid staff through it as well, runners who worked for all of them.

It was a complicated system that was only replicated once with the Market, the fae black market that became an everyday fact of life for all other supernaturals, which was the reason it couldn’t be shut down, no matter what the fae royals wanted.

It was a well-oiled machine, yet it was also bogged down by silly idiosyncrasies and bureaucracy, like every government.

Here, policy could be decided by a few shared glances between the immortals who have known each other for hundreds, or even thousands, of years.

Or an entire war could be fought and decided before anyone summoned an army.

On the other end, there were cases of things taking months or even years to move into the next stage or make any progress because when a supernatural ruled the world, no one could stop them from being petty.

It made sense to me that Hasan spent most of his waking hours here, dealing with the endlessness of it all, constant emergencies coming up that required his input, things he never spoke of to the family unless it impacted them directly.

Once inside, I left behind the werewolves, planning to meet with Heath later. I went straight to Hasan’s office, hoping to use it.

“Hey, can I get a door to check on my siblings before I head home?” I asked as I walked into the office, completely ignoring whatever he had been doing.

“I am in the middle of a conversation,” he said very carefully.

I didn’t even look. I could smell who was there and decided I wasn’t dealing with him today.

“Please? Zuri and Jabari have gotten to see them and left today, and they won’t be hosting me for longer than a few minutes. This is my only chance. I was busy planning for the raid when they got cleared for visitors, and I do want to get home to my territory sooner rather than later.”

“I’m sorry to say that your eldest siblings descending on them last week has made them bad company. Once they shoved the twins out of Mischa’s home this morning, they made it very clear they wouldn’t take any more drop-ins to check on them. Not even from me or your mother,” he explained.

“Wow.” That I didn’t know yet. “What did they do?”

“It’s Jabari and Zuri. If you were severely ill for several months, what do you think they would do to you when they finally could see you?”

“They aren’t fully healed, either, just no longer contagious,” the King of the Fae interjected.

“No one was talking to you,” Hasan said before I could. “She didn’t direct anything she said at you, so don’t open your mouth right now. I don’t need you two at each other’s throats right now. I have more important things to do.”

“I would win,” Brion said mildly.

“In your dreams,” I muttered.

“That could be arranged,” Brion threatened very softly.

Hasan’s growl told me it was time to leave. It wasn’t directed at me, but Hasan was right; there were better things to do than pick fights with the King of the Fae, no matter how much of a piece of shit he was.

“I’ll call them,” I said quickly, leaving him to whatever conversation he needed to have with the fae.

Hasan and Brion were once friends. I was the wedge between them, not that I wanted to be or chose to be.

Brion was really the reason I became the wedge, and since then, more has come out about Brion’s schemes involving moon cursed through the ages, such as the Black Forest and Niko’s involvement in it.

I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like the fae king, which was why Hasan didn’t get angry with me anymore about being rude to the king.

But they were both Tribunal members. Hasan and Brion had to deal with each other thanks to that. We all had to accept that.

My plans to visit my siblings dashed, I went to find Heath, now with nothing potentially stopping me from going home. He was already in his office, several of Corissa’s werewolves and a few Tribunal staff members there, all wanting orders from the Alpha.

“I want transcripts of the interrogations within two hours of each one finishing. Find the people to be there and make sure I have those,” Heath was saying as I walked in.

“I also would like to stop receiving requests to hire more staff. I have a small pack, and the Tribunal needs to approve their clearance to work for me here if able.”

“Still on that?” I sighed. “Who’s holding it up?”

“Brion,” Heath answered without hesitation.

I nearly turned on my heel to go back to Hasan’s office for words with that fae but stopped short as Livia shook her head.

“Don’t. He’ll make it slower,” she said, rolling her eyes at a man who wasn’t even in the room.

“He does it to everyone .Whenever someone needs to add people for things or replace staff, he’s slow to get it done.

Others have to start leaning on him. Corissa had a meeting with him yesterday about clearing Heath’s pack to join the Tribunal’s allowed staff. ”

“And Hasan was just having a meeting with him…” I said, groaning.

“Oh? Hasan has never helped anyone with this before,” Livia said with a snort. “Well, you’re here. It makes sense in a… fathers are willing to move mountains sort of way.”

“Jacky and I also have… a complicated history with the fae king,” Heath said.

“That’s putting it nicely,” I said, not bothering to mask my derision for the fae we were discussing. “Well, hopefully, it gets worked out sooner rather than later. They’re all getting antsy back home, not able to follow you here every day.”

“I know.” Heath handed off a piece of paper to Livia. “This is for Callahan. I approved the NAWC schedule he proposed. I’ll be at every meeting, even if it’s just to sit in and listen. Corissa probably wants to see it as well.”

“She had her input into it already, but she’ll be glad to know you also find these dates workable.” Livia took it, turned on her heel, and marched out, her professionalism militaristic.

Heath waved the rest of the staff away, leaving us alone, the office suddenly quiet.

“I assume you’re as ready as I am to get home,” he said with a small smile, holding out a hand.

“I am,” I said, leaning to put my head on his shoulder as I took his hand.

“It’ll be busy and loud… we might not have a moment alone until much later. Perhaps we can enjoy one right here for a minute.” As he spoke, his words dipped into a deeper octave, husky and sensual at the end, promising he would make keeping us in the office worthwhile if I wanted him to.

“And risk Hasan coming in?” I asked, chuckling as he grumbled at my point. I tilted my head and kissed his cheek. “Plus, good things come to those who wait.”

He grabbed my chin, making sure the return kiss was deep, and I couldn’t run from it until I was breathless.

“Just for you to think about,” he murmured before releasing me, my cheeks flushed.

“For one small second, I was worried the Tribunal was going to make us too busy for that sort of behavior, but that was foolish of me,” I said as he reached for the door.

He smiled, not opening it immediately.

“Making your toes curl is a highlight of my day. I will always make time for it.” He started opening the door. “Let’s take some free time now, actually.”