Free Darkness Bound by J. T. Geissinger Page B

thinned. Looking directly at Hawk, he said coolly, “Your logic is impeccable, Morgan. Well done.”
    Hawk tried hard to look crestfallen, but guessed he probably just looked constipated because Alejandro stared at him with venomous intensity like a cobra just before a strike.
    But it was Morgan who went in for the kill.
    “And I think to add credence to her sudden change of opinion, this reporter should be brought here to live with us. To observe us. So when she tells the world how wonderful we really are, she has a response when they ask, ‘How do you know?’ ”
    Hawk’s mouth wasn’t the only one that dropped open. All around the room, mouths gaped. Eyes rounded. Faces stared back at her in disbelief. There were a few low, horrified gasps, some nervous chuckles, a lone curse from one of the older Assembly members, whose astonished face had blanched white.
    “Live with us?” Hawk blurted, dropping his feigned scorn for true incredulity. Was she insane? “Morgan, that’s just crazy. We can’t have a human come live with us—”
    “Why not?” She turned to gaze at him in steady self-confidence.
    “We’ll be completely exposed, that’s why not! I mean, consider for a minute what could happen. Even if she does agree to it and comes here, there’s no guarantee she won’t tell anyone our location. In fact, why wouldn’t she? Blackmailed and kidnapped—I assume she’d have to be kidnapped; she’s not gonna come waltzing through the jungle on her own—and held against her will, forced to write something she doesn’t believe. You think this woman is just going to keep our location a secret? And even if, for some unfathomable reason, she did keep our location a secret after we released her, there’s a few people I can think of who would have absolutely no problem getting it out of her! In some pretty nasty ways! Don’t forget, there’s a huge bounty on all of our heads! We can’t live with humans.”
    That’s when Morgan played her trump card. “The Queen thinks we can.”
    Hawk’s jaw closed with an audible snap . The room fell into crackling silence.
    Ah yes, the Queen. Their powerful, liberal, half-human Queen, the mere mention of whom had the entire room sitting up straighter in their chairs, soiling their underwear.
    Including the Alpha.
    Aside from Morgan and Xander, Alejandro was the only one present who’d ever met the Queen. To hear it told, she was so stunning and powerful he fell at her feet and sniveled like a teething baby.
    In a quiet, menacing voice, Alejandro said, “The Queen is not here.”
    “She will be. Soon,” said Thiago, the young man in charge of building the new compound that would house the Queen and her family. She’d given birth to twins a few months back, and hadn’t been able to relocate to Brazil until the babies were old enough. They were expected within weeks.
    Morgan nodded. “And I daresay, it would reflect so well on you, Sire, that you had the foresight and compassion to bring this reporter here in the hopes of giving humans a better understanding of our kind. I know the Queen well. This is exactly the kind of thing that would please her.”
    With an air of virgin innocence as false as a pair of wooden teeth, Morgan folded her hands together at her waist, smiled at the Alpha—gazing up at him demurely from beneath a fringe of black lashes—and stood waiting for him to speak.
    And Hawk saw the genius in her plan.
    Alejandro was now in a pickle of epic proportion.
    If he agreed to Morgan’s plan, he’d look weak. Weakness was the one thing an Alpha could never show, because it would call his entire rule into question. But if he disregarded the plan, he risked the Queen’s displeasure. And a creature who could turn not only to panther and Vapor, but also to any animal she wished, to any element, to any thing— including her currently favored form of a fire-breathing, enormous white dragon—was not a creature you wanted to piss off.
    Hawk watched