Free Extermination (Daniel Black Book 3) by E. William Brown

until you and Daria get the hang of it. Daria, have you found any of the local fences yet?”
    Daria looked a little shamefaced at that. “Um, yes. Fayvel Roth’s shipping concern deals in a lot of different goods, and he doesn’t ask questions about where things came from. But I swear I haven’t been stealing from you, milord. I just, um, picked up a few things on the trip to Kozalin.”
    “I’m not worried about it, Daria. I trust you.”
    She seemed a bit taken aback at that, but Cerise gave me a knowing grin.
    “Yeah, we know you aren’t stupid Daria. So, want me to run this for you, Daniel?”
    “That would be a huge relief, if you feel comfortable managing this kind of thing,” I told her.
    “Awesome. I haven’t actually done it a lot, but I know the theory and it’s one of the things my magic is good at. Can I use the wolfen, and maybe some of Corinna’s girls now and then?”
    “Sure,” I agreed. “Just remember we need the wolfen for other things too. We’ve got work parties going out to gather lumber a lot, and I don’t want them crossing the river without a couple of wolfen along to check for ambushes. Although now that I think about it, Corinna’s dryads could probably handle that too.”
    “That’s what I’m thinking,” she agreed. “Split the scouting work between the two groups, so they have time for drinking and information gathering on the side. If we start pairing them up for work I bet the shortage of wolfen girls will stop being a problem, too.”
    Gronir mumbled something indecipherable. Daria smiled tolerantly. “Probably so.”
    “One last thing,” Cerise went on. “Can we recruit agents when a good chance comes up? I think we can get a lot of people on our side with just a few bits of help here and there. Heal a few people, promise them a place on the island if the city falls, things like that.”
    I shrugged. “Sure, as long as it doesn’t take a lot of my time. Just be careful not to attract attention doing it.”
    That launched Cerise on a detailed explanation of how to go about recruiting informants without getting caught at it, and by the time she was done I was convinced that she knew a lot more than I did about the subject. So I left it in her hands, and turned my attention to other things.
    I’d been wanting to have a real planning meeting with my girls, but we were all so busy it was hard to find the time. Especially since there were topics I wanted to touch on that I didn’t want aired in front of the rest of my staff. My chance finally came the next evening, after the coven’s nightly spellcasting session.
    Avilla and Cerise had a long list of magical wards in their respective grimoires, all of them designed to be cast by a coven. We’d begun erecting some basic protections against scrying and long-range curses during the snowstorm, but we had a long way to go before any of us would really feel that the island was secure. It was certainly a fun project to work on, though. The blending of power that was central to coven magic was a heady experience, exhilarating and intimate and often quite arousing. Casting wards didn’t call for as close a merging as the ritual that created the coven bond in the first place, but sharing emotions with four sexy women who all wanted me would have sorely tested my self-control if it wasn’t so exhausting. I could certainly see why coven members tended to be so promiscuous with each other. I’d been tempted to work out a magical solution to the fatigue issue a time or two, and I knew Tina and the witches would be game.
    But our Elin wasn’t ready for anything adventurous yet.
    So instead we were all lounging about in the master bedroom while we recuperated a bit. Cerise and Avilla were snuggled up together on my bed, with their clothes on the floor and a blanket hiding whatever sneaky mischief they might be getting up to with each other. Tina had draped herself across the foot of the bed, while Elin perched in one of the