Bladed Magic by J.C. Daniels Read Free Book Online

well.
    “He’s been arrested. Why hasn’t he been charged?”
    His laugh was caustic and his anger stung my skin. “Well, you see, it wasn’t priority for the cops. Cops are human. They have human priorities. Our pal Larry falls into that weird grey area—if he wasn’t a scum-sucking pervert, I might feel bad for him. He’s been fired from multiple jobs, mugged and had the shit beaten out of him multiple times. Labeled a pariah because he has an ability that people decided made him NH—he’s got a weak psychic gift, you see.”
    I curled my lip. “Psychic ability is found in the human populace. Doesn’t make a person non-human. Not by human law and not by the Charter.” The Charter was the laws created by the Assembly. People lived—and died—by the Charter, or they did once they decided they wanted to be part of the Assembly of NHs. Being a member had its advantages, the protection that came with those laws. It had its disadvantages, too. Like being registered . I wasn’t too keen on the idea of putting my name down anywhere.
    “Trust me, I’m aware.” Justin continued to study White’s victims. “Thus the reason for the stipulation. White is human. Plain and simple. His ability is strong enough to make him useful, which is why he was shacking up with the wolf you tangled with. But he’s still just human. And the cops don’t care if a psychic goes around preying on little kids—if those little kids are NH.”
    The fury that punched through me felt hot enough to set the room afire.
    “They just let it go,” I murmured. “They turned away.”
    “Yeah.” Justin inclined his head. “They turned away.”
    He glanced at the wall behind me and then said softly, “Your ten minutes are almost up. Are you ready to go?”
    “No.” I had to force it out through clenched teeth. I wanted to be ready to go. But I couldn’t walk away now.
    And damn the bastard, he knew it. He continued to stand there, thumbs tucked into his pockets. “The son of a bitch was lucky enough to hook up with a wolf who could and would kill for him, as long as he proved himself useful. A few of the girls had parents who came looking for him and they did track him down, only to get gutted by the wolf. He was a lone wolf—didn’t belong to the Wolf Pack that lives in East Orlando. That, my darling Kit, is a fucking shame. If he did, both the wolf and White would be nothing but a bloody memory. The MacDonald doesn’t hold with child abuse. The victims’ parents got together—a couple of them were witches and they were sort of the key there. They put two and two together, figured out what was going on. One of the victims was a baby cat—her parents were in the Cat clan and they tried to go to the Alpha, but…”
    Even I’d heard about the Alpha of the Cat Clan. She was a psycho. She might care if one of the victims was somebody related to her. Other than that? Nope. “She didn’t care.”
    “Worse. She beat the father for wasting her time on such a trivial matter and the mother went out alone. They still haven’t found her body.”
    Shoving my fist against my palm, I closed my eyes. Sometimes I hated this world. It was better than the hell I’d run away from, but not by much. Not always.
    “How did you get involved?” I asked.
    “The witches. One of them knew me. They asked me if I’d help.” He moved closer to the board and lifted a hand, touched the face of one child. The girl had red hair, falling in soft waves to her shoulders. Her eyes were a softer green than Justin’s and she had a smile so sweet and gentle, it hurt my heart to look at her. “They offered me what they could afford, then they told me about White.”
    He turned to look at me. “I’m not taking their money. I don’t need it. I make a decent living at this, but if you help me, I’ll give you a cut of what they offered.”
    “I…” I stopped, unsure of what I was going to say. Finally, I shook my head. “I don’t know how to do