Chapter 7

After the Long Hard Conversation, Bo had thanked Kristin and Lise profusely. She had seldom meant anything more. They had left her, reiterating that while she would probably feel bad for a while, it was important not to wallow in it so that she could actually work on being better rather be mired in past failures.

It was just as well she paid attention to this because the conversation had done a complete demolition job on her self-esteem. Bo, however, was nothing if not resilient and determined. She had defeated the Garuda. She would damned well not be defeated by herself. She knew she didn't have Lise's steady maturity or the way Kristin had of seeing things so clearly, but previously she had been lazy, not wanting to think about the hard stuff. While Bo's mind was not complex, she was not at all stupid even though sometimes she believed thinking wasn't her strongest attribute.

Now that she had actually lived through an example of how analyzing a situation was done right: rigorously, unsparingly, she felt able to attempt it all on her own. It made her just a tiny bit proud, feeling like she had taken a big step in growing up. She had worn the big girl clothes and weapons and fought really big baddies and had sex, but she hadn't had an adult mindset in her personal life. Well, she had to grow up sometime and what better motivation than to be the sort of partner Lauren might want? If they ever found her again, that is.

In the result, while Bo wasn't feeling especially charitable towards her friends, her resentment had abated, not wholly but a little, with the recognition that Lauren's state of mind was no one's responsibility but her own and Bo's. Tamsin and Dyson had wanted Bo. Hale could be a milk-and-water weakling with Kenzi and Dyson with whom he felt closest and would never have taken Lauren's side against either of them. But people were naturally self-interested, even Lauren, and they were entitled to be. It wasn't a fault, it was a necessity for survival. It was how far one allowed self-interest to eat away at justice and fairness that was the measure of a person.

And Bo herself had obviously wronged both Tamsin and Dyson. She had after all a succubus's advantages in securing lovers and wanna-be lovers. She was the one who knew they loved her and that she did not love them anywhere like she loved Lauren. So if, as her new friends had pointed out, by failing to squash their aspirations early on she had allowed them enough false hope that they might have been guilty of some horribly adult yet immature version of playground gloating to Lauren's face or worse, it was still she who was most to blame.

So she diligently went to cross off her first task in becoming a better person, apologise to Dyson and tell him that she wouldn't be feeding from him anymore unless it was life or death, Lauren's absence notwithstanding.

He was tremendously disappointed. Bo thought a mating bond being denied could hardly bring anything but pain but she'd been dilatory enough about cutting him loose. Despite the loss of his hopes, though, he was respectful and gracious. So she dared to bring up the tense conversation he'd had with Lauren in the Dal in the very early days, when she had sat between them regretting that she'd not spirited Lauren away, especially because Lauren had left immediately afterwards.

Now she said, "I was still new in town in then. For the first time ever, I could feed and heal without killing. It was really important to me and you know that. So you can understand that as a stranger in town, I didn't want to alienate you, one of the few people I knew then that I wouldn't kill and could believe wouldn't hurt me when I needed to heal. That's why I didn't take Lauren away for a more private drink and I should have. I was wrong in that. But that doesn't absolve you either. Social graces should have made you take off on your own initiative once you knew she was there at my invitation. And even if I was in the wrong to stay, I couldn't have expected what you did. It was a bar, not a schoolyard. For you to pick on Lauren for something she couldn't help when you had all the advantage, not because of any virtue you had but only because you had the sheer luck of being born fae, that was plain bullying. It was as far from noble or honourable as anything I've ever seen."

He closed his eyes momentarily. "I know, I know. I was a tool."

"Dyson, I understand you have this life debt thing going with Lauren now after what she did for you at Taft's. But I don't like to think that it took something like that for you to see how wrong you were, that you didn't have the sense of justice on your own before that to know that your behaviour to her was shitty. That awful conversation was hardly the end of it, was it?"

He said shamefacedly, "No."

"Bullying is cowardice, Dyson."

"Yes, like I said, I was a tool. I know that."

"So all that bullshit about Lauren not being to sustain me was just you being more of a tool? And if you make the excuse that it was true, I swear I'll slap you! You're more than a thousand years old. You must know damn well that's not what a relationship is based on."

His guilty look answered her before he could open his mouth and she held up a hand to stop him from speaking. "Never mind. Look, you know now that Lauren never deserved to be badly treated. She was deprived of her freedom by fraud because the fae valued her skills and didn't think it was enough to buy them honourably with an offer of employment to a human. You've always tried to come across as being a man of honour to me but honour is a lot more than physical bravery and that's mostly what I've seen from you. I appreciate that you went to the Norn for me and I'll always be grateful for it and everything you've sacrificed or been willing to sacrifice for me, but you can't always and forever be trading on that, as if it gives you licence for all shitty behaviour for the rest of time. A man of honour doesn't only show he's honourable to one person and hang everyone else out to dry. It's supposed to be a way of life that everyone can put their faith in, not an air to put on when you're sucking up to just one person."

She let him squirm on the hook of this devastatingly accurate cutdown for a long and satisfying minute. "So tell me how you think Lauren should be treated. Ignore your own interests; imagine I weren't around."

He thought about that seriously and then nodded just once, straightening his back. "I see your point. I'm ashamed of myself, Bo. I will apologise to her if I ever get the chance and you may trust that I will be better. Not just to her, but overall. I wasn't acting my age with her or in the least bit well. It's no excuse that I wanted you and the mating bond was acting on me as it did."

"What do you mean?"

"The hormones. It made me more ... pubescent, even in its formative stages." He flushed.

"Actually," Bo said thoughtfully, "to me, that's probably a better excuse than most, even though it's still not enough to put you in the right. I'm the last one to lecture you about resisting a biological imperative!"

They smiled thinly each other.

"Well," Bo said, "it's not my place to forgive you, that's for Lauren. But for what it's worth, this conversation required moral, not physical, courage and I do think well of you for it."

He managed a grin despite his broken heart. "It's given me a lot of respect for you too."

"There's one last thing, speaking of that mating bond," Bo said.

Dyson tensed.

"Dyson, as fond as I am of you, I'll still love Lauren even if she doesn't want me anymore or if she dies before I do." Bo flinched minutely at the very thought of that. "Point is, at the moment, I'm her Dyson. By the time I'm able to love someone else, and I don't know if I ever will, it could be years ahead. We'll all be different people in some way. I can't hold out hope for you. Can't you do something about it? It's a bit of burden to me, to be honest. I can't help feeling it's underhanded and you're hoping to guilt me into being with you and I resent it. I never asked for that responsibility or wanted it. I'd have told you that if you'd told me about it from the start as you should have."

"Bo, I did speak of the mating bond in the past tense."

"What?" Bo sat up straighter in hope. "You mean it's not there still?"

"No. When Kenzi got my love back, it was minus the bond. I guess that while the bond requires love before it can form, it's really something more … or different. So when the Norn took my love, she didn't take the bond, she took the conditions for its existence. That's my theory anyway. Whatever the truth of it, I just feel good old fashioned love for you now. I can work on that. It's not such a cast iron thing as the bond. So maybe it's a good thing all that Norn stuff happened."

Bo breathed more easily. "Why didn't you tell me? I've felt so bad for so long because of it."

"I'm sorry, really, but I honestly didn't know it'd make a difference, Bo. I mean, I still felt, feel, love." He gave a sad smile. "Does it help at all that the guilt might be justified because I still hurt anyway?"

"No," Bo said baldly.

They sniggered together morosely.

Bo liked him the better for being able to do that despite all he must be feeling. Now she'd vented a bit of spleen and the air was clear between them, she could appreciate his good qualities without guilt.

"Okay, so all the shitty behaviour after you got your love back, through all the time Lauren and I were together - you've got no excuse for that?"

He sighed and shook his head. "Nope. Not just a tool, but an unvarnished tool. I know, Bo. Not my proudest moments."

"Well," Bo sighed in her turn, "it wasn't as if I was a shining example of good behaviour myself. I can tell you mean it, so there isn't any point chewing you out any more. I'm still pissed, mind, and I gonna go on reserving judgment until I'm convinced you really have changed for the better. I just can't treat you worse than I've been treated since I was probably more awful than you ... and I see you're not jumping all over yourself to correct me on that."

He grinned. "Naw, you were pretty awful, I can let you have that! I'll be kinda glad to leave that all behind us both. Next time we have a drink, we'll toast to being the people we prefer to be."

She rose to go. "So we're still friends, right?"

"Always," he confirmed. They shook hands with warmth.

"Well," Bo said, "I have to talk to Tamsin next."

"You're outta luck," he remarked. "I don't think she's in town anymore now Hale's back."

Chapter 8

Several weeks after her talk with Dyson, Bo answered the knock at the front door to find a bike messenger.

"I have a delivery for Bo Dennis, Unaligned," he said, reading the back of the envelope in his hand. "To be signed for."

Bo signed. Inside the house she opened the envelope and withdrew a single sheet of stiff thick paper just as Kenzi came downstairs. They read it together.

"FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT TO ALL SIDES

The Dark Fae formally announce the appointment of Dr Lauren Lewis, formerly of the Light, to the Dark Fae Science and Medical Facilities, with special dispensation to keep fulfilled all pre-existing confidentiality obligations."

The Morrigan's title and signature were at the bottom, with an official looking stamp.

"Whoa!" Kenzi exclaimed. "Holy frickin' disaster!"

Bo threw down the announcement and headed for the door.

"Bo, where ya goin'?"

"I'm going after her, Kenzi, what do you think? You know what the Dark could do to her."

"Wait, wait, wait! Bo, if they were doing bad things to her, why would they announce it like that? Let's just see what Hale and Dyson and Trick have to say about it first."

Bo said over her shoulder, "Call them and you can talk to them. I'll drop you at the Dal on the way."

But when she rocked up to the Dark compound, she was met by a road barrier and firearms levelled at her a long, long way from arm's reach. They wouldn't allow her near them so she had to shout out her identity. It was to no avail and she retired in disarray. The Morrigan, it seemed, had changed her security protocols and had no love for Bo.

On her way back to the Dal, she tried calling the Dark Science and Medical facilities under an alias, which got her past the first question. When asked the reason for her call to Dr Lewis though, she utterly failed to come up with any convincing scientific inquiry that would merit being connected to the doctor.

Foiled a second time by petty minions of the Dark, Bo arrived at the Dal seething.

She found Trick, Dyson, Hale and Kenzi in a huddle by the bar and stormed up to them.

"Bo, stop it," Trick said sternly. "No one needs you flying off the handle, Lauren least of all. Calm down and listen and then we can make a plan."

Bo forced her ire died down to simmer, took a seat and nodded.

Hale said, "Bo, Lauren's safe for the time being so there no need for immediate panic."

"How can you say that?" Bo burst out. "They could be doing god knows what to her right now!"

"Bo, listen!" Kenzi insisted. "Hale, will you just cut to the damn announcement before she loses it?!"

"Right," Trick said instead of Hale. "You wouldn't know this Bo, but among the fae formal announcements are like blood oaths. If Evony wanted to get Light secrets out of Lauren, she wouldn't have said anything. She'd just have done it and we'd be none the wiser. If she's gone to the trouble of making a formal announcement, we can take it as a fact that Lauren is not being tortured for information."

Just that last phrase being spoken aloud made Bo's heart seize a little. Only the good sense behind what Trick said and his calm demeanour kept her from all out panic. "Are you sure?" she asked desperately.

"Yes, Bo. You don't have to worry about that. It's a measure of protection, unusual but effective. It dissuades the Light from taking the risk of sending assassins after her. Everyone knows Lauren wouldn't volunteer anything. Her previous patients all know she's a stickler for confidentiality and besides, telling Evony anything sensitive would just invite retribution. Lauren would know that and so do we all. So the only way would be to force her and Evony's just nixed that as a possibility."

"They wouldn't let me in to see her. They wouldn't even let me talk to her on the phone," Bo grumbled, still feeling thwarted.

"Look," Hale said. "The effect of the announcement is to tell everyone that Lauren has the protection of the Dark and no one from the Light needs to bother trying to get past Dark security to silence her because their secrets are safe. OK? Now can we work out the end game?"

"What end game?" Bo said.

Dyson's voice crossed hers. "There isn't one."

When they all looked at him, he said, "It's just a fact that she's with the Dark now. The Light isn't going to mount an attack and effectively declare war just to get her back. And anyway an attack would be the surest way to get her killed. There's no way around it. She's there and we have to accept that."

"But …" Bo couldn't stand the thought of knowing where Lauren was and still being unable to see her.

"Dyson's right," Trick said. "I'm sorry, Bo, but isn't the most important thing that she's all right? At least we know that now."

"I haven't seen that she's all right, Trick. If any of you had gone missing for months, I'd want to see you were all right with my own eyes too."

Dyson shook his head. "I just don't know how you'll do that, Bo, unless you can sneak in like you did before at the Light compound. But Hale and I can't be seen to help you without triggering a war. We can only help invisibly."

Bo was losing hope.

"Well, well, well … me mates in the Happy Sunshine Gang. Ding dong ding dong ding dong ding, brownies come to the pow-wow ring," Vex's voice sang.

Bo was on him before anyone could stop her. "What do you know about this, Vex?" She held him firmly by the collar and thrust Trick's copy of the formal announcement under his nose.

Vex tried jerking away but Bo held fast.

"Not the way to win friends and influence people," he scolded.

"Vex …" Bo tightened her grip.

"You really think I'm going to talk like this?" he challenged back.

Reluctantly Bo let go.

Vex straightened his collar in a huff and minced to the bar. "Hit me," he said to Trick, who poured him a shot of whiskey without demur.

"Come on, Vex!" Bo nearly shouted.

"Tch! Impatient!" Vex wagged an admonishing finger. "I'll talk to you and I'll talk to Hale but no one else. In fact everyone else might as well go home, because if you two don't blood-swear absolute secrecy, my lips stay sealed. And you, dog-boy," he pointed the finger at Dyson, "better not be listening if you don't want those blood oaths to bite your friends."

Dyson pushed himself away from the bar. "Fine. I have to get back to work anyway. Hale, I'll cover for you for now." Hale was back as his partner now that a permanent Ash had been appointed after a Stag Hunt Bo had refused to attend.

Vex drank his whiskey, watching Dyson leave. "Okay, outside," he said.

Hale and Bo followed him a good distance from the Dal. He kept going, testing Bo's patience. He took them all the way to the middle of a large greensward in a park before turning to face them.

"Okay," he said, holding out a penknife. "Inside voices. Swear that no one else shall, through your agency, know of what we speak now." His voice was unaccustomedly formal. He was serious. Bo took heart.

"Wait. I wanna be able to tell the others if Lauren's all right."

"As of yesterday when I saw her she was. Now swear."

She and Hale made their blood oaths.

Vex grinned. "What do you want to know?"

"How did the Morrigan get hold of her?" Hale asked.

"She searched."

"We searched," Bo pointed out.

"The Morrigan has plenty of searchers to spare. You don't," Vex shrugged. "You sure you want to waste time on that? Not like I have all day, y'know."

"When did she find her?" was Hale's next question.

"Coupla months ago," Vex waved a dismissive hand.

"Where does Lauren live?" Bo asked next.

"The Dark compound. A nice apartment, not a dungeon."

"Does the Morrigan have plans to harm her?" Hale asked.

Vex grinned hugely. "Nope. Now ask me why."

"Why?" Bo was too impatient to voice her irritation.

"Becau…uuu….se the good doctor has made Evony ….ding ding ding …. lose her powers!" Vex dropped this bombshell with glee and outspread arms. He crossed them back over his chest and surveyed its effect with complacency. It was all he could have wished for.

Hale's jaw dropped. Bo looked like someone had smacked her in the face with a fish. There was a short stunned silence. Then ...

"What?" they chorused, voices high as schoolgirls'.

"Yup. Now zippity doo dah, folks. Have to go!"

"No! Wait, Vex. When was this? How is Evony maintaining her position?" Hale could now understand why Vex had wanted his oath. It was warworthy news for the Light.

"Last week. The doc and I aren't talking and Evony sure as little apples won't."

"Why aren't you doing something about it? Last I checked, you weren't a fan, so why haven't you ousted her?" Hale asked.

"Tchah! You think I want to deal with paperwork?" Vex's scorn was magnificent. "Are you mad? She can't melt me anymore and she knows I won't keep my gob shut if she sends other people after me. That's all I care about."

"But … but … how? Evony wouldn't have let Lauren anywhere near her with a needle in her hand." Bo was so amazed she hardly knew what questions she should ask.

Vex's eyelid dropped in a sly wink and he leered. "You're a succubus. Use your imagination. I certainly did." He licked his upper lip with exaggerated lewdness and Bo felt ill.

"Just say it, Vex, and stop playing around!" she barked. "Did Evony force her …."

"Well, I wasn't there, was I? Just tellin' you what I think. It's a good story to my depraved mind. And now, I'm really off." He danced away.

"Vex!" Bo shouted. "What's her number?"

He flipped her off and Bo lunged towards him but he made her feet stand still and had disappeared by the time she could move again.