Helena paused, thinking that over. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way.” She smiled, buttering her toast. “He seriously misjudged her if that was the case. She gave him a black eye and then she dragged him, by the ear mind you, to me and told me what he’d done. She was so outraged.”

“He’s clearly lucky to be walking without a permanent limp.”

She smiled at Molly. “He is.”

“Things are better now. Well, not like in the big picture, which seems to be full of bombings and shootings and that sort of thing. But Lark and I are close again. I’ve missed that. She’s in Seattle though. But maybe . . . maybe it’s better that way.” Maybe Lark needed to be in a place where she could make her own decisions, which were clearly better than Helena’s choices anyway.

“She misses you a great deal. And I know what you mean about things being better, some things anyway.”

“Gage.”

Molly nodded. “Yes. We had some rocky moments. But in the end, he comes to me. He accepts his feelings and he’s at my side. I’m glad to have that. Especially now when things seem so dark. But back to Faine. Things are moving in a good direction. I like that because he’s a sweetheart and you deserve someone like him.”

“Well, don’t go registering us at department stores or anything. Just a kiss. Things are way too busy for anything else, and to be totally honest with you, I don’t know if I’m cut out for a relationship.”

Molly thought this was hilarious. “Not a kiss. Kisses. Which is different. Also, he’s not some twenty-four-year-old human. Lycians, like all alpha males”—she snorted—“they don’t play around like that. He’s four hundred. He and Simon, males like them, they know what they want and they will stop at nothing until it happens. He’s not smitten with you. Not only smitten anyway. He wants you. He watches you work and it’s clear he approves. I say ride that train because you need it.”

Helena guffawed. “You’re sort of dirty.”

Molly winked. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Ha. It’ll be our secret.”

Shortly after that they heard footsteps down the back stairs.

“Thanks for listening.”

Molly shrugged. “I can say the same. It’s what friends do. Also? Can’t wait to see the looks on their faces as they realize we’ve been talking and they don’t know about what.”

“My respect for you grows every time I see you.” Helena winked and went back to her breakfast as Faine and Gage entered the room.

TOSH didn’t see much more than Helena’s back and Faine to her right. Big dude, and so not like any shifter he’d ever seen. Then again, it wasn’t like he had a huge amount of experience with shifters.

Speaking of . . .

He looked to his left and caught Delilah’s profile. “You all right?”

The crowd all around them surged, but he trusted his people and Helena’s magick to hold it all back. When things were tense like this, he could sense Delilah’s otherness. The wildness in her eyes, just beneath her skin. It made him a little sweaty. In a good way.

But just then she was angry.

“I don’t spend ninety hours a week working for my constituents to have people call me names. Oh sure, we’re supposed to have thick skins, but how much deeper can these assholes dig, huh?”

He wanted to brush the hair away from her forehead, wanted to ease her stress. God knew there was enough to go around just then. Raised voices buffeted them from all sides, though he was pleased to note it wasn’t all negative. But Marlon knew how to pack a hearing room, he’d been doing it for years, and stupid, fearful people were easily manipulated.

Helena held a hand up, bringing them all to a stop. So serious, his friend. All business as she spoke to the capitol police officer who was at the side door where they’d entered the room. He nodded and Faine went first, two other guards followed and then Helena waved them forward.

“Remember the days when the worst thing about a hearing with Marlon Hayes was having to listen to his asshattery for an hour?”

Delilah giggled a moment and touched his shoulder. “Thanks for that. I needed the laugh.”

They moved to their seats at the dais and Helena settled a few rows higher with several other aides and guards. She’d gone into some sort of watchfulness, still, seemingly calm and relaxed, but he knew better.

“Funny how he doesn’t need bodyguards.” Tosh lifted his chin in Senator Hayes’ direction as the smarmy bastard glad-handed his way over. He shot a glare toward Molly, who was, this time, sitting on the panel with the rest of the experts.

“If he keeps pushing this agenda, he will. I’ve spoken with a lot of my people back home. Things are getting worse. If he pushes, he’s going to get way more than he bargained for. They keep underestimating people they themselves refer to as monsters. Which is a tactical error of epic proportions.” Delilah moved to her seat, just a row behind, and pulled her notes out.

It was and he knew it. The Others were done waiting around to be protected by their government and law enforcement. They were done being patient, and people like Marlon Hayes were too caught up in the power politics of appealing to the hateful fringe that they lost sight of what was really going on.

Toshio feared for everyone. For humans most of all, because they were afraid and he understood that fear. Understood, too, that witches like Molly Ryan were attempting to keep communication open between humans and Others to alleviate the fear.

Sadly, he also understood that it was humans like Hayes who were too eager to label that attempt at openness as some sort of manipulation. In the end, if humans didn’t reject the hateful assurances of Marlon Hayes and PURITY that they only had to corral the Others and detain them, treat them like animals and the problem would disappear—if they didn’t see it for the lie it was, it would be to their detriment.

There was no way. The humans could pass all the laws they wanted, but if they tried to enact them . . . well, there’d be open civil war with an enemy they could have easily kept as an ally. An enemy far more powerful than even hysteria pushers like Hayes could understand.

He blew out a breath and paid attention as the hearing was called to order.

HELENA kept an eye on the room as she listened to the hearing start up.

“This bill isn’t about harming the nonhumans, as they’ve preached to you. This bill is about protecting natural-born Americans. Real Americans who are human. You saw what they did with their little speech threatening us all. This bill doesn’t call to kill anyone. It will assure us all that these abominations are no longer allowed to live among us and hide their real agenda.”

Real agenda? Goddess, Helena rarely lost her shit, but she found herself having to hold it together instead of walking over and popping this fool in the face. She’d been trying for months now to get the Others to remember not all humans were this way. But people like Hayes and PURITY’s Carlo Powers were gaining traction, and that made it a lot harder to remember that.

It went on this way for some time longer until he finally shut up and it was Tosh’s turn.

“Two generations ago, my grandfather served this country in World War Two. He did so while his family was being held in a camp. He did so despite the fact that his pregnant wife had been removed from their home and his business had been taken from him. My father was born in a relocation camp and my grandmother nearly died because of the lack of real medical facilities and care. All because his last name was Sato. Even after the war was over and my grandfather, who’d been decorated twice, returned home, he had to spend the next several years getting his family’s life back on track because the government refused to return his business and he’d lost his home.”