Chaos Burning Read Online Free Page A

submissive when she was being insulted over something stupid. And she could probably do it without being offensive. “It isn’t Gennessee’s intention to insult you. Your land is different. The challenges you face are different.” She looked to Nell, who thank goodness understood exactly why Lark was there.
    “There was a time when all hunters did was round up witches who broke the rules of the clan. But that job gets harder and more complicated every year because the world is more complicated. We live among humans and Others. Their crimes and problems bleed into our lives and we can’t ignore it. For instance, seven months ago one of our witches had thrown in with a group running a meth lab. Oh, true love. I had to send in a team to clean that up. Because I’d made connections with the local authorities I was also able to get them involved to clean up the biohazard the lab had created.”
    “My sister has less problems with being discovered by humans than I do.”
    Which was Edwina’s issue, Lark could tell by the way the other woman’s back stiffened. In any case, Meriel had warned her to be prepared for such an attack and so she was. She stood her ground. Gennessee had nothing to apologize for.
    “With all due respect, Ms. Owen, that doesn’t make it any less likely to happen. It’s not dependent on whether or not you believe in doing it. You tie the hands of your hunters when they’re not trained as they should be. They’re your best defense against external threats. Now we’re being hunted for our magick. We can be predators, or we can be prey. I know which I plan to be.”
    Meriel gave her a discreet thumbs-up.
    “If I may speak?” Nell stood and even with the swell of her growing belly continued to look entirely capable.
    “Yes, please do.” Meriel motioned to Nell to continue.
    “I’ve been quite open about my support for the idea of expanding our hunter teams to specialty units. I do believe that we’d have been far better able to meet the threat those mages posed us two months ago during that showdown if we’d had teams like Gennessee. We aren’t just sage-burning kitten huggers. We face threats darker and larger than we have in several centuries. We were not fully prepared. I think Lark can help us change that.”
    Meriel leaned back and looked them both over. Edwina stayed silent. Meriel had taken the reins of leadership of Clan Owen just a few months prior, but the changes had already begun.
    That had to be hard on mother and daughter both.
    “What is your sense of next steps then, Nell?” Meriel asked.
    “Lark and I have been working closely together over the phone and email since the attack in the warehouse. With the permission of the governance council I’d like to set up some special teams. Get them up and running, get people trained. Lark has offered to help with this project. And in addition, Lark and I, in conjunction with Arel from Rodas Clan and several other hunter team leaders across the United States and Canada, would like to set up one large unified team to deal with the threat the mages pose. We’ve got a turned witch on the loose who’s working with the mages. And that’s just the one we know about. There are others like Gloria Ochoa. There will continue to be others.”
    Dominic Bright, Meriel’s bond-mate and soon-to-be husband, finally spoke. “Nell and Lark are right. Times are changing and if we don’t change with them, we’re at risk. There are groups out there that want to harm us. We need to prepare for that.” His birth mother, Gloria Ochoa, had been a turned witch working with the mages. Because she’d used stolen magick so much, she’d turned, severed her connection to the earth and her own magick and had become a shadow of her former self, a monster seeking yet another fix. She’d tried to kill him during that showdown in the warehouse. And now she was dead. So there was that.
    Meriel took a deep breath and tapped her pen once. “Make it happen.