Courts and Cabals 2 G.S. D'Moore (the little red hen read aloud .txt) 📖

Wards and magic in general could be fickle like that. Not everyone wanted a stop-everything-that-tries-to-pass ward; especially if you had to pay for it to be constantly maintained and recharged. This area of magic wasn’t her specialty. She wouldn’t even come into her full power for another three years. Her mother hadn’t even begun her lessons on how a succubus could manipulate the energy in a person’s body. Still, her mother made sure all her children learned everything there was to know about every branch of magic there was. The best weapon in any battle was knowledge, and Venus Venitas was determined that her daughter be the best equipped warrior on the field.

In Lilith’s particular situation, the people who set the wards for the jail obviously didn’t want people to escape, but that didn’t mean they wanted to shock the prisoners every time someone touched the wall. If the ward reacted to every single impact, big or small, it would be out of juice in a couple days; which meant dinero to recharge. With what mages charged by the hour, that was not something the government was willing to pay. For the richest economy in the world, the US sure knew how to pinch pennies in the most interesting places.

The fix to this issue was setting a threshold where the ward only activated if enough power was applied. It was like magical computer code; if a preprogramed threshold was met . . . bam . . . no dice for whoever was fucking around.

Even worse, Lilith wasn’t one hundred percent confident she had the power to break the wards anymore. So, instead, she’d worked to identify any weak points in the magical matrix so her attacks could be surgical. What she was doing right now wasn’t an attempt to escape. The fallow was short, shallow, and lined up next to dozens of others.

“Time,” she thought, as she finished the hatch mark and stepped away from the wall. One more day, and she’d put a diagonal through this foursome.

In a way, that was the worst part about her stay in Clark County’s worst-rated establishment. There were no windows to watch the sun rise and fall. The only way to count the days was by counting her meals. Being a high-powered supernatural, she didn’t get any yard time. There was too big a chance she’d hightail it out of there.

“I almost did,” she thought, as she heard the beep of the door at the end of her cell block being buzzed open. Footsteps followed, and she knew they were for her. The only question was; who was coming to get her?

The soft glow of the magical key appeared in Carl’s hand, and she gave a sigh of relief. “You know what to do, Lilith,” he stated, and she assumed the position with her hands and feet in the yellow circles.

Carl was the gay guard who’d first imprisoned her. It didn’t take her long to notice he was one of the few decent people charged with guarding her. “Not like Bernie,” she hid the sneer as Carl did his routine pat down.

Bernie was the muscle-bound fuckhead who copped a feal every time he patted her down. She was also supremely confident that at some point, while she’d been asleep, he’d stood outside her door and wanked it to her. A man’s seed had a very peculiar smell to a succubus, and she didn’t need a DNA test to know who’d spanked the monkey to her. Of course, Bernie had no idea what he was getting himself into. She smiled when she thought of how things could play out.

“You’re clear,” Carl stated as he ordered her to put her hands behind her back so he could fit her with the handcuffs.

“It’s not like I stuck the plastic knife from my last meal up my cooch,” she rolled her eyes, but let Carl follow the procedure. He was a very by-the-book kind of guy.

“Your lawyer is here,” he told her as he led her out of the cell to the room where she’d met her lawyer every day before court.

“Thanks, Carl.” If today was what she thought it was, this might be the last time she saw the guard. He didn’t say anything in return.

She, Dani, and Xamira had a small army of lawyers working for them, but they couldn’t fit the battalion of JDs back here; so, it was just the named partner of the very expensive firm her mother kept on retainer. He was every inch the stereotypical lawyer; tall, strong, handsome, and effortlessly projected confidence. Clothes that cost more than some yearly household incomes said he knew what he was doing, and his white mane of hair said he’d been doing well for a very long time.

“Miss Lilith,” he gave her a small bow and pointed to the garment bag hanging from her chair.

Every day was a different outfit. It was picked by the fashion consultants, after speaking with the jury consultants, after figuring out who from the media was allowed in the courtroom that day, and finally signed off by her mother. The lawyer was just the delivery boy.

She unzipped the bag. The outfit was conservative, as it had been every day so far. Today, it was a dress with a high neck that went down to her ankles, a heavy vest, and a pair of flats. Despite all of that, there was no way she couldn’t make it look sexy. It was the way of her kind, and was definitely a curse in these circumstances. Her defense team wanted to portray an innocent young woman, caught in the middle of a bad situation, who was forced to defend herself. Juries felt more sympathetic if they could relate to someone. No one could relate to a sex goddess sitting twenty feet from them. It