Tribal Law Read online

  Tribal Law

  Miscreants & Magick

  Shannon Curtis

  Inspired by readers, for readers

  Tribal Law: Miscreants & Magick, Book 1

  Copyright © Shannon Curtis 2015

  First published March 2015

  ISBN 978-0-9942422-1-1 (ebook, Smashwords edition)

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to events or persons living or dead is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any manner whatsoever—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  Edited by Jennifer Brassel

  Cover design by EBook Indie Covers

  Typeset by Debbie Phillips, DP Plus

  Published by Australian Romance Readers Association Inc.

  www.ireadromance.com.au

  Dear Reader,

  One of the most common questions ever asked of an author is ‘where do you get your ideas?’ For Tribal Law, I can say—I got it from you.

  In June 2014, it was pointed out by book blogger and reviewer, Book Thingo, that there were no local reader events for the month of July. When the authors at TWC Press heard this, we approached the Australian Romance Readers Association with a concept. What if there was an event where readers could tell authors what they wanted to read in a story? And what if the authors took all that information and wrote that story? And what if the authors gave that story back to the readers?

  The Australian Romance Readers Association thought it was a novel idea—and the ARRA Project was born. On 4 July 2014, seven people got together and hashed out details. From character names, descriptions, quirks, occupations etc., to genre, heat level and cover preferences, they made suggestions, and the team from TWC Press made notes. Then we collated this information, and plotted out a story. We now present Tribal Law, the book plotted by readers, for readers.

  The work involved in creating this story is donated by TWC Press to ARRA—and to all readers. All proceeds made from the sale of this book go directly to the Australian Romance Readers Association to help readers. We hope you enjoy reading this novel as much as we enjoyed discussing it, plotting it, writing it and sharing it with you.

  Sincerely,

  Shannon Curtis

  P.S. As this novel is published by the Australian Romance Readers Association, and written by an Australian author, the spelling and language used is Australian English. We hope you enjoy!

  Dedication

  For all lovers of romance fiction—thank you for reading our stories.

  You demand excellence, and by challenging us to deliver it, we authors grow in craft—and in heart.

  Chapter One

  The trick with working with teeth was to make sure your patient was relaxed, preferably unconscious. Ryder Galen’s patient was neither.

  “Let go of my hand,” he said succinctly, gazing down into the alpha’s silver eyes.

  “You’re hurting me,” Jared Gray growled as he tightened his grip on Ryder’s wrist.

  Ryder fought the temptation to roll his eyes. Jared was Alpha Prime to the Alpine Pack, and would take insult—and then take his business elsewhere. His practice was just starting to pay for itself, and listing Jared Gray as a client would net him more valued clients. He couldn’t afford for the werewolf to take his business elsewhere.

  “Your lateral incisor is loose, and it’s going to have to come out. Of course it damn well hurts. If you’d let me sedate you …” Ryder let his voice trail off in suggestion.

  Jared shook his head. “No. I don’t do drugs. I don’t like being out for the count, and I don’t like the hangover afterwards.”

  Ryder turned back to his tray of implements. Jared didn’t trust him. He could understand. Most shifters—as well as most vampires—didn’t like feeling vulnerable or exposed. Some baulked at using an anaesthetic, which meant there was a lot of hand-holding, a lot of soothing … a lot of damn tears. He hadn’t realised his job would be part miscreant dentist, part den mother. Fine. He had to work on building those trust relationships. Hard to do when even he didn’t trust anyone as far as he could spit. He sighed. “Okay, but try to control your beast. If you keep grabbing me every time you feel a twinge, we’ll never get this done.”

  Jared nodded, then gradually loosened his grip. “Fine. Do it.”

  Ryder went back to work, gently moving the loose tooth. He must have pulled on a nerve, because Jared’s growl was cut off mid-morph and suddenly Ryder had a pain-enraged wolf beast on his hands.

  He jumped back as the silvery wolf swiped at him with his claws, and dodged behind the upright lamp. The wolf lunged toward him. Ryder dived behind the reclined chair, hearing the leather rip under the scrabbling of the lycan’s claws.

  He made a mental note to add that to the alpha’s bill.

  The wolf leapt off the back of the chair and landed on braced feet before turning like wind in a vortex to face Ryder.

  Ryder was ready, swinging his arm in a punch aimed at the wolf’s jaw. The wolf howled as he fell to the side. Ryder launched himself at the lycan, lowering his head to avoid the snapping jaws of the beast. He grappled with the creature, wrestling it to the ground. The alpha was in great shape, conditioned over a lifetime to hunt and fight. Ryder hissed as a claw sliced across his bicep, the hot burn fuelling his anger as the wolf reared over him.

  Ryder curled his hand into a fist and summoned his power. He slammed his fist into the snout of the beast, channelling his lightforce into the contact. His white light blasted the wolf back into the wall behind him. The wolf sagged to the ground unconscious, leaving a concave dent of cracked and crumbling plaster in his surgery wall.

  The alpha could pay for that, too.

  Ryder sat up and checked his arm. It was a deep cut. He was going to need stitches. He’d have to add it to the other scars criss-crossing his body. Getting bitten and scratched was an occupational hazard for a miscreant dentist. He rose to his feet and stared down at the wolf he’d knocked out cold.

  “Told you to let me sedate you,” he muttered.

  He washed up, his movements quick and efficient as he tied a rough bandage around his arm to stem the flow of blood. Working quickly, he hauled the limp body back onto the chair and used straps attached to the headrest to hold the lycan’s mouth open, then proceeded to remove the left maxillary lateral incisor. Using suction, he cleaned the hole, then started to mix the binding agent for the replacement tooth. He should have a dental assistant for these tasks, but that type of job had a high mortality rate. A lot of dental nurses just didn’t have the skills to fight off a raging miscreant. As a light warrior, Ryder had a special skill set for addressing miscreant’s dental needs, not least of which was being able to hold his own against the fierce creatures.

  Most of his patients required removable dentures, but Jared could afford the privilege of a permanent prosthodontic. Ryder was using a new acrylic material, one infused with morphing minerals. He painted the base of the prosthetic tooth with the goop he’d just mixed, and inserted it into the gap in the gum. He channelled his light, focusing it on the tooth. Like tendrils of rampant ivy, his light twisted and rolled over the tooth, over the base, and into the nerve endings, securing the new tooth to the wolf’s jaw. Working with miscreant teeth was difficult, especially with changelings. You had to factor in the shapeshifting, the morphing of the jaw structure, and the difference in teeth from man to wolf—or bear or leopard or any number of animals. This tooth would look slightly bigger in
his human form, but only just, and would be in scale for his wolf form when he shifted—which would be when he’d most need it.

  He held the tooth in place, patiently waiting for it to bond to the nerve and gum. Jared flinched, just a little, and Ryder frowned. The alpha still remained unconscious, but his breathing was becoming shallower, faster. The wolf flinched again, his back arching. A low-pitched whine came from his throat, before foam started to build in his mouth. Ryder winced. Not good. He lifted an eyelid to check his patient’s status and recoiled. The eye was blood red. No iris. No pupil. Just a sack of crimson within the eye socket.

  Hell.

  He stood up. The wolf started to quiver, then thrash on the chair, a garbled growl coming out of his throat as the straps broke under the force of the movement, the foam bubbling forth from his slack jaw.

  What the hell was going on?

  The wolf started convulsing. Ryder laid his hand on the beast’s forehead, sending warmth into the mind, searching for the pain in an effort to soothe. The muscles in his jaw flexed. That couldn’t be right. He tried again, extending his senses as he did so.

  He could only sense darkness—no, not a darkness, more like a … nothingness.

  The wolf jerked his head to the side. Ryder cringed at the sound of vertebrae snapping before the wolf subsided, sliding down into the chair as though boneless.

  Ryder checked his patient, feeling for a pulse, for a breath … for a heartbeat. Nothing.

  He closed his eyes and swore.

  An alpha prime had just died in his surgery.

  He was dead meat.

  * * *

  Vassiliki Verity checked her watch. Good grief. She still had twenty minutes left on her pro bono stint. The night was becoming damn near interminable. Still, it was just twenty minutes. She glanced around the courtroom.

  A werewolf paced in the ‘cage’—a fortified cell designed for the super-strong lycans—as his case was read out to the judge. He’d killed someone, but fortunately for the justice system, he’d killed another of his kind.

  She shook her head. Maintaining your beast’s form was the highest insult to the judge, and she could see the judge’s annoyance. The lycan’s representative smoothed down his tie as he finished his plea.

  “So you see, Your Honour, as this is a murder-by-kind charge, we’d like the defendant to be released to the Woodland Pack and for the matter to be handled under the tribal jurisdiction.”

  The judge sat back in her chair, steepling her fingers. She stared at the wolf in the cage for a moment, arching an eyebrow as its low growl rumbled across the courtroom. Vassi winced. Yeah, it wasn’t a good idea to mouth off at the presiding judge.

  The judge smiled sweetly at the defender. “You are right. This is a matter for tribal law, but,” she held up finger as the defender’s shoulders sagged in relief. “The victim was of the River Pack, and the incident occurred in River Pack territory—”

  “That’s disputed territory,” the defender argued.

  “Not by the courts, it isn’t,” the judge said smartly. “Defendant will be transferred to River Pack Remand for tribal judgment.” She hit the gavel on her block. “Next.”

  The wolf bared his teeth and this time his growl was loud, long and menacing.

  The judge responded by baring her teeth right back, her incisors lengthening as she hissed at the lycan, her eyes glowing. “Settle,” she rasped, her voice deep and booming. The wolf reluctantly subsided as the bailiff secured a collar around the wolf’s neck and dragged him back down the caged tunnel to general holding.

  Vassi leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. This would be the last case before her pro bono shift ended. She tried to make herself comfortable. She’d head home via Mad E Pizzeria, pick up a meatlovers pizza, type O with extra anchovies, hold the garlic, and crack open that bottle of shiraz that remained in her wine rack while she read over the Marchetta files. She’d be back at the office tomorrow and would have to compete with her associate, Lara Dyson, for the case. Lara was a real bitch, and not just because she was a lycan. Ever since Vassi had joined the firm Lara had made it her mission to poach each case that came anywhere near her. At this rate she’d struggle to make budget.

  Vassi forced herself to take a calm breath. Everything would be fine, she’d work on the Marchetta case, win it, and the boss would take her off probation.

  It was a few minutes before the partition at the end of the tunnel re-opened and Vassi heard the jingle of chains as the next defendant entered the room. An uproar started at the rear of the public area. Vassi sat up to look over her shoulder. Lycans, all in human form, were gathered near the doors, growling and showing their teeth.

  It took the judge a few minutes to call for order. The group eventually settled, but it was obvious they were a whisker away from exploding again. Alpine Pack, from the looks of their pale complexions and fair colouring. She turned in curiosity to see what had caused the ruckus, but the prosecutor blocked her vision of the man inside the cage.

  The court clerk read out the docket. Vassi tuned out as she tried to remember which charge Vivianne Marchetta was facing now, subsiding in her seat to once again shut her eyes. Another disappearance, perhaps.

  “You don’t have representation?”

  Vassi cracked one eyelid open warily at the gently phrased question from the judge.

  A deep rumble was the defendant’s response, she couldn’t quite hear the actual words.

  “Verity, you’re up,” the judge called out to her.

  Both of Vassi’s eyes startled open and she looked at the bench.

  The judge beckoned her to the front of the room. “You’ve got a case.”

  Vassi picked up her briefcase and rose, making her way along the bench and apologising to folks as she hurried by them. The lycans in the crowd glared at her before reluctantly allowing her to pass. She made it to the central aisle and hurried through the swing gate at the front of the room.

  “Judge …” her mind went blank as she made eye contact with the judge, then a word whispered to her mind. “Judge Flack, I ask for the court’s patience while I assess my client’s case.”

  The judge frowned. “It’s Judge Roberts,” she corrected.

  Vassi waved a careless hand. “I know, but I think Flack suits you much better. May I see the report?” she held out her hand to the prosecutor. Oh, good. Taylor Henley. One of the few names she actually got right. Ever since she’d broken up with his douchebag of a friend, he’d taken great care to avoid her in the courtroom. This should be fun. The shifter prosecutor handed her the file.

  “We ask that the matter be transferred to Alpine Pack jurisdiction,” Henley stated calmly.

  “Objection, Your Honour,” Vassi said automatically, then scanned the pages quickly to find the basis for her objection. Ah, there. “The crime did not occur in Alpine territory, so does not fall under Alpine jurisdiction.”

  “Due to the nature of the victim, the law does make allowance for jurisdiction transfer under these circumstances,” Henley argued.

  Circumstances? She blinked when she read the details of the crime. Good grief. He’d killed an alpha prime.

  Her eyes widened and she looked up, finally seeing her client for the first time.

  Pale blue eyes met hers. His dark brows were pulled low, yet she couldn’t quite read his expression. His face bore the dark shadow of a beard, except for a line that bracketed his mouth. The visible scar didn’t really detract from his looks—although it did add to the lethal air about him that was only enhanced by the cuffs and penal uniform. He also sported a bruise or two. She wondered whether he’d gotten them killing an alpha prime, or whether any of the werewolves in detention had attacked him. He had jet black hair, the length a little long for her personal taste, and looking tousled, as though he’d wrestled with a bear—or an alpha prime. He was big, too. Well over six feet tall, the bright orange jumpsuit he wore pulling tight across broad shoulders, yet drooping and baggy around his wa
ist and hips. His hands clasped the bars of his prison, the chain dangling down to the manacles around his ankles.

  “Uh …” He’d killed a friggin’ prime.

  “Do you have any objections to the transfer of jurisdiction?” the judge prodded her.

  “Uh …” If she said nothing, his case would be out of her hands, she’d be free to return to work as per normal, take on the latest Marchetta case, pretty much cement her position at Campbell, Singh & Partners—and hopefully Lara Dyson could choke on a fur ball.

  She glanced toward the back of the room. Saliva was dripping from some of the lycans’ teeth, and they all shifted, as though ready to charge. He wouldn’t stand a chance.

  She pursed her lips. Ah, crap.

  “Yes, ma’am, we do.”

  “On what grounds?”

  Hell. What grounds? She looked down at the folder in her hands, thinking fast. “Ah, while a pack can request jurisdiction transfer if a member of the prime family is the victim, this request can only be made by the alpha prime. In this case, the victim was the alpha prime so Alpine Pack currently has no recognised alpha prime, therefore no request can be officially made.”

  There. She sighed in relief.

  As one, several lycans at the rear of the room growled. Oh, great. Now she’d angered the lycan population. Honestly, she must have a knack for pissing off wolves.

  “Order!” The judge rapped her gavel until the growls subsided to a general low rumble. She then surveyed Vassi for a moment, a considering look in her eyes. She nodded. “Fair enough.” She looked at Henley. “Request denied. How does the defendant plead?” She asked blithely over Henley’s protests.

  “Just a moment, Your Honour,” Vassi said, holding up her finger and crossing to the dock. She peered closely at the man behind the bars. His gaze drilled into hers like a silver laser, powerful in its intensity. “How do you plead?” she asked quietly, meeting his eyes and forcing herself not to look away.