Rue asked, “How do you want to handle it?”

  Astra tilted her head, smiled evilly, then told us.

  They started to arrive just a few minutes later.

  There were eight FBI agents in suits, a twelve person FBI tactical team in black tactical pants and shirts with bullet proof vests and fully automatic rifles. They were also accompanied by the local cops, another tactical team, this one the city’s swat, along with six black and whites for twelve patrolmen a well. Astra had also called it, as there were two news vans halfway down the street with cameras aimed in our direction.

  That was forty law enforcement, a score of them armed with automatic weapons.

  Which is why Astra only sent out me and Maria to deal with it. Really, Maria alone was going to handle it, I was just going along in case there were hidden assets, and as a purely on standby protective measure.

  Maria looked fantastic in a black pencil skirt and pink blouse unbuttoned far enough to show off a tasteful amount of her D cup cleavage. Her exotic mixed beauty of both the best parts of Latina and Japanese descent, and creamy golden-brown skin, along with her otherwise lithe dancer’s body was a hell of a tempting package. But it was her power of telepathy that had gotten her chosen to deal with the issue.

  It might backfire, but we wanted to make a point to the level of embarrassment without taking a life. We didn’t need to use the whole coven to protect ourselves from a human threat. Not even forty of them. While she couldn’t focus on forty people at once to exercise fine control, she could send out an unfocused single and simple command to larger groups that couldn’t be resisted. At least, not by the unprotected minds of humans.

  Maria smiled sweetly as we approached the wary group, “Gentleman, what exactly are your orders?”

  One of the FBI agents stepped forward, “We’re to take you into protective custody and escort you to a temporary housing area.”

  Maria tilted her head, “And if we refuse?”

  The FBI agent frowned, “Refusal is not an option, we will if required, use the force necessary to accomplish our mission.”

  Maria bit her lip worriedly, “And if we actively resist with magic?”

  Several of the men gripped their weapons tighter, and I could scent their fear but they were professionals, so I also scented determination.

  The agent replied, “That would be regrettable. If you attack government agents and resist our orders, deadly force will be brought to bear.”

  She smiled over to the news vans, “I hope your mics picked that up? We realize the world is in danger, we’re already fighting it. Instead of the president asking for volunteers from our people to work with scientists, he went straight to putting us all in concentration camps and forcing experiments on us. Does that sound reasonable? Does it sound reasonable that he’s violating our rights as citizens, without even attempting a more reasonable path first?

  “No, it really doesn’t, does it. It’s almost like he only told half the story today, and the real reason they’re here is to gain control of us. To put us in our place, and to shit all over the constitution while they do so.”

  Maria turned back to the agent, “We’re not going anywhere. We are citizens who will abide by the laws, and we haven’t broken any. You have no right to drag us off to a gulag, and we will defend our rights, no matter who you are. I suggest you get back into your vehicles and leave.”

  The agent scowled, “You can’t fight the government, and we do have the right under emergency measures. Where is the rest of your coven?”

  She snorted, then took a deep exaggerated breath, “The air seems fine, what’s the emergency? Sure, the president declared one, speciously. We won’t cooperate with this. As to the rest of my coven, I believe they’re wishing they were out here to deal with you idiots, instead of me. You see, I don’t need them to deal with you, and you are beneath my matriarch’s regard. She warned you, repeatedly, not to come for us, but you didn’t listen. So, I’m here to provide a demonstration of just how impotent you really are. The covens don’t want a war, because we don’t care to rule. We rule ourselves, and our ambitions are focused on our covens, not nations. I hope this serves as a lesson to you all.”

  Despite over twenty guns now directly focused on us, we turned and walked away, as all forty law enforcement officers pointed their weapons at the person to their right, and the right end of their formation pointed their guns at their own chins.

  We stopped and turned around.

  Maria said, “Don’t think I can’t have you all pull the trigger. Because I can.”

  Then all forty pulled the guns to their chests, dropped mags, and racked the slide to clear the chamber of their weapons in perfect synchronicity. Bullets plinked onto the ground, then they all threw their weapons into the air. Right before they started to reach the part in the arc they’d fall, they suddenly all froze, then were pulled together in a clatter of metal and plastics.

  Maria of course, was using her earth affinity for that latter part. Then the big pile of weapons in the sky melted into one big ball of metal and plastic about the size of a medicine ball, only to drop at the agent’s feet with enough force to crack the asphalt.

  “I trust I made my point. You’re no threat to me alone, much less my coven, there’d be no point in even skinning your knees, much less in taking your lives. We can enrich your society with healing and other things as we’ve shown and talked about, but we are beyond you in terms of violence and power, you will never control us. Befriend us, ignore us, at your whim, but control us? Never happen. Leave now. Come into our home… and the kid gloves will come off. We won’t kill you, any of you, but you’ll have plenty of time in traction to think about your mistakes, if you persist against all logic on this suicidal course.”

  It honestly wasn’t good. I could scent their impotent rage and deep humiliation at being told they were out of their league. But it was what it was, and the government had forced this confrontation, one we’d have preferred to avoid. Governments also didn’t have a survival instinct which was the deeper issue. Individuals backed down to save their lives, but a government hardly ever would. I feared they’d escalate, but hoped our demonstration was stark enough that even they’d get it and leave off.

  We turned for the last time, and we walked off back toward the building. We’d barely taken five steps when two very loud retorts went off, and when I looked over my shoulder two of the government tac team were clutching at their vests and bent over in pain.

  “What happened?”

  Maria said calmly, loud enough for them to hear it, but I knew her well enough to know she was truly upset by it, “They both went for their backup piece with the thought to shoot me in the back, so I had them shoot each other in the vest and toss the guns under the SWAT van. All of them want me dead out of humiliation and fear, but only those two were stupid enough to act on it.”

  I took her hand and squeezed it as we moved inside.

  All over the United States similar but hardly uniform responses were given, not one coven surrendered. Unlike us who were temporarily in an apartment we couldn’t hide, almost a third of the covens just ignored it. They simply left their wards up. The agents just couldn’t find the house, and if they tried to walk through the wards that were concealing it, they’d find themselves wandering in circles and confused as to why they’d changed direction. They literally couldn’t walk in a straight direction through it, toward the empty space where they knew the house should be.

  Almost all the rest sent out one to two witches to send a pointed message, not all that dissimilar to our own, though the means based on affinity varied to an extent. A rare few covens also included violence in the lesson, sending several cops and agents to the hospital, but no covens in the U.S. took even a single life. Which I thought would be the most powerful message of all, if they could see it through their fear.

  A very simple message. We wanted no part in the human government, running it, or rule over them. It should be beyond obvious to them now, that if we’d wanted to rule we would be already.

  They could be a threat if they escalated, but fortunately they didn’t raise the stakes by trying to take us out with drone strikes. But we were ready for that too. Anything short of a tactical nuke would be hard pressed to take us out.

  Some in the press said we should’ve surrendered and that we were risking the world by being obstinate. But far more of the talking heads came down hard on the president for attempting to take such a radical course that was clearly uncalled for without trying less extreme paths to the same ends first. Maria’s message had been heard, and also replayed a lot. It didn’t hurt that she was hot as hell either, I imagined, when it came to how much airtime she received.

  Of course, part of that was also because our coven was front and center. We were the ones that had outed the supernatural, the ones that had been at the committee hearings, and the ones pressing our race to save the world. All alternate and quite valid reasons for Maria to be getting the lion’s share of screen time, instead of the other similar incidents across the country.

  But, also because she was hot, which would drive the ratings…

  Maybe I was just biased since she was my going on fifth mate, but I didn’t think so.

  Reporter Jessica Davis was a cutely pretty dirty blonde haired and blue-eyed beauty with a lovely if slightly top-heavy hourglass figure. She was clearly in top shape and worked out regularly. I wasn’t really attracted to her, but I knew I would’ve been in the past just based on looks alone.

  With my intense mating bond to my pixie, it really was hard to see the allure in other women. I suspected the only reason my other mates and relationships hadn’t suffered at all from that intensely loving bond was both the coven bond of sharing emotions, and the fact I loved them all before I remembered the mating bond with Sela.

  I wasn’t complaining, it was probably a good thing, I had more than enough women to juggle as it was. It would also be harder for a beautiful woman to manipulate me. Lastly, I didn’t want to turn into an asshole. I was getting a lot of sex from a great number of women, and that kind of thing could be addicting and skew the mind, so it was a comfort that I’d never want to stray from the coven or my lovers, not even a little tempted.

  Because if anyone would’ve tempted me to do so, it was Jessica Davis.

  Anyway, Astra had sent me out to deal with whatever the reporter wanted, she was still taking the… all this bullshit is beneath me stance as matriarch, and she refused to talk to the press about the incident. I wasn’t sure why she sent me instead of one of the others, and I hadn’t asked.

  She was my very sexy boss, after all, outside the bedroom and as matriarch, anyway.

  “Miss Davis, the matriarch isn’t available. What can I do for you?”

  Jessica smiled, “Mr. Franklin, please use my first name. Can I call you Glen?”

  “Sure, Jessica.”

  She asked curiously, “I’m a little surprised to see you, you don’t talk much usually during the interviews, and come across as the strong silent type.”

  Yeah, she was definitely flirting, not that I thought it was honest flirting, she was just trying to get me to lower my guard.

  I smiled, “Do I? Astra is the matriarch and leads us, so I don’t make it habit to take initiative in such things. I can give you a few minutes, you have a question?”

  She nodded, “A lot of people are disturbed by the shows of power, what would you say to that?”

  I shrugged, “Get over it? If I was them, I’d be far more disturbed by the government’s, their government’s attempted and outrageous abuse of power. The average citizen can’t do much against an abusive government, when they come with automatic weapons and a willingness to use them. We on the other hand were very measured, and merely defended our rights, so how much safer compared the unhurt goons that were sent to take us away, is the average citizen?

  “No, all we’ve done for them is to heal the sick.”

  She bit her lip, “Get over it?”

  I nodded, then shrugged, “A bit blunt perhaps? But accurate. We’ve done nothing to them to earn such a reaction, when as I pointed out their own government has done far worse. There’s always someone tougher or bigger to fear, it’s a natural state of life. The only reason they could possible have for feeling threatened is a fear of magic in general, since all we’ve ever done is gone out of our way to preserve and even promote life, even in those that meant us harm. So yes, their fear is irrational, and probably based on the unreasonable fear that magic is somehow scarier than a gun, when in reality dead is dead, and bullied is bullied, and we’ve done neither to any citizen. Take two deep breaths, apply critical thinking, and call me in the morning.”

  She laughed, “I see what you did there. Okay, what would you say to those arguing you should’ve cooperated to save the world.”

  I nodded, “More irrational fear. No, we don’t know the exact science of it, but we have thousands of years of history and experience that tells us we’re no danger to the environment or to the planet’s ability to support life. It’s only mega-covens going to war that can cause an imbalance, and we’re doing what we have to end that possibility now. The president called it hope, but truly it’s long experience. They chose not to hear that, and they listened to their foolish fears instead. It’s also not about that, not really, that’s the public face of it. This was the government’s attempt to assert control over the supernatural population. Hopefully now they know they can’t.”

  She asked playfully, “So, what’s it like living alone in a house with fourteen women?”

  I blinked at the shocking subject change.

  “That’s a rather vague question, and almost anything I say good or bad could be construed as either offensive or condescending toward women. So, all I’ll say is there isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be than living alongside my coven sisters.”

  She smirked, “So, stating an opinion about living with fourteen women makes you more nervous than telling people to get over their fear of magic or facing down government tactical teams?”

  I nodded, “I’m brave, not foolhardy.”

  She outright laughed at that, “One more question, Glen?”

  “Go ahead, Jessica.”

  She asked, “Could you define what mate means to your people? Astra declared you her mate in the hearing.”

  I nodded, “It’s similar to the human tradition of marriage or handfasting. A lifetime commitment, and one witnessed by the rest of the coven, however there is no ceremony involved in it.”

  Save taking your intended mate to bed and claiming her in the joining, but I left that part out. I also wasn’t going to mention I had three other mates, and a fourth on the hook. It was none of their business, and it would start a shitstorm from the religions about how immoral witches were. Just better left avoided if possible, because in truth it wasn’t a typical situation in the covens.

  Jessica said, “Thanks for talking to me this afternoon.”

  I wished her a good day and then moved back inside the house.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I had a dream like this once,” as I took in the five ladies in the room. The lesbian couple and triad in the coven sitting on the bed, all of them looking up at me and scenting of excitement and desire.

  Blossom snickered, “Come on in, and shut the door.”

  Blossom was a tall willowy woman, with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes. Her lover and partner Pepper had black hair and darker brown eyes, and she was lithe. On the other bed sat Isadora, Juniper, and Vespa. Isadora had black hair and green eyes, and was tall and willowy, Juniper was curvaceous with dark brown hair and dark chocolate eyes, while Vespa had light brown hair and blue eyes.

  Pepper smirked, “Did it start like this?” as she patted the bed invitingly with a flirty wink.

  I laughed, “Nope, this is so much better,” I returned playfully before I said, “What’s up?”

  It wasn’t like I didn’t talk to them all the time, just not usually in their shared bedroom, and they’d never looked at me while smelling of desire before. I was fairly sure that desire wasn’t pointed at me directly though, they didn’t find men all that attractive after all.

  Isadora said, “In the future we came from, when the Lesbians in the coven were ready to raise kids, they’d find or even trade for a… donor. There aren’t that many of us either, five out of twelve witches in a coven is a pretty high ratio and unique. The other witches in the coven generally had a mate of their own as well, and didn’t share with other coven sisters.”

  I nodded, “I can see we’re kind of breaking the mold on that, tradition. Given I’ve mated two in the coven, and like a third soon.”

  Pepper nodded, “A new coven then could take forty years before starting families, while getting established. That’s a long time without the release of a lover, especially for women in their prime with not much else in the offing save hard work to survive. You can imagine that not keeping the bloodlines separate could create problems with that.”

  I blinked, “Of course, if two covens made a new coven, and both halves were all related, then those accidental sapphic orgies could be embarrassing.”

  Pepper giggled, “Yes, it also ensured a healthy genetic diversity in such a lessened population, which is also no longer an issue.”

  Vespa said, “The cost of no sharing however was they grew up without knowing their father, since there’s no reason for a donor to stick around and they didn’t share with their sister’s mates.”

  Blossom said, “But we have a unique opportunity here. With so many close coven allies our children will grow up next to, and we’re in a new world where waiting four decades is no longer necessary. We could create covens with multiple covens, so as not to make actual sisters coven sisters, if you know what I mean? We also have coven sisters willing to share a mate, another rarity.”

  Pepper said, “We’d be their parents, but it would be good for them to have their father around, if nothing else. So, how about it, want to be our baby daddy?”