have colleagues in my field that I have discussions with, and one or two good girlfriends, but I don’t see those ladies much anymore. They’re married now with their own families.”
“And they don’t have time for the third wheel?” Ben poked his finger at his chest. “That’s me. The odd one out. I’ve helped bring a lot of Shifter couples together, and what do they say once the deed’s done? See ya, Ben. We want to shag.”
He said it so comically Rhianne laughed. “You poor thing.”
“It’s all right. I like to see the lovebirds happy.” Ben twined his fingers and stretched them. “Ben, the matchmaker. Ben, the dude who gets everyone out of trouble. Not that I don’t get them into trouble in the first place …”
“What you mean is, you’re taking care of me because it’s what you do,” Rhianne said. “It’s why you look after this house. You’re a nice guy.”
Ben winced. “Ouch. Never tell a dude he’s a nice guy. We all want to be serious badasses. It’s an ego thing.”
Rhianne regarded him with amusement. “I’ve watched you battle twice now. You are a serious badass.”
He bumped her shoulder with his. “Aw, you’re just saying that.”
“And you speak so strangely.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll get used to me. I tend to pick up the idioms of whatever country and times I’m living in, so I talk a lot of shit. You should hear what I learned in prison.” He paused. “No, maybe you shouldn’t.”
“You were imprisoned?” Rhianne asked in shock.
“Yep. These are prison tatts.” He touched the web on his neck. “It teaches people not to mess with me. Or at least, that’s what the tatts are supposed to do. It doesn’t always work.”
“Why did the humans imprison you?” Rhianne tried not to imagine Ben stuck in a dank dungeon as she’d been. Only a very magical being would be able to capture him—she’d seen how easily he’d battled a handful of Fae warriors, not to mention the snakes. “Did the hoch alfar lock you up?”
“No, no. Not this time. I went to prison in this world, about twenty years back. I beat up a guy, and I went down for assault and battery.” He glanced at his scarred hands. “Lots of battery.”
“You battled a human? Was he magical?”
“Hmm? No, not that I could tell. The guy beat the shit out of his wife, right in front of me. I didn’t know him or his wife from a hole in the wall, but I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. She got away from him, good thing—I hear she’s doing very well now. But I put the husband in the hospital with his injuries. I told the judge why at the trial. Judge was a woman not fond of men who pounded women, but she had to convict me. There was a lot of evidence and a number of witnesses, and the guy’s parents and friends were pretty pissed off at me. So, I did a stretch.”
Rhianne listened, dumbfounded. “Why by the Goddess did you let them put you in prison for being a champion? I don’t believe you couldn’t have broken out of a non-magical cell, or that you couldn’t have evaded being caught in the first place. You could have changed your shape, become … what you are.”
Ben chuckled. “That would not have gone over well. Big, ugly, scary goblin dancing in the middle of the courtroom. I’d have been full of bullet holes in no time. I come from a long-lived species, but weapons can still kill me. I’ll tell you one day about the knife in my gut that nearly ended my life. Thank the Goddess for an arrogant Shifter healer who put me back together.”
“You’re changing the subject,” Rhianne told him. “You did not have to let the humans imprison you, and you know it. Why did you?”
Ben brushed his callused palm over his close-cropped hair. “I guess because I wanted the experience. Humans fascinate me, all the weird things they come up with. They now mostly lock their criminals away instead of hanging them for stealing a handkerchief, but locking them up breeds its own problems.”
“Do you regret the experience then?”
Ben considered. “Not really. It was a bad place, that prison, but I met a few decent guys. Not career criminals, just ones who screwed up and knew it, and were paying for it. We still stay in touch. Not in person of course, cause they’re going to start