Unleashed by the Defender (Brides of the Kindred #25) - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,76
is my courtroom!” Judge Thoughtgood exclaimed. She turned back to Imani, two spots of angry color burning in her cheeks. “Now then, Councilor, if you’re going to make such dramatic accusations, I certainly hope you have some evidence to back them up.”
“As a matter of fact, your Honor, I do,” Imani said coolly. From an inner pocket of her dress, she withdrew the opalescent ring she’d found on Mistress Bittlebum’s dressing table the night before.
“Oh—my ring! Your Honor, that’s my ring!” Mistress Bittlebum exclaimed. “I must insist that she return it to me at once—she stole that from my room last night!”
“Yes, I did,” Imani said calmly. “But I think before I give it back, Judge Thoughtgood needs to see what it recorded.”
She stroked the round, marble-shaped jewel set in the center of the ring and it opened and let the spy fly out. It buzzed out into the center of the room and, when Imani stroked the ring again, it began projecting a 3-D image of the lemon-haired Mistress from the night before.
“Oh, you’ll be leaving, all right. But not with that cloak,” she said, brandishing her blaster at Imani and J’are.
“Your Honor, I must protest!” Lady Bittlebum exclaimed, starting up from her seat again.
“Silence, Mistress!” Judge Thoughtgood snapped, glaring at her. “You were allowed to show embarrassing and incriminating evidence involving Councilor Williams. Now, it seems, it is your turn.”
“But—” Mistress Bittlebum began.
“Speak one more word and I’ll hold you in contempt of court!” Judge Thoughtgood said sharply. She turned her attention to Imani, who had paused the recording, which was playing out in the clear space in the middle of the courtroom before the judge’s podium. “You may proceed with your evidence, Councilor.”
“Thank you, your Honor,” Imani said quietly. She stroked the ring again and the spy fly continued projecting.
She hadn’t intended to record any of the events of the night before. In fact, she’d forgotten all about the ring until she’d been undressing after they got back to the hotel. She’d been playing with it to distract her mind while J’are was passed out on the bed—his feral side apparently all worn out from bonding with her—when the spy fly had flown out and started projecting.
Imani had figured out how to work it and had been immensely surprised when she’d seen what it had recorded. Now she watched with satisfaction as Mistress Bittlebum’s entire confession of the murder of Lady Zangelo played out for the judge and all the rest of the court to see. Her recording might not be as lascivious and X-rated as the one Lady Bittlebum had played of Imani and J’are, but it was certainly much more incriminating.
The recording ended right after Mistress Bittlebum had locked them in the simulation room—for which Imani was grateful. She really didn’t want to have to watch herself and J’are having bonding sex again. It was too damn embarrassing!
After the spy fly stopped projecting and flew quietly back to its ring, there was dead silence in the courtroom. Finally, Judge Thoughtgood turned to Mistress Bittlebum, who had been getting redder and redder in the face as the recording played.
“Well, well—it would seem we have solved the murder of your very good friend,” she remarked, raising an eyebrow. “What do you have to say for yourself? You know the penalty for killing another Mistress is death.”
“Death, yes.” Mistress Bittlebum rose suddenly. She was stroking her lemon-yellow hair, which Imani now knew was a wig, in a reflective way. “Death, but not for me,” she said.
Turning to the three morphids she had sitting in a row beside her, she waved her hand over their antennae and shouted,
“Kill them—kill them all!”
Forty
The courtroom exploded into violence.
The morphids seemed to be everywhere. One bounded towards Judge Thoughtgood, only to be stopped by the bailiff, brandishing a blaster. But before she could get off a shot, the morphid closed its shiny pink, serrated mandibles around her neck and sawed off her head.
Blood fountained out of her neck and Imani had a moment to see the surprised look on the bailiff’s face as her head fell to the floor. Then she realized another morphid was headed in her direction.
She braced herself for impact but J’are was suddenly there, putting himself between her and the huge insect.
“No you fucking don’t!” he growled, his eyes blazing. “Stay way from my female you fucking bug!”
He gripped its two front legs, holding it back, but the morphid leaned forward, its serrated mandibles snapping in his face.