Her shoulders were hunched as she sat fiddling with a cardboard coffee cup. I couldn’t tell if the body language meant she was cold or she didn’t want to talk to them, but I parked quickly and walked toward her.
One pointed at her and then at a beat-up truck in the parking lot. What did that mean? That he wanted to take her somewhere?
I quickened my pace, ready to rush in and beat the crap out of them—though I’d seen her fight and knew she was capable of doing it herself.
Amber glanced in the direction the guy was pointing and saw me. She waved at me with way more enthusiasm than usual, and I knew I was right, that she didn’t want the company.
“Hey, Mom!”
Mom? Even more of a clanging alarm bell. She’d only called me Mom once in the last fifteen years, and that had been when that assassin had been about to kill me.
The guys turned to look at me. From the back, I’d assumed they were teenagers, but they both had scraggly beards and looked like they were in their twenties. A flood of rage at the idea of them hitting on my fifteen-year-old daughter almost had me reaching for Chopper. But the police only looked the other way when I killed criminal trolls and orcs. Murdering humans was frowned upon. Unfortunately.
“Mom?” one mouthed, checking me out instead of scampering off as he would have if he could see my weapons—and knew how well I could use them.
His buddy elbowed him. “Talk about a MILF.”
“I have to go.” Amber turned and scrambled off the back of the picnic table. Avoiding them, she grabbed a bag and strode toward me. “Hey, Val. This park is lame. We should go somewhere else.”
The guys must have decided they wouldn’t have any luck here, because they slouched off toward the skateboard area.
“Imagine both of them at once,” one muttered to the other.
“Oh, I will be tonight.”
Sometimes, having superior hearing wasn’t a blessing. I hoped Amber’s wasn’t as good as mine and that she didn’t catch that. But the crimson color to her cheeks suggested she’d heard enough. My rage returned, making my fingers snap into fists. A sound pummeling would be good for those guys. But that was illegal, too, damn it.
Ah, wait. Magic wasn’t. The laws said very little about magic.
I eyed their backs, wondering if my root spell would work as well here as it had in the fae realm. Probably not, but I didn’t need anything quite so epic.
I concentrated, and before they stepped off the grass and onto cement, roots grew up out of the ground and wrapped around their ankles, tightening like vises. One squawked and pitched forward onto the cement, cracking his elbow. The other crumpled where he was, dropping his skateboard in a puddle.
Laughter came from a couple of guys waiting their turn on the ramp. Humiliation wasn’t as satisfying as a pummeling, but it would do.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Did you do that?” Amber was watching them try to scramble to their feet.
“Do what?” I let the magic go before anyone could investigate too closely, and the roots disappeared back into the ground. That spell hadn’t impressed me much when Freysha had taught it to me, but it was turning out to be handy.
“Make them fall.”
“I think they just tripped. Kind of clumsy. They probably shouldn’t do a sport that requires balance.”
Amber didn’t respond right away. Her face showed a mixture of emotions, and I waited to see if she’d tell me to butt out of her problems or settle on the preferred reaction of finding my antics appropriate, appreciated, and delightful.
“I hope they landed on their dicks,” she finally said, going back to the table to retrieve her coffee cup.
I groped for something useful to say. Something wise and motherly that wouldn’t cause her to roll her eyes.
“You don’t have to talk to people who are bothering you,” I tried. “You can just walk away.”
“Thanks for the after-school-special talk.”
“You’re welcome. You should also say no to drugs. And sugar-drenched vats of caffeine.” I pointed at the cup.
“How do you know it’s sugar-drenched?”
“Because no teenager likes black coffee.”
“Did you really come here to lecture me?”
“No. I’d rather lecture those idiots.” I jerked a thumb toward the guys. They’d recovered and joined their buddies in the skate park, where they were, I hoped, being soundly mocked.
“Let’s take a walk, okay?” She hefted her gym bag over her shoulder, her practice swords sticking out of the end. “I don’t want to work out where they’re going to ogle us.”
“No problem. I’m surprised you actually brought your stuff.”
She glanced at me as we headed toward the sidewalk.
“I assumed this was a ruse.” I decided not to mention Admiral Ackbar, though if Thad was the father I thought he was, he’d made her watch the original Star Wars trilogy at some point.
“It kind of was, but we can practice afterward.”
“After going to the bridal shop?”
She smiled slightly for the first time. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”
“Thanks so much.”
“They won’t let you in if you’re all sweaty and gross.”
No? I supposed flinging myself on the ground like Rocket and rolling in a mud puddle wouldn’t get me out of this. Such tactics worked for my mother’s dog, but I wasn’t a golden retriever.
“It’s early for dress shopping, don’t you think?” I asked. “We haven’t set a date yet. Zav wants to get married as soon as possible, but fall and winter aren’t good times for outdoor weddings in Seattle.”
It was sunny today, a rare break from the November gloom, but that sun was wan and to the south this time of year, and it would be getting dark in a couple of hours. If dress shopping took more than the five minutes I hoped it would, we would have to find a lit place for our sword practice.
“It takes three to four months to get a custom dress,” Amber said.
“Do I need a custom dress?”
She gave me that familiar look that managed to be scathing and pitying all at the same time. “You’re six feet tall, Val. Don’t you need custom everything?”
“Not everything.” I had been fantasizing about a larger bathtub lately, but only because I liked to lounge in the bubbles with a book. I doubted Amber was referring to home fixtures. “You’re six feet tall, too, you know.”
It would probably horrify her if I suggested we could wear the same clothes. Besides, I doubted she had a wedding dress I could borrow. At least I hoped not.
“Don’t remind me.”
“You don’t appreciate being tall? Longer arms give you more reach when you’re sword fighting.”
“My primary passion in life.” Amber waved away the comment. “I just don’t like that people always notice me.”
“Like random guys at the park?” I guessed.
“Randos everywhere. Thanks for the blonde hair too.” She waved at her beautiful locks that most girls would die for. “That makes it even worse.”
“Has someone been bothering you? Besides those guys?” My hackles rose again.