“They’ll have to kill me first.”
My body goes cold and I can feel the color draining from my face. “No. That’s not an option. If it comes down to it, I’ll go with them and we can figure something else out later.”
“I—”
“No,” I say, more firmly this time. “You have an entire pack to think of. If you fight this too much, you’ll be playing directly into what William wants. You’d only be proving those claims he made about you being a liability to the pack.”
“He has a point,” says Remy.
Julien glares at his younger brother, then lets his shoulders slump. “I know.”
Remy approaches and places a hand on Julien’s arm, squeezing gently. “Let’s not get all doom and gloom. All is definitely not lost. We just need to prepare. The triumvirate isn’t unfair and whatever case Keir’s old pack thinks they have likely isn’t very strong, especially since it’s taken them over four years to demand his return.”
Julien nods, his expression thoughtful.
Remy’s gaze shifts to me. “No matter what laws they follow, there was no excuse for what they did. I’m sure the triumvirate will see it that way.”
I raise my brows. “Really? Because that’s not what you just said.”
The younger Matisse sighs. “I’m trying to think positively.”
“What about the whole kidnapping issue?” asks Julien. “Does the pack even have a claim on Keir?”
Remy makes a see-saw motion with his hand. “Sort of. I imagine they’ll argue that Karina kidnapped Keir without anyone’s knowledge and the pack still expended the cost of raising him.”
“Yeah,” I say sarcastically. “They spent soooo much money on me.”
“I don’t know if we even want to raise the kidnapping anyway,” says Remy.
“Why not?” I ask.
“It might bring up questions we don’t want asked—like who your real ‘mother’ is,” replies Remy. “And it might also bring up the issue of whether your birth parents’ former pack or Theo’s current pack have any claim on you.”
Julien’s brows pull together. “Current pack? I thought Keir’s omega father was dead.”
Remy winces. “Not so much.” He gives his brother a quick rundown of what he found out and what Ben wrote about omegas and their mates. “This information isn’t common knowledge so—”
“William knows something.” Julien shakes his head. “He was trying to claim the fated mate bond was faked, that Keir was manipulating me in some way.”
My stomach flips, and bile rises in the back of my throat.
“I don’t believe that. At all,” says Julien, firmly holding my gaze with his. “But it might be a problem, especially since William implied there was some scandal involving you and a mated Alpha.”
My gut is now in full revolt, twisting and churning with nausea. It doesn’t take any big leaps of logic to know exactly who William was referring to and—
“No,” I blurt out, my arms curled around my stomach. “That was…he pursued me…it was…”
Julien gently squeezes my shoulders. “You don’t have to explain. I can do the math. You were barely seventeen when you left your old pack. Any Alpha sniffing after you back then would have been substantially older and in a position of power over you. Whatever the ‘scandal’ was, it wasn’t your fault, Keir.”
“Thanks.” I blink back the burn in my eyes and offer Julien a small smile. He kisses the top of my head and wraps his arms around me, pulling me to his chest.
“How much does this information help their case?” asks Julien. “Is there any way we can get ahead of things, do some damage control or whatever?”
“I don’t know,” replies Remy. “They’d have a hard time proving a negative—that you and Keiraren’tfated mates—but it does introduce an element of doubt into things. Based on what Ben’s letter said, I’m fairly certain the ability of omegas to choose to keep or break a mate bond might be where the ‘free passage’ law comes into things.”
“Could we use that?” I ask. “As an omega, I have that whole free passage thing, so shouldn’t I be able to go where I want?”
Another see-saw motion. “I’m not sure how that applies to an omega’s actual pack. Because they’re so rare, the laws governing omegas can be vague.”
