“Yeah.” Alec smiled up at him, it probably didn’t reach his eyes, but for today it was the best he could do. “We’re going to go check on Felix now. Want to join us?”
“No, I’ll leave that to you. I have a few things to prepare for tomorrow.” He turned and left.
The room was almost empty, so Alec gestured for his unit to stand. “Kirk, Seline, you’re with me. Grace, Niall, go get some rest, you’ll be on guard duty at midnight.”
They filed out through the double doors and along the corridor to the stairwell. Felix was on the floor below in a specially converted flat at the end of the corridor. Alec led the way, his two shifters close behind.
Seline cleared her throat and Alec glanced at her over his shoulder. “Are the council members as formidable as they say?”
A very vivid image of Alpha Karin Wallace popped into his head, and Alec offered Seline a wry smile. “Yes.”
She seemed to like that answer, but Kirk, next to her, bit his lip and met Alec’s gaze. “And how many are coming here?”
“Four, I believe.” They came to a stop in front of a heavy-looking dark wood door—thicker than all the rest on that floor. Alec turned and put a hand first on Seline’s neck, then Kirk’s. “Don’t worry about the alpha council. If they request to talk to you, just answer their questions and be honest. We have nothing to hide.” They both nodded, visibly relaxing under Alec’s touch. Even with the heaviness of the day weighing on him, they were his unit, his responsibility. When they looked to him for reassurance, he’d do his damnedest not to let them down.
Turning back to the door, he fished out his set of keys and unlocked it.
Alec led the way down into the living room. Most of the furniture had been removed, leaving space for the steel cage that now took up over half the room. They’d installed it in such a way that it backed onto the bathroom. The door to the bathroom had been removed and the window bricked up. The layout of it afforded some privacy but also allowed whoever guarded Felix to check on him if they needed to.
Felix lay on his back, stretched out on the single bed inside the cage. He glanced over when Alec walked in but didn’t speak. The other two members of Alec’s unit, Callum and Zac, were in the kitchen area, cups of coffee in hand. They stood up a little straighter when Alec looked at them.
“Everything okay?” he asked, giving the room a quick scan. Nothing seemed out of place, the contents of the room all safely out of reach of the cage. Felix appeared to be in one piece, if bored, judging by the looks of him. Not that Alec gave a shit. He’d have happily let Felix die from his injuries.
Walking over to the cage, Alec gestured for the rest of his unit to stay where they were. He pulled one of the chairs close to the bars and sat down, gaze focused on Felix, watching his every move. They’d taken all the precautions they could to keep him contained, but shifters were slippery fuckers. If it were Alec, he’d be looking for the slightest opportunity to escape. “The alpha council arrive tomorrow.”
Like Alec knew it would, the mention of the council got Felix’s attention. He rolled over onto his side, then pushed himself up into a sitting position, matching Alec. “And what happens then? To me, I mean. Obviously I don’t care about your pack.”
Alec glared at him, eyes narrowed. “Obviously.” He took a moment to arrange his thoughts. The temptation to play with him a while, make him squirm and worry, was too hard to ignore. Felix had tried to kill a member of Alec’s pack, after all, and Alec wasn’t feeling especially charitable today. “Your fate is in the hands of the council. Maybe they’ll let you live, maybe they’ll have you executed, or maybe they’ll just let the human police put you in shifter jail and throw away the key.”
Felix shot up off the bed and grabbed hold of the bars, claws out. “Fuck you! You promised you’d get me put in a pack outside the city if I told you everything.”
Alec laughed. “I believe my alpha said he’d let the council know you cooperated and were helpful in finding the human. There are no promises he could make on the council’s behalf.”
Felix curled his lip but didn’t reply because he knew as well as Alec did, Cam had no sway with the council. None of the pack alphas did. That was the whole point.
Alec sat back in his chair and met Felix’s gaze. “They’ll want to talk to you, ask you about Newell and what you did for him. For your sake, I hope everything you told us is the truth. If I find out you lied or you change your story and lie to the council….”
In the blink of an eye, Alec shifted—half-shift only since he still needed to talk. His bones cracked as they lengthened and realigned in a blaze of pain that lasted less than a second but still took his breath away every time. It left him with an elongated jaw, hunched-over shoulders that bulged with muscle, and a set of razor-sharp claws on each hand. He spared a glance at the tattered remains of his shirt, ripped across his shoulder blades, then took the two remaining steps to the bars and wrapped his clawed fingers around them.
To his credit, Felix held his ground, rightly assuming Alec wouldn’t kill him.
Yet.
But there was no mistaking the tense set to his shoulders, the bead of sweat that ran down from his temple, or the faint trace of fear coming off him.
Alec grinned wide, all his monstrous teeth on display, and Felix paled. Talking wasn’t easy in this form, but if Alec spoke slowly and carefully, he could just about make himself understood. It was worth it for the look on Felix’s face. “If you do either of those things, then the only thing in your future will be my claws ripping your throat out.”
Felix’s voice shook, but he held his head high, defiant. “You won’t hurt me now the council know you have me.”
Alec wanted to reach between the bars and snap his neck. “Accidents happen. You tried to escape, I deemed our lives in danger, it was you or us. Problem solved.” Who knew how many of his pack Felix had injured or killed along with the rest of his rogue pack? The fight at the warehouse had been bloody, some of it still fresh in Alec’s mind. There might have been too many shifters that day to pick out individual members, but Alec had no doubt Felix had been there. They should have killed him for that alone, never mind his attack on Seb, but unfortunately Felix was vital to their accusations against Newell.
Alec hated the fact that they needed him, but they did.
As quickly as he’d shifted, Alec shifted back. He stepped away from the bars. “The council will be here first thing in the morning. Be ready.”
Now done with Felix, Alec joined Callum and Zac in the kitchen. “Keep a close eye on him. I don’t trust him not to try something.”
Zac set his mug on the worktop. “One of us watches him at all times.”
