“You already have it—”
“Like hell,” Ulmer rumbled.“See, this is the problem with divided loyalties,” he said to Sebastian.“She’s covering for the Circle—”
“I’m doing no such thing!”I said hotly.
“Don’t lie to yourbardric.You know what they have—”
“And the Black Circle would love to get their hands on most of it!But there’s no way the Circle would give up a weapon—any weapon—to the enemy—”
“Not even to get one of their biggest allies back?”That was Sebastian.
“Not even for that.There’s a policy in place to prevent people from having the incentive to do this, or it would happen all the time.And the Black Circle knows that.We don’t make deals with terrorists—”
“Wedon’t, meaning the Circle.But what about you?”That was Ulmer.
“What?”
“Maybe they thought you’d turn something over to save yourbardric.You’re Corps, but you’re also Were, and you’re ‘dating’ his brother,” Ulmer scowled at the human term, which old-timey Weres didn’t use.
You were mated, or you weren’t, from their perspective, with none of this dating nonsense.And if it hadn’t been for the advantages of tying the knot in human society, many never would have bothered, seeing their own bond as closer.Cyrus and I were a couple as far as they were concerned, and as two heads of a single clan, even more so.
How to explain that humans might not see it that way?
I wasn’t sure, because in this case, he might be right.
“Lia?”Cyrus said, seeing something flit across my face that I was too tired to conceal.
“This might be because of me,” I admitted.
“That’s absurd—”
“Is it?I helped to save Sebastian, but I might have endangered him, too, without realizing it.If the Circle thought I would steal from the Corps in exchange for his life… yeah.It could have put him in danger.”
“That’s why you need to quit the damned Corps,” Ulmer snapped.“I’ve been saying it—”
“Her connections there have proven valuable to us,” Cyrus reminded him angrily.
“Yeah, it really looked that way tonight!”
“And our alliance with the Circle might not even be possible except for her.The clan elders like having a Were in the Corps.Otherwise, it’s just another all-human organization trying to control them—”
“And isn’t it?”Ulmer spread his arms.“Where’s the lie?‘Cause I haven’t seen any sign—”
“You haven’t been looking for one!You’re as bad as some of the others—”
“Don’t group me in with those traitors!”It was a snarl.“I’m trying—”
“Enough.”That was Sebastian, and a word from hisbardricwould usually silence even Ulmer’s famous temper, but not tonight, it seemed.
“—to keep a man safe who seems determined to get himself killed!‘We’re at war,’” he mimicked.“We’ve been at war!From the moment we decided to help the Circle, we’ve been a target, and you most of all!How many times have you almost been killed?How many times have we thought we plugged all the holes, only to have some fucker slither in—”
“That isn’t what this was,” Sebastian said, his voice ice.Maybe because Ulmer was right; there had been multiple assassination attempts on Sebastian’s life, only none since Whirlwind died, leading us to assume he had been behind them.
And maybe he had.But he clearly wasn’t alone in wanting a change in leadership, and some of that was likely my fault, too.Or mine and Cyrus’s.
Our new little clan and those like it might have been the tipping point for some of the traditionalists.
“Yes!”Ulmer was saying.“It was far worse!They actually got their hands on you this time!”
