My mind whirs with all the possible paths that could’ve led to the lounge being in debt. I still can’t piece it together. It just doesn’t make sense to me, knowing all the pots our lounge has their fingers in.
“What were you thinking coming in here?” my pat’s deep rumbling voice asks me, pulling me from my thoughts.
I narrow my eyes at him. “I was thinking I’d just been sold off to the worst of our kind, all so that my matriarch wouldn’t have to face a possible challenge when I came of age in a year. I was thinking that prison sounded like a better place than the lounge I grew up in. And I was thinking that since I wasn’t in possession of parents who would protect me or look out for my best interests, it was time I stepped up and started managing that for myself instead.”
My pat’s red eyes drop from mine, and I know he felt that hit.
Good.
He loves my mat and bends over backward for her. Behind the scenes, he does that for me sometimes too, but if it’s between me and her, he chooses her every time. It’s time we both come to terms with that fact.
“Our arrangement with Alpha Bowen was in the best interest of you and our entire lounge,” my mat announces after ripping the phone receiver out of my pat’s hands. He just lets it go, and my heart falls even more. “We are second in power only to Bowen and his extensive lounge. If our forces combine, there isn’t anyone who would be a threat to us, not even the Drakes.”
At the sound of that name, I mock spit on the ground at the same time my mat and pat do. It’s something all cockatrices do whenever the Drakes are mentioned. Bunch of fire-breathing, hoarding, dragon menaces. They think they’re hot shit. Cockatrices and dragons donotmix.
“So you didn’t sell me to settle a debt?” I ask.
My mat smooths a hand over her green coiffed hair, pulling back her shoulders so she sits up more rigidly in the metal chair. “The finances of the lounge are of no concern to you, Sinclair. That’s lounge business handled by your matriarch and patriarch.”
I scoff, making the noise louder than necessary just to get the satisfaction of watching her jerk the phone away from her ear. “If you sold me off to settleyourdebts, then I have a right to know.”
“Actually,” she begins primly. “You have no rights. Not while you wear that horrid prison uniform.”
I look down at the gray fabric and turn it bright yellow without a thought. Not to please her, but because gray is my least favorite color. “Happy?” I ask with a snarky smile.
My mat just levels me with a look. The same one she used when she’d send me to bed without dinner. “Alpha Bowen isn’t happy, Sinclair. He knows you’ve thwarted his attempts to break you out from jail.”
I shrug because I don’t give a fuck. “Good. I’m not happy about being given to him or him trying to break me out, so we’re even.”
“No, we are not!” she shouts, slamming her palm onto the surface in front of her. My brows hike up at her burst of emotion. She leans forward, clutching the phone in her hand so hard that her knuckles go white. “You listen to me now. You willnotget any time added on to your sentencing. You will behave yourself. And if you have a chance to get out of this place, you will take it, and then you will go to Alpha Bowen, because that was what was agreed upon.”
Anger and dismay crawls up my throat. “Ineveragreed to that.”
“We did,” she counters, “as is our right as your parents and lounge leaders.”
“Fine. Then you can consider me a rogue.”
Their faces blanch. My mat’s mouth drops open, and my pat breaks out into a sweat. I just stare back at my mat coldly, dispassionately, though my heart is pounding in my ears. So much blood and emotion is running through me that black circles appear in my vision.
Being rogue in our world is like throwing away your family, your friends, even your identity. It means no protection, contacts, home, alliances, and hell, not even a last name. And once you’re rogue, there’s no going back. No other lounge will take you. You’re destined to live life shunned, to be a pariah.
“How could you...take that back!” my mat shouts into the phone.
“No,” I say, shaking my head, because as terrifying it is to be a rogue shifter, I’m digging my heels in now. I’ve finally gotten to them. I’ve finally found the only button I can press, so I’m going to jam my finger on this motherfucker as hard as I can.
“Sinclair…” I see my pat mouth from the other side of the glass.
“If you go rogue, then Alpha Bowen will consider our deal null and void. He won’t strike our debts off his ledger,” my mat tells me, cutting off whatever my pat was about to say.
I grind my teeth. So Iwassold for money. “Guess that’s your problem.”
I start to get up from my chair, but my mat’s voice stops me before I can hang up the phone. “If you do this, you will be the reason for Denali’s downfall. Our entire lounge will go bankrupt, Bowen will take us over instead of watching our backs, and your lounge, your people, will be gone forever.”
I scoff.My people?Part of the reason she did what she did was to make sure they would never becomemypeople. I try to focus on that, but despite my efforts, guilt pricks the backs of my eyes. Aside from my shitty parents, my lounge isn’t bad. They’re my family, my friends. “Then give me another option,” I beg. “Please.”
Her green eyes twinkle with my plea. She knows her guilt hit home. As much as I try to be the emotionless hard-ass that she is, I just can’t do it.
Running away from my responsibilities? That’s easy. I’ve been doing that my whole life, although I was half running and half being chased away. I knew at a young age that even though she went through the motions of setting me up to take over, she would never let it happen. She’s not ever going to give up the reins.
