Beau swallows hard enough for me to hear it. “It means the consequences should fall on me too,” he says. “Not just on them.”
Them.
Me and Jason.
My chest tightens.
Dominance floods the clearing like thunder.
“You think a single apology absolves your crimes?” he asks Beau.
“No,” Beau says quietly. “But I think truth does.”
Silence.
I step forward to stand beside Beau.
“I know I’m not pack,” I say, loud enough for all to hear. “I know I don’t understand your laws or your politics. But I know this: the decisions made here today will decide who you become.” My voice steadies. “And I won’t let you become murderers of the innocent.”
“You think you decide our justice, little human?” The voice makes me want to kneel, but I stand steady. I assume it’s the other alpha.
“No,” I say. “I think your justice decides you.”
Behind me, Jason breathes my name like a prayer and a warning tangled together. “Violet?—”
I shake my head, stopping him. My heart is pounding so hard it hurts. But I do not back down. Because if they want mycourage? They can have it. If they want my voice? They’ll hear it. If they want to break Jason? They’ll have to go through me.
They approach like men used to the ground trembling under their feet.
“You want to clear his debts?” he asks, not unkindly but not kindly, either. His tone is the verbal equivalent of a knife laid on a table. “Human, do you know how much he owes?”
“I do,” I lie.
A ripple of amusement and faint curiosity moves through the air around me.
The other alpha snorts, crossing his arms over a chest built like a brick-wall nightmare. “He owes extra for the running. And for hiding. And for leading your scent right into our territory.”
My throat works. “I understand.”
A silence falls, taut, heavy, like everyone’s holding their breath. The pack waits with feral anticipation, expecting me to crumble, to fall to my knees, to beg.
Instead—“I also understand,” I continue, “that you need to make an example of him.”
The words slide out steady, controlled.
Behind me, Jason makes a sound, soft, strangled, like I’ve stabbed him somewhere no blade should ever touch.
Someone steps closer. Close enough that I can feel his breath on my cheek. Close enough that Jason’s low, rumbling growl vibrates the dirt under my feet.
“And what,” they ask, “do you think an example should be?”
I exhale slowly, somewhere between terrified and unbreakable.
“One that ends the cycle,” I say. “Not fuels it.”
Another ripple. Confusion. Interest. Something almost like… respect?
The one with his bad breath in my face says. “You walk into a judgment circle blind, unarmed, and offer counsel.”
