A dark and mocking laugh escapes me. “Really? Based on what? Your version of the attack on the settlement eleven years ago?”
“My version?” His jaw clenches. “You know what happened there. You walked through the carnage caused by the hybrids.”
“The carnage caused by your eldest son, you mean.” I snarl at them both. “The carnage that was started because Zion forced himself on a hybrid girl, a teenager, and killed her father when he tried to save his daughter.”
Alaric’s face turns white. Zion goes completely stiff beside him, his body locked in place.
A murmur ripples through the crowd. A woman in the front row covers her mouth, horror written across her face. Behind her, an older male shouts, “Lies!” but his voice is drowned out by others demanding answers.
“Have you lost your mind, Darius? Do you know what you’re saying? What you’re accusing your brother of?” Alaric’s fury vibrates through the arena, but I can hear the edge of panic underneath it. “What you’re accusing me of?”
“I do know,” I say, my voice tense with anger. “Your mistake was thinking that I would prioritize covering up the crimes of my family like you did. I am not like you, Father. I don’t walk the same path.”
He is dumbstruck. Anger and pain war inside me asI look at the man who raised me, the man I always admired and thought was an honorable alpha.
“You should never have put me in charge of the anti-hybrid program. You should have known that I would eventually uncover the truth.” I gesture to Calloway, Voss, and Strand, who stopped at the entrance to the arena with their investigators. They step forward. “The alphas of the other packs wanted to conduct a joint pack inquiry. And I let them.”
Alaric stiffens, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a snarl. “You conducted an investigation without my express authority? That site was sealed off! An investigation was already conducted. By me. There is nothing you could have found after so many years!”
Alpha Calloway steps forward, his silver hair gleaming in the bright sun. His face is grave, lined with the weight of what we discovered. “After we carried out our search, we understood why you were so reluctant to let us into that area.”
“You had no right.” The words are a hiss from Alaric’s mouth.
I feel a hot and righteous rage course through me. “You were protecting Zion, who had murdered innocent hybrids. And then, sticking to your story that all hybrids were monsters, you started executing them. But your son is the monster. You are the monster. Innocents died so that you could continue to cover up your son’s malfeasance.”
“I am your alpha!” Alaric roars, his power filling the arena. “You do not question me or my investigation. I do not accept your findings. I already investigated the matter, and it was the hybrids—”
“There were witnesses that you forgot about.” I cut him off, my voice like steel. “Human children who were playing nearby. And two hybrid children who were there and escaped.”
Zion’s jaw drops. I watch with satisfaction as fear flashes across his features before he tries to mask it with anger.
My wolf prowls inside me, wanting out. Wanting blood. But I keep him leashed.
“Zion thought he’d killed everybody, but there is no such thing as aperfect crime.” I continue, relentless now. Each word is a hammer blow, shattering the lies my family contrived. “There were humans there who witnessed everything, who still remember the massacre. They were children at the time, playing with their hybrid friends. They escaped with two of their playmates. They remember Zion coming out of the mediator’s house holding the head of a teenaged girl.”
A collective gasp runs through the crowd. Behind me, I hear Violet’s sharp intake of breath. Her hand tightens on my shirt when I mention the girl. She understands. She knows what almost happened to her, too.
“The witnesses saw everything. They watched the outrage spread through the hybrid community after what Zion did. They saw Zion order his soldiers to kill the hybrids who protested. When shifters from the nearby settlement tried to intervene, Zion had them killed, too. The fight spilled into the shifter settlement, and Zion ordered his soldiers to kill everyone. Men, women, children. He spared no one.” I pause, letting the horror settle over the crowd. “If we’re to believe your narrative that the hybrids were the aggressors, how do you justify the massacre of innocent children? Both hybrid and shifter children died that day.” Another pause. “You also killed the soldiers who carried out Zion’s orders. All but one, whom you kept alive just long enough for him to give false testimony. Then, you killed him, too. How am I doing?”
Zion looks like he wants to lunge at me. His hands curl into fists, his jaw clenched so tightly, I can hear his teeth grinding from here. Next to him, Alaric stands rigid, his face a mask of fury barely containing the panic I know is churning underneath.
“You’re full of shit.” Zion’s sneer looks vicious, but his voice wavers. “Nobody will ever believe such obvious lies. You will really say anything to save your hybrid whore, won’t you?”
I go completely still. My muscles lock down as pure, absolute rage floods through me.
“I will pull out your tongue for what you just said.” I say it quietly. Calmly. Like I’m discussing the weather. But there’sa promise in those words, a vow written in blood, and everyone in this arena can hear it.
Even Zion takes a step back, his bravado cracking.
“You are wrong.” Alaric tries to reassert control, his alpha power pushing out. “Zion is your brother. He was the victim of a horrific assault. The mediator attacked him during the meeting. You know all this.”
“If the mediator attacked him during the meeting, why was his blood in his daughter’s bedroom?” I ask, my voice as sharp as broken glass. “Why was his skull found under her bed? Why was the mattress flipped over? Why was his daughter killed there, too, on a bed that still reeks of sex? And why were their names and the location of their house not mentioned in your reports?”
Silence. Alaric has no answer.
“You should have done a better job of covering that up, Father.” I sneer. “You got sloppy.”
Behind me, I hear Violet hiss. I want to turn around and check on her, but I can’t take my eyes off Alaric. Not now. Not when everything is hanging by a thread.
