I twisted in my chair to face Jace, and he gave me a smile, his blue eyes bright with the spark that blazed between us. But his jaw was tight and his arms were tense. He might not have been on the panel, but he knew what was going on behind all the cordial smiles and formal behavior. And he didnotlook happy.
My father cleared his throat, startling me out of my thoughts. “Abby, why didn’t you tell us that your roommate had been infected?”
I took a deep breath, then forged ahead. “Because she got sick really fast, and by the time I realized she had scratch-fever, I thought she was dying.” And I was extra glad they’d kicked Robyn out of the room, because she didn’t know that part. “I mean, no other woman’s ever survived infection that I knew of.”
“And after you realized she would live?” Paul Blackwell demanded.
“I didn’t tell anyone then because of this.” I held both arms out to take in the room full of Alphas—an absolute authority unlike anything that had existed in Robyn’s life thus far. “She was scared, and sick, and traumatized. She was having nightmares and flashbacks.”
Most of the faces staring back at me seemed completely unmoved.
I exhaled in frustration, then leaned forward with my arms folded on the table. I tried to meet each of their gazes. I wanted them to understand. “Those men killed her friends right in front of her. They hit her and put a knife to her throat. They dragged her away from everything and everyone she’d ever known and locked her in a basement, where her life waschanged forever.”
Faythe’s eyes widened. She knew what that was like. She remembered. But the rest of them...
“You guys have all the power.” I glanced at each of the other Alphas in turn. “All the control. You’ve never been terrified or helpless. You’ve never sat in a dark room waiting, listening, knowing that the next time the door opens, someone’s going to come in and hurt you, and there’snothingyou can do about it. You don’t understand how sometimes, even when it’s over, you’re still hurt, and scared, and everyone wants you to tell them that you’re fine, or that you’re not fine, but really youjust want to be left alone.”
Faythe nodded, and her eyes looked extra shiny. My father’s jaw was clenched with the reminder of what I’d been through and why I might over-empathize with Robyn’s trauma. Several of the other Alphas looked uncomfortable.
“You wanted my frame of mind? There you go. I knew that Robyn just wanted to be left alone, and that you guys wouldneverlet that happen. Which was a shame, because Robyn wasn’t just healing from a violent crime. She was dealing with bloodlust, and overwhelming new instincts, and radically enhanced senses. Less than a week later, she was back in class, trying to keep up with school on top of everything else.
“Robyn’s strong and smart, but she grew up as a twenty-first-centuryhumanwoman withno conceptof the kind of authority an Alpha wields. Much less an entire council full of them. The last thing she needed was ten strangers telling her she’d have to give up the career she’s been working toward since she was sixteen so she can pick a husband and raise a litter of shifter babies. Not to mention the genetic testing and clinical observation. Being kidnapped and infected was unfair enough. I couldn’t break the rest of it to her without giving her time to heal. And I wouldn’t have had any time to give her, if anyone else knew about her. So I tried to protect her.”
Faythe smiled, and for several seconds, no one else seemed to know what to say. I turned to look at Jace, and he gave me the smallest, most Alpha-appropriate nod of approval, but as soon as I turned back to the council, I knew I’d messed up.
Looking at Jace had reminded them of that other thing I’d done wrong. With him.
“And when Robyn started killing people?” Milo Mitchell, Alpha of the Northwest Territory demanded. He’d been one of Jace’s stepfather’s allies, and our new relationship gave him one more reason to hate Jace. “Why didn’t you tell someone about her then?”
“Because I didn’t know what she was doing, at first. The guy in the woods was self-defense. I didn’t know she’dkeptkilling until she called me from Hargrove’s house, but she didn’t remember any of what she’d done, and we were in the last week of the semester by then, so I decided to talk my dad into letting me stay on campus during the break. I was going to use that time to tell her everything I hadn’t had a chance to tell her before.” I shrugged. “But then Jace came to pick me up early, and I realized that Robyn could be the rogue stray he was looking for.”
“That’s why you forced him to hire you?” Blackwell demanded. “To cover up your roommate’s crimes? And your own?”
“Yes, but that was my fault, not his,” I insisted.
Ed Taylor glanced over my shoulder at Jace, and my pulse picked up speed. “You would never have been able to manipulate your way onto his staff if he hadn’t offered you the job in the first place,” Taylor pointed out. “Employment as an enforcer is not candy to be handed out to children in cute costumes.”
“I’m not a child!” I snapped, and too late, I realized that was strike number two.
“Many enforcers are hired in their early twenties, or even younger,” Faythe pointed out through clenched teeth. “Including both me and Jace.”
Milo Mitchell leaned forward, across the table from Faythe. “And there are some who would suggest those weren’t the wisest hires either. Age is not just a number, Ms. Sanders.”
“A philosophy I’m sure the oldest among us keep close at heart,” she snapped with a sharp glance at the elderly Paul Blackwell, and I wanted to cheer.
Instead, I drew everyone’s focus back to me, to break the tension. “Jace never really intended for me to accept that job. He thought I’d graduate and go back home, and he hadnoidea what I was up to.”
“Well, heshouldhave,” Mitchell said, and panic swelled inside me when I saw the sentiment echoed on several of the other Alpha’s faces. “Tell us about Gene Hargrove. Why did you kill him?”
“Because if he’d kept talking, Jace would have figured out that Robyn was a stray. I was trying to protect her.”
“Were you not also trying to protect yourself?” Nick Davidson asked, speaking up for the first time.
“No, I was pretty much already screwed,” I said, and when Faythe flinched, I realized they might count “screwed” as profanity. Was that strike three?
“How so?” she asked before anyone could object to my language.
“Well, even if I could have kept everyone from finding out Robyn was the killer, eventually they’d at least find out she existed, and then everyone would know I’d been hiding her.” My open-armed gesture indicated the entire inquisition. “I’d have ended up here anyway, and I knew that from the start.”
