“Absolutely not. You should be lying down.” She rounded on the three men behind me. “Why is she moving? Why are you letting her move? She was poisoned less than two hours ago and you’re standing there watching her get up? What kind of mates are you?”
“The kind who know better than to argue with her,” Lucian muttered.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I can walk.”
“You are not fine. You are pregnant with triplets and recovering and you will be carried, supported, or wheeled to that clearing. You will not walk.”
Before I could protest, three pairs of hands were on me. Percy at my right side, his arm around my waist. Solomon at my left, his hand steady on my elbow. Lucian behind, one palm on my lower back. They guided me through the tent flap and positioned me at the entrance with cushions, blankets, and a water supply that hadn’t existed thirty seconds ago.
“Comfortable?” Rheda asked, inspecting the arrangement.
“I have four people managing my ability to sit down. Comfortable isn’t the word I’d use.”
“Good.” She patted my cheek. “Stay.”
I thought I was being punished too.
Life was going to be significantly harder with additional overprotective people in it.
The clearing held only lycans. Voss’s soldiers formed the perimeter. Council representatives stood in a cluster. The ravens perched, recording.
And at the center, held upright by soldiers who didn’t bother being gentle, Annora and Giselle knelt in the dirt.
They’d broken in the hours since the chase. Annora’s composure had dissolved, replaced by a woman I barely recognized. Giselle’s rigid military posture had crumbled, her shoulders curved inward, her amber eyes fixed on the ground.
Two women who had tried to murder my children, kneeling in the clearing where the entire camp could see them.
Rheda turned to me. Not to Lucian, her son or Altun, her husband.
Tome.
“This is your judgment to make,” she said. Quiet enough that only the people nearest heard. “They harmed you. They targeted your children. The sentence belongs to the one who was wronged.”
My hands pressed against my stomach. Heartbeats drummed beneath my palms, steady now, recovered, alive because Farmon had worked fast enough and the bond had held strong enough. Fortunately, the stubbornness I’d inherited from no one and everywhere had kept me conscious long enough to scream for help.
Rheda held my gaze. The lesson lived in that look. Not what to decide. How to carry the weight of deciding.
“I’ll need a minute,” I said.
“Take it.” Rheda stepped back. “A queen who rushes judgment is no queen at all.”
The clearing waited.
Every lycan, every soldier, every council representative watching the pregnant human woman who’d been poisoned two hours ago decide what happened next.
I used to settle disputes between customers over the last copy of a bestseller. Now I was deciding the fate of two women in front of an audience of immortal wolves.
Wonderful. Definitely no pressure at all.
68
— • —
Mira
So this is what being a queen felt like.
Reading a scroll of Veyndral sentencing laws while an entire camp waited for you to decide the fate of two women kneeling in the dirt who tried to murder your unborn children.
