Blackwell scowled. “Mr. Sanders, this isn’t a trial.”
“But his point is valid,” Ed Taylor declared. “We’ll ask Ms. Wade about her motivation when she sits in that chair.” Blackwell frowned again, but remained silent. “Ms. Sheffield,” Taylor continued, “why did you kill Joe Mathews and the other human hunters?”
“Objection!” Michael stood again. “Ms. Sheffield has already been pardoned for her crimes, as part of an agreement she made with the council in advance of today’s hearing.”
“We are aware, Mr. Sanders,” Taylor said. “I’m trying to establish her frame of mind as it pertains to Ms. Wade’s motivation.” He tossed a glance at Abby, then his gaze slid my way, and it was less than friendly. Brian’s father blamed me for ending his son’s engagement. He wasn’t the only one.
Michael nodded curtly. “Withdrawn.” He sat, gesturing for Robyn to go ahead, now that he was sure the council wasn’t going to revoke its promise.
Robyn’s leg began to jiggle beneath the table. “I don’t know. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I never really decided to kill anyone.” She frowned. “Dr. Carver said my cat half was in charge of my brain when those things happened, which means they weren’t my fault. I was dissociated from my conscience and my human decision-making process. Didn’t you guys talk to him?”
“We did.” Blackwell trained his habitually skeptical focus on her. “Why did you go looking for those men in the first place, Ms. Sheffield? I assume that part was done while you had full use of your human faculties?”
Robyn nodded hesitantly. “Well, the first of those men found me. Abby had taken me to the woods so we could run in cat form, and I picked up a scent I hadn’t even realized I’d smelled at that cabin the day I got scratched. It belonged to a man those hunters worked with who hadn’t been there that day. He was following us, and when I smelled him, I just sort of…lost control. My teeth needed to break through flesh. I needed to taste his blood. I couldn’t think about anything else.”
She was describing bloodlust; we all knew the symptoms well.
“When it was over, I shifted back into human form and went through his stuff, trying to figure out who he was. Why I knew his smell. I found a disposable cell phone that only had a few contacts in it. One of the names was Steve’s—he’s one of the men who took me from the campsite—so I knew the rest of those names were other hunters. Other men out there killing and skinning shifters.
“I texted the addresses to myself, but I didn’t tell Abby.”
“Why not?” Gerald Pierce asked, from the left side of the table.
“Because she kept telling me how important it was for me to keep the whole thing a secret and to never go anywhere without her. I thought she’d think it was too much of a risk, but I had to make sure they weren’t doing to someone else what they did to me.” Robyn took another sip of her water. “I went to the first address to make sure they weren’t holding any more prisoners. I was just gonna wait until the house was empty, then break in and take a look around, but…I don’t know what happened. I don’t remember shifting, but I must have, because I woke up later, naked and covered in blood.”
“You killed those men in a dissociative state, brought on by severe trauma?” Faythe said, reiterating the facts for our fellow Alphas to remind them of Robyn’s deal.
“Yeah, I guess. And now I have to have an Alpha, who gets tell me what to do whenever he wants. I have to tell him where I’m going, and I can’t leave his territory without getting permission from him and from the Alpha of whatever territory I want to go to. And if I want to go to one of the free zones, it’s this whole big organizational challenge because I can’t go by myself, in case I get kidnapped and sold into marriage somewhere in South America. That really wasn’t much of a risk for me before I started sprouting fur and claws, you know,” Robyn said.
I had to stifle a smile, in spite of the circumstances. In granting her immunity, they’d unmuzzled the new tabby, and several of the older council members were obviously having regrets.
“This system you guys have set up is really anti-American, but it turns out that’s not the right opinion for me to have. I’m supposed to be a shifter first, and an American second, but when I do that—when I give in to my cat instincts and urges—you guys threaten to execute me if I don’t go along with this bullshit deal you offered me.”
Michael stood, unsure what to do, since Robyn had veered off course. “Um, may I have a word with Ms. Sheffield in private, please?” he said, and she turned to glance at him in surprise.
“No,” Ed Taylor barked. “Let’s let her speak. Ms. Sheffield, what would your reaction have been if Ms. Wade had told you all of this when you were first infected?”