Robyn gave him a bitter huff. “I’d have fucking defected to Canada.”
There was a collective gasp from most of the council, who probably hadn’t been cursed at by a tabby since Faythe’s pre-Alpha days.
“You would have run?” Faythe said, but she already knew the answer. We all knew the answer. She was just trying to drive home the gist of Abby’s defense.
Robyn nodded. “You would have had to hunt me down and drag me back by force. You might have had to kill me. I wasn’t ready to hear all this then, and if Abby had told me, you guys might be hunting my pale ass all over the great white north right this very minute.”
Several of the older Alphas scowled, but Robyn had done her job. As the new stray stood to be dismissed, Faythe caught my gaze, and I knew exactly what had dulled the shine in her eyes and stiffened her posture. The hard part was yet to come.
Abby smiled at me behind Michael’s head, and I knew at a glance that she thought we were winning. None of her political science classes had taught her what angry Alphas were like when they felt scared, threatened, and betrayed. She didn’t know about behind-the-scenes phone calls or under-the-table deals, or how brutal the survival instinct could be when it applied to an entire species, rather than to an individual.
Abby had no idea what she was walking into, and I’d had no chance to warn her.
All I could do was return her smile and cling to my backup plan. Abby had made herself a target, and I would do whatever it took to draw the council’s aim from her.
TWENTY
Abby
Robyn gave me a sympathetic look as she left Faythe’s dining room, but I could tell she was relieved. Her part was over. She’d done what she could to help me, swimming upstream in a political current she’d never even known existed until days before, and I was proud of her. Jace was right. She was strong. She’d be fine.
When I stood to take my seat, every gaze in the room followed me. The ambient tension was thick enough to choke me with every breath I took. My father had chosen Ed Taylor to lead the inquisition to show that my broken engagement to Brian had left no rift between the two Alphas, but based on the gruff look Taylor gave me when I sat, he didn’t seem to have gotten the memo.
For four years, he’d believed that his son would take over my father’s Pride. That I would give him grandchildren. That Brian would follow in his footsteps and maybe ask for fatherly advice. I’d taken all that away from him. I understood his anger. But it had no relevance to my hearing.
“Hi, Abby, and thank you for coming today,” Faythe said as I pushed my chair forward. But the encouraging smile she’d had for Robyn was gone. Faythe’s obvious anxiety popped my bubble of optimism like a balloon under too much pressure, and all at once my worst-case-scenario fears felt more like an inevitability.
For the past week and a half, I’d lain awake in my childhood bed at night, thinking about Jace. Missing his grin, and his laugh, and that sound he made deep in his throat when he was really turned on. Remembering what it felt like to be touched by him and know that the same hands capable of ripping apart every threat he’d ever faced could also bring comfort, and support, and the most blisteringly intimate pleasure I’d ever felt in my life.
My dad had spent those same nights on the phone, having a series of arguments that were evidently well above my need-to-know level. I couldn’t identify any of the voices on the other end of the line, and I only caught small bits of what was said, but the gist was clear—everyone was pissed at everyone else.
The thick tension during my hearing supported that conclusion and made me wonder what was going on behind the scenes with the council. Was my trial actually the backdrop for some larger political clash?
If so, was this about the Lion’s Den resolution, or about my broken engagement?
Either way, did I really even have a shot?
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 did not look 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.