“No!” I stood again, and that time, no one told me to sit.
Jace didn’t even look at me. “What happens in my territory is ultimately my responsibility, and I should have seen what was going on. If I’d been more involved, I would have figured it out. So, if you have to punish someone, punish me. But leave her alone.”
“Wait a minute!” I turned my back on him to plead with the council. “I’m the one who lied. I manipulated my way into that job, and I’m the one who killed Gene Hargrove. Jace had nothing to do with any of that. He had no idea what I was doing.”
“But don’t you think he should have?” Milo Mitchell leaned back and crossed his hands over his stomach, and anger raced up my spine. He’d always hated Jace and had voted against confirming him as Alpha.
Unfortunately, I had no idea how to answer. Claiming that he couldn’t be held accountable because I’d outsmarted him would not help his case. Before I could come up with a suitable response, Jace answered for me.
“Yes. I should have. I move that the council apply the charges brought against Abby Wade against me instead.”
“Jace…” I turned to him with tears in my eyes. He was ruining his career for me. He was ruining his life for me.
I couldn’t let him do it.
“I move to accept the motion,” my father said, and I spun on him in shock.
“Dad, no!” But my father looked right into my eyes, and I knew I wouldn’t change his mind. He’d found a way to save his only daughter, and he would seize it, no matter who else got hurt.
“I second,” Faythe said, one hand on her swollen belly, and the first tears spilled from my eyes to roll down my cheeks. “All in favor?”
A chorus of “Ayes” rang out, and my throat tried to close around a cry of denial. It was unanimous.
Why was the vote never unanimous in favor of any good idea?
“No!” But instead of shouting at the council again, I turned on Jace. “What did you do?”
“Abby…”
“Take it back!” I shoved him, and he rocked on his feet, but took the blow without complaint. “Take it back!” I pushed him again, and he was against the wall, and everyone was staring. His face blurred beneath my tears, but his blue eyes still burned bright. When I tried to push him again, he pulled me into an embrace, and that’s when I totally lost it, sobbing against his shirt.
The severity of the charges against me easily warranted the death penalty, but lockup was the worst they would have thrown at me, because they needed me. That was the only true break fate had cut me, to make up for the shitty stick I’d drawn, having been born female in an overwhelmingly patriarchal world.
But Jace didn’t have gender on his side.
“Get her out of here,” Milo Mitchell ordered, and my father growled at him.
One of Mitchell’s men grabbed my wrist. Jace snarled, and when the tom didn’t let go of me fast enough, Jace seized his arm and gave it a brutal twist. I heard both bones crack.
The tom backed away from us, whimpering and clutching his broken arm. Mitchell cursed softly and waved his injured enforcer out the door for medical care.
No one else tried to touch me. No one yelled at Jace.
You don’t cross an Alpha in his prime unless you’re looking to get hurt. Or you’re stupid.
Jace guided me toward the doorway himself, and I stepped through it because I had no choice.
Faythe followed me into the hall, ostensibly to use the restroom, but as soon as the door closed behind her, she turned to me, an apology written all over her face. “I’m sorry, Abby. I know how hard this must—”
“Then why would you second the motion?” I demanded, but even with tears in her eyes, she responded calmly.
“There’s more at play here than you understand.”
“Yeah, I get that. But how could you do that to him? You used to love him!”
“And I always will, but not like he loves you.” Faythe exhaled slowly, and I got the impression that she was stalling for time. Trying to figure out how much it would be prudent to explain to me. “Jace is determined to protect you, Abby. If we didn’t give him this option—the option he asked for—he’d find another way, and that would go even worse for him.”
There was something in her gaze. Something she wasn’t saying...
“You all planned this!” I hissed. Suddenly, the hushed phone calls made sense.
“No. He made us promise to support whatever motion he proposed if your hearing went badly, but your father and I didn’t know the details.”
“But they’re going to execute him!” I whispered, terrified of the words even as I said them.
“No.” She wiped tears from my cheeks with her thumbs. “No, Abby, I promise that’s not what they want out of this.”