by Ivy Asher
“I think we’ll see who’s truly worthy by the end of this, now won’t we?” she retorts as she moves to undress so she can shift.
Rook interrupts her. “Why issue a challenge?” he asks, his strong arms crossed in front of his chest. “Why would you, her mother, challenge Sinclair? Like she said, you were the one to accept the contract months ago for me to take Sinclair as my mate. Now that she’s here, honoring that contract, you issue a challenge within a week. That doesn’t read like you had good intentions toward me or my lounge at all.”
I can tell that she hates that he’s called her out in front of everyone, because her nostrils flare as her green eyes dart around. “My reasons are my own. I don’t have to explain them to you or your lounge.”
I shake my head. “No, you don’t. But you do have to explain them to yours.”
Her eyebrows draw together in a frown, and then her gaze goes over my shoulder, where my backup just arrived in the form of her entire lounge.
My mat’s eyes widen for a split-second before she gets it under control. “What’s this?” she demands as she watches Rook’s enforcers lead the way, bringing all of my mat’s lounge members with them. Dinah shoots me a wink. She gathered everyone in a very short amount of time, and I’m thankful as fuck that she was able to pull it off.
“What are you doing, Meg?” my pat asks, coming up to her. Their entire lounge watches her with confusion.
My mat draws herself up straight, pushing her shoulders back. “I have issued Sinclair a challenge.”
Immediately, shock ripples over the lounge, and everyone’s eyes dart from me to my mother.
“You issued a challenge without informing me? To our own daughter?” my pat asks. His tone isn’t outraged like a father or co-leader should be, but at least he’s here. At least he’s questioning her, even if his voice is filled with confusion instead of anger.
“Don’t question me,” she snaps. “I know what’s best for our lounge.”
“By hurting your own daughter and trying to stake claim to what isn’t yours?” Dinah calls out. “How much longer are we going to follow a matriarch like this?” she asks the lounge, her arms raised in question.
The lounge starts speaking out all at once, and even though their words can’t be picked apart in the crowd, their meaning is clear: They are over my mat’s shit. I suspect maybe they have been for a while now.
My pat raises his hand to get them to settle down. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him behave like an alpha. And even though the gesture is simple, it holds a lot of weight for everyone, because they all shut up. Red eyes on his mate, my pat shakes his head. “Meg, stop this nonsense. Rescind the challenge on Sinclair and let’s go home.”
He starts to step forward to tug on her arm, but she wrenches away from his grasp. “No! Now is the time! Sinclair can’t shift,” she says, pointing at my anklet. “Think what we can do with this lounge,” she tells him imploringly. “It’s the largest one in the world.” Her green eyes are deep set with envy. “This is our chance.”
My pat looks at her like he can’t wrap his head around her power-hungry words. “But...it’s our daughter.”
My mat levels him with a glare. “This is why I lead our lounge. You’re not an alpha. You don’t understand.”
“Enough, Meg,” Dinah calls out. “The lounge doesn’t support this challenge. Rescind it.”
My former lounge all begin to murmur at the clear disrespect Dinah just showed my mat by using her name instead of her title. My eyes dart between my old lounge, my pat, and my mat. The tension is so thick in the air, it feels like it’s wrapped around my neck like a noose. Rook is at my side, incredibly tense, his body poised like he’s ready to grab me and get me away from here.
“You issued a challenge, knowing Sinclair was at a disadvantage?” someone asks from behind me, the disgust clear in their tone.
My mat bristles, and her eyes narrow as she tries to identify who just said that. I feel the people behind me move closer together, and their solidarity warms me. Renewed mumbles of judgement and shock ripple through the surrounding crowd, and my mat tracks the noise like it’s the wave at some sporting event.
I can practically see the list she’s making in her head of all the people she’ll have to get rid of in this new lounge when she wins.
“We would never follow a matriarch that picks on the weak!” someone from my new lounge declares, and others all around us voice their agreement and nod their heads.
“We would never follow a matriarch that chooses power over their own child either!” another cockatrice calls out.
“You’re acting like a backstabbing Drake!” a female shouts out from somewhere across from me.
Every cockatrice present spits on the ground at the same time.
Fucking Drakes.
My mat’s eyebrows shoot up in shock and quickly drop back down into a scowl at the insult. She surveys the crowd’s vitriol with calculating green eyes. I had this whole speech prepared about my mat getting her lounge into debt and trouble. About how she sold me to save her ass, knowing that she was going to dishonor the agreement and try to take over this lounge and all of their assets instead of honoring what she agreed to. But from the look of things, I don’t need to give it.
The cockatrices from both lounges are oozing plenty of judgement and antipathy out into the atmosphere, and I know my mat can feel it. She’s not stupid. She only chooses battles she knows she can win, and this challenge just got a hell of a lot more complicated. She may beat me, but if the entire lounge turns their back on her because of it, she’ll have lost in the end. If they won’t accept her leadership, she’s powerless, and that’s not something she’d set herself up for.
“I’m only doing what your alpha was going to do to me. Do you really think he wasn’t going to turn on me?” she defends.
“I haven’t issued a challenge and had no intention of doing so,” Rook counters, and my mat glares at him. I almost feel bad for not letting Rook carry out his initial plans for her. I’m the one that made him agree to leave her alone. I guess this will teach me to be too generous by giving the benefit of the doubt and forgiveness.
Rook watches everything like a hawk. Power and tension radiate off of him like steam, and I wish I could grab his hand and whisper that it’s all okay. The plan is working. My mat wants to challenge me, I can see it in her eyes, but we’re tying her hands. This is exactly what I was hoping would happen.
My mat has been operating in the shadows for way too long. People who witness shady things are threatened to stay silent about them or are exiled before they can speak out. She’s had a stranglehold on everyone and what they know, but that just changed. If she continues to challenge me, she’ll be held accountable for it.
It’s funny, all cockatrice talk about Alpha Bowen like he’s the worst of the worst, when really, he’s just strong. Leaders like my mat are the ones that need to be taken out, not him.
The anger in my mat’s eyes dims, and her shoulders fall slightly. She knows this isn’t going to go down the way she wanted. Frustration and resignation fill her green eyes, and I swallow down the sigh of relief that wants to rush out of my lips. I hoped against hope that this would work, but there were no guarantees.
“I rescind my challenge,” my mat calls out begrudgingly. No one says anything, but there’s a palpable exhale and release of tension in everyone that’s gathered around.
My mat steps to the center of the ring and extends her hand. It’s customary to shake hands as a show of faith and renewed trust, but I don’t trust my mat. I step away from Rook anyway, because like it or not, I am a matriarch now, and I can’t disrespect the cockatrice way.
Cunning green eyes track me as I move confidently closer, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up in warning. I tell myself that she’d be condemning herself to death if she tries anything, but that doesn’t do much to make me feel better. But I can’t balk or show any hesitation or fear. Just like I told Rook befo
re, to do that would invite endless challenges from rival lounges, and until I get my evil shift-stopping anklet off, we can’t have that happen.
I take my mother’s hand in mine. It’s deceptively soft—probably because she’s never done a day of hard work in her life—and unsurprisingly cold, like every other aspect of who she is.
“This isn’t over,” she tells me flatly as she gives our clasped hands one hard pump.
I release her hand and step back. “I don’t know, mat, from where I’m standing, it looks like the tides are turning.”
I spin on my heels to move back toward Rook and the enforcers of my new lounge, leaving her to stew on that. My pulse pounds in my ears as I walk away, adrenaline and relief rushing through me. I can’t believe we did it. I mean, I had faith, but to know it’s over...I can’t help the smile that crawls across my face. I look up, searching for Rook, my eyes filled with victory, but my stomach plummets when I spot the rage pouring off of him.
He shouts a warning as my perception seems to morph into slow motion.
Rook takes a running step forward and then explodes into his cockatrice. But it’s the change at my back that I feel almost on a visceral level. I whirl around just in time to see a clawed cockatrice foot headed right for me.
That stupid lying bitch!
I have enough time for that thought to flit through my mind and to get a hand up in front of me protectively before I take a cockatrice roundhouse to the chest. I go flying.
Claws rake down my shoulder and across my abdomen as I get flung through the air. A wing comes slicing toward me, and I’m batted down mid-flight. I slam to the ground with a painful crunch, and dirt plumes around me as I gasp to replace the wind that was just knocked out of me. I watch as Rook surges toward my mother, a call for retribution roaring out of his black beak.
He’s less than ten feet away from her and closing fast. He’ll kill her. I know this absolutely. Not only is he a hell of a lot bigger than she is, but she just attacked his mate. His eyes are unforgiving and filled with hate and vengeance.
But out of nowhere, another massive cockatrice slams into my mom before Rook can get to her. She screams as she goes crashing to the ground. The massive red cockatrice is on her in a flash, immediately trapping her neck in its maw.
It takes me a beat to figure out who’s trying to force my mat into submission, and pure shock flashes through me when I realize it’s...my pat.
Completely stunned, I slowly try to push to my feet as my pat clamps down on my mat’s neck and thrashes. She roars, but it sounds more outraged than pained. Me, on the other hand, I’m fucking hurting. I quickly give up on my efforts to get to my feet when new strikes of pain light up through my body.
When it’s clear she can’t break out of my pat’s hold, my mat submits with a bitter trill. She shifts back into her human form as he lets go, and I watch, completely flabbergasted, as she begrudgingly lifts her chin to my pat, exposing her neck to him.
My pat snaps down at her, stopping just shy of her flesh. The action is a warning that the mercy being shown could be revoked at any moment. I can’t even begin to process what my pat just did. I wouldn’t have seen it coming in a million years.
Not only did he come to my rescue, but he put my mat in her place too, and he just promised—in his cockatrice way—to rip her throat out if she crossed him again. My mat breathes hard, seething from her back on the ground, but she doesn’t move a muscle as my pat crows out a warning before shifting back into his human form again.
“How could you?” my mat snarls up at him.
“How could you?” he growls right back. I’ve never seen his face hold so much emotion. “Even if that weren’t our daughter you were attacking, you dishonor me and our lounge by going against your word to rescind a challenge and attacking when the other person’s back is turned! What is wrong with you?” he bellows.
“You didn’t hear what she said to me!” my mat defends.
My pat’s eyes spark with even more fury. Taking a deep breath, he straightens up and looks around. “I hereby rescind my claim and my mate’s claim to...the Denali lounge,” he announces.
What the hell?
My eyebrows jump so high they nearly reach my hairline. Holy shit. He’s making them step down from their own lounge!
“You can’t!” my mat screams at him.
He looks back down at her. “I can, and I do. Enough is enough. You made me ashamed to be mated to you today,” he tells her, and whatever she was about to say dies on her lips. She stares at him, completely astonished, and she’s not the only one.
My pat has never stood up for me against her before. If I hadn’t just witnessed it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.
I feel hands on my body, and I look up to find Rook’s furious and concerned gaze moving over me. I give him a weak smile and a completely nonsensical thumbs up as he moves to pick me up. My hip pops back into place as he helps me to my feet, and I bite back the scream that wants to escape, but it comes out like a gurgled screech.
Rook freezes. “I’m going to rip her apart,” he threatens as he moves to cradle my dirt-smudged face in his hands.
I huff out a laugh and then wince, because I’m pretty sure I have a broken rib or two. Damn, she really did a number on me. I know I’ll be fine with no permanent damage, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
I look down at my chest and see gouges through the tatters of my shirt. “Dammit, I really liked this shirt. It hugged me in all the right places,” I whine.
“Come here so I can hug you in all the right places,” Rook growls as he gets his hands under me and picks me up. He holds me close, and I can feel his heart pounding hard in his chest.
“I’m fine,” I reassure him, lifting my hand to his face. He’s got this sexy scruff thing going on—now that he doesn’t have to pretend he’s a clean cut prison guard. I’m torn about liking it though, because it hides his lickable dimples.
He levels me with a look. “You are not fine. I can smell the blood, Sinclair, and you wince every time you take a breath.”
“I’m fine-ish,” I amend.
He huffs and then starts walking over toward my pat. “Put me down,” I whisper, not wanting to be carried like a baby in front of the lounges.
“Not a chance in hell,” he replies, his arms continuing to cradle me.
We walk up to my pat—wait, no. He’s not a patriarch anymore. He just stepped down from that role. My father bows his head. “If you wish to issue a challenge, I will bear the responsibility of my mate’s behavior.”
My eyes fly up to Rook. He might be my mate...but this is new between us. And he’s a strong, incredibly proud alpha. He could very well demand that my parents face him in a challenge for my mother’s disrespect today. No one would judge him for it. I couldn’t even judge him for it, even though it’s my parents and the thought of him hurting my father makes me a little sick.
Rook studies them, sending a low growling noise at my mother who’s standing behind my father with her head lowered. My mate’s eyes shift from her to me, his expression immediately softening. I feel his fingers lightly circle my skin where he’s holding me. “No,” he says, answering my father. “I won’t issue a challenge. You controlled your mate and made her submit, and you stepped down as alpha leaders of your lounge. I’m satisfied with that if Sinclair is.”
Pride swells in my chest at his words. Not just because he’s choosing to let it go, but because he’s including me in his decision. I give a nod. “I’m cool as long as I never have to see her again.”
My father accepts my words with a tilt of his head. I wriggle in Rook’s arms until he puts me down, but the stubborn cockatrice keeps a hand around my waist, even as I lean in to hug my father. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“I’m sorry,” he replies before pulling away, his eyes misty and filled with so much regret it makes my breath catch in my throat. He addresses his former, now leaderless lounge. “I’m sorry to all of
you. We are not the leaders you deserve. But maybe...they are,” he says, motioning toward Rook and me. Then he turns to leave, pulling my mother along with him.
I watch them walk away, but I don’t feel even a twinge of disappointment that I’ll probably never see her again. I’m pretty cheerful about it, actually. I’ll try to keep in touch with my father, but she just became nothing to me the moment she shifted and attacked.
Rook turns, his arm still steadying around my waist. “If any of you wish to join our lounge, we will welcome you,” he says, and my heart squeezes at his generosity.
There’s an awkward pause as my old lounge sizes up my new one, probably wondering how well they’ll mesh together, but my purple-haired friend lets out an obnoxiously loud whistle, her face beaming. “Woo! That’s what I’m talking about!” Dinah says with an excited clap. “Baby!” she shouts over to her mate. “Go get our daughter. We’re moving in!”
I laugh, shaking my head, but the pain steals my smile away and replaces it with a grimace. “See? Not fucking fine,” Rook says at my side.
Before I can respond, I’m scooped up in his arms again and he’s stalking away. “Party tonight to celebrate our new lounge members and my mating with Sinclair,” he calls out, and whoops and catcalls sound out all around us. “Now, I’m going to take care of my mate.”
“You’re so hot right now,” I purr as I run a finger over his pec.
He cocks a brow at me, but I see his blue and green hair begin to glow. “Sinclair. You’re torn the fuck up from your mother’s claws, and you’re beat to hell from your landing. How the hell can you be turned on right now?” he says with exasperation as he walks us toward his car to drive us back to our mansion.
“Uhh, duh. You’re naked from shifting, and you went all wise and benevolent alpha in front of everyone. It was totally sexy.”
He rolls his eyes, but amusement dances over his expression. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Hopefully take me into a dark room and have your wise and benevolent way with me,” I quip.