Pride

by Rachel Vincent

  Dr. Carver came under fire for asking me to disobey a direct order. In his defense, he told the Alphas that as a physician, his first duty was to the young tabby’s well-being, and that he did what was in her best interest—provided her with immediate nourishment and counseling from the only person she would let near.

  The council members seemed unmoved, and Malone insisted that if Dr. Carver had explained the urgency to them, they would have immediately provided the tabby with whatever she needed. But we all knew she wouldn’t have cooperated with them and they would not have let me go in alone to earn her trust.

  When they’d all had their say, the doc was strongly reprimanded and warned—by my father—that any future transgressions would result in him being exiled from the Pride.

  Lucas got off with an angry warning and a month’s suspended pay, since he was the lesser-ranking tom present. But as my father’s second-in-command, Marc technically had the authority and the responsibility to stop us all from doing something so irresponsible and potentially dangerous. Yet he hadn’t.

  My stomach twisted in on itself as Marc walked solemnly into the center of the room. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his feet spread—at ease, though he was probably anything but. He elected not to sit. He was going to take it like a man.

  Because of me.

  I couldn’t remember Marc ever even being reprimanded by the council before. He’d been reproached by my father for his quick temper on occasion, but that was nothing compared to this. That was a slap on the wrist from a loving father figure. Malone didn’t love Marc, and would just as soon rip off his hand as slap his wrist.

  Malone opened his mouth to begin, but my father cut him off. “Marc…” He trailed into a pained silence, and I fervently hoped I was the only one who could read the disappointment in his eyes. “What were you thinking?”

  “Honestly?” Marc asked, and my father nodded, giving him permission to say something the others probably wouldn’t want to hear. “I was thinking that it didn’t matter what I did. If Faythe wanted to work with the tabby, she was going to do it no matter what any of us said or did.”

  Daddy didn’t smile. Instead, he nodded wearily, as if to say he shared Marc’s pain.

  “So you let her disobey a direct order?” Malone demanded, leaning so far forward, the table must have been digging into his waist. “You just stood there and watched your Pride’s only tabby—the professed love of your life—walk alone and unarmed into the room with a strange, violent werecat? Why?”

  I could only see Marc’s face in profile, but that was enough to showcase jaws bulging in anger, and a single brow drawn into a fierce frown. “Because someone had to do it, and Faythe is best equipped for the job. She has previous experience counseling a traumatized young tabby.” My cousin Abby, of course. “And a couple of days ago she took out a full-grown stray in the grip of scratch fever, and this was just a child, weakened by hunger and exhaustion. Also, Faythe wasn’t completely unarmed. She had a tranquilizer.”

  But he wasn’t saying it all. He wasn’t saying that he’d tried to stop me, and that I’d refused to listen. He wouldn’t lay the blame on me—even when I deserved it.

  I leaned forward, my hands clenched around the arms of my chair. Why isn’t he defending himself?

  “What if the cat had attacked?” Malone gripped the edge of the table with tension-white fingers. “Faythe’s barely recovered from several gashes in her stomach. What if she’d been injured again?”

  “Like you care!” I mumbled. My father’s head whipped around and his eyes settled on me with the weight of my own conscience. But I’d had enough. I stood, glaring at them all at once. “What? It’s the truth! Aren’t you guys after the truth? Because we all know Councilman Malone would order Marc to break my neck here and now if he thought he’d get away with it. Yet there he sits, browbeating him for something I did! Where’s the justice in th—”

  Lucas tugged hard on my arm, and when I fell into my chair, I bit my tongue, effectively cutting off my tirade. Blood flowed into my mouth and I swallowed it, wiping at my lips with the back of my sleeve even as I glared at my cousin. He ignored me, eyes glued to the Alphas seated at the front of the room.

  “One more word and I’ll have you escorted out of the lodge,” Malone said, and somehow he made “escorted” sound much more menacing than it should have. Anger blazed up my spine. The bastard was threatening me!

  I opened my mouth to say…something. I didn’t have the details all worked out yet, but that turned out not to matter because Marc beat me to the punch, no doubt trying to save me from myself, as usual.

  “I’m not protesting this.” He glanced at his feet as if fighting for patience, and when he looked up again his eyes held a complacent strength the likes of which I’d never felt in my entire life. I would have given almost anything for a fraction of the self-control Marc wasted on the council. “I let her go in,” he said. “I’m not arguing otherwise, so let’s get this over with.”

  “Fine.” Malone nodded, like that’s exactly what he’d wanted to hear, when I knew for a fact it was not. He wanted to berate Marc some more, now that he’d finally found a legitimate forum for his irrational prejudice. But Marc had taken that opportunity away, and I would have applauded, if Lucas hadn’t chosen that moment to clasp my hand, ostensibly to comfort me.

  Malone’s eyes gleamed with barely repressed joy, which I wanted to pound in one side of his head and out the other. “We’re charging you with insubordination, and with neglect and endangerment of the tabby under your protection, which confounds me, frankly, considering you once wanted to marry this particular tabby.”

  That slimy son of a bitch!

  Marc’s hands fell into fists at his sides, and my uncle rushed to fill the silence. “Calvin, keep the editorializing to a minimum.”

  Malone ignored him, but wisely moved on. “I’m recommending a sentence consisting of a public apology, dismissal and exile.”

  Marc jerked as if he’d been slapped, and someone gasped out loud. I think it was me.

  Blood dribbled down my chin when my mouth gaped open, and I wiped it away with that same sleeve, as the nails of my other hand sank into Lucas’s skin. He hissed and tried to pull his hand from mine, but I barely noticed.

  No. Marc had said he’d accept his sentence, but he couldn’t have known Malone would pull a stunt like that.

  “That’s completely unreasonable.” My father growled, now on the edge of his chair. His jaw bulged with obvious anger, which could only mean he was closer to losing his temper in public than I’d ever seen him. “No one was hurt, and Faythe actually helped both us and the tabby.”

  Every gaze in the room moved from my father to Calvin Malone, waiting to see how he’d respond. We were exploring new territory in the landscape of werecat political structure, at least as far as I knew, and no one seemed very sure of his footing at the moment.

  Malone’s eyes blazed with anticipation “He sent your daughter—in direct opposition to our orders—to be slaughtered by a half-wild werecat who’d already sliced open Dr. Carver’s arm. If a full-grown tom couldn’t handle her, Marc had no reason to believe Faythe could.”

  My father’s voice went dangerously soft and deep. “He’s a much better judge of her capabilities than you are, and he was right. She’s fine.”

  “The happy ending doesn’t matter—it could easily have gone another way. What matters is that he made a very poor decision that could have gotten your daughter killed.” Malone and my father faced off against each other, the rest of us forgotten in a rarely seen Alpha battle of wills. “He has to pay for that, Greg, and letting him remain in your house and in your Pride is as good as saying you value his life over hers. You can’t trust him to protect her now. You might as well hand him a knife and tell him to get it over with!”

  Blood rushed to my face, scalding my cheeks, and I had to force air from my lungs in order to draw a fresh breath. He couldn’t be serious. He was not acc
using Marc of wanting me dead! If that wasn’t the pot calling the kettle black, I’d…I’d…pound the shit out of the pot myself!

  For several seconds I saw nothing but a thick film of angry red, as shocked silence settled around the room like a fog too thick to breathe through. When my vision cleared, my gaze settled on the first thing in the room to move.

  To my utter horror, Blackwell was nodding, staring at Marc in disgust now. He was buying Malone’s steaming pile of horseshit!

  Uncle Rick looked as sick as I felt. But my father just looked pissed.

  He stood slowly to face Malone, and his chair squealed on the floor. “You will not tell me how to run my Pride, nor will you dictate whom I include among its numbers. You’ve stepped over your boundaries, Calvin, and if you don’t step back quickly, I will meet you toe-to-toe.”

  Yes!

  Malone stood, and I couldn’t stifle a petty surge of glee when his forehead only reached my father’s nose. “My vote carries as much weight here as yours does, Greg, and my allies appear to equal yours.”

  Blackwell nodded, formally throwing his frail weight behind Malone’s bullshit sentence. “Greg, Marc doesn’t seem to have the best interest of your Pride at heart.”

  “That is for me to decide,” my father thundered.

  But two votes in favor of Malone’s suggestion were enough to keep the jury hung until someone switched sides, or the world ended. Or they appealed to the rest of the council for a tiebreaker. However, that in itself was a risky move, because there were several other Alphas who shared Malone’s prejudicial dislike of Marc. If the tiebreaker cast his vote with Malone, I would lose Marc for good. He’d be publicly humiliated, fired, and exiled as a traitor.

  I could not let that happen.

  “No!” I was out of my chair in an instant, and too far away for Lucas to grab without standing along with me, which he wasn’t willing to do. He knew better than to draw attention to himself in a room filled with so much tension. He was a lot smarter than I was, because I planned to soak up all the attention, to keep it off Marc.

  Unfortunately, that’s as far as my plan went.

  “Faythe…” My father turned furious eyes on me, but beneath the anger I saw true terror. He knew he was losing Marc, and he was afraid that if I didn’t keep my mouth shut he’d lose me too. But that wasn’t motivation enough for me to cooperate, considering he might lose me anyway.

  “No.” The end of my ponytail slapped my cheeks as I shook my head vehemently. “I won’t let them do this. Marc didn’t do anything wrong. He tried to stop me, but I wouldn’t listen. If he’d held me back, I would have fought him. He would have had to hurt me to stop me, and he wasn’t willing to do that. The only thing he’s guilty of is trusting me enough to believe I knew what I was doing.”

  “That was not his call to make!” Malone yelled.

  “It most certainly was!” I shouted, glowering in fierce loathing of every corrupt ideal he represented. “Marc was the highest-ranking tom there, which made it his call. And he made a good one, which you’d know if you’d listen to what Kaci told me.”

  “Faythe, sit down!” Marc hissed, turning to stare at me in horror. For once I knew exactly how deep a hole I was digging for myself, but my more immediate concern was that Malone not get away with such a selfish, blatant travesty of justice. Marc could not be exiled. I would not stay at the ranch without him.

  “No!” My hands curled into fists at my sides, and I glared at him, almost as angry over his submissive silence as I was over Malone’s despicably out-of-proportion sentence. “There’s no way I’m letting them kick you out for something I did. I can’t believe you’re not fighting this!”

  But I could, really. Marc’s sense of honor was flawless. He’d said he would accept his sentence, and he was now honor-bound to do so, even if it was completely, outrageously unfair.

  Malone crossed both arms over his chest. “The standard sentence for insubordination is dismissal. And for endangering a tabby’s life? I’d say exile is getting off easy. A less tolerant Alpha might ask for something more…permanent.” Beneath his disapproving scowl a grin was just dying to break free.

  And to be pounded into a mutilated mass of split lips and shattered teeth. My fists ached for that honor.

  On his end of the room, Blackwell was nodding, convinced that Malone was doing Marc a favor. And Marc just stood there, jaws bulging, hands clenched, lips sealed.

  The last thread of hope unraveled around my heart, leaving frayed bits of despair in its place. I dismissed the rest of the Alphas and focused on my father; he was the only one who could stop this now. “Daddy, you can’t let them do this.” Rushing past Marc, I leaned over the table and placed my ice-cold palms flat on the smooth surface, staring down the length of the room at the patriarch of my bloodline. “Do not do this!”

  My father frowned at me, seemingly at a loss for what to say in the face of such chaos, and that very concept sent me into a tailspin of panic. I didn’t know how to function in a world where my father was speechless and Marc was absent. They’d always been the great constants in my life, and without their ironclad support in place, nothing made sense. Nothing I did or said mattered, because life would never be the same again.

  My vision began to blur again, and when I blinked, tears slid down my face, oddly cool against the vicious heat in my cheeks. I wiped moisture with my fingers and could only stare at it in astonishment, as if those tears somehow held the explanation for what the hell was happening. How had I gone from trying to help a fellow tabby to watching my entire life’s foundation stomped beneath the steel-toed boots of injustice?

  “This doesn’t make any sense, Marc. He wants to have me executed. He wants you to do it. And now he wants to throw you out for letting me put my own life in danger? That’s bullshit! He can’t have his fucking cake and eat it, too. I won’t let him!”

  I was no longer crying over only his sentence. I was crying over Andrew’s death, and my part in it. Over my inability to help myself, because no matter what I said and did, I only managed to make things worse.

  “Get her out of here,” my Alpha—my father—ordered quietly.

  “Hell no! I’m not going anywhere.” I wiped more tears, then crossed my arms over my chest and spread my feet, prepared to make my stand—until my dad nodded at someone behind me.

  I turned left to see who he was looking at, but Lucas took up my entire line of sight. I spun around, only to find Marc on my other side. He wrapped his arms around me and gently forced my head onto his shoulder, where I lost my already fragile control over the bulk of my anger and frustration.

  Something pinched the back of my arm through my shirt-sleeve, and I flinched. I twisted to see Dr. Carver holding a now-half-empty syringe, his eyes brimmed with fright and regret.

  “Traitor…” I whispered, my legs collapsing beneath me even as Marc scooped me into his arms.

  Then, in the middle of a bright November morning, everything went dark.

  Nineteen

  Soft yellow light painted red streaks on the backs of my eyelids, and I moaned as I rolled onto my side. Damn tranquilizers… I opened one eye to take in a familiar pressboard dresser, on top of which lay the suitcase Marc had given me when I’d told him I wanted to go to college instead of rescheduling our wedding.

  Shit. I was back in my own room at the cabin.

  “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Jace said softly from my right.

  “Call me that again, and I’ll tell the whole Pride you sleep in Scooby-Doo underwear.”

  “I don’t sleep in Scooby-Doo underwear. Hell, I don’t sleep in any underwear.”

  Waaay too much information, Jace. And for once, no mental image popped into my head. I wasn’t in the mood for recreational speculation at the moment. Not by a long shot.

  “It’ll be my word against yours.” Still scowling, I sat up and put one hand to my forehead, when the room spun around me. The tranquilizer hadn’t quite worn off yet. That, plus the daylight
leaking through the cracks in the blinds told me I hadn’t been unconscious very long. Though my rumbling stomach argued otherwise.

  “How long was I out?” I asked as Jace sat on the end of my bed.

  He angled his wristwatch into the muted glow of my bedside lamp. “Just over three hours.”

  It could have been worse; I hadn’t even missed lunch. “How bad is it?”

  His pained expression said he knew exactly what I was asking. “Well, I doubt you helped your own case.”

  “Fuck my case.” I threw the covers back, and my bad mood instantly worsened when I realized I wore no pants. “Nothing I do or say is going to make a damn bit of difference in that regard. They already have their minds made up.”

  “They do now…”

  “They have from the start, but that whole damn ambush made no sense at all.” I squinted into the shadows and spotted my jeans draped over the arm of a chair in the corner. “Where the hell do they get off charging Marc for endangering me, when they’re going to order me executed as soon as they can fill out the proper paperwork?”

  “You sound like your uncle.”

  I shot Jace a quizzical look over my shoulder, on my way to the chair. “What did he say?”

  “I heard him tell your dad that Calvin’s been in his room on the phone all morning, and he was on for nearly two hours yesterday, with music playing the whole time. He’s up to something. Rick doesn’t know what, but he’s trying to find out.”

  Sighing, I sank into the chair and shoved first one foot then the other into the jeans I’d been wearing for most of the last eighteen hours. They were my most comfortable pair, and sometimes a good pair of jeans goes even further than good chocolate toward making me feel better. The only thing more effective would be a strong drink, which was out of the question at the moment. I needed to keep my wits about me, especially after convincing every Alpha within three hundred miles that I was certifiably insane.