by Laura Taylor
She had Baron’s attention now, but he didn’t look anything like happy with her suggestion. “If I request that Sempre be banned from proceedings, then that would mean that Caroline and I couldn’t watch either. There’s no way in the world she’d put up with us seeing the interviews if she can’t.”
Luna floundered for a moment, then shrugged helplessly. “Is that a price worth paying in order to get the truth out of the rest of the pack? Your Council is still going to be there, after all.” The sound of footsteps came from just beyond Baron, and Luna was out of time. Without another word, she shifted and darted off into the bushes. She took a long loop around the manor, then came back into the Watch’s camp from the forest on the far side. If anyone asked, she could just tell them she’d been feeling restless and had gone for a short run.
After he’d watched Dee walk away, her clandestine conversation with Genna at an end, Tank remained where he was, lurking in the hedgerows as Genna wandered the back lawn aimlessly. He couldn’t see her very well, given his current human form, and hadn’t been able to hear anything that was said while she’d been talking to Dee, but he knew that if he shifted, there was a good chance he’d be spotted far too quickly. Until there was a good covering of snow on the ground, his white fur did him no favours where stealth and discretion were concerned.
Watching her now, he felt an odd sensation in his chest, both a lightness and a heavy weight, like his body couldn’t decide which way was up. He’d been feeling uneasy for days, worrying about Genna, wondering if he was being overprotective, second guessing his every action where the trial was concerned, and it was only now, after Miller’s blunt warning, that he finally recognised the sensation for what it was.
But that, it seemed, was the easy part. Now he had to do something about it.
Gathering his courage, he stepped out of the hedgerows and strode casually towards her, not in a rush, but also making no effort to disguise his intentions. She heard him coming and turned to face him, a relieved sort of a smile crossing her face as she recognised him.
“Hey,” she greeted him, sounding tired. “How’s it going?”
“Chaos, mayhem, drama. You know, the usual,” he replied with a wry grin. “Life around here is never boring.” Well, that was all well and good for some completely meaningless small talk. Now, how about he manage to say something that actually mattered? “How are you doing?” he asked, the grin sliding away to be replaced with real concern. “I heard the Panel gave you quite the workout this afternoon.”
Genna shrugged, though he could see her lip tremble, even as she tried to feign indifference. “I wish you could have been there,” she said, aiming for a casual tone. “It would have been nice to have a little moral support.”
“I would have liked to be,” he told her, feeling like he’d let her down once again. “But at this stage, the Panel is making all the rules, and-”
“I wasn’t trying to blame you,” Genna interrupted him. “I know all this is beyond your control. It’s just… it would have made me feel better.”
“I’m here now,” he said, the words slipping out without him quite meaning them to.
Genna looked up at him, her face pale in the darkness, hope and a fleeting joy fading quickly to an expression of sadness.
“And I’m not going anywhere,” he added, more deliberately this time. Then, heart thumping in his chest, he reached out a shaking hand and lifted her chin so she was looking up at him. Her skin was soft and smooth against his calloused fingers, and he couldn’t resist the urge to stroke his thumb along her jaw, while her lips parted and he heard her breath hitch in the darkness.
“Everyone hates me,” she whispered, tears gathering in her eyes.
“Not everyone,” he immediately contradicted her. “There’s a handful of my pack who are coming down hard on your side. And I’d be surprised if there weren’t a handful more in your own pack who would stand by you, if push came to shove.”
Genna shook her head. “All that means is that people hate me less than they hate Sem-mmph!”
He was kissing her, Tank realised, having acted wholly on impulse to stop the torrent of self doubt and loathing coming from her mouth. And oh, flaming heck, that was really overstepping his bounds. “Sorry,” he murmured, drawing back an inch, finding himself to be rather breathless. “I didn’t mean…”
“You didn’t mean what?” Genna asked, doing nothing at all to remove herself from his arms.
“I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t…” He stroked the side of her face helplessly, pulling back just enough that he could look into her beautiful, pale, tired face. “Or maybe I did,” he admitted, eyes flicking down to glance at her mouth again.
“Maybe you did,” she repeated. She tilted her face up towards him and then rose up on tiptoes, and this time when he kissed her he was smiling, amused at how much shorter than him she was and obligingly bending down to close the distance between them.
But this time, she did pull back, and he let her go without resisting.
“I really, really appreciate everything you’re doing for me,” she told him seriously. “But what if it doesn’t work out? What if…” She took a breath to steady herself. “What if they kill me?”
“Then I will treasure the memory of having known you,” Tank told her, just as seriously. “For however long I have with you.”
She let out a laugh that ended in a sob. “You’re a bloody hopeless romantic, you know that,” she scolded him, then wiped her sleeve across her eyes. “You’ve got to stop doing that, or you’re going to make me cry.”
He reached forward and pulled her into his arms again, tucking her head under his chin, feeling her thin body tremble against him. He kissed her hair, wondering how on earth she managed to be so strong and so vulnerable at the same time. She was going to tie him up in knots, he knew. And he was going to do absolutely nothing to stop her.
“Seriously, Genna,” he murmured, after a while. “I can’t control how this ends. I can’t promise to protect you. If the Council and the Panel decide you’re to be put down…” Tank felt his gut lurch, honour and love suddenly at war with each other. “I can’t stand in their way.”
“I don’t expect you to,” Genna said firmly, pulling back to look at him. “Your duty is to your pack, to Il Trosa, and to our species. That’s the way it was always going to be.”
She was right. There was no fighting it. And no point in denying it. “Then whatever’s left after they’ve all taken their share is yours.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Morning on the Scottish estate dawned cool and crisp, the promise of winter in the air and a stiff breeze whipping up flurries of leaves across the wide lawn. Knowing they would be spending most of the day as humans, many of the visitors had taken the opportunity for an early morning run in wolf form, multiple tracks visible in the dew as heavy paws raced across the lawn and disappeared into the trees.
As soon as breakfast was over, Baron called an early meeting with the Council, repeating the concerns that Luna had so abruptly expressed to him the night before. He’d been rather taken aback by her forthright manner and blunt request, the behaviour far more suited to a wolf of significantly higher rank, but nonetheless, he’d had to admit she had a point. If Sempre’s stranglehold on the pack was as strong as they’d been led to believe, then the truth would never come out with Sempre listening to everything that was said.
The fact that Luna was so concerned with the truth was an interesting point all by itself. Baron didn’t fully trust anyone in that godawful pack, and he resolved to keep an eye on her. An active attempt to undermine her alpha might mean she was simply opposed to Sempre’s destructive ways, or it might be a clever play for power of her own.
The Council, in response to Baron’s news, called an emergency conference with the Panel, and Baron was a little surprised to hear the result. Sempre was to be banned from the hearings, aside from when she herself was required to answer questions, while Caroline and himself would
be permitted to continue attending. When she heard the news, Sempre threw a fit of righteous indignation, but, as Kajus drolly pointed out, Baron and Caroline were not the ones accused of treason.
The first session of the day consisted of the Council relaying all the information they had gathered so far to the Panel, and it was no surprise when the combined group then decided that they needed to interview both Sempre and Genna as the next step, to ascertain exactly what each of their stories was.
Barely ten minutes later, Sempre was being dismissed from the courtyard amid a round of muttering from all sides of the hearing.
“Well, that was informative,” Kajus said, lounging back in his chair. “May as well have been talking to a bag of cucumbers.”
Oana scoffed at his words and rattled something off to her translator. “Oana says that if Sempre actually had nothing to do with the meeting with the Noturatii, then denying any knowledge of it is the most natural and obvious thing in the world,” the woman explained dutifully. “She thinks Sempre’s testimony is perfectly valid evidence.”
“I think we should bring her back and question her more on the pack’s structure and her role as alpha,” Linnea spoke up. “As the Council explained, the case against Sempre, aside from being based on Genna’s word, is also built on the premise that she’s seeking more power and that she has held a long standing grudge against Il Trosa’s Den. If we fail to look at that side of things, then it simply comes down to a case of Genna’s word against Sempre’s.”
“We can certainly call her back again later,” Galina suggested, “but for now, I would prefer to hear from Genna. She was the one who attended the meeting, after all.”
“How are we supposed to assess Genna’s actions without a clear understanding of the day-to-day running of the pack?”
“Sempre has already lied to us once about Genna’s abilities.”
“Unless Genna was lying to Sempre about her own skills. You didn’t think of that, did you?”
Everyone seemed to have an opinion, the discussion about what to do next ending up lasting longer than Sempre’s questioning. In the midst of the chaos, Kajus glanced across at Linnea, both of them remaining mostly silent after their initial comments, but also paying very close attention to the ongoing argument around them. The Panel had yet to really get to know its own constituents and had not yet found any sort of rhythm or strategy for organising itself; that much was no surprise. What was far more interesting were the various view points of each of its members, some already siding with Sempre, some hanging back to wait for more evidence, some making an early attempt at sympathising with Genna. Oana continued her habit of disagreeing with as many people as she possibly could. Galina seemed to be trying to rally people to a common goal. And the Council seemed reluctant at this early stage to intervene at all, patiently waiting for the Panel to sort themselves out.
Seeing that the conversation wasn’t achieving anything productive, and was quite possibly heading in directions that would do no one any good, Kajus sidled over to Linnea. “Do we want Sempre back, or Genna up next?” he asked bluntly.
“Genna,” Linnea replied. “I do want to speak to Sempre again, but I think the crowd is eager to hear from Genna, so that’s the easier way to get this back under control.”
Wasting no time, Kajus jumped up onto one of the seats and whistled loudly. About half of those present turned to look at him straight away, and he didn’t wait for the rest, not wanting to lose the moment. “Thank you all for sharing your opinions,” he said loudly. “There are some thought-provoking ideas here, and I’m sure we’ll enjoy more of the same later, but I think it’s in everyone’s best interests if we hear from Genna now. We’ve had only half the story so far, and I think it would be unwise to try making any decisions until we’ve heard Genna’s side of things.”
“Fair call,” Linnea said, managing to sound capitulating, rather than enthusiastic. It wouldn’t do for them to reveal their alliance too quickly, after all.
But at her agreement, a couple of other voices also gave their support to the idea, so Kajus nodded to the Council, and Feng quickly left the courtyard to go and fetch Genna. Not a great start to the hearing, but not the worst, either. It would be interesting to see what Genna had to say for herself, and then Kajus hoped he might manage to wheedle a recess in before they called Sempre back. Depending on what Genna said, he and Linnea were going to have to make sure they asked the right sort of questions about Sempre’s leadership. But plans could not be made until they knew what raw material they were working with.
Half an hour later, Genna sat at the table in front of the Panel, hoping her courage would hold until this session was over. She thought she’d done reasonably well so far, explaining how Sempre and Lita had both repeatedly told the pack how horrible Il Trosa was, that they had a habit of blaming them for any of their own pack’s difficulties, and that Lita had asked her to help with an ‘unusual endeavour’ that would improve their own pack’s position. That part had been Tank’s idea. While Sempre was charged with masterminding the plan to contact the Noturatii, Lita was a much more convenient scapegoat, given that she was now dead and could not answer for herself. The very fact that Genna was blaming a dead person for a lot of her own actions could raise a certain amount of suspicion, but once the Panel delved into the deeper structure of the pack and learned that Lita had been very much Sempre’s right hand – not to mention the fact that she had also routinely abused their magic – it would certainly not be an unreasonable thing to believe that Sempre would have used her as an intermediary to action her plan through Genna. And by virtue of Genna having only very recently joined the pack at the point that the meeting with the Noturatii had taken place, she could also sidestep a lot of the Panel’s questions on why she hadn’t thought the plan to be a bad idea, or why she hadn’t questioned Sempre’s authority, claiming quite honestly that she hadn’t understood the laws of the Watch, hadn’t known of the existence of the Treaty and hadn’t received much in the way of training from her superiors until much later.
Now, the Panel was questioning the details of her trip to meet with Miller – more stable ground for Genna, as she was able to stick to the hard truth for more of this section. She’d just told them that she’d hitchhiked most of the distance to Manchester.
“Why wouldn’t Sempre provide you with more suitable transport?” Linnea asked. “A young convert wandering the countryside by herself is likely to run into all manner of trouble.”
“She didn’t want anyone else involved, and she couldn’t drive me herself because her being away from camp for a full day would raise suspicions,” Genna answered. Technically, both points were true, though neither of them were strictly relevant in the way she was trying to convince the Panel they were. “Aside from that, I suspect she was simply aiming for a level of deniability. She didn’t actually say so,” she added quickly. “That’s just speculation on my part.” In a human court, idle speculation on the part of a witness would have been quickly shut down. Here, however, Genna had learned that the rules that governed human courts didn’t apply.
Galina was the next one to ask a question, after everyone had made some notes and a few muttered conversations had gone on. “Why did Sempre want to expose Il Trosa to the Noturatii?” she asked bluntly. “Did she give you a reason? Why at that point in time, in particular? Sempre has been alpha for nearly twenty years, I believe. So why now?”
Genna felt both a thrill of relief at the question – it was an easy one to answer – and a tremor of fear. For all her growing familiarity with Dee, the guts of the reason still scared her. “Are you familiar with the prophecy of Fenrae-Ul, the Destroyer?”
“Everyone knows this prophecy,” Kajus said darkly. He made Genna nervous, his mouth always saying one thing while his eyes said another. He was rather like Luna that way, and she was constantly unable to decide whether to trust him or not. “Though I would dare say the majority of us don’t take it literally,” he went on. “It hangs o
ver our heads as a threat that Sirius will one day tire of us. My own belief is that it’s a story meant to keep us in line.”
Belatedly, Genna glanced at Baron. So far, both Baron and Caroline had seemed to be generally supportive of her. Though not exactly allies, they had offered her food, clothes and housing while asking nothing in return. She couldn’t think of a way to leave Dee out of the discussion, but she didn’t want to upset the few people who might be inclined to help her, either.
But to her relief, Baron met her gaze without hesitation and gave her a slight nod, and Genna reflected that he must have had a bit of practice by now running interference for this most unusual member of his pack.
But how was she going to explain this one without alienating the man who had just declared his own lack of belief in Fenrae-Ul. “Quite a lot of people here do believe in the prophecy,” she said carefully. “Or at least, in the idea that Fenrae-Ul could be reincarnated.” The part about her destroying their species was still open to interpretation, of course. “Last year, Baron and Caroline recruited a woman into their pack who has proven her ability to separate the wolf side of a shifter from their human side. They believe – as do the majority of my pack – that her wolf is Fenrae-Ul.”
A dozen people started speaking at once, but the commotion was quickly quieted as Linnea stood up and yelled for silence. “We will have plenty of time to explore whether or not Fenrae-Ul is real later. I’m sure Baron and Caroline will be most willing to help with that side of things,” she added pointedly, to which Baron nodded and replied with a quick, “Of course.” “But for now, we are hearing Genna’s story, and if she believes the prophecy to be true, then for the sake of understanding her actions and motivations, we should respect that.”
Low muttering indicated that not everyone was entirely happy with the plan, but they were at least willing to go along with it for now. At Linnea’s nod, Genna told the story of how Dee had come to visit her pack early last spring, how she had separated the human out of one of their pack members – an act of pure self defence, she was careful to point out – and the panic that had set in after her departure.