by Sierra Dean
Understanding struck then, and I got it. All the hatred, all the anger, all the barely repressed violence. Juan Carlos didn’t want to fuck me at all.
“You’re in love with him,” I said, hardly believing the words even as I spoke them.
Everyone’s attention was on me now.
“Wh-what?”
“You don’t want to sleep with me. You want to sleep with him. You’re in love with Sig.”
Sig glanced from me to the other man. In spite of Juan Carlos being impeccably dressed in his usual Armani, and not a single one of his black hairs out of place, he appeared to be coming apart. His eyes took on a glassy sheen, and he couldn’t look at me or at Sig.
“This is madness,” Arturo said, coming to his feet. “We’ve come together to determine whether or not the girl is a traitor, not to trade malicious gossip about her fellow Tribunal leaders. I insist this discussion come to an end now.”
Juan Carlos appeared relieved for his reprieve and returned to his seat, still visibly shaken. I wasn’t quite ready to let my discovery go though, because it all made so much sense. In all the years I’d known him, Juan Carlos had never had a lover. He did not take human consorts like some of the other vampires, nor did he have any ongoing relationships with the other vampires around us.
At the time, I’d assumed it was because he was an asshole and no one wanted anything to do with him, but now it all made perfect sense.
Sig had shown a special interest in me from the very start, and that was why Juan Carlos had hated me. He saw all Sig’s extra attention was turned in my direction, and any preference Sig might have had for him had slipped away.
All his anger—years’ worth of resentment—all came down to simple jealousy. I could have laughed at the absurdity if he hadn’t made my life such a living hell because of it.
“Could you be a bigger idiot?” I snapped. “I wasn’t trying to steal him from you. Not ever. And what’s more, he’s not mine to be stolen.”
“Shut up,” Juan Carlos grumbled, turning his face into his open palm. “Just shut up.”
“Enlightening,” Sig added, though he didn’t seem to mind the revelation one way or the other. I suppose after living as long as he had, he’d had his fair share of lovers, probably of both sexes. At the very least, I doubted Juan Carlos was the first man to fall in love with him.
“Sometimes I’m not even needed.” Monica came to stand closer to me. “No wonder he trembled at the thought of me reading him. And over such a boring secret too. As though anyone should care who he loves except for him.”
While most vampires were too old or too experienced to bother themselves with things like homophobia, Juan Carlos had been a military man. A conquistador. I was speculating, but perhaps his hatred had more to do with personal shame because he believed himself to be less masculine for loving another man. What the hell did I know about the inner workings of his mind, though?
“He’s not the traitor.” I brought the focus back around to what mattered. “Juan Carlos hates me, and he wants me dead, but he didn’t conspire to kill me.”
The vampire in question glanced up at me, seemingly surprised I was now coming to his defense. Why should he be? If I let Monica bite him, the truth of his innocence would be apparent enough. I’d once believed he had tried to set me up because I was sure he would do anything to eliminate me. But Juan Carlos was a rules man. He would live and die by the council’s laws, and that meant he wouldn’t act directly to kill me.
I wouldn’t put it past him to enlist someone he trusted to do away with me, but there were very few people Juan Carlos trusted.
No, the blame for treachery fell somewhere else, and just this once I was willing to believe Juan Carlos had nothing to do with it. He wouldn’t have let himself become such a spectacle if he was guilty of something. He’d have sat back and let everything unfold around him naturally. All his bluster and yelling had proven to me he was a pompous ass, but not a traitorous one.
“Of course I’m not a traitor.” His gaze cut to Sig, plainly hoping the other man believed him.
Sig looked bored.
But that was a skill of his too. He never expressed undue interest in anything, because to do so would be showing his hand. Any display of emotion was a display of weakness in a situation such as this.
“Him.” I jerked my chin towards Arturo. “He’s come here to see me burned at the stake like a witch. He thinks you’re all stupid enough to believe I would betray you, but the truth is he’s the guilty one. Arturo worked with Alexandre Peyton, a known rogue and escaped prisoner of our council. He provided aid and supplies to Peyton, as well as a steady flow of information. Specifically information about me.”
Arturo glared at me. “These are the desperate accusations of a madwoman and a liar.”
“Rebecca,” I said, letting my voice rise above the mounting din of the room. “What is the punishment for conspiring to kill a Tribunal leader?”
Sig answered for her. “Death. The punishment is death.”
“And you would take the word of a half-breed piece of filth over someone who has sat in a Tribunal seat for over a century? This is madness, Sigvard. You are smarter than to take the trollop at her word, aren’t you?”
“First, you will not insult any member of my council while you are a guest in my city. You were invited here as a gesture of friendliness between our communities, but you would spit on the good name of one of our Tribunal?”
“I would spit directly on her if she would step a few paces closer,” Arturo answered.
Sig went on as if Arturo hadn’t spoken. “Second, you dare to question my judgment?”
“Only when you are obviously blinded by your affection.”
“Are you not blinded by bigotry? Have you honestly sacrificed the laws of your people, laws you have upheld for centuries, because you cannot stand the idea of someone with werewolf blood having the same level of power as you?”
“She is not equal to me. She is an abomination.” He was sounding more and more like Juan Carlos by the second, only this time I didn’t think his hatred was because of love. These were the raving words of someone who loathed what he didn’t know and wanted to stamp out anything different. Arturo didn’t hate me, he hated what was inside me. Knowing me as a person wouldn’t change that, nor would any logical discourse about my leadership skills.
“Did you go looking for Peyton, or did he find you?” I kept my distance, not wanting to discover if he would follow through on his promise to spit on me.
“Any question of yours I answer will serve to implicate me. Since I am innocent of any charges, I will not disgrace myself by acknowledging your words. You are the one on trial here, not I.”
“On the contrary,” Rebecca interrupted. “No one is on trial at all. This was merely a council meeting to determine how we should proceed with Secret’s position, and to establish if she’d done anything wrong. Monica has now cleared her of any treasonous suspicions, and in my opinion, Tribunal Leader Secret is as fit to maintain her seat as ever she was. Is there anyone present among the elders who disagrees with this assessment?”
No one spoke.
“However,” she continued. “New allegations have now been brought forward, and they cast you, Tribunal Leader Arturo, in a less than attractive light. Naturally, though, if you are innocent, you will not mind submitting yourself to the seer’s test.”
“This is absurd. I am a Tribunal leader.”
“So am I,” I snapped. “It didn’t stop you from waltzing in here expecting to see me strung up, did it?”
“We’d all have been better off if you died. Monsters like you don’t belong in our ranks. There’s a reason we don’t drink werewolf blood. It’s filthy and tainted. And that’s what you’ve brought into your council.”
“Actually, I’ve tried her blood, and I think it’s quite remarkable.” Holden threw this comment in so casually it sounded like an observation on the weather, but when I looked back at the others,
I noticed Sig was smirking the slightest bit. Holden, too, seemed quite proud of himself.
Whatever amused them, I guess.
Now that I wasn’t precariously balanced on the edge of death, my stress began to lessen, and the threat of a panic attack abated. I wasn’t done here by any means, but it didn’t sound as though the council had any plans for my immediate execution. I’d say, in the grand scheme of bad things that had happened to me in the previous few weeks, this was ranking pretty low in my list of concerns.
“Enough stalling,” another council vampire said. “Either you are willing to let Monica sample your blood and prove your innocence, or we will assume you are guilty.”
“I am astonished at you all, that you would let her control you like this. I saw through her, even during the briefest of our encounters. I could see her for the freak-show bitch she really was.”
Between his words and Juan Carlos’s, I was getting sick and tired of being insulted. Sig, too, appeared ready to come to my defense a second time, but I held my hand up to silence him. If I was no longer being considered a suspect for anything, it meant my position within the Tribunal was secure, which gave me as much right to speak here as anyone else. Perhaps more, since I was the one accusing Arturo of being a traitor.
“Either you give Monica your blood willingly, or I will take it from you by force.”
He snarled, flashing fangs at me. My own elongated in response, and I showed him I was just as capable of making scary faces as he was. And more than able to draw blood if need be.
“Please.” I grinned wider. “Give me a reason.”
In a flash he was across the room, and faster still his hands were around Reggie’s throat. Though the young vampire was not my friend, since we’d barely shared a full conversation in our twenty-four hours together, I also didn’t want to see him harmed because of me.
“Stop,” I shouted. “Your quarrel is with me, not the warden. If you want to challenge me, challenge me.”
“He can’t,” Rebecca reminded, not particularly helping the situation. “A Tribunal leader cannot challenge or kill another. Secret, be mindful of the rules. You cannot harm him any more than he can harm you.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Reggie’s eyes widened as Arturo’s fingernails sank deep into the flesh of his neck. Blood pooled, spilling down Reggie’s skin and filling the air with a fresh copper tang.
I was still armed. I could take Arturo out with one headshot. But with the whole council standing around me, it would be the last shot I ever took.
Then, as fast as Arturo had crossed the room, came a sharp crack like thunder. For a moment everything was still, and the only sound that followed was the loud thumping of my heart.
I couldn’t understand what happened next. The way Arturo had been holding Reggie, I’d assumed the sound was Reggie’s neck being broken. Yet in the following moment, Arturo’s body went slack, and his hands dropped limp and useless from Reggie’s neck. The young warden stepped away, holding his open wounds, and with nothing to keep Arturo propped up, the Tribunal leader slumped to the floor.
Standing behind him, her hands still raised, was Clementine.
“I was gettin’ mighty sick of his holier-than-thou bullshit. Pardon my language.” She placed her hands back at her sides. “I think y’all can go ahead and test his blood now, if you’d like.”
Chapter Twenty
“Clementine, what did you do?” I braced myself against Holden, who seemed just as stunned as I was. Around the room everyone was gaping at the pretty blonde vampire like she was a viper in their midst.
She glanced down to the body at her feet, then kicked him over onto his back, his lifeless eyes staring straight up at the stone ceiling.
“If I had to speculate, I’d say I seem to have killed him.”
Yes, that did summarize things in the simplest of terms.
“Jesus.” I didn’t know what to do. I was still in the frozen stage Arturo’s sudden attack on Reggie had put me in, and this new development wasn’t helping my brain work any faster.
They were going to kill Clementine now, weren’t they?
Reggie pulled his hand away from his neck, and the holes Arturo had put there were already closed. He wiped his bloody palm on his jeans and nodded to Clementine. “Thanks.”
She smiled back sweetly. “No problem.”
But it was a problem. There was no way this ended so quickly and easily.
Sig walked past me and crouched beside Arturo’s body, turning his head to the side. He must have been satisfied with what he saw there to determine the vampire was truly dead, since he couldn’t check for a pulse.
“Monica, would you be so kind as to confirm Secret’s accusations for us?”
The ancient seer moved smoothly in her little-girl body, lifting Arturo’s limp arm and taking a dainty bite from his wrist. When she’d had her fill, she set his hand back on the floor and faced her rapt audience.
“Arturo is…was guilty. He had his spies seek out Alexandre Peyton after the rogue’s escape. Together they conspired a way to bring Secret to California. He worked willingly alongside a fugitive rogue and attempted to kill a fellow Tribunal leader.” Now she looked at Clementine. “If not for the young one, he would have been sentenced to die. And I believe by attacking a member of the Tribunal leader’s entourage he was declaring himself open for a fight, wouldn’t you say?” She directed this to Sig.
“I would say so.”
“The West Coast council will not be pleased with this news,” Rebecca grumbled.
“At least they don’t have to elect a replacement. In that sense you have saved them a great deal of work. We’ve disposed of a traitor for them and found a new Tribunal leader to sit in his place. Why should they be unsatisfied?”
“Clearly you’ve never dealt with the West Coast council.” This reply was spoken so quietly Monica either missed it or chose to ignore it. I knew what Rebecca was talking about, though. My experience with the West Coast vampires had been less than stellar even before I was kidnapped.
Suddenly everyone was speaking at once.
There was a great deal of fuss between the council elders who were debating whether they should call the West Coast council or send someone in person. They would also need Clementine to be formally introduced. They grouped together, chattering like birds, and I was altogether forgotten.
Clementine seemed bewildered to hear her name being used so freely in the same sentence as the phrase Tribunal Leader. I’d been there. It was a shock at first when you discovered you were no longer a mere warden and now had power over all those you’d been beneath.
She and I were now equals.
“What are they talking about?” she asked, her voice shaking with nerves. “I was only trying to protect Reggie from that nutcase. You’d have done the same thing. They aren’t going to chain me in silver are they? Secret?” She was trying her best not to look uneasy, but her words tumbled all over each other as she spoke.
“You killed a Tribunal leader,” I said.
“Should I say sorry?”
“No, you don’t get it. You killed a Tribunal leader in a declared fight.” I took her hand and gave it a squeeze, and realization slowed dawned on her.
“No shit?” Her other hand flew to her mouth as she tried to chase the curse back, but it was already out there.
“Trust me. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” I tried to imagine how Eilidh, the other female Tribunal leader in Los Angeles, would react to the new arrival. At least their hair color balance wouldn’t be upset. I suspected Clementine had a long climb uphill to be accepted with her new council.
But she wasn’t going anywhere yet.
“I hate to interrupt this gong show, you guys, but you can’t call L.A., and you sure as shit can’t go there. So before you start pulling out your hair trying to figure out the most polite way to break the news to the West Coast, you might want to focus your efforts a little closer to home.”
&n
bsp; “What’s she on about?” an old, gray-haired vampire with the improbable name of Merlin asked.
“When was the last time any of you surfaced? Do you know what’s going on up there?” I was stunned to have to explain this. While vampires rarely concerned themselves with the matters of the human world, this was their city too.
“There were pressing matters to be dealt with here,” Rebecca replied. “We assumed the necromancer issue would sort itself out in due time.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but twenty-two necromancers don’t just get sorted out. And I was in the process of dealing with it when I got dragged down here. Now we had an agreement,” I said to Sig.
“We certainly do. And have you ever known me to go back on a promise?”
No, but I tried to keep the number of favors I asked Sig for to a minimum, so my frame of reference was somewhat limited.
“What’s she talking about?” Merlin asked. He sounded and looked so cartoonishly like a grandfather it was almost endearing.
“The council is at my command. You will all be coming with me when we leave, and you’re going to work alongside the eastern werewolf pack. And not a single one of you will complain. Understand? No one will fight, no one will toss insults around, and you will not issue commands to the wolves. They are not your pets, nor are they your subordinates. When I say you will work alongside them, I mean just that.”
“Out of the question,” Merlin grumbled, shaking his head.
“If you don’t come, then you can go to ground with your high-and-mighty attitude forever. Because if we don’t stop these necro sons of bitches tonight, this city will be leveled. Do you understand? I don’t care how you feel about werewolves. I genuinely couldn’t find two fucks to rub together as far as your opinions go, okay? But you will help. And that’s not a request, Merlin. That’s an order from the Tribunal leader you allowed to take the seat.”