Alpha

  Dean hesitated, and only removed the pistol from my kidney when Malone gave him a second warning. “Fine. But I hope I’m not the only one who remembers that she once tried to eat my face off in front of a room full of Alphas.”

  “Oh, please, that was for show!” I turned on him the minute I heard the gun safety click into place. “To scare you into telling the truth.” I forced a smug smile, all for him. “And it worked even better than planned….”

  Dean wanted to say something. Or hit me. That much was obvious. But he couldn’t hit a girl incapacitated by handcuffs. At least, not in a room full of witnesses. Though in that moment, I wished with every fiber of my being that he would, so they could all see what a monster he really was.

  Blackwell cleared his throat pointedly. “Ms. Sanders, if you don’t mind?” I nodded curtly and made my way—awkwardly, with my hands still bound behind me—to the couch he indicated, while most of the other Alphas found seats. But my father and his three allies remained standing, in obvious and silent protest.

  Councilman Blackwell propped his cane on the side of his chair and turned to Malone. “Calvin, what on earth is going on?”

  But before Malone could speak, Lucas burst through the front door and jogged several steps into the room. “Uncle Greg, they took Faythe and…” My cousin trailed into silence as he took in the rest of the room, including me, handcuffed on the couch. “Oh. I guess you figured that out already.”

  “Welcome to the party, son.” Uncle Rick shot him a wry smile.

  “Sorry…” Lucas retreated to one corner of the room to watch with the other enforcers.

  Malone retrieved his mug from an end table and took a sip, clearly savoring both the moment and the attention. “Marc Ramos and Faythe are being held on charges of trespassing, assault, kidnapping, and accessory to murder. I’m charging Jace Hammond with all the same crimes, except for trespassing. Faythe will stay here until the start of her trial, then she’ll be swiftly tried and sentenced, if that proves necessary.”

  “You have no right to hold her,” my father growled. “There’s no precedent for this.”

  “Nor is there any policy forbidding it. Not that that matters anymore. You might recall that a vote this morning gave the council the authority to hold dangerous criminals until they can be tried and sentenced. I believe it passed by a six-to-four margin.”

  My father and his allies were the dissenting votes, obviously. At lunch, my dad had said they’d objected to the vague language.

  “The operative word there is dangerous, Calvin. Faythe isn’t dangerous.”

  Malone nearly spit coffee all over his white button-down shirt. “A show of hands if you believe that!”

  No hands were raised, and I wasn’t sure whether to be frustrated or extraordinarily pleased.

  “Dean…” Malone gestured for his new golden boy to take the floor.

  “Councilman Sanders, your daughter threatened to gut me. Without a knife.” Dean’s faux look of concern could barely conceal his glee at finally getting to deliver a line he’d obviously been waiting for. “Alex was there—he’ll vouch for that.”

  I followed Dean’s gesture to see that Alex Malone had slipped into the room at some point and was now watching me in obvious anticipation.

  And suddenly I felt like the world’s biggest idiot. Again.

  “They set me up!” I stood from the low couch—not a simple feat without the use of my hands—and my father gestured subtly for me to sit before someone mistook my sudden motion for another sign of aggression. It took every bit of self-control I had left to make myself drop back onto the couch, but I did it without compromising the indignation I hoped still shone on my face. I glared at Dean, and silently tamped down the urge to let my teeth Shift. “You goaded me on purpose, trying to get me to lose my temper!” Of course, I’d been doing the same thing, so I was really less upset about being set up than about the fact that his ruse had succeeded where mine had failed. “And you’ve been threatening me ever since I got here!”

  Dean met my gaze, completely deadpan. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Let’s get back to the real issue here,” Malone said, wisely drawing attention from Dean before the bastard’s bad acting could undo the damage he’d already done to my case. “And that’s the fact that Ms. Sanders threatened to use her ability to partially Shift—a skill she was supposed to be teaching the rest of the enforcers, to better equip the entire community—to torture and kill one of my enforcers.”

  “That’s not how it happened!” I insisted, as sudden heat scalded my cheeks. Most of Malone’s allies wouldn’t believe me, no matter what I said, and those who did were eager to see me fry, whether I was guilty or not.

  “You know she didn’t mean that,” my uncle insisted. “She was upset, and it sounds to me like he was goading her.”

  “Oh, she meant it.” The authentic ring of certainty in Dean’s voice drew my focus just in time to see him lift his shirt, exposing the thick, two-inch scar from when I’d stabbed him with his own knife. “She’s looking to finish what she started.”

  A universal gasp echoed across the room, and I ground my teeth together so hard my jaw ached. To my knowledge, other than Malone, my dad was the only other Alpha who’d already known about Dean’s mishap with the knife, and he’d never actually seen the scar. I have to admit, it looked pretty bad. At a week old, even with a werecat’s accelerated healing—and I shuddered to think how many times he’d had to Shift to get to that point—the scar tissue was still thick and pink and scary.

  “That’s why you cut her face?” Blackwell asked, apparently as horrified as everyone else.

  “No! It was the other way around,” I shouted. Like Dean could even stand up after taking a knife to the gut! “He cut up my face and threatened to keep going. I just…” But I let the sentence trail off, for fear of incriminating myself. “He’s been out to get me since Councilman Blackwell fired him three months ago.”

  “This is not the time to get into the specifics,” Malone insisted, conveniently cutting off my explanation, rather than Dean’s exhibition. “She’ll have a chance to tell her side during the trial.”

  “What? You’re afraid that they’ll believe the truth if they hear it?” But no one was listening to me. No one who had the power to get me out of my cuffs, anyway. They were all still staring at Dean’s scar.

  “Calvin, logistically speaking, this makes no sense,” my dad insisted, and I could have rejoiced at the reintroduction of logic into the most insane discussion I’d ever tried to follow. “We only have the cabins for three more days, and extending for any length of time would be prohibitively expensive, in both time and money.”

  Malone stood with his mug, heading toward the kitchen. “You’re absolutely right. The only reasonable solution is to hold a very expedient hearing.”

  “How expedient?” I demanded, already dreading the answer.

  The new council chair turned to face me fully, coffeepot in one hand. “Tomorrow.”

  “No!” my father shouted, and I stared as he closed his eyes, probably counting silently. When he opened them, he was calm and in control again, though I couldn’t fathom how he’d managed it. I was seeing the room through a thin film of red rage. “Absolutely not. How are we supposed to prepare a defense in twelve hours?”

  “Oh, I can’t see how that’ll be much of a problem. All Faythe has to do is tell the truth, and anyone you could possibly call as a witness is already here.”

  My jaw clenched painfully. Of the possible witnesses, the only ones likely to tell the truth were Marc and Jace, whose testimony would probably be considered biased and self-serving—since they were up on the same charges—thus inadmissible.

  “But I think you’re missing the big picture here,” Malone continued, his back to us all now, while he poured his coffee. “A speedy trial will benefit everyone. The council is already convened, and our cabins are paid for. We’ll be saving the cost of additional travel an
d lodging, not to mention the time away from work and our families.” Finally he turned to face the room, holding a mug of black coffee. “And really, who here wants to squander time and money, when we could wrap this whole mess up tomorrow with minimal inconvenience.”

  I had to admit he’d given a pretty good speech. Even the Alphas who would have been perfectly willing to give me time to prepare were not going to admit to wanting to “squander” their time and money.

  “This ‘whole mess’ you’re talking about is my life!” My hands curled into fists at my back and suddenly I realized the decision to use cuffs was very deliberate. While I could cut through duct tape or rope by partially Shifting one hand, I wasn’t strong enough to break through steel. “Somehow I doubt you’d be in such a rush for justice if it were one of your own men sitting here.”

  Malone raised one brow and half smiled. “Ms. Sanders, are you suggesting that the council chair is biased?”

  Yes. That’s precisely what I was suggesting, but I knew better than to admit it. Instead, I watched my father, studying his composure and trying to borrow some of it for myself.

  Calm and steady was the only way to address a room full of Alphas, half of which were just looking for an excuse to maim me or pick a fight with my dad. And as badly as I wanted to fight—was literally itching to Shift and slash someone—even I had to admit that this was not the time to start a war. Not with me in handcuffs, our two best fighters locked up in the storage shed, and most of the rest of our men scattered in various Prides all over the country.

  I took a long, slow breath. “I’m just saying that rushing through something this important seems…unwise.”

  Malone actually smiled, glancing around the room at his allies to see if they shared his amusement. “Thank you for your concern. I’m sure we’re all very interested in your assessment of what constitutes wisdom.”

  Prick. I felt my face flush even hotter than before.

  “Now, Dean, if you’ll show Ms. Sanders to her room…”

  Colin stood, but I refused, so he hauled me up by one arm.

  “Stop.” My dad stepped directly into Malone’s path. “I will not leave her here alone.”

  “Of course not!” Malone took another sip from his mug, overworking the whole you’re-not-important-enough-to-ruffle-my-feathers routine. “She’ll be under armed guard.” He gestured toward Dean, whose hand tightened around my arm, and my blood ran cold.

  No way in hell was I going to be under Dean, in any sense of the world, armed or not.

  “That’s a blatant conflict of interest!” I insisted, twisting in Dean’s grip to glare at Malone. Calm and steady would only go so far, and a controlled facade would not keep me from being harassed—or worse—while I was held handcuffed by a psychopath with a pistol in one hand and a misogynistic chip on his shoulder. “I’m on trial in part for stabbing Dean, and you want to hand him a gun and the key to my room? Maybe you’d also like to tie me up, strip me, and paint a big red target on my chest!”

  “Are you suggesting one of the council’s task force members can’t remain impartial and in control of his temper?”

  “I’m flat out saying it!” I jerked my arm from Dean’s grip and before Malone could protest, I turned to Blackwell, the de facto swing vote in everything important. “Look, Councilman Blackwell, the truth is that I stabbed Dean with his own knife to keep him from carving his initials into my chest.”

  A couple of the enforcers actually gasped—either because they believed me or because they were impressed that I’d tell such a bold lie in a room full of Alphas. Blackwell actually flinched, so I pressed on, turning to address my next statement to the entire room.

  “You have two choices about what to believe. You can either believe that he cut me and I was defending myself, which proves that Colin Dean shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near either women or weapons…”

  Dean started to grab my arm again, but I stumbled away from him and toward my uncle, who steadied me, even as I rushed on, the words tumbling from my mouth almost too quickly to be understood. “Or you can believe that after I stabbed him for no good reason, he had the strength not only to remain standing, but to remove the knife from his chest, hold me down, and slash my cheek in return. Personally, I think that explanation defies logic, but if you choose to believe that version, then the scar on my cheek can’t be anything other than cold-blooded revenge on Dean’s part. What’s to stop him from doing it again, if you leave me alone with him? It’ll be even easier this time, since I can’t defend myself.”

  Silence blanketed the room as my last word faded. My dad’s allies looked incensed. Blackwell looked convinced. And even a couple of Malone’s allies looked…confused. Which was as much as I could hope for, under the circumstances.

  “That’s ridiculous…” Malone started, but Blackwell planted his cane firmly on the floor and stood, cutting Malone off.

  “She’s right,” he declared. “Until we have a verdict, I don’t think Ms. Sanders and Mr. Dean should be anywhere near each other. Calvin, assign someone else to guard her, or I’ll keep us here in a locked vote all night long, to make sure she’s safe.”

  Ten

  “Do we really need these cuffs?” I rotated my hands, trying to relieve the ache in my wrists and the pins and needles in my fingers, but only wound up straining my shoulders. “Dean put them on too tight, and my hands are going numb.”

  Alex didn’t even look at me.

  I sat on the end of the twin bed on the right, trying to control my temper with Zen-like concentration on the faded, country plaid bedspread beneath me. Unfortunately, I didn’t find country decor relaxing. In fact, it had a nails-on-chalkboard kind of effect on me. As did Alex Malone, my full-time jailer.

  Alex sat in a straight-back chair to the right of the door, arms crossed over his chest, glancing my way every few seconds to make sure I hadn’t so much as blinked since the last time he’d looked. Occasionally he’d squirm in his chair, searching for a comfortable position, which wasn’t going to happen with that gun tucked into the back of his jeans.

  I’d lobbied to get rid of the gun, insisting that the weapon and handcuffs together constituted gross overkill. I was hoping Malone would be reluctant to admit that I warranted so much precaution. Instead, he’d asked if I was willing to swear I wouldn’t try to escape from an unarmed guard.

  Foiled, by my own unwillingness to tell a bald-faced lie…

  Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be the good guy. And the worst part was that I was too pissed off to enjoy the triumph of finally being acknowledged as a serious threat by the enemy. The risk of being shot kind of sucked the joy right out of the occasion.

  But on the bright side—okay, the less-than-pure-gloom side—Malone would never be able to cite inherent female weakness as the reason women shouldn’t be allowed as enforcers. Not after the fuss he was making over my detention.

  “Hey, asshole, what’s your dad going to say when I sustain permanent nerve damage on your watch?” I demanded, still trying to ease the ache in my arms.

  Finally Alex’s cold gaze met mine. “He’s gonna say, ‘Good thing we don’t need her for her hands.’”

  Whatever. That threat had long since ceased scaring me. “Wow. You guys are like a broken record. Don’t you ever get tired of the whole ‘knock ’em out and drag ’em back to the cave’ routine? ’Cause I swear, Cro-Magnons were more subtle.”

  Alex didn’t respond, but the answer was clear. He never got tired of it, because it was all he knew. Probably all his father ever talked about or planned for.

  Our system of government was pretty twisted. Alphas were traditionally male, yet territories pass not from father to son, but from mother to daughter, and the only way to become an Alpha of one of those territories is to marry the tabby born into it.

  Unfortunately, the strength of the entire system depends on each individual tabby choosing the right man to run her territory—regardless of how she feels about him personally. Sometimes a tabby i
s fortunate enough to love a well-qualified man. Sometimes love comes several years into a marriage, when they have both Pride members and children in common. Sometimes love never comes. But the worst-case scenario is when a tabby marries for love, but her chosen mate is not strong enough to lead their Pride.

  Some people think that’s what happened with Jace’s parents. That Jason Hammond was too weak, and that’s why he died less than four years into their marriage, leaving his wife vulnerable to the advances of a ruthless, power-hungry wannabe-despot like Calvin Malone.

  “When did this whole thing start, anyway? This whole ‘rule the women, rule the world’ plot?” I scooted awkwardly to the corner of the bed closest to Alex, trying to draw his attention, but all I got out of him was another fleeting glance. “It was with Manx, wasn’t it?”

  Before she showed up, there were no “extra” tabbies, and my cousin Abby and I were the only eligible but unspoken-for female cats in the country. Abby was still in high school, and I’d already turned down Brett Malone’s proposal years before, so Malone’s ambition was temporarily stymied by circumstance.

  Then came Manx.

  “Your dad saw her as his golden ticket, right?” Manx was unclaimed and vulnerable, by virtue of being both pregnant and wanted for murder. Perfect prey for Malone. “Suddenly there’s an extra woman in the mix, and by divine rights—or pure, unadulterated gluttony—she must be his, in one fashion or another, right?” Fortunately, he was willing to live vicariously through his sons. Otherwise, the ick factor would be too much to contemplate. “And then along came Kaci.”

  Kaci was initially ill-nourished from months spent on her own, confused from having no previous knowledge of her own species, and traumatized over having accidentally killed her mother and sister during her first Shift.

  And by that point Malone must have heard the choir singing his name. After her trial and the loss of her claws, Manx was defenseless and desperate to protect her infant son. Kaci was young and terrified enough to be manipulated into compliance.