“So, Jace and Abby are still staying with you?” I asked, looking up into the stray’s dark gray eyes.
Titus shrugged, then slid his hands into his pockets, pulling his shirt tight against his chest beneath his open suit jacket. “The house is too big for one person.”
But that wasn’t the whole story. Several times since my incarceration, I’d overheard Donna Di Carlo worrying about Abby. Jace was exiled without his assets, and the Di Carlos seemed to think that Abby wouldn’t be safe enough in the free zone to get a job. Because she was the only tabby in a territory full of male strays.
Titus had given Jace and Abby not just a place to stay, but a sanctuary, of sorts. Even if he wouldn’t take credit for that.
“Mr. Alexander?” We both turned to see Teddy Di Carlo, the youngest of the Di Carlo boys and a senior Southeast Pride enforcer. “Did you get lost on the way to the bathroom?”
Titus smiled with a glance at me. “No, just…distracted.”
“This way.” Teddy gestured toward the guest bath. I watched them go long enough to determine that the back of Titus’s suit fit as nicely as the front. Then I wandered toward Umberto Di Carlo’s office.
Bert’s enforcers had been picking Alphas up from the airport all day, but they were still waiting on a straggler before they could officially begin their meeting, and Teddy had left the office door cracked open.
I started to peek inside, then the mention of my name caught my attention, and I pressed myself against the wall instead. Eavesdropping without shame.
“So, which way is Robyn leaning?” The voice sounded gruff and middle-aged, and though I recognized it, I couldn’t identify the owner. I’d only met most of the Alphas once, the day of the plea bargain that stuck me in this purple-walled, ceramic-angel hell, and I wasn’t even sure I remembered all of their names.
“She isn’t leaning at all,” Bert answered. “That girl stands up straight every second of the day, afraid that if she bends even a little, we’ll break her in half. She doesn’t trust us.”
“Do you blame her?” As the only woman on the council, Faythe’s voice was easy to identify. “She wasn’t born into this. Hell, I was born into this and still spent half my life rolling my eyes at you old coots. You’re not exactly tuned in to the needs and wants of a young woman.”
A smile snuck up on me. No wonder Abby liked her.
Bert snorted. “Better not let Paul Blackwell hear you talk like that.”
“If Paul Blackwell could hear anything, I might be worried,” Faythe shot back, and several of the others laughed.
“My question stands,” the first, unidentifiable voice said. “There are bigger issues at hand than the ‘needs and wants’ of one girl.”
Spoken like a man in a position of power. I had to bite my tongue to keep a growl from rumbling up my throat.
“What are your thoughts on the matter, Bert?” a distinctive, deep voice asked, and that one I recognized. Abby’s father, Rick Wade. The chairman of the territorial council. Maybe he would pass along a message to Abby, if I asked nicely…
Or maybe not. I wasn’t even sure he was still in touch with his daughter since she’d defected to follow Jace into the free zone.
“Donna and I are hoping she takes to Teddy,” Bert said. “They’d make a good match. He’s interested, and since she arrived, he’s developed a lot of potential.”
“He’s too young,” the gruff voice insisted. “Teddy has too little experience.”
“The circumstance makes the Alpha,” a new voice countered, and a chorus of male voices seconded the platitude.
Alpha. Teddy isn’t an Alpha.
All at once, I understood. If Teodoro Di Carlo displayed Alpha potential and I married him, he would become an Alpha. He would take over his father’s Pride. I would become the daughter Bert and Donna had lost.
How neat and logical. My life was being planned out for me by a bunch of men, most of whom I’d hardly even met.
“Does she like him?” Faythe asked, her voice soft but strong, and my shocked inhalation tasted bitter. Abby described Faythe as an arrow piercing the shield of testosterone. Faythe had made her own rules and her own decisions from the day she was born, even when they conflicted with the wishes of the council. Especially when they conflicted with the wishes of the council. So why would she help them run my life?
Shouldn’t she at least be bound by a sense of loyalty to a fellow member of the “girls’ names containing extraneous Ys” club? We were as few as we were awesome.
“I can’t tell that she likes anyone or anything.” Bert cleared his throat while a lump formed in mine. “Time and trust will help some of that. Eventually, she has to understand that we have her best interests in mind.”
“Do we, though?” Faythe asked. “At least Ed was honest; there are bigger issues at stake.”
“Which is why we’re prepared with an alternative,” the first voice said, and now that I’d heard the name, I recognized its owner. Ed Taylor. “Abigail’s defection had nothing to do with my son’s ability to lead. Brian is still a perfectly viable option, and he’d like the chance to develop a connection. If Faythe thinks she can spare him for a while.”
Brian Taylor. Abby’s ex.
Brian was one of Faythe’s enforcers in the South-Central territory. Did they really think they could just plug me into the gap Abby had left in everyone’s lives? In their misplaced hopes?
My temper spiked along with my pulse, and my jaw began to ache.
The familiar sensation—the beginning of a shift—triggered an instant fear in me. If I couldn’t control the impulse, they would never let me out of the Di Carlos’ house. They would never stop running my life, “for my own good.”
“Yes,” Faythe said. “Brian came to me with the idea, but I’m not sure—”
“He’s a good candidate,” Ed Taylor snapped cutting her off in mid-sentence. “And if procreation proves possible with a female stray, he’d make an excellent sire.”
Sire. As if Brian were a bull kept for breeding. As if I were a cow, good for nothing else.
The ache in my jaw became a sharp pain, and I shoved myself away from the wall. I shook my head over and over, but couldn’t dislodge what I’d heard. What they were planning.
No wonder Abby ran. Not just into the free zone, but to college before that. No wonder she’d never talked about her family or her fiancé, even after I’d been infected. I hadn’t truly understood what she was trying to shield me from until that very moment, listening outside my Alpha’s office door.
Furious, I took off down the hall, moving silently, grinding my teeth to keep them from shifting. Rubbing my arms, as if that would keep fur from sprouting through my flesh. Dimly, I realized that the council’s discussion had devolved into an argument—over whose son would get to father my kittens???—but little of it sank in. All I could think about was the future slipping through my fingers. The life I’d lost.
The door standing right in front of me.
Teddy was supposed to be guarding the front door, but he’d escorted Titus Alexander to the bathroom, to keep an eye on him. To make sure he didn’t get “distracted” again.
No one expected me to sneak out of the house while the grounds were crawling with Alphas and their enforcer envoys. But the enforcers were all out by the pool house, drinking and cavorting with friends they hadn’t seen since the last meeting. They were under orders to give me space, because no one thought I was cured yet.
They had no idea how right they were.
The door stood three feet away. Beyond it lay a driveway full of vehicles. Maybe someone had left keys in an ignition. Maybe…
I pushed the door open, then froze in my tracks.
The visiting Alphas and their entourages had all been picked up at the airport by Southeast Pride enforcers—Teddy Di Carlo and his coworkers. None of them drove anything more expensive than a Toyota Highlander. Which meant that the sleek, shiny black Mercedes SUV with Mississippi plates could only
belong to…
Titus Alexander.
TWO
Titus
“Mr. Alexander, we’ve spent the past half hour listening to your statistics and your plans for this ‘Pride,’ should we grant your request.” Milo Mitchell’s use of air quotes told me exactly how seriously the majority of the council wasn’t taking my presentation. I probably shouldn’t have bothered with the spreadsheet. “So maybe now you could stop wasting our time and get to the point. Why, exactly, should we allow you to start your own Pride?”
“Respectfully, sir, I’m not asking for your permission.” I closed my laptop and leaned against the folding table provided to me for my pitch—a decidedly less opulent setup than typically rolled out for my corporate boardroom meetings. But then, I wasn’t there as a CEO, and my audience of Alphas couldn’t have cared less about my day job. “I’ve already started my own Pride. In the former free zone now known as the Mississippi Valley Territory. I’m already an Alpha, and I already employ twelve full-time enforcers. That’s a larger force than any of your Prides can sustain, even though my physical territory is smaller than any of yours. I’m just asking for official recognition from the council. For some legitimacy to support my position.”
Faythe Sanders gave me a short warning shake of her head, but before I could rephrase, Jerold Pierce leaned forward in his chair, his eyes narrowed, his jaw tight. “A larger force? Is that a threat?”
Paul Blackwell scoffed, his bony grip tight on his knobby cane. “Hush, Jerold, the boy’s not threatening us. The free zone is overrun with strays and rogues. He doesn’t have enough time or resources—even with his dozen men—to make trouble for us.”
The old man was right, but I knew better than to admit that. “I’m not threatening you. My point is that my Pride has been designed after the model you established. I’ve conformed to all of your requirements. And to answer your question, Mr. Mitchell, you should recognize my Pride because it will benefit you all to have the free zone under control. Those of you in the south can rest easier knowing that our border is friendly. Knowing that the men in my territory follow all the same rules your own members follow. Knowing that we’re no threat. That we are, in fact, your allies.”
For a second, Gardner, Pierce, and the young one—Abby’s brother, Isaac Wade, who’d inherited Jace’s Pride—seemed to be considering my points. Then…
“Why should we trust a stray?” Mitchell demanded.
Faythe held up one hand before I could unclench my jaw, and she carefully pushed herself to her feet, one hand on her round belly. “We agreed to hear Mr. Alexander out,” she reminded the room in general. “And bickering is beneath the stature of this council.”
“Nonsense. Bickering is a time-honored council tradition,” Blackwell insisted. A couple of the older men chuckled, and Isaac dared a hesitant smile.
“Do your strays want to be governed?” one of the Alphas asked, as the laughter faded, and I had to mentally grasp for his name.
Nick Davidson. Widowed Alpha of the New England Pride.
“Excuse me?” That was the last question I’d expected to be asked by a panel of mostly-men who’d been virtual dictators for their entire adult lives. Since when do they care whether their Pride members want to be governed? Shifter Prides are not a democracy.
“Your ‘Pride’ is made up of strays and rogues, right?” Davidson demanded softly. “The strays grew up human, and—like Robyn—they have no real concept of the Alpha-centric hierarchy. And the rogues presumably defected to the free zone specifically to escape that hierarchy. So my question is this: do they want you there at all? How are we supposed to believe you can control an element of our society that is, by definition, rebellious and out of control?”
I met his gaze. “You’re supposed to believe I can do it because I’ve been doing it for more than a year now, without recognition or assistance from this council. And in that year, the number of infections and shifter-related homicides in the free zone has had a distinct downward trajectory, as my statistics clearly show.” I laid one hand on my laptop, and one of the Alphas actually rolled his eyes. So much for fair consideration. “Can that be said about your own territories?”
Faythe groaned over my departure from the script. She, Marc, and Jace—the co-authors of my proposal—had given me detailed instructions about how best to address the council without pissing anyone off. But the Alphas weren’t taking my respectful, sycophantic approach seriously. Time for a dose of the truth.
I stood straight and looked around the room, making eye contact with each Alpha. Making them look up at me. “Many of you seem to be misunderstanding my intent. I’m not asking for a favor. I’m offering to do you a favor. It’s in your best interest to acknowledge my Pride and establish an open line of communication.”
Mitchell snorted. “How is that?”
“For decades, you’ve been banishing strays and rogues from your territories, waiting for them to break one of your laws so that you can justify executing them. And eventually they all break the laws—rules they don’t understand and aren’t even always aware of—because you’ve thrown them out without any guidance or advice. You don’t help them through scratch fever. You don’t teach them to control their new instincts and impulses. You toss them out like garbage. I’m out there standing in the Dumpster, cleaning up the mess you made.”
“Titus…” Faythe began, and I could practically see the warning building behind her eyes. “Never mind.” She waved one hand for me to continue, then sank carefully into her spot on the left-hand couch. “They need to hear the truth. Give it to ‘em.”
So I turned back to the room full of scowls aimed at me. “Your council recognizes three free zones, and each of them is a dark spot on your collective radar. I’m offering to turn the lights on in what was once the Mississippi free zone. To share information, so you know which of the strays and rogues in my territory are a threat to you and which could be assets.”
“We don’t need your assets,” Ed Taylor, Alpha of the Midwest Pride insisted.
Faythe rolled her eyes. “Yes, we do, Ed.”
“You’re living in the past,” I told them. “Information moves at the speed of Wi-Fi now, and if you keep shunning strays and rogues, they’re going to break your secret to the world, and no threat of execution will be enough to keep them quiet. You’ve created a second class of citizens you can’t monitor or control, and it’s time to open the door and let them in. Let them work with you, rather than against you. I’m offering to help you do that.”
“He’s right.” A bulge rippled across Faythe’s belly as the baby kicked, and she rubbed it in small circles.
“The hell he is,” Blackwell snapped, his fist tightening around his cane. “We didn’t create this problem. We’re not the ones out there making more strays. These days, its strays infecting other strays. Back in my day, we had a simple solution for that.”
The old man’s threat went unspoken, but we all knew what he wasn’t saying. Back in Blackwell’s day, strays had been executed on sight, to prevent the spread of infection.
If he were in charge, I’d be dead.
“Back in your day, forensics was an infant science and the internet wasn’t even imagined.” Faythe stood again and began pacing, stretching with every awkward step, as if she couldn’t get comfortable. “We live in a different world now. It’s time to open our eyes, gentlemen.”
“Do you expect us to believe he’s doing us a favor?” Mitchell demanded. “As if he and his strays wouldn’t benefit?”
“Of course we would benefit,” I admitted. No sense in denying that. “Right now, my men can’t leave the free zones. They can’t work or visit family in any of your territories or go to school there. They can’t even drive through your territories on the way to other free zones. They’re virtual prisoners of your making, and every aspect of their personal and professional lives is suffering because of that.”
“Don’t you mean your professional life?” Ed Taylor demanded,
while Isaac Wade’s focus shifted back and forth between us as if he were watching a tennis match. “Isn’t this really about how the travel ban affects your business?”
I nodded. “Part of this is about opening the borders. Letting people live their lives. And you’ll benefit from that as much as I will.”
“That is not even remotely—” Blackwell sputtered, until Richard Wade, council chairman, stood and cut him off.
“Okay, I think that’s enough for now. You’ve given us a lot to consider, Mr. Alexander, and you have my word that we’ll do that.”
“Thank you.” I couldn’t get a good read of Abby’s dad. He was polite, certainly, but didn’t seem to be taking a side on the issue, one way or another. “And thank you all for agreeing to hear me out.”
Wade nodded. “And with that, I declare this meeting concluded. Gentlemen—and Faythe—I believe Donna Di Carlo has made something special for us this evening. I’ve smelled it cooking for the past hour. Is that beef Burgundy?”
The Alphas filed out of the office, following Umberto Di Carlo toward his kitchen, until only Rick Wade and Faythe remained.
“Well, that went better than expected,” the council chair said as he closed the door behind his son Isaac.
I slid my laptop into its case. “So I should be pleased that Blackwell didn’t try to have me executed on sight?”
“Yes, but don’t take that personally,” Faythe said with a grin. “He’d get rid of me too, if he could.”
“It’d be best if you head out before they actually ask you to leave.” Rick stuffed both hands into his pockets, beneath his suit jacket. “But you have my word that we’ll discuss nothing else over dinner.”
“Agreed.” I shrugged. “I’m not a fan of beef Burgundy anyway.”
Faythe laughed, one hand low on her stomach. “Neither is this little one. Donna’s promised me a Margherita grilled cheese.”
“Margarita, as in tequila and lime?”
“As in tomatoes and basil.” She smiled. “The cravings this time around have been…interesting.”