Chapter Eleven
The next few days revealed a lot of good information about the Sawyer group. Tristen and Marcus worked fast and hard to take them down and managed to raid several of their safehouses. Serena had also found a half-drafted letter of resignation on Tristen’s desk, but pretended that she hadn’t seen it. He’d tell her when he was ready. Besides, the Sawyer group was the more pressing matter.
Clifford was able to push ahead and have them prosecuted for a variety of crimes. The people they arrested all had strong cases against them. It looked good for them.
That didn’t stop the media from having a feeding frenzy. The original attack on her was reported more or less accurately. These follow up raids, though, had such an anti-shifter bias to them that it was disgusting to read. It was so obvious what was happening. And even though she released details to the press and had a few interviews about it, it just kept getting worse.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, she had a gut feeling that the Sawyer group was gearing up for something big. That the victories they had made had just wounded the animal, and they were going to lash out hard soon. And they had no idea what and when that might be.
She was in her office, drafting a speech to give to the media when the door opened and Milly Terrance stormed in. With everything else that had been happening, Serena had almost forgotten about her. Milly slammed her hands on the desk and glared up at her. Serena covered her speech and clasped her hands before herself.
“You’re not going to duck out from seeing me any longer,” Milly spat at her. “Is this how you expect to deal with challenges? Ignore them and hope they go away?”
Serena didn’t reply to that accusation. It would only end up escalating into a true argument. Even though her bear snarled and growled, she took a deep breath and centered herself. Her bear calmed at once, recognizing the need to stay in control of the situation.
“Miss Terrance, I am going to have to ask you to wait in the other room.”
Milly spluttered.
“I can see you in five minutes. I have some very important work regarding the Sawyer group to finish.”
“Listen, Serena. I don’t care for your attitude. If you think that you can just continue to duck out of seeing me and refusing to acknowledge your own clan’s concerns—”
“I am acknowledging your concerns. Which is why I said that I can speak with you in five minutes. If you insist on distracting me from the important work of arranging protections for the clan, then I will have to have security escort you out.”
Serena stood, keeping her gaze locked on Milly’s. The older woman snorted but didn’t argue anymore. Serena’s new assistant escorted her out and shut the door. Serena sucked in a deep breath, calming the fluttering of her pulse. Her bear gave her a gentle, encouraging nudge and she put a hand on her chest. Then, knowing she had exactly five minutes and not one second more, she hastily tidied up her desk and put away the loose papers.
Once she had done that, she moved to the mirror and combed her fingers through her hair. She’d ruffled it pretty badly but was able to get it back into a respectful neatness quickly. Her bear was still encouraging her, so she returned to her desk, took a swig of coffee, and pressed the button on her intercom.
“You may send Miss Terrance in now.”
She’d hardly finished speaking before the door opened again and Milly came in. Serena waved her assistant away and offered Milly a seat. As the older woman sat, she eyed her. Milly was a strong-bodied woman. Tall, with generous muscle mass and a figure even more bounteous than her own. Serena had a flash of envy. She had always been a bit slight for a shifter woman. Curvy, for certain, but shorter and a bit thinner than was fashionable. Milly had streaks of grey in her dark hair, and the fine lines in her face gave her a regal air.
Milly glanced around. “I see you made good use of those five minutes. Do you have a housekeeper hidden in your closet?’
Serena ignored the jab. She leaned back in her chair. “I take it that you have something of great importance to speak to me about.”
“Yes. I certainly do.”
Serena nodded at her to continue.
“First, I just want to acknowledge the work you are doing against the Sawyer group. Despite the media coverage of it, I know that you are doing a fine job.” It sounded like the words were being pried out of her with a crowbar. “And I admire that you are pressing forward despite all the negative press you have been receiving.”
“Thank you.” Serena was surprised at the compliment. She had been expecting something more backhanded. But that had seemed… genuine.
Milly inclined her head. “However, there are other concerns. As much as this work you are doing is good, the fact that you can’t seem to stop the spreading of false information is not speaking well for you. Not to mention the very unexpected way that you broke things off with the mate that was decided for you in the fights.”
And there it was. Far more expected.
“Can we really trust someone who doesn’t keep her word to her very own mate?”
“Robert wasn’t my mate.” She kept her voice calm. “We were only together for a couple of days, but it was obvious that we weren’t meant to be with one another.”
Milly snorted. “And how could you tell from two days? That’s hardly enough time to get to know each other. I bet you didn’t even have sex.”
“What we did or didn’t do is none of your business. There was no spark between us. We may have gotten along, but there was very little common ground in our interests and likes.” Serena hesitated a moment, wondering how far to go with her political rival. “It was a mutual decision. Robert agreed that he wasn’t the right one for me and that I wasn’t the right one for him. He wanted to have a relationship where love would be a factor.”
“Even so—"
“Was I meant to try to force a man to be my mate when he didn’t want to be?”
Milly narrowed her eyes and didn’t speak.
Her silence was enough for Serena. “I am not going to ignore the union between us and our sister clan. I have been speaking with Robert’s older brother about him being my mate. Tristen has been helping us take care of the Sawyer threat and he and I…” A smile crossed her face. “We are true mates. He’s from the McCloud clan. Men fighting over the right to have a woman as his mate is outdated and sexist, anyway. Not only does it eliminate the element of choice on my part, it also values physical strength above everything else. Tristen is smart. He’s already proven to be beneficial to the clan.”
Milly drummed her fingers on the desk. “I’ll give you that. The fights are outdated.”
Serena nodded, pleased.
“It’s still a tradition, though.” Milly leaned forward. “You aren’t working with our traditions. They are there for a reason. They’re not to be just thrown away because you’re a millennial and millennials don’t care about tradition and the way things have always been done.”
Serena rolled her eyes. “I am working with the traditions. I still chose my mate from the McCloud clan.”
“And he didn’t even participate in the fights.”
“Some traditions aren’t worth keeping. If there was a tradition that the firstborn child in a family was burned alive would you think that was a tradition we should keep? I’m not throwing away our culture, I’m just critical of traditions that do more harm than good.”
Milly stood. She leaned on the desk and narrowed her eyes at Serena. “So what you’re saying is that if a shifter tradition isn’t pleasant to non-shifters, we should just erase our own culture?”
“That isn’t even close to what I said.’
“Regardless. You still ran from the clan when there was a threat to your life. The Sawyers threatened you and you took off. Like a coward. Do you really think that we’d believe that you were getting to know your mate? Especially since you apparently didn’t ‘click’ from the start? You left us, how can we trust a matriarch that does that?”
Explaining that she was taken against her will would do nothing. Serena attempted to stay calm. Had Milly started off with compliments to soften her up, catch her off guard when she followed up with these accusations?
“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” Milly demanded.
“I didn’t run away. I took a break so that I could concentrate on figuring out how to smoke out the Sawyer group. And as you have said yourself, it was successful. If I am as much of a coward as you’re implying, then why would I have put my life in harm’s way with that press conference?” She arched one brow, challenging Milly to twist that to fit her strawman argument.
“You don’t have a mate.”
“That is hardly relevant to the accusations you were just throwing at me.”
Milly waved her hand. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have a mate and that is all the grounds I need. The harvest moon is coming up in three weeks and your grandmother intends to officially make you matriarch at that time. I don’t believe that you are ready. I don’t believe you’ll ever be ready. I am going to issue a formal challenge to your authority, Miss Boone. In two weeks, we will fight and decide which of us is going to be the matriarch.”
Serena stood, tired of Milly looming over her. There were still several inches difference, but it was better than sitting and feeling small. She rose her chin and narrowed her eyes at Milly. Her bear snarled.
“If you think that you can do better than I have, then I will welcome the challenge. But you have blinded yourself to reality, Milly. Every reason you’re using as an excuse to do this is just an excuse. You’re not fooling anyone, except maybe yourself.”
Milly narrowed her eyes further. She growled softly in her throat.
“If that is all, I have a lot of work to get done.”
Milly turned on her heel and stalked away without another word. Serena waited until the door had been slammed shut before she slumped into her chair again. Great. This was exactly what she didn’t need. With everything else? It was the last thing she needed, to have her authority challenged like this. But it had been challenged.
And she would meet that challenge. That was all there was to it.