Tribunal Day

From her position at the base of the assembly hall, Rayven eyed the men and women approaching her. All the alphas had finally reached Black Haven late yesterday. After a night spent tossing and turning, her emotions were raw, but every movement, facial expression, and rise and fall of the conversation amplified inside her with crystalline clarity. The bubble of her extended awareness would burst at some point; she just hoped it wasn’t before she finished here. But she’d achieved one goal, her biggest. Callum, Brindy, even Lena all confirmed that Deacon and several of his allies were involved in finding those responsible for drugging the children in her clan and in others. They’d committed to finding a way to reverse the effects as well.

Now all she needed was to survive this inquisition.

Power advanced before the alpha board members in a formidable wave, cresting over her with a friction that burned before the first even stepped into her personal space. Her beast balked at the effrontery, and if not for Deacon’s tireless training with her before the crisis with Breslin, she’d have lost control as it clamored for the freedom to shift and confront the group.

Instead, she replayed the sensation of Breslin’s arms holding her, and drew in a shallow breath. The fleeting memory helped her maintain her shields and project calm.

“Create your own illusion, a veneer to freeze your expression, your body language, and, most importantly, fluctuations in your scent and heartbeat. Never let them see the real you.” Sounding more like a coach for a runway contestant than an alpha preparing his defendant for a murder trial, Deacon nonetheless didn’t break a smile. He remained dead serious about the fine line she must walk. There would be no second chances for failure.

Everything from the time Grizz had brought her to Deacon and Lena’s home was still a blur from the constant practicing of instantaneous shifts to periods of maintaining deathlike stillness as one after another of Deacon’s team attempted to enrage her into action. A difficult task, since she and her beast now considered most of Deacon’s team to be nonthreatening, if not all of them her friends. But her growing assurance that none of her trainers would turn on her soothed her bear in a way she’d never experienced and worked to keep her calm. Grizz and Lena’s guard, Hansen, shifted with fangs and claws at a moment’s notice. Rayven had become used to them if not exactly immune to the instinct to defend herself.

Callum, Shanae, and Brindy took no part in those games and instead fed her details on the individual alphas, historic records of tribunals and advice. Both exercises bolstered her strength.

Deacon had been persistent during her brief training. If she was to be an alpha, she must embrace the consciousness of a ruler. Nurture the heart and resilience of a survivor, exercise the quiet strength and defiance of a defender, and foster the ferocity of a predator.

She’d learned these lessons before her first shift, but hearing confirmation that was what her people needed bolstered her pride and confidence. Her people deserved no less than an alpha who would sweep them from the blackness of her father’s rule and offer them new opportunities.

His message never changed. “Don’t let anyone provoke you. No matter what they do, keep yourself hidden.”

“They’ll know eventually.”

“They’ll suspect immediately,” he said with a nod. “However, your resistance to provocation denotes strength, not weakness. As the newest and youngest of the alphas, your first impression will be the one they judge you by forever. When this trial is done, you want none of them to consider you weak, or your clan will be vulnerable until you earn a new reputation by surviving pointless challenges.”

It made sense, but she suspected he had another point. In her short time in Black Haven, she’d learned Deacon always acted for multiple reasons. Layers. He operated that way, as did Breslin. Their journey had taught her to look for layers of opportunity and not settle for easy answers. “I’ll keep the element of surprise for whoever framed me.”

“Your enemy has been clever, but not powerful. They could have just taken you out with your father. Or long before. They also have no way of knowing what I add to your defense.”

She noted his certainty, her instincts warning her he’d acquired more experience than most. Every kernel of wisdom he passed her way, she took and stored like a squirrel with precious nuts. The day would come when she needed his advice and she might have only these talks to help her weigh options. Oddly, she felt no competition with him, despite his determination to test and tax her.

“The rumor that your clan considers you incapable of calling out your beast is valuable,” he said, his tone unapologetic. She appreciated he didn’t sugarcoat her problems and placate her. He treated her as he would a peer, though they both knew she was a fledgling in his shadow. “That and your quick grasp in controlling your alpha powers will lull the perpetrator into complacency now and sway the alpha board members later.”

As she stood buffeted by a sea of mixed scents, she struggled to sort through them: wolf, feline, and fur she couldn’t recognize—badger? Something else leathery with an underlying hint of woodsy musk? She’d read through the files Callum and Brindy supplied on the reigning alphas. But while she could tell a lion shifter from a wolf, and a bear from a fox, gorilla shifter, Tasmanian devil, and various distinctions of feline weren’t obvious to her from smell. And while she only needed to see the beast once to associate the animal with its scent, no one here was going to show her their secrets.

A shudder rippled over her as a slender, petite woman with long midnight hair and perfect porcelain skin strode to the edge of the group. She met Rayven’s gaze with a cool one of her own but didn’t join in with any of the animated pockets of conversation. Alpha Ping.

Before Rayven could consider the woman further, the first alpha from the herd stalked toward her. He was wiry, well tanned, and of medium height with a full head of hair the color of burnished walnut and eyes to match. Sinewy muscles flexed beneath his silk polo shirt as he bent his head toward her neck.

She held her breath as he inhaled with an exaggerated hiss too close to her ear. He paused inches from her neck, then snapped his sharp teeth.

Her pulse jumped, though not with fear as it once would have. Struggling, she kept her gaze aimed toward the floor. Her beast disliked having a strange male—any male—close to her skin. But one glance toward him and he’d surely detect the golden-red alpha gleam in her eyes unless she could quell it.

Fury boiled her blood. The need to make an example of him about the importance of proximity and civility stretched her patience to brittleness. But she didn’t break protocol. Expressionless and still, she concentrated on the tiny scrap of Breslin’s shirt in the sleeve of her crisp white cotton blouse, her one lifeline. She risked bringing it, given the highly attuned senses of all the alphas. But since Breslin worked for Deacon and had brought her here, the fact that his scent lingered in the room was unlikely to garner any interest.

More importantly, she needed the reminder that he believed she was innocent. It might be her imagination that he’d whispered those words to her. Yet she refused to believe she’d misheard him.

Unlike the obvious distrust from most of the alphas gathered before her.

A stocky man with curly blond locks hanging over his forehead strode in front of her and bent his head toward hers. “You failed to ruffle the murderess, Estevan.”

“I merely primed her for you, Barnabas.”

She braced as Barnabas’s moss-green eyes locked on her with impending violence that froze her blood. Before she had time to prepare, his palm slashed toward her, his claws fully extended and prepared to dig deep into her arm.

“No matter what, don’t respond.” Deacon’s instructions rang in her head as she closed her eyes and crushed her retaliation. But his claws never pierced her skin.

She blinked and slid a sideways glance toward him. Barnabas remained rooted in his position, his wrist held in check by a much larger man with eyes that gleamed like silver diamonds and blond hair nearly white.

“Black,” Barnabas snarled as he tugged at his arm while fixing her with his glare. “I will challenge you for this offense.”

“A waste of your time, since he isn’t the one who stopped you from breaking my tribunal rules.” Rayven stared over Barnabas’s shoulder at the monolith-sized man behind him who’d spoken. It had to be Vendrick. Impeccably attired in a gray silk suit, black shirt, and blood-red tie, he looked more like a true corporate board member than any of the others, with the exception of Alpha Sheridan. However, his barely contained energy, pulsing throughout the room, carved him out as something out of everyone else’s league. “No. Touching.”

To be fair, she’d half considered Breslin’s recounting of his teenage training to have been a result of youthful exaggeration. Memories recounted from a time long ago when he’d endured so much trauma that he’d reconstructed his mentor into someone larger than life.

She’d been wrong.

Vendrick was everything Breslin had alluded to. And more. He didn’t mute his power as the others did. It shimmered across the space between them, his magic playing along her nerves like a fine symphony. By comparison, the other alpha exhibitions ranked at the level of wily circus entertainers, though, she quickly reminded herself, they weren’t. Power and strength killed equally, with or without lovely nuance.

“She murdered an alpha,” Barnabas insisted as he tugged on his hand. “A test to measure her anger is warranted.”

“Do not bring your past to bear in these proceedings,” Vendrick said softly. Then he raised his voice for all to hear. “Ms. Karndottir is accused, not convicted. I repeat. No touching.”

Barnabas’s hand trembled, but his claws disappeared as he clenched his fist and jaw. “Fine. Enough.”

“Agreed.” Vendrick released him and nodded her way before turning back toward the boulders. He didn’t bother confirming that Barnabas had not only backed off but trailed behind him. A forgone conclusion, she figured, when one was the highest-ranking apex predator in the room. And the chairman of the international alpha board.

However, she noticed that of the others, the women showed no fear of Vendrick. The delicate-looking Alpha Ping bowed to him, and he did the same to both her and her composed but deadly-looking mate. The female alpha of Western Europe, Octavia, didn’t bother to hide her ravenous examination of him either. Her gaze should have melted the clothes from his body. And yet he offered her a deferential nod before proceeding with her to the highest seats in the alpha section.

“Well done,” Deacon added in a low tone at her side as he motioned her to take a seat in the lower stage. “I doubt that will be the last of the tests, so remain alert.”

Not a consoling thought, especially as Deacon made his way back to the alpha section to mingle with his peers.

He was right. Each of them made their way to her.

Every alpha sniffed her. Granted, some were surprisingly gracious. Alarico and Ping bowed their heads, closed their eyes, and waved her scent to their faces. She suspected they possessed more power than the others, with less need to flaunt it. Still, she appreciated their subtlety.

Whitman Sheridan stood feet away and executed an obligatory sniff, but his cold, calculating expression hadn’t changed as he strode back to the alpha gallery. His reaction didn’t comfort her, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt, as he appeared to be one of the few alphas Deacon trusted in the sanctity of his own home. She counted Sheridan as a neutral vote—despite his role as the prosecutor. Callum cautioned her she could sway his vote with a tempered reaction throughout the proceedings. According to him, Sheridan had a reputation for abhorring drama. Especially in females.

Seated and facing everyone else for the duration of evidence presentation and interrogation, she drew her shoulders back, forced a dispassionate expression, and scanned the audience section of the room. A slow trickle of shifters filed down the stairs from the main doorway above and made their way to the audience area.

Grizz remained in the aisle, visible reassurance of protection for the people who feared her and needed a big snarly guard to keep them safe. She recognized some faces, but not many, and surprisingly few of Jacob’s team. Dim lighting suddenly doused the audience section. Shadows spanned from the railing surrounding her to the thick doors at the top of the auditorium. The clear path remained brightly lit.

Not that she was leaving.

Hell no.

She wasn’t giving up, though she distracted herself by allowing Breslin’s essence to surround her in a cushion nothing could permeate. A tidbit of advice she’d learned not from Deacon, but from Lena. She’d imparted the wisdom that love grounded a person, especially an alpha. Her friend, and Rayven did consider Lena one despite their short acquaintance and unusual introduction, refused to allow Rayven to throw away Breslin’s shirt in a brief moment of frustration. She’d even insisted she cut a swatch and keep it hidden on her.

The new mate to one of the world’s most powerful alphas espoused love as the strongest power, although her sentiment implied that loyalty and trust ran a close second. Lena had opened a brief window into her personal life and allowed Rayven an insight into a mating that was based as much on equality as one could achieve between a shifter and a human.

But Rayven wasn’t human. And neither was Breslin. Making their lives much more complicated.

* * *

Deacon finished his round of obligatory greetings, fending off questions about his opinions on the tribunal outcome, and made his way to Vendrick’s side.

“Does she have the mettle to hold the territory?” Vendrick’s tone dipped lower than even that of the shifter subvocal ranges, but having spent years in his company, Deacon had no problem understanding.

“She rallies for those under her protection without a second thought. From the intel that’s come in to me, she always has.”

“Reckless with her own well-being, then.”

“A given, though that’s changing.”

Vendrick let out a soft chuckle. “To have seen Breslin’s face when he met her.”

“Whatever took place between them is one for the record books.”

“Strong matches are made of such challenge.”

“You speak as if her exoneration is a done deal.”

“I’ve no doubt it will be a savage contest.” Vendrick’s low growl drew startled looks from some of the people in the audience section, but they averted their eyes as he glanced their way. “I’m counting on you to find a way to steer her clear in the end. You’re an alpha, after all.”

“If she succeeds, it will be due to her own efforts,” Deacon responded, though her progress pleased him. “She doesn’t want her clan to fall. We shouldn’t want that either, since she has greater potential than her father ever did.”

“Quite a boast given she’s from a diluted generation.”

“I’ll overlook that insult given she’s from my generation.” Vendrick merely grunted as Deacon continued. “Do you know yet where this started?”

“I have my suspicions,” Vendrick murmured. Evidently, he wasn’t ready to disclose them.

Deacon watched the alphas migrating toward their boulders, conducting final, discreet conversations with the trusted individuals accompanying them. “Is there a solution to the drugs being used on the children?”

“It’s not just children. But it will take a while to play out. Not likely today.” Vendrick turned an intense gaze his way. “Bloody, and with much personal sacrifice as well. But that is a problem we will face another day.”

Deacon’s blood pounded in his ears. He hadn’t heard such a proclamation in many years and there was no doubt in his mind that Vendrick directed his words at him. But he wasn’t a wayward young man ignoring his alpha title any longer, and he refused to lose anyone he cared about to the final battle. And the reference to we, as if this problem reached further than even the alpha board, puzzled him. Still, he’d learned long ago not to tempt fate where Vendrick’s insights came into play, and another day was long enough away he could do what he did best: manipulate the odds.