they had an ulterior motive.
“Mongrel child?” one of the SkyElm soldiers said into the stunned quiet, her voice trembling. “Is that how you think of me, too? My father was human, after all.”
Her former alpha stared at her and when he spoke, he betrayed far more than he intended to. “It would’ve been a lot better for the world if we’d all stayed in our separate corners, human, Psy, and changeling.” The ocelot’s tone was broken rock, harsh and grinding. “This so-called Trinity Accord, it’ll just lead to more death, more destruction.” Volume increasing, he said, “The smartest people have already realized it. They’re working to get us back to where we should’ve been from the start!”
That sounded very much like it could be Consortium rhetoric, but Lucas wasn’t about to rely on guesswork. Before he could speak, however, the male soldier said, “Those aren’t your words.” A steady tone but one that demanded attention. “Who did you betray us with?”
Monroe jerked. “I didn’t betray this pack!” His voice shook with the force of his passion and resolve. “Everything I’ve done was for you!”
“Oh?” the soldier asked. “What were you intending to do with the DarkRiver cub? Murder her in vengeance?”
The man who’d once been alpha to these people suddenly paled, as if realizing how far he’d gone. “Of course not,” he whispered. “I don’t murder children.”
“So where was she supposed to go?” the soldier insisted. “Did you expect us to take you at your word and accept her as falling out of the sky, never mind that DarkRiver would’ve ripped apart the world searching for her?”
The sarcastic question made Monroe Halliston snap. Wrenching at his bonds, he said, “My friends made preparations for the child to be shipped out to Australia!”
“What friends?” the healer asked.
“I never knew their names.”
“You trusted anonymous strangers?”
“Strangers who saw the truth, who wanted to help us get vengeance.” A smile meant to intimidate. “The ship was ready and waiting in San Francisco Port. That was the genius of it—our enemies would’ve been scrabbling to find clues and all the while, the child would’ve been locked up in a boat in their own territory.”
“You’re a fool if you think that would’ve worked,” Lucas said quietly, though his blood was raging. He didn’t need more from this pathetic excuse for an alpha. Luca’s people were more than good enough to find the ship in question, given the relative scarcity of vessels bound for Australia that used San Francisco Port. “Do you really think a single ship, plane, or car would’ve been allowed to depart San Francisco had Naya been taken?”
“You don’t have that much power.”
Lucas shrugged. “We have enough.” And they had friends, including a woman who had the authority to ground entire fleets of planes, and an ally who controlled vast areas of the sea, but he wasn’t about to share those details with this man who was about to die. “Go,” he said to the soldiers and the healer. “You know there can be only one outcome here.”
Had Monroe Halliston been mentally ill, with no awareness of right or wrong, Lucas would’ve swallowed his rage and forced himself to show mercy, but grief alone wasn’t an acceptable excuse for what this man had almost done. He had taken actions that could’ve led to the murder of Lucas’s mate with her warm, empathic heart and smile that was his world, and the abduction of his barely one-year-old cub. Naya’s fear would’ve been a traumatizing wound carried forever in her heart, as Lucas carried the scars of his parents’ deaths.
No, he could not, would not forgive such a crime. The world had to understand that DarkRiver protected its own and that to come after anyone under Lucas Hunter’s protection was to sign your death warrant. Yes, he could act civilized, but he remained a panther under the skin.
At the door, the SkyElm dominants came to attention. “We’ll stay, bear witness,” the female soldier said in a quiet voice.
Her partner nodded.
Accepting their right to remain, Lucas glanced at the healer. “Go,” he repeated in a gentler tone. “You don’t need to see this.”
The woman was sobbing, but she didn’t argue with him.
Waiting only until she’d left, Lucas looked down into the face of the man who’d betrayed his own pack in a selfish desire for vengeance. “Changeling law is clear. You sent outsiders into my territory. Those outsiders had orders to take my child, even if that meant killing my mate. The penalty is death.”
The air around