Damon shrugged. “The news came down the pipe that the Carpathians had pulled some trick and tried to off the council. You died protecting one of them and the Lycans fought them, trying to get the other council members out of their territory.”
“Link your fingers behind your head and just stay exactly the way you are. I mean it, Damon. Did Daciana tell you all that?” He reached out and casually cut through the belt looping around Damon’s hip, dropping the cache of weapons to the branch. With a flick of the tip of his knife, he sent the entire belt to the forest floor.
A low growl escaped Damon. “My sister? I was told they killed her.”
“Did you try to call her?”
“Over and over. I got no response. I tried her partner, Makoce, but he didn’t answer, either. No one did.”
“She’s alive and well, Damon. She’s guarding the council members as we speak. A faction of Lycans, not Carpathians, attacked the Carpathian village simultaneously with an attempt on the lives of the prince and our council members.” Zev reached around him to flip up his sleeve, revealing the tattoo of the Sacred Circle. “All of those who tried to assassinate the council have that same tattoo.”
“That’s bullshit, Zev. We believe in morals and ethics, not killing our own kind or murdering other species.”
“Yet here you sit, lying in wait to murder a young woman who has done absolutely nothing to you. You were waiting to wound a wolf just to use the animal as bait, knowing she had enough compassion to come to try to save it.”
The accusation was harsh, but he felt harsh. He felt like shaking Damon until his teeth rattled and then taking him out behind the proverbial barn to beat some sense into him. What was wrong with his people? Lycans were good people, not fanatics who killed without thought.
“I wasn’t going to shoot a wolf,” Damon mumbled.
“But someone gave you the orders to shoot them,” Zev insisted. “That was part of your mission. Draw out the woman by using one of our wild brethren.”
Damon sighed. “It didn’t make any sense, but someone has to pay for killing Daciana.”
“I told you, you idiot, she isn’t dead. And really, Damon, killing Skyler wouldn’t bring her back if she was. What possessed you to join with these people? You have a brain, why weren’t you using it?”
Damon didn’t answer.
Zev was fed up with the entire thing. “If you had lifted that rifle at either the wolf or Skyler, I would have staked you on the spot, and you would have deserved it.”
Damon sank back on his heels. “I don’t know why I joined them.” He sounded confused. “You’re right. This goes against everything I believe in. It isn’t like me not to check facts. This goes against the code of the Sacred Circle as well. We don’t condone violence. Self-defense, yes, but not murder. Not luring a girl out into the open and shooting her.” He dropped his arms and turned toward Zev. “What the hell is going on with me?”
“What part of ‘stay exactly the way you are’ didn’t you understand?” Zev asked quietly.
Damon placed his hands, palm down, on his thighs. “I’m not a threat. I want to see Daciana. Maybe she can figure out what’s really going on.”
His voice rang with truth. Zev didn’t know what to believe. He never would have thought that Damon would join in a murder.
He’s telling you the truth, Branislava said. I hear it in his voice.
I hear it, too, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing, mon chaton féroce.
Branislava heard the hurt in his voice. This man had been his friend—a close friend. Zev felt betrayed by him. Not just him, but his entire species. He’d spent his life doing his duty, protecting his kind and first they had turned on him and then shamed him with their actions, and now there was betrayal.
Zev lived by a strict code of honor. He expected little in return for his service, but he did demand loyalty. The pack was always about loyalty and this man somehow was equated, in Zev’s mind, with his pack.
Bring him before the council, let them decide what to do with him, she suggested. If one of them is behind this, wouldn’t they stick up for him?
Not necessarily. He was very reluctant to present Damon to the council for judgment, not after what happened to Dimitri. The council members had sworn Dimitri was safe and well cared for, but in reality he’d been sentenced to the worst fate—the cruelest of all deaths any Lycan or enemy could suffer. Granted, Dimitri was mixed blood, considered the dreaded Sange rau, an abomination that had been outlawed centuries earlier. Even so, Zev trusted few people and, at the moment, even fewer Lycans.
Branislava sighed. Dimitri strode toward them, looking tall and authoritative. She exchanged a long, guilty glance with Skyler. They had saved the young female wolf, but at a great price. She would forever be a part of Skyler and Dimitri’s pack.
“Shadow insisted,” Skyler said, both hands buried in the fur of the female. “He says she’s his chosen mate.”
“And you didn’t help that along?” Dimitri demanded, looking from one to the other.
“Is there a way to influence an alpha wolf?” Branislava asked.
“If there is, the two of you would figure out how,” Dimitri said. He dropped into a crouch beside the female’s body, running his hands over her. “She’s changing inside.”