grandma holds my hand as we sit side by side on the living room couch. “His trial starts next week, and Wes gave us the name of his assigned magistrate.”
“We have to go see him!” I immediately exclaim. “He has to understand that Collin’s not a rogue anymore.”
She pats my hand. “Honey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but that’s probably a lost cause.”
“What? No. How can that be a lost cause?”
The timer dings on the oven, alerting her to the dish she’s cooking. She gets up and walks into the kitchen. I follow her, practically stepping on her heels I’m so anxious.
When the hot dish is sitting on the stovetop, she finally says, “Because most rogue trials are over before they’ve begun. Everybody knows what happens to a wolf when he leaves his pack, and everyone knows that lone wolves eventually turn into murderers.” She steps closer to me and lays her hot mitts on the counter. “Because he did commit those murders, right, sweetheart?”
Tears well in my eyes. “His beast did. He didn’t. That’s a big difference.”
She takes a deep breath and says softly, “But once a wolf has gone rogue there’s no coming back.”
“No! That’s not true!”
I won’t listen to her even though I know she’s trying to break things to me gently, because I can’t accept that there’s nothing I can do.
I immediately get to work and seek out the magistrate that will be defending Collin. I manage to secure a meeting with him when he’s at a stopover in Montana at the end of the week.
He listens attentively as I explain that Collin’s no longer a rogue, but when he steeples his hands at the end of my monologue, I can tell that he doesn’t think anything can be done either. Still, his words pierce my heart like an arrow.
“No one’s going to believe you, Brianna.” He’s a middle-aged sorcerer and sports a little goatee. “Even if I put you on the stand, and even if you said everything you just told me, no one will listen.”
“But we at least have to try to make them believe me, right?” I sit forward in my seat while my grandparents stay quiet at my sides. “I’ll swear under oath—if the supernatural courts have that kind of thing—and state that my testimony is true.”
The magistrate gives me a placating smile. “But you’re forgetting one thing—you’re Collin’s mate. Of course you would say something like that.”
“But I’m his alive mate! How many rogues have ever been with someone as long as Collin was with me and not killed them?”
He sits back and shrugs.
Frustration bubbles inside me when I see how unpassionately he feels about Collin’s case.
“Please,” I plead. “You have to save him. He can’t die.”
He raises his eyebrows and gives my grandparents a pointed look—as if asking them to take their kooky granddaughter from the room.
It’s enough to make me scream, but even with my grandparents urging him to reconsider, the magistrate holds firm. He doesn’t believe my testimony will do a damn thing.
∞ ∞ ∞
Somehow, the next week passes by, and Collin’s trial is set to start.
Apparently, the supernatural court system is much more judicious and efficient than the American legal system. There is no waiting for weeks until charges are pressed or months until a trial begins. From what I’ve been able to gather during the whirlwind of the past week is that rogue trials are usually short and sweet, and an execution is almost always the outcome, even though the community claims not to have capital punishment.
I take a deep breath as I stand in a lush Montana valley. All around me tall grasses sway as a grove a trees hides the glowing portal door to the fae lands. It waits in front of me, and all I have to do is step through it for a one-way trip to fairy-ville and my mate’s trial.
“Are you ready for your first portal crossing?” my grandmother asks. She stands beside me in the field. We’re less than a mile from Crescent Crossing.
I let out an uneasy breath but don’t step forward. I stare at the swirling magical door with its opaque interior and glowing green trim and think of what waits on the other side—the fae lands, the supernatural courts, and Collin.
My grandparents wait patiently behind me. I can’t believe I’ve only known them for two weeks. We didn’t have our first real talk about Collin until after meeting his magistrate. During the previous days,