could identify the massive group of Luthers standing on the edges of Sandstone.
I had my nose back.
“I started to notice things,” Rhona said, and no one stirred beneath my tray. “I started to notice Sascha Greyson’s behaviour around my sister. We all witnessed the way he went for her in Sandstone that day. We believed he sought vengeance for her subterfuge at The Dens. Something he couldn’t seek outside of the game without risking penalty points. But the more I looked, the more I saw that wasn’t the case. There was something else happening.”
A Stabattse had to be a takeover. A change in leadership. That was Rhona’s aim here.
Rhona’s voice was hoarse. “My only defence for not putting everything together at that moment is that I loved my sister. I trusted my sister. The terrible truth never occurred to me. Instead, foolishly, I told her my growing theory in excitement for how we might use it in the grid.” Her breath hitched.
Shame spread through me unchecked.
I’d treated Rhona so badly.
My ears sharpened, and I sorted through the sudden onslaught, absorbing the sound of shuffling feet and whispered comments between stewards.
I felt the tug of Sascha’s presence beneath my ribs.
He was here and watching.
“Andie cautioned me though,” she said. “We had to be careful with how we used this theory of mine. It could give the wrong impression to the tribe. I wanted her to succeed, so I listened. But even at that point, my instincts told me something was amiss. I began to watch her, fearful that something more was happening, and she was in danger. I watched as she asked to be removed to a cabin on the outskirts of our tribe. I worried about her lack of protection out there. I’d just lost my father. I couldn’t lose her too.”
I couldn’t take it.
Rolling very slowly, I peered over the edge.
There she was, back to the Luthers as she addressed the tribe. One hundred metres separated the wolves from us. The Luthers stood in their usual rows, faces impassive as they watched on.
I dragged my eyes to the middle of the front row and looked into honey eyes. Sascha stared up at me, and blinking a few times to focus, I took in the scent of his utter fury.
He tore his gaze away, and I did the same, rolling flat in case Rhona glanced from the pile of sandstone bricks she stood upon.
“My worry turned to suspicion at last,” Rhona called. “Hating myself for doing so, I watched the camera footage from around her cabin. On it I caught her in a lie. And so I confronted her. I like to think Andie’s words then were honest, though with how thoroughly she’d fooled us all, I’ll never be sure.”
Ouch.
I feel stronger, my wolf said.
Fangs and claws stronger?
Soon.
I shoved back my urgency, knowing it wouldn’t help.
“Andie Booker is Sascha Greyson’s mate. His one and only mate. And she has known it since the first day she entered the valley.”
That was a stretch of the fucking truth.
Maybe the stewards didn’t really know what a mate was, but it wasn’t hard to guess, especially with the amount of venom Rhona injected into the word.
“I’d told her that Sascha Greyson wanted her. That was my theory. I thought he was obsessed over her and it could be used against him in the grid. My sister looked me in the eye and said she’d work on it. That’s why she moved to the cabin. So he could visit. The day I showed up at the cabin unannounced, she answered the door naked. A half-dressed Sascha Greyson was also inside.”
That got them.
A wall of sour decay rose up from the one thousand stewards beneath me that consumed me.
I swallowed hard, and a tear trekked across my temple into my hair.
“The cameras confirmed my theory,” she said. “My sister was having sex with the monster who killed my father. Our beloved leader.”
The crowd couldn’t keep silent anymore. They shouted, voices filled with fury and disgust.
Not at Rhona.
At me.
The woman who would have sex with a werewolf.
What’s our status? I asked. Did escaping even matter anymore?
I’m trying.
I know. Don’t worry. The damage is done.
The crowd simmered down eventually. I inhaled their horror and disbelief, their nausea and hatred.
“The day my father died,” Rhona shouted, “something called the capture meet occurred between Andie and the leader of the Luthers. She knew about this in advance and told no one. She knew that the Luther would attempt this meet