heard a wolf laugh, but right then, Bray managed it. It was probably wrong that they were still joking at a time like this, but on the other hand, how could they not? This was who they were as a pack.
Lidon put the pants on, and after he’d snapped the button close, he gestured at Armitage. “Please, continue, General. You were making a case for not being the absolute dictator we’re claiming you are.”
“I love my country,” the general barked. “I have devoted my life to her… And I had nothing to do with the murder of York. That was all Karl Ryland.”
“You played them against each other, Ryland and Wyndham,” Palani said. “We have evidence, General.”
Armitage shrugged, waving Palani’s words off dismissively. “All speculation, but even if you did, what could you do with it? The courts are shut down. Right now, I am the law.”
The man had a point there, and yet… “Maybe, but it won’t stay that way.”
Now a nerve near the general’s eye twitched. Was Palani hitting a sore point?
“Or maybe your rule isn’t as absolute as you imagine it to be. We’re cut off from the rest of the country, aren’t we, so what’s to say you even have absolute control? For all we know, you’re only holding the city, and you’ll be defeated once the rest of the country gets its shit together.”
Armitage’s face tightened even more. The signals were subtle, but Palani was on to something.
“The army listens to me. They’ll follow my lead. I’m in charge.”
“Are you? Just because you declare yourself in charge doesn’t make it so.”
Armitage scoffed. “Who else is left? After York was murdered, I waited six weeks. Six weeks in which the government couldn’t get things under control. I had to step in. It was chaos here, with mobs out on the streets, massive looting, fights, and murders. The government wasn’t doing anything.”
“You let it happen.” Palani spoke quietly, but rage filled him all over again. “You encouraged Ryland to kill the prime minister, and then you stood back and watched the capital burn. And I wouldn’t be surprised if those mobs were your idea, if you instigated the looting and violence. You wanted them to ask for a strong leader. You wanted them to ask for you…but they didn’t, did they? Oh, your army boys did, as did the loudmouth alphas in the city, the ones who have more brawl than brains. But the people didn’t ask for you. They asked for new elections…and that didn’t fit your plan. So you stepped in anyway. You shut down access to the outside world, you eliminated all the elected government officials…and then you took charge.”
The puzzle pieces fell together. They, like Armitage himself, had been deceived by the loud minority of alphas who had wanted this. But Armitage had never truly held the support of the people, just of a few. Granted, they’d had loud voices and deep pockets, but the group was small and hadn’t given him the support he needed to stay in power.
“I stopped a revolution that would have hollowed out the rights of alphas. I stopped our country from going to hell in a handbasket because of that equal rights bullshit. Omegas don’t deserve equal rights. Not when they’re scientifically weaker than alphas. No one likes to hear it, but we aren’t equal. Not when we can alpha compel and are ten times stronger, physically speaking. And anyone who denies those differences is flat out lying.”
For all his smooth talk, the man didn’t deny what Palani said, now was he? “You know what’s so interesting, General? How you call equal rights revolutionary. Is that how you see it?”
“It would change the whole structure of society! How can you not consider that revolutionary?”
Palani had to give the man props for continuing to ignore him and addressing Lidon as if Palani wasn’t the one debating him. He didn’t let it deter him, if only because he knew he had Lidon’s full support. Lidon wouldn’t see it as Palani fighting his battles for him but as him doing what he excelled at.
“Historically speaking, a revolution means changing the current state of things and bringing in a new era. York wanted to return to the way things had been, the old ways. Technically speaking, he wasn’t a revolutionary. He was the very definition of a conservative,” he argued.
“The old ways…” The general harrumphed. “That’s just what old men talk about to each other, waxing nostalgic about the good old