I stop and turn to him. I’m exhausted with all of this. “What are you talking about?”
Ethan opens his mouth, then closes it. “They’re lying. One of them is, anyway.”
This gives me pause. “The Shaman?”
He nods.
“Are you certain?”
“As certain as I’ve ever been about anything. I’m telling you, they’re being deceptive.”
“Have you mentioned this to Xander?”
“When would I have? The past hour has been kind of a blur. Besides, I don’t know that he really wants to hear that right now.”
I look past him, back down the hall at Xander’s door, running through my options. “Ethan . . . I don’t know what happened to Haron, but I can’t imagineanyof us attacking a Shaman. Especially right now. Everyone in Kortan is of the same mind. We all want peace between our kinds. No one would dare risk it.”
“Yeah. I get that.”
“On the other hand, why would Haron lie? What would she have to gain?”
He shrugs. “Maybe she doesn’t want peace?”
I bite my lower lip. “Do you think that’s true? I mean, you were reading her at dinner. Does she seem like some kind of suicidal revolutionary?”
“Honestly, no,” he says. “Both Haron and Holden come off to me like trust fund socialites, not political heroes. They don’t really seem like they would care about any of this.”
My stomach drops a little, but he’s right. The idea that she was making it up is a little too hard to believe. I start pacing the hall. “This just doesn’t make sense. Her wounds are Lycan, decidedly. And the timing is difficult to argue. Everyone heard Jayme volunteer to walk with her in the garden, alone. And the worst part . . . Goddess, help me.”
Ethan tilts his chin toward me, urging me to speak.
“Branson and Jayme are from the Gorg Pack. You couldn’t possibly have known this, but I know it’s on Xander’s mind. During the Moon Curse, the Gorg sided with the Shaman, to aid them in their quest to wipe out our pack.”
Ethan’s mouth drops a little. “You’re joking.”
“Both of them defected from the Gorg before all that. Branson and Jayme swore their loyalty to Xander and our pack, and they’ve been nothing but that ever since. Still, they endured years of horrible treatment under Shaman control.”
He frowns, the wheels turning behind his eyes. “Conan joked about Jayme being a troublemaker before joining the Guard. Could that be related to this?”
I shake my head. “Jayme was a bit of a thug, certainly, but after the curse was lifted, he went to Branson and begged him for help to control his anger. That’s when Branson asked me to let him become a guard.”
Ethan says nothing to that, and I don’t blame him. This all looks very bad for Jayme. I sigh and say, “I know everything points to him. I alsoknowthat Jayme isn’t responsible for this. But I still have to arrest him, Ethan.”
He stays silent for a long few seconds in the face of that. Then he says, “There’s more going on here than we know, Rhiannon.”
“I know.”
He shifts on his feet, thinking. “When you question him, I want to be there.”
I raise an eyebrow at him. “You think he’ll admit to anything with you around? I don’t think he trusts you yet.”
Ethan scoffs. “I don’t think that matters right now. Do you?”
“No, I guess it doesn’t. Be ready when I come for you. I plan to question him tonight.”
I stride off, headed for Jayme’s quarters. My stomach clenches with every step.Goddess, I hope Jayme is innocent.
After all the push back I’ve gotten from Xander lately, it’s reassuring that Ethan has my back. His support shouldn’t matter this much, but knowing he stands with me steadies me in a way I didn’t expect.
