AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And it doesn’t bother you?” Bradley asked. All the wolves were focused on Lucas. If he’d ever wanted to be rid of me, to cast me out of the pack and wipe his hands clean, now was his chance. It would only take one word and they’d view me as an outsider forevermore. I could live with that. I’d started as an outsider, I could deal with being cut off again.
“What Secret is has very little to do with who she is,” he announced, his gaze still locked on me. “And if I were to let what she is bother me, it would be no different from someone casting judgment on me for being a werewolf. She is still werewolf royalty. And she was still born a wolf. I don’t care if her other half is a vampire or not, to me the other things outweigh that. I’ve never been bothered by her vampire blood, and any one of you who treats her differently because of it will fear my wrath, am I understood?”
The wolves all nodded, and though Lucas hadn’t yelled, his voice reverberated through the room.
“Good. Because I want you all to remember she is more than the queen. She is first and foremost the pack protector. She defended us all against our enemies and has always been true to the pack. Does anyone dispute it?”
Silence.
“Then I’d say the time for questions is over. Your queen was presenting her plan, and I think you should give her your attention.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
Genie hadn’t said anything, but the expression on her face wasn’t one of horror but awe. She, too, understood what it meant to be two things at once. She was both a witch and a werewolf, and the collision of those halves had made her feel like an outsider. Maybe now she could appreciate why I felt such a kinship to her, even beyond our blood.
Reggie was still staring at me when I looked back to the vampires.
“Are we going to have a problem?” I asked him, and he shook off his stupor.
“No, ma’am. I know how the Tribunal works. You aren’t given a seat, you have to earn it. Blood and death. If you’re in a seat, I don’t care what you are. You killed for it, and you kept it. Not many of us could do that.”
God, if only everyone was willing to accept what I was this easily, I would have come out years earlier. But I knew it would get ugly as more people found out the truth. It was going to cause an uproar inside the council. Juan Carlos, specifically, was going to use it to his advantage to hav
e me killed, I knew that.
And now I was planning to walk right into the lion’s den and ask for a bite to eat.
I’d always known I was a little crazy.
This proved it.
Chapter Seventeen
According to my hastily devised plan, the cops and the werewolves were staying behind at Rain Hotel and preparing themselves with weapons and ammo. They were also supposed to look over the old layouts of the city Lucas had—a byproduct of running a huge architectural firm and being a real-estate kingpin—and try to determine where the necros were most likely to hide out.
Once the vampires and myself were fed, we were going to regroup and split into smaller units, with the intention of scouring the city and bringing the necromancers to justice.
It sounded all well and good on paper, but so had the Spider-Man musical, and that turned out to be a disaster of Hindenburg proportions. I was worried this entire thing would explode in my face the second we crossed the threshold into vampire territory.
What was I thinking? Were they really going to let me waltz through the door, saying Thanks for the blood, and send me on my merry way?
Evidently that was exactly what I hoped would happen, because I was leading a group of four vampires right up the stairs to the council’s front door.
We made it through the main entrance with no fanfare. In fact, the entire great room was empty. On any given night, the room was bustling and full of dozens of vampire wardens doing their work like busy little office drones. Now, though, the floor was carpeted in discarded paper, and the room was darker than I’d ever seen it. Usually the lights behind the stained-glass window panels gave the illusion of permanent daylight to the room, but now it was pitch-black.
Guess the vampires hadn’t considered a backup generator.
Not that they’d really need one, since they could see in the dark.
Still, it was eerie to find the place this quiet. I wasn’t the only one who thought so, since Reggie announced, “This is messed up.”
That was one way to put it.
“Holden, can you take them to the feeding room, please?” I hoped some of the on-site donors would still be around, but even if they weren’t, the coolers should have kept the blood bags mostly fresh in the meantime. “Bring me back something.”
“Where are you going?”
I stared uncertainly at the big oak double doors on the opposite side of the room. Behind them was a stairwell leading deep into the belly of the city, where the Tribunal and the elders held their meetings. Farther below were the cells where they chained rogue vampires in silver and left them to wither away and starve.
