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Research is way less fun when you’re not doing it with two equally motivated individuals. And when your entire future hangs by a thread. But what it lacks in fun, it makes up for in not getting any results. It’s dark out by the time I give up.
I glance out the window of the study and spot the moon. We’re two days from Lupercalia. Two days from knowing what my life is going to be like.
By ten o’clock, Nathan still hasn’t returned to the residence.
“Amanda?” I ask through the intercom in my sitting room. “Has the King left word of when he’ll be back?”
There’s a click and Amanda answers, “His Majesty isn’t planning to return tonight. Do you have a message you’d like me to pass along to his secretary?”
He’s not coming home. “Do you know where he’s gone?”
Click. “By pack law, His Majesty is forbidden contact with you until after the council issues a decision on the challenge. Would you like me to pass a message along?” she asks again.
“No. Thank you, Amanda.”
In all the reading I’ve done, I haven’t uncovered that clause. It must be buried somewhere much deeper; in a subsection I haven’t reached. One of the purposes of having such complicated laws, I assume, is to prevent pack members from knowing enough to question the council or pack leader. Why Nathan didn’t just tell me about this ban on contact, I have no clue.
But I do know how to use it to my advantage.
Nathan invoked the Right of Accord because he knew about the Right of Accord. It’s not totally absurd to assume he knows more than Ashton does about pack law.
I can either take a chance that Ashton doesn’t know about this no-contact rule, just like he didn’t know about the Right of Accord, or I can take a chance that the council, which might also be riddled with traitors, will decide in Nathan’s—and my—favor.
It’s not a hard decision to make.
But I have no idea how to get in touch with Ashton, or even how to leave the house. I don’t have anything of my own. No money, no identification, no phone. Even my clothes aren’t my own. They’re just things Amanda went shopping for.
I hit the intercom again. “Amanda, all of my things are at my old house. I only need a few hours to collect them. Could someone take me there?”
Click. “I’m afraid His Majesty has commanded that you stay in the residence.”
“I know but…” It’s a last-ditch effort before I try to sneak out a window or something. “Could you contact his secretary and ask him if it would be okay? There are things there that I need.”
“We can have them retrieved and delivered to you here.”
I am really starting to hate Amanda’s intercom voice. I snap, “Could you just ask him, please?”
I storm away from the intercom and pace, trying to calm my nerves. This will work. And, it will give me a chance to rub Ashton’s loss in his face.
To my surprise, Amanda comes back with an answer within ten minutes, stopping by in person to deliver it.
“His Majesty was not able, under the rules of the challenge, to give you permission.” Before my heart can sink too far, she continues, “Doing so would constitute contact. But so would denying you permission. You are, however, the highest-ranking member of this household in the king’s absence, and as such you have the ability to make whatever requests or commands you wish.”
“I want a car,” I shoot back immediately. “I want a car, and I want the guards at my parents’ home to leave. I don’t want to see them and I don’t want them watching me while I’m there. I’m going to be very emotional and I deserve my privacy.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
It’s so weird being called that, considering my position isn’t permanent yet. But I’m not going to turn down the advantages it affords me.
Twenty minutes later, I’m speeding through my old neighborhood in a car the roars like a lion and scares the shit out of me every time I touch the gas pedal. I pull up to the gates and find them padlocked shut. Luckily, the code for the pedestrian gate hasn’t been changed, and I can walk the rest of the way up the drive.
If I intended to actually move my stuff out, the long walk would be a problem.
My first step is to walk the perimeter of the property. I pause every now and then as if I’m saying a tearful goodbye to a tree or a rosebush, but I’m actually looking for new security equipment or thrall guards hiding out. The only cameras I find are the ones my parents installed, and I know all their blind spots.
The security code to the back door is still the same, and I slip into the quiet, empty house with a tentative, “Hello? Hudson? Anybody?”
