"It"s been a weird night," I said, yawning. "I went to the public meeting, witnessed a marriage proposal, and had to listen to the paragon outing the werewolves as human-killers."
"Uh-oh," Carl said.
"But! I did manage to persuade the Senate to ask the shifters to back off, and I at least begged off a little time for the werewolves. So that counts as a win, right? The paragon is really into extinction right now, and he"s trying to pull other people into his buzz. There"s going to be a full investigation first, so maybe something will come up."
"And if the werewolves really did do it?" Esther asked.
My stomach turned. "Since when is death met with death, officially speaking? Anyway, the paragon"s not going to let this lie, but I feel like it"s a personal agenda. When he left, Daimhn said that Eloise reckons we"ve nothing to worry about from a paragon army, so that"s a bonus, at least."
Esther did a weak fist pump into the air. "Oh, yay, I suppose."
I reached out for the Chinese food and found a bag of wontons to snack on while I spoke. "The big news is that Greg confronted me on the way home, and it looks as though Daimhn was right. The shifters are seriously dopey right now. For a minute there, he could barely remember how to stand. Then he seemed to focus on, you know, killing me, so that helped him."
"Ava," Carl said warningly.
I leaned back my head with a grin and closed my eyes. "Anyway, we got to chatting, and he calmed down enough to make sense. Apparently, Mac"s idea of making Esther take a punishment is actually a bit of a sore point. Even the shifters have opposing traditions, it seems. Greg said that where he"s from, the shifter in question has to fight for their good name, their honour, I suppose."
"I have to fight for my life then," Esther said. "Honour is life with the shifters. Shame is what kills us, but only figuratively speaking. Our shame is put to death by killing our bodies."
"You have some sick traditions," Carl said.
"It"s not my fault," she protested. "Loyalty, trust, and honour are the three most important things for a shifter, according to Aiden."
"He had none of those," I murmured.
"Ideally, then," she said snappishly. "But for Mac, he swapped out trust for power. And the loyalty didn"t work both ways. Honour is honour in any language, but we obviously find opposing things honourable."
"I"m pretty sure Greg didn"t know about the captives," I said, "even though he was second in command. Looks like Mac was pushing people only as far as he could." I reached for another wonton. I hadn"t eaten for ages, and my throat was starting to feel achy in the I-heart-blood sort of way. "Except for you, Esther. He couldn"t get anywhere at all with you."
"That"s because of you," she said softly. "You and Carl and everyone else. If I didn"t have you, I would have stayed with Aiden, would have been sucked into Mac"s pack."
"Why can"t there be more than one pack, though?" I asked. "Why is there one big alpha? When things go wrong, they go really wrong, and n.o.body has the power to stop him."
"The one true alpha contains all of the individual packs," she said. "They aren"t true packs, more like families within the pack. They stay close to other shifters because we rely on each other for survival, and we turn to the alpha to sort out disputes and such. But most importantly, we stick together."
Something in the tone of her voice made me sit up. "What is it?"
She shrugged and curled up into a ball. Carl reached out to rest his hand on her shoulder, and she leaned in to his touch.
"I don"t do that," she said. "I don"t stay close to the other shifters. Aiden took us to stay with shifters originally to protect ourselves, but we did without them for so long. In hindsight, perhaps a pack would have helped Aiden through his tough years, but part of that problem was that he didn"t know what was going on. I mean, our mother died before she could tell us the truth, but even she kept us away from the pack. She purposely avoided the shifters, and now I"ll never know why. Are we supposed to be loners?"
"Maybe she had experience with a Mac of her own," Carl offered. "Maybe she came here to escape a terrible alpha. Whatever the cause, she must have had her reasons."
"If I could just know why, maybe I would be able to understand the pack here a little better. When I think of how hostile they are now," she said, "I can see why Aiden kept me so separated from them, even when he was alpha. They were never going to accept us because we"re so different from them. And now Aiden"s gone, they"re happy to take their pound of flesh from me."
"I"m not going to let them," I said. "I"m going to be your champion."
"You can"t!"
"Greg and I shook on it," I said firmly. "I"ll fight this fight, earn you back your honour, and then it"ll all be over."
"You can"t keep saving me, Ava," she said.
"I"m defending my entire family," I said, and when she smiled, I continued. "And everything"s almost back to normal-don"t worry."
"Well, I"ll heat up the food," Carl said. "Be right back."
He and Esther went into the kitchen together, and I dozed off until they returned with the food. I was about to dig in when I remembered something I had been meaning to ask. "Hey, Carl, have you met Melody Love?"
"Melody Love?" He screwed up his nose before his expression cleared. "Oh! The medium? Yeah, we met."
"What do you think of her?"
"She seems nice. Peter met her on a case of his. Emmett loves her. Why?"
I violently stabbed my food with my fork. "No reason." But there went that pesky pang of jealousy once again. I just wasn"t sure who I was jealous of Melody spending time with. Peter or Emmett.
Sometimes, I wished I could take back the things I"d said, or at least knock on wood more often so that I didn"t jinx myself. But I didn"t, and when a pair of recruits knocked at my door the next morning, I knew that it had happened again. My bad luck.
"What happened?" I asked, worried by their grim faces. "Is everyone okay?"
Shay stepped between them. "Leave us alone for a minute," he said. When the recruits moved off, he examined my face. "Did he hurt you?"
I frowned. "Who?"
"The shifter last night."
"What? Greg? No, of course not. Well, I might have a couple of bruises, but that"s nothing. How did you know about it anyway?"
"Before we go in," he said, "make sure your story is straight. If you"re going with self-defence, then-"
"Shay! I have no freaking clue what you"re on about."
He licked his lips and held my gaze. "We found his body."
My mouth dropped open. "Oh, my G.o.d. No! We made a deal. He said I could champion Esther, and the problems with the pack would be over. How could he do something so stupid like dying?"
Shay breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank G.o.d it wasn"t you. But you"re the suspect right now, Ava. The Senate wants to see you."
"Why am I a suspect again?" I demanded. "I"m getting really sick of this. I don"t just wander around killing people on a whim, you know."
"I know," he said. "But after last night, the papers are awash with how the Senate are allowing dangerous supernatural creatures to get away with murder, while on the other hand, they can"t even protect their own members. They have to be seen to act."
I held up my fingers. "One: I"m not a dangerous supernatural creature. And two: why would I kill Greg?"
"He told other shifters he was going to confront you. It"s hard to tell, because they seem to be having trouble speaking right now, but he was determined to deal with you once and for all."
"So it"s okay for him to try to murder me? How is that fair?"
"It"s not. But they"re angry."
"d.a.m.nit, Shay. I didn"t kill him. But even if I did, they"ve already admitted he was trying to kill me."
"I know," he said. "Trust me, I"ve had this exact same conversation. But apparently, some shifters are holding information over the Senate"s heads. I don"t know if they"re going to spill sensitive information to the press, or if the Senate want to know something that shifters have gotten hold of, but it makes no difference. They"ve called you in, and I"m the one who is supposed to do it. Now can you come quietly before the entire neighbourhood realises what"s happening and protests about it?"
"Fine," I said reluctantly, knowing that avoiding it would just prolong the process. "But why do you think Greg was killed? I mean, first the alpha, and now his second in command. Why would anyone wipe out the chain of command like that?"
"Revenge? Punishment for the captives? An attempt to be the newest alpha?"
"But Greg didn"t know about the captives. Most shifters are extra honest, Shay. I would have known if he was faking it. The captive situation was news to him."
"Then somebody wanted him out of the way so they could take the lead." He shrugged. "That"s the most likely explanation."
"But Greg wasn"t alpha material. He told me so himself. And the pack wouldn"t accept an alpha who cheated. That"s why Aiden had to leave. The alpha has to win a challenge honestly. It"s about honour and trust and stuff."
Shay frowned. "That turns the heat back onto you, Ava. You just destroyed our best motives so far. That only leaves us with a motive for you killing him. Self-defence, and a way to protect Esther."
"But I didn"t need to protect Esther anymore. Greg was going to fix everything. He told me to expect to hear from him. I offered to be Esther"s champion, to fight for her honour, and he was happy to agree. He promised that the issues between Esther and the pack would end. He left me to organise it."
"It"s just your word." He gave me a pitying look. "I"m afraid Greg didn"t make it home last night, Ava. He was found close to the courthouse."
"But I I saw him walk away. I watched him leave. He confronted me outside the courthouse, but then he left. I swear it."
"If that"s true, then somebody is trying very hard to make you look like the guilty one."
"It"s the paragon," I said immediately. "It has to be. He hates me, and he hates Esther and the werewolves, and I persuaded the Senate not to listen to him last night. He has it in for me. He has to be the one who set this up."
"Why would a paragon bother with all of this? Why wouldn"t he just attack you himself?"
"Because he can"t." I clamped my mouth shut before I said too much.
"Is this another secret that I"m not supposed to know about? Fine. If you"re sure, I"ll confront him. But you"re still coming with me this morning."
"Okay, but it has to be him." I grabbed my jacket. "Who else have I p.i.s.sed off lately?"
He gave me a bemused look.
"Oh, shut up," I said.
As we left my garden, we spotted Peter having an argument with one of the recruits.
"Ava!" he called when he saw me.
"It"s okay," I said. "I"ll be back later."
"I"ll call Breslin," he replied as I got into Shay"s car. I really hoped I wouldn"t need my solicitor.
Chapter Eleven.
"Where are we going?" I asked when the car took an unfamiliar route.
"I told you," Shay said. "To see the Senate."
When I gave him a nasty look, he sighed. "They take important meetings in a place outside of the city. It"s safer there."
"For them?"
He shrugged. "I"m just the messenger boy, remember?"
"More like the courier." I sat up straight. "Am I being arrested? Because I can"t sit in a cell again, Shay. I just I can"t."
His expression grew wan. "I know. They just need to speak to you. It"s for your safety. The shifters are on the warpath. There"ll be destruction if they go up against you. The Senate are afraid that a minor war will break out. The press will be all over it."
I huffed in response. The Senate cared more about its media presence than anything else lately. "You do believe me, though, right?"
"Very few people are stupid enough to kill twice while the suspicion is still on them from the first time," he said, but he was smiling.
"I just find it unsettling how everyone wanted me to kill things during the war, and now that it"s over, I"ve to fit into all of these rules."
He glanced at me. "Wars aren"t supposed to last forever, Ava."
"I know that. But sometimes it"s hard to fit into that mind-set again. The one where everything is black and white. It just bothers me sometimes is all."
"What, exactly?"
I shrugged. "I dunno. It"s okay to kill some things and not others. Like, who draws that line? I can kill a mouse, but not a dog. I can kill a vampire, but not a shifter. And the werewolves can kill birds and deer, but never humans."
"If lines aren"t drawn, how does anyone know where to stop?" he asked. "You"ve got to put your trust in the laws, or everything falls apart."
"Do you?"
"Huh?"
"Do you put your trust in the law? It wasn"t so long ago that a vampire called Reuben was a consultant to the old Council, and he was allowed to kill the occasional virgin. Who does that law protect?"
He gritted his teeth. "That law is gone." He looked at me. "Right?"
"I don"t know what laws still exist. I never knew the shifters would be allowed to punish Esther, did I?"
"The more people who know about that, the easier it will be to stop it from happening again," he said. "You"ve said it to me many times, Ava. It takes a long time to change ancient laws. I"m sure the Senate will do the best they can."