Chapter 122
Gideon’s POV
I sat in the meeting with the council, my annoyance levels reaching critical levels. Rather than talk about how to de–escalate. or what to do in response to this problem, my council seemed more interested in trying to find someone to blame for this having happened at all.
Like that would help us out of this now.
“The lawsuit makes us appear weak,” said one of the council members. “It was only a matter of time before someone tried to take advantage of that weakness.”
“Not only that, but we cannot maintain our allies,” said another. “Alpha Ivan is even pulling his support.”
“Raven’s leaving was her own choice,” I said. She’d told me she was needed back home and that could have been for pack reason, but with Raven’s strength, I didn’t think she would ever do anything she didn’t want to do.
“The truth doesn’t matter,” said a councilman. “The perception is the only thing that is important here. Her leave tells others that we no longer have Ivan’s support. With Justin lodging his complaint against you, Alpha, we appear as if we stand alone with no allies.”
“This argument is pointless,” I said gruffly. “The why we are being attacked is secondary to the fact that an army is amassing and we need to take actions to prepare.”
I was trying to be reasonable here, but it seemed for as hard as I was trying to keep things on track, the more several members of the council wanted to veer off–course again.
“If you had not mistreated Darius –”
“Darius has not been mistreated,” I snapped, at my wit’s end now with that accusation.
“The accusation –”
“Is false,” I said definitively. “Are you trying to suggest otherwise?”
The man who had made the accusation puffed up his chest a little. I couldn’t tell if he was being impossibly bold or just stupid. I had no idea why he would think to argue with an Alpha, especially in a time of war.
“Darius has been an upstanding member of this pack for a long time,” the councilman said.
“Before or after he and his daughter tried to poison my son, and managed to poison his protector?” I asked.
The councilmember paled slightly. “We don’t know if that really happened.”
I blinked at him, ice water in my veins. This man was so wrong that I didn’t have the time or energy to waste on him. He shouldn’t be a councilmember, let alone a person in his room right now while we were trying to plan pack defense.
Staring him in his eyes, I tapped into my Alpha command, and told him, powerfully, “Get out.”
He startled, already starting to stand up. He gripped the meeting room table with both hands like he was trying to fight the compulsion to obey his Alpha.
Even if he could fight the compulsion, my will would not be denied. I had other ways of making someone leave this room, including physical force.
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“Do you dare disobey me?” I asked, my voice sharp.
The other councilmembers paled as they looked at this one, and he was white as a ghout.
1 exuded menace, allowing my Alpha strength to radiated off of me in ways that I didn’t usually allow. Typically, I wanted to maintain the peace, and amplifying my Alpha strength wasn’t a good way of achieving that.
But here, now, when we were already on the cusp of war, I was done playing nice, especially with those who doubted me and helped to sow chaos into the pack.
I had allowed this for too long. No longer.
The councilman finally stood on shaky legs. “Forgive my impudence, Alpha,” he said and tripped over himself on the way out of the room.
After he had gone, with the door closed behind him, I turned to look at the rest of the room. “Anyone else want to question my authority?”
No one spoke up.
We continued the meeting, discussing how many warriors we could afford to send to the border to protect the park. I wanted to keep some at the pack house, to protect our capital town, but how many would depend on Justin’s answer, whether or not he would choose to help us.
At a break time, Xavier approached me. “Justin is not answering any of our calls. Our physical messenger is still in route there.”
“Keep trying,” I said, but I didn’t have much hope this would resolve itself before the battle starts.
We couldn’t depend on Justin’s pack for this.
We were going to have to stand on our own.
Claire’s POV
I’d only been back in Ivan’s pack for a few days, but I was already feeling like my old self again. I had no delusions that Gideon would show up here unannounced. In the past, he had come for Leo, but without Leo here, I doubted he would come just for me.
So I took off my mask and set it aside. I even decided to wash the black dye out of my hair and go back to my natural red.
There was no reason for me to hide anymore.
To fast track my hair back to its original red, I had to dye it again, as close as I could to my natural color. But looking in the mirror, I felt some relief, seeing myself again.
When I met Ivan in the hallway, he hummed when he saw me. “You’ve changed your hair,” he said.
“I did.” I ran my fingers through it, feeling a bit self–conscious now, having him immediately point it out. “Does it look bad?”
“No,” Ivan said. He looked at me for a moment. His face was made of stone, I couldn’t read him at all. “You look as I know you best. It is welcome to have you back, Claire.”
I gave him a relieved smile in return, but it didn’t last long. I was happy to be back where I felt like I belonged, but I wasn’t without regrets.
I knew I had made the correct choice, to protect my identity and keep Nova with me, but the separation from Leo sliced
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Chapter 122
into me deeply. I had invited him to visit whenever he wished, but there was no promise that he would.
It was very possible that I would never see Leo ever again.
“Claire.” Ivan said, softer than before. “I would like to ask you something.”
I shook myself out of my melancholy to focus on him.
“Of course,” I said. “What is it?”
He cleared his throat, then paused. He seemed to be procrastinating. That was strange. Usually Ivan was the pinnacle of confidence.
“I would like you to join me for a private meal,” he said, “Just the two of us.”
That didn’t seem so unusual. We’d eaten together many times in the past. Yet there seemed to be something about the way he was asking this time that made me wonder if something was different this time. The question seemed to have more weight.
“That sounds fun,” I said, not understanding the big deal about this.
He nodded. “Thank you.” He reached out and lightly placed his hand on my arm. “I look forward to it.”
As he walked away, I started to wonder…
Did I just agree to a date?
