Page 96 of Fated to the Warrior Wolf

Leigh brought her cat to the meeting. He was curled up in her hands, staring at all of us as if he owned the place and each one of us couldn’t shift and swallow him in a single bite. It was a small thing, but given that she’d looked like she’d been crying, I was reading into every single thing about her.

Also, it might have been a new low point in my life that I was jealous of a fuckingkitten.

It was absolutely killing me not to cross the room and wrap her up in my arms and then go den up with her in my room where I knew no one could get to her. I wanted to be the one to comfort her, to wipe her tears away.

Was it the letter? I didn’t think it had been that bad. The one from this morning was something that had come to me spur of the moment, telling her about the time when I was twelve and I fell out of a tree and broke my arm while spying on my older sister. I told her I’d like to introduce her to Galyna. Could that have upset her?

I didn’t know.

I was trying to respect the fact that she’d asked for space, and it was slowly eating away at all my self-control.

But the longer I studied her, the more I thought it looked like more than a letter to have upset her that badly, and it was incredibly hard to keep my mind on what I planned to say about our response to the council.

But when Lucien stormed in, red-faced and pissed off, I had no choice but to concentrate on the matter at hand. He quickly scanned the group to see that we were all here, slammed the door to the suite, and then began to pace the length of the room.

Nobody spoke, nobody moved for a long moment as we all watched the uncharacteristic display of anger. If it were me or Dirge, they probably wouldn’t have blinked. But watching someone as jovial and unserious as Lucien get pissed off? It was like watching a sideshow.

“The bastards threw out the investigation. It was a complete sham!” He shrugged out of the silk-lined suit jacket he wore and chucked it over the nearest empty chair before continuing to pace as he raked his hands through his hair and loosened his tie. “At the risk of questioning my high alpha, Kane, I don’t know why you’ve bothered to assign me this seat. It’s a farce. They don’t give two shits about wolf shifters. The other species all still have axes to grind, and we’re their favorite whetstone. That’s not going to change in the next couple of millennia.”

I shot a quick glance at Kane. His lips were pursed and his fingers steepled, but he was otherwise unbothered by the tirade. So I waited as Lucien burned out his anger.

“These haughty motherfuckers sent ajokeof an inquiry force, they only took statements from the ODL enforcers involved in the complaint, and they took their word for gospel. In whatuniverseis that a real investigation? I put together a full list of witnesses. Did they consult any of them? They sure as hell did not.”

He paced for another minute, and as I watched, I noticed he was edging closer and closer to Olivia, who was watching theentire scene with eyes blown wide. When he finally ran out of steam, he was right next to her—far closer than was polite for near strangers, actually—though I don’t think he realized it.

Interesting.

“So, what do we do now?” His posture was tired and deflated as he addressed Kane without all the piss and vinegar this time. “What is our plan B? Or are we going to let this drop because omegas are so rare?”

Reed was the one who stood and spoke up. “We’re definitely not letting it drop. Here.” He grabbed a sheaf of paper off the desk. “I’ve been doing research for a while now on IGC records and precedent. Rudi has actually been helping me since he and his family are staying in the castle now. He’s very grateful that we pulled his entire family out of Hungary before the trial, so he asked if he could assist us with anything. He’s thorough, but I guess that comes with the accountant territory.”

He pressed a few pages into my hands as he made his way around the circle, and I studied it as he continued.

“These are cases where the IGC ruled on interspecies pack governance. I’ve included everything in the last two hundred years that impacted multiple species. The ones that are highlighted are cases where they’ve specifically overturned an existing ruling.”

“Does Rudi knowwhyhe’s been doing this research project?” Shay asked, eyebrows raised as she skimmed her own paper.

“No, and he politely chose not to ask. Clearly, he learned a few things about discretion working under an Alpha like Varga for so long.”

Dirge snorted a laugh, waving away Reed’s offered case files. Once everyone who wanted a copy had one, Reed sat back down.

“I know you well enough to know that you’ve already readthis, so does this show-and-tell mean you already have a plan in mind?” Kane asked.

Reed smirked, but didn’t deny the accusation. He’d always been ten steps ahead. “I have a few takeaways. First of all, asking for the law to be removed is a fool’s errand. They haven’tremovedany single law or restriction since the inception of the IGC. Second, we’re going to need buy-in and support from as many other magical races as we can garner. We might actually need to make a game plan, then split into teams, borrow some of Kosta’s people, and start traveling to see the leaders of those we feel will be most sympathetic to our plight. Finally, they don’t care about anything that impacts a handful of people. We’d be better off focusing on the greater impact to our entire species.”

I rocked back on my heels. He’d done his research. But did what I needed to say fit in with that?

“Is anybody else pissed off just listening to that list?” Leigh muttered, staring with a scrunched brow down at the pages of IGC history.

“I am. Every single one of us matters, and they’re not fit to sit in those seats if they don’t see that,” I said, making sure I kept my tone even and calm. It was hard.

Goddess fuck, it was hard.

But when her eyes flicked up and held mine, I knew she understood exactly which one of us I was talking about.

Our daughter.

I promised her silently, then and there, that if I had to, I’d burn the whole damn council house down around their ears to fix this.

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