Page 48 of Moon Cursed

My enthusiasm was infectious, getting everyone on their feet—but not for the same reason.

“You can’t be serious!” Megan shouted.

“A few omegas whine and cry, and you go changing the laws? That’s ridiculous!”

“You wouldn’t care about the laws changing, alpha, if you didn’t know they were skewed in your favor!”

“This is highly irregular,” Ash belted, rushing over to the podium. The secret police were swarming the stage to do the same. “I was not informed of this. The council wasn’t informed of this! We are not doing it. This forum is canceled!”

Magnus, the metal wolf clan alpha—and the bearer of a quite beautiful rising-moon-face tattoo—cocked a brow. “Canceled, is it? What a pity. I’ll be off, th—”

“You were paid for an hour of your time,” I sliced in, a hard edge bleeding into my sweetness. “Leave now and I’ll expect that money back.”

Magnus, and the finger that had been about to slam theescapebutton, paused. “That’s not necessary,” he gritted. “I will happily keep to my commitment, but in return, it’s not too much to ask for you to be ready and organized.”

“Exactly,” the others agreed. “You’re wasting your own time.”

“We are more than ready and organized. The students are too,” I said. “Everyone, if you’ve got something to share with your leaders, line up between the rows and—”

“No,” one of the secret police officers barked, even though the students were tripping over themselves to form a line. “Unless you have authorization from the council for this meeting, and provide that proof now, thisforumends now.”

I crooked a brow. “Authorization? Since when do clan members need permission from the council to speak to their leaders? Unless you can provideproofof that new law change, you end now. You have no business on this stage,” I stated. “You’re here to investigate Dagem’s murder, not get in the way of school business.

“Get off, or get out.”

The man exchanged looks with his colleagues, and then they all turned to Ash.

She stood there fists balled and nostrils flaring. She was shaking so hard, her tattoo was doing a rumba on her cheek. “High Priestess, please be reasonable,” Ash hissed. “You sprung this forum on me with no warning—”

“Nothing was sprung on you. You weren’t invited.”

Ash blew past that like I hadn’t spoken. “A gathering of the leaders is serious. Proposed law changes are serious. If this is to be done, it must be done the right way,” she hissed. “Let us now thank the leaders for sparing the time, let them return to their business, dismiss the students, and then you and I will meet with the clan leaders and the councilprivatelyto discuss your concerns.”

“My concerns? My concerns have nothing to do with this,” I replied. “It’s been pointed out to me several times that I don’t know about the lives of the wolves of Wolf Nation, and I shouldn’t pretend I do.

“Every student here has lived among these clans,” I said, sweeping my hand over the crowd. “They know what it’s like. They know what needs to be changed. They are going to speak now,Mrs. Ash,” I stressed, refusing to use her title like she refused to call me headmistress. “I put a lot of time and money into making this happen, so you’re going to step aside and stop wasting it.” I pointed to her chair. “Now.”

She snarled, eyes yellowing. Getting in my face, she growled, “This isn’t over.”

“I’d be disappointed if it was.”

Ash stomped off, leaving me under the weight of seven disapproving glares.

The collective assortment of pricks could be as pissed as they wanted. Even though everyone assumed Lucia was my bank, the truth was I had plenty of my own money. My father was clan alpha before he was killed and replaced by the middle-aged, bespectacled, dreadlocked moon wolf sitting blank-faced at the bottom left of the screen.

Clan alphas were far from poor. How could they be when they had the right to tax their people as heavily as they wanted, and pocket all the money.

My father wasn’t greedy, or corrupt, but he did end his time as a wealthy man, and everything he had he left to me in a healthy, secret, offshore bank account. The same bank account Castor topped up for me and our daughter.

I drained half a million dollars out of that bank account just to get all seven of the leaders to give me an hour of their time. Damn right I wasn’t letting Ash piss that money away and end the meeting.

No one was getting away that easily.

“Sorry for the interruption,” I said to the leaders. “Before we begin, I’m disclosing that this forum is being videoed and live-streamed on Loop Garou by that wolf in the corner with the fine ass.”

“Excuse me?” Ash shot up, twisting around to see Edric waving from the corner. “Absolutely not. Turn that off. Turn it off, Mr. Blaze, or that’s a demerit!”

“I’ll take the demerit.”

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