Page 37 of Bound to the Dragon
I back away from her. “What do you know? And don’t say that you don’t know anything. I know you’re lying. And Virginia is a part of this. You do know who’s responsible for these attacks.”
Her skin is so pale, it’s almost opaque.. “Not here,” she begs as she realizes all eyes are on us.
I almost insist that she confess in front of the whole pack, say everything she knows in front of everyone.
“Please.” She takes my arm. “I’m asking as your mate.”
Even as anger threatens to overtake me, I can’t deny her. “I have already given you the benefit of the doubt. Why should I trust you now?”
“Because I couldn’t be sure until now.” She hangs her head. “I’ll tell you everything I know. I swear.”
I relent and allow her to guide me out of the messy ballroom, my eyes still searching for signs of Vigo, but I can’t find my Beta anywhere.
I call attention to the closest enforcer and tell him to bring Vigo to me as soon as he’s located.
“Yes, Alpha.”
He needs to hear what Madison has to say, too. He will be my voice of reason, since I clearly have none when it comes to my fated mate.
CHAPTER 13
MADISON
There’s no easy way to explain this, not after all this time. It was something that Blaze should have known before agreeing to be my mate, before our mate bond snapped into place, before the commitment ceremony, before Granger committed me to him in the first place. But here we are, weeks in and two attacks later, and I have no choice but to confess the truth about my role in how all this has played out. Or rather, my family’s role.
None of this has to do with me, not really, except for the way my silence enhanced and enabled the trouble. And that’s just as bad as partaking in the event itself. Or at least Blaze might see it that way.
“Well?” Blaze is waiting for me to speak, and I’m doing my best to think of where to start as I pace around the suite, racking my brain for a good starting point. “What is going on?”
“It happened years ago.” I halt, trying to remember exactly how it had come about, but I don’t recall the specifics. I only came to learn about it afterward, after all, and I can’t be sure I even know the whole story, or the truth of it.
I’m stalling. I don’t want Blaze to look at me any differently than he’s been looking at me, but I can’t avoid this any longer. He’s getting angrier by the second.
“Madison!”
“This started a really long time ago. Maybe fifteen years ago. Something was happening between Silver Glade and another pack,” I blurt out. “War was about to break out, because Granger had infringed on their territory.”
I pause to take a breath, remembering the tensions of those days. The shifters all remained fully in their animal forms, waiting for an attack. Riots occurred every night with our rival pack, and Granger only seemed to relish in the drama, with my father, the Beta, in the center of it all. I had been young, only ten or eleven, but the fear of the time still clings to me in the aftermath.
“I vaguely remember when that happened.” Blaze’s eyes bore into me, waiting for me to go on, his confusion palpable. “What does that have to do with what’s happening now?”
I swallow thickly and try my best to explain the atrocity Granger and my father had committed to save our pack. “We had a peace treaty with two other packs.”
I really don’t want to say the words aloud. Even hearing them in my head makes my stomach turn.
Perplexed, Blaze stares at me. “Okay?”
“We asked them to intervene, but they didn’t want to get involved, and rightfully so. Granger created the mess, and they probably realized too late that they had gotten involved with a tyrant when they signed on with Silver Glade. Our territory was in pure chaos. They wanted us to work it out amongst ourselves. My father was Beta at the time, and Granger was pissed. You know, Granger, he always thinks with emotion, not his head.”
Blaze continues to stare at me, uncomprehendingly. “What did you do?”
“It wasn’t me!” I shake my head vehemently. “I didn’t know what transpired until a couple of years later. And I still am not entirely sure I know everything. I was still very young.”
“And by everything, what do you mean?” He sits on the wingchair and drapes his ankle over his knee, staring at me intently. “I don’t want to drag every detail out of you, Madison. Just tell me what happened, so we can figure out what to do.”
“My father was always trying to appease Granger’s whims.” I trail off and start again. “He came up with the idea to betray one of our allied packs to get the rivals off our backs. He handed them and their territory directly to our enemies. The allied pack didn’t stand a chance against two powerful entities—their territory was absorbed and the survivors scattered, left homeless. When word got out, it caused massive friction. The displaced shifters formed a rogue faction, joined by members from several other packs disgusted by the betrayal—including some from Silver Glade.”
Blaze’s jaw slacks. “Don’t you think this would have been useful information to have after the first attack?”
