Chapter 23

Chapter

Twenty-Three

The moment Sean walked in the door, I realized I wasn't the only person with important information to share.

Once Matthias, Malcolm, and I gathered in the living room, Sean gave us the news we'd been expecting since the night Bryan and Adri served us with the Court's indictments and demands. "The Were Ruling Council has summoned us to a closed session tonight," he said. "I got a call on the way home from Drew Montgomery. Alice and I are expected, along with Ben and Matthias."

Drew was a senior member of the Council. I'd met him only once, when he attended the fight between Sean and Matthew Anderson. Sean had killed Matthew and replaced him on the Council.

"You, me, and Matthias makes sense," I said. "But why Ben? Because Nan isn't here?"

He shook his head. "Because in the event you and I end up in prison, Ben would become the new alpha."

Matthias frowned. "The Council would refuse to recognize Nan Lowell as alpha because she's female?"

Sean's expression made it clear there was more to it than that. "What's going on?" I demanded. "Are Nan and Daniel okay? "

"Yes, they're fine." His expression turned stoic. "I spoke to Nan just now and she gave me the go-ahead to talk to you. She wanted to tell you in person, but now we can't wait for them to return from their trip and I don't want them to rush back. This information does not go beyond this room for the time being."

Now my unease—and my heart rate—skyrocketed. What the hell was going on? If Nan and Daniel were fine, what wasn't Sean telling us?

"Yes, okay," I said impatiently. "What?"

"I'm sorry you're finding out this way, and right now, on top of everything else." Sean's gaze never left my face. "Nan will be leaving our pack effective immediately. She and Daniel are now a lone wolf pair. They are still associates of our pack and under its protection."

I sat down hard on the couch. Malcolm's mouth hung open. Even Matthias appeared stunned.

It took me a few beats to overcome my shock enough to speak. "Why?" My throat was so tight that I didn't recognize my own voice.

"Because Daniel and his wolf can't join our pack." Sean sat next to me, giving me space while staying near. "He can't bring himself to make those connections again. Not after feeling his entire original pack die. His pain and trauma are too deep."

My chest felt like someone was standing on it. Even Sean's alpha comfort couldn't diminish the hurt. "He decided this out of nowhere?"

"No." He let out a breath. "He and Nan and I spoke about this several times before their wedding."

"But not with me?" I wasn't sure which bit of news hurt me more: Nan's decision to leave or Daniel leaving me out of his conversations with Sean. "I don't understand."

"He didn't want to upset you if there wasn't a cause. Up until now, he still hoped he might be able to join us." Sean rubbed my back. "He sincerely tried, Alice. But some hurts go too deep."

That kind of pain I understood, even if nothing else made a hell of a lot of sense right now .

Daniel had been beyond shocked when he and his wolf fell hard for Nan. After thirty years of being a lone wolf, he'd believed he would never experience love again. Attraction, yes. Sex, yes. He hadn't lived as a monk during that time. Nan had felt the same after her sadistic former alpha killed her husband. And yet they'd found love with each other.

I'd assumed Daniel's love for Nan and the support of our pack would offer enough of a balm for him to overcome his past. Apparently, I had assumed wrong.

Suddenly, I recalled the look Daniel had given me the night of their wedding, when I spoke of our pack growing and becoming stronger. He'd known then, but he must not have wanted to upset me and then depart on his honeymoon.

"I didn't see this coming," I said, my voice tight with grief.

"I know. I'm so sorry we didn't get to talk about this together as a family, like we'd planned." Sean took my hand and squeezed. "Ben is our beta for the time being, but it's not a role he's suited for."

Sean was absolutely right. Ben knew better than anyone that he was an ideal third. The role fit him as naturally as a tailored suit. Trying to force him into acting as a beta was the proverbial square peg in a round hole.

Through my hurt, I thought of Matthias and his nascent dominance. But how long would it take for his true strength to emerge? Weeks? Months? Years? I had no way to predict the answer. It certainly wouldn't be hours, which was all we had between now and the Council meeting, when Ben's unsuitability to become beta, much less an alpha, would be plain for all to see.

Sean had told me long ago that when he became a werewolf, Henry, the alpha of the Tomb Mountain Pack at the time, took him into the pack because he sensed Sean was very dominant. Sean had become alpha not long after that in the wake of Henry's murder by his sadistic beta, who Sean also killed to protect the pack. While Sean's experience of becoming a werewolf had been traumatic, it wasn't anything close to what Matthias had gone through .

Matthias needs more time , I'd said.

Arkady's response echoed in my head: We don't have it.

It wasn't right and it wasn't fair. None of this was. Knowing it was all Charles Vaughan's fault didn't make anything better. But it did put even more pressure on my theoretical sunset call, which I'd barely have enough time to make before we had to stand in front of the Council. And that was even assuming I got through. The odds were slim.

I took a deep breath and put my feelings about Nan and Daniel's news aside for now. I'd have to process it, but we had bigger, much more unpleasant fish to fry. "Sean…"

"I know that tone." He eyed me. "What plan do you have that I am very much not going to like?"

Despite the tension, Malcolm chuckled. Matthias raised his eyebrows and clasped his hands behind his back. I got the impression they both wished they had popcorn for this one.

I told Sean I wanted to call Charles directly.

His expression went from incredulous to furious and back as I talked. I listed all the reasons I thought I needed to call, including the points Matthias had made about knowing what we were up against and the possibility this was a backhanded way for Charles to initiate some kind of conversation.

When I finished, Sean didn't say anything for a long time. I let him think.

"I don't know who Charles is anymore," I said after a full minute had gone by. "Maybe I never really did, and I was deluding myself to think otherwise. After what he's done to me, I never wanted to speak to him again. But the fact is, I have to talk to him now."

"Do you want to talk to him?" Sean asked.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Think about it." I touched his hand. "If Matthias is right and this is the vampire version of Let's Make a Deal , Charles needs something but he can't ask us for it because he'd seem weak. Do you know what that means? For the first time we might have the upper hand even if it looks to the world like he's got us under his thumb." The more I talked about it, the more my instincts told me I was right. "He saves face and we come out on top, even if no one but us knows that."

Sean wasn't buying what I was selling, however. "Vaughan plays games within games. I'm not saying you're wrong, but there might be layers to this we're not seeing."

"Oh, I have no doubt there are. Anything with Charles has more layers than…than…" I searched for the right analogy. "Carly's croissants," I finished. "That doesn't mean we can't turn this to our advantage. As Matthias said, information is power. Lack of information is the opposite."

"Deep thoughts by Alice," Malcolm interjected. He floated back and forth over by the plywood, keeping his distance from Sean. "For what it's worth, I'm with her on this."

Sean looked at Matthias. "And your opinion?"

If Matthias was surprised that Sean asked, he didn't show it. "Alice should call," he said. "Mr. Vaughan believes she's a known quantity. He's wrong, and that gives her an edge. Also, I see little risk but great potential for reward."

"You think the indictments are Vaughan's way of opening dialogue," Sean said.

It wasn't a question, but Matthias answered anyway. "Yes, I think it's likely. Mr. Vaughan is in a precarious position and he's probably well aware of that fact. He may think Alice can somehow help him. It's the most likely explanation for his actions. Otherwise, the indictments are a frivolous waste of valuable resources, and to what end? To destabilize your relationship with the Were Ruling Council? To put you and Alice in prison? No doubt he still intends to reclaim me, but the rest strikes me as unlikely."

It seemed pretty damn unlikely to me too. And to Sean, who finally looked less like he wanted to throw my plan in the sink and turn on the garbage disposal and more like he might grudgingly agree.

"The sun sets in about ninety minutes," Sean said. "We have to be at the Were Council meeting an hour after that and it takes thirty minutes to get there from here. That's not much time—assuming you can even get to him."

"I have to try."

"I know." He kissed my forehead. "Now, what the hell has been going on since you left for the coffee shop?"

Five minutes after the sun set, I shut myself in our office, poured a medicinal shot of good whisky, and made the call.

I had one private number for Charles, but I hadn't used it for months—since before my trip to the Broken World. I had zero guarantees that it still worked and not much hope that he'd take my call. This was simply the longest of long shots.

The phone rang twice, and then he answered. "Good evening, Alice."

His voice sounded exactly the same. I didn't know why I'd expected it to have changed, but I had. Maybe because he'd done things in the past month I'd once thought he'd never do.

Once upon a time, whenever he spoke my name it sent shivers of fear and desire down my spine. I felt neither of those emotions now. He'd left me gutted with his admission that he'd manipulated my feelings for years in an attempt to get me to fall for him and force me under his thumb. I had nothing left for him but anger and mistrust.

"Hello, Charles." My voice was steady. Yay me.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this well-timed call?"

Let the games begin , I thought. "I'm sure you can guess."

"Should my attorney take this call?"

"Should mine? "

"Touché." He chuckled. "I have greatly missed our chats."

"If all you want is a chat, there are better ways to break the ice than a stack of indictments two inches thick. And I'd think you'd be too busy these days for idle conversation with the likes of me."

"And yet I have taken your call moments after waking, before I have even risen from my bed. Perhaps our conversation will not be idle."

Now I had a mental image of Charles reclining on his pillows, maybe still in his PJs, holding whatever super-secret phone this number went to. He'd kept it so closely at hand that he'd answered within seconds of its first ring. That told me a hell of a lot about whether he'd anticipated—maybe even hoped for —a call.

"I genuinely hope our conversation isn't idle," I said. "Because you know everything in this indictment is bullshit."

"I do not, in fact, know that." His tone remained maddeningly casual, as if we weren't talking about his attempt to blow up my entire life. "But all discussions on legal matters must be referred to my attorney, Christine Foreman. Shall I have her call your legal team?"

So he didn't want to talk about the indictments, but he did want to talk. "So, what's on your mind these days, Charles? Anything new with you since the last time we talked?"

"When did we last cross paths?" He hummed as he pretended to think. He knew damn well when we'd last seen each other. "Lear Fineman's fundraiser gala at the Aldridge Museum, was it not? Lear was a true humanitarian and philanthropist. A shame he died so tragically in that very mysterious fire."

"Yup, total shame." I didn't bother to fake grief for Lear—real name Llyr—a fae who'd done his damnedest to drag me and a bunch of others on a one-way trip to the fae realm. With any luck, he was currently experiencing new and imaginative tortures for pissing off the Dark Fae King.

If Charles knew the truth about who Llyr was or what happened to him, he didn't let on. "As you might imagine, my new position as head of the Vampire Court keeps me quite busy. I have little time to myself, which is why these quiet minutes when I wake are so precious to me."

At moments like this, he reminded me so much of Moses. Insincere and calculating and talking about inconsequential matters when all I wanted to do was to cut to the chase. Just because I understood the game didn't mean I enjoyed playing it.

"I understand you visited Northbourne today," he said before I could encourage him to get to the point. "Should I be flattered?"

"I thought you just opened your eyes."

"As you might imagine, I wake to a briefing of important information compiled by my most trusted servants."

"Now I'm flattered," I said, though I certainly wasn't. "I qualified as ‘important information' just because I drove by the estate."

"In fact, it seems you stopped for two minutes and nineteen seconds and engaged one of my enforcers in conversation. And you were not alone."

"What can I say? Curiosity got the better of me." I sipped my whisky. "I wish I had time to recap my day, but unfortunately I have to be somewhere soon."

"So I see in my briefing. The Council wishes to hear from you, Sean, Ben Cooper, and my misplaced property. You are certainly pressed for time this evening."

We already knew the Court had a source of information close to the Were Ruling Council, so the fact Charles was aware we'd been summoned didn't surprise me. And if he'd tried to get a rise out of me by referring to Matthias as his misplaced property , he was destined to be disappointed.

"That being the case," I said, "and at the risk of repeating myself, what's on your mind?"

"I wish to hear your true account of the deaths of Valas and Vlad."

I didn't believe he'd done all this just to get the scoop on precisely what went down the night Valas had me kidnapped .

I did think, however, he very much wanted to know how she and her vile progeny had left this plane of existence. The list of firsthand witnesses to their deaths was pretty damn short.

"What are you offering in exchange for the information?" I asked. "I have a few thoughts, if nothing comes to mind."

"I offer not to extract the information from Daniel Holiday—or his new wife, who I am sure has heard the story in full."

I'd expected some kind of intimidation or blackmail, but had hoped for something more imaginative than threatening harm to people I loved.

But did I believe he'd follow through on the threat? My gut told me no. This felt like he was testing the waters, making a move, but not the move. He expected a counteroffer. We'd been down this road before, negotiating the terms of trading a drink of my blood for an artifact I needed to save Sean's life. With Charles, or any vamp I'd ever met, the endgame never made its appearance in the first five minutes of talking.

"You are disappointed in me," he said in the silence that followed his threat. "But I am already a villain to you, am I not? A monster, a boogeyman, a misbegotten creature who drinks blood and haunts your nightmares?"

That jolted me a bit, but he couldn't know anything about my nightmares. It was just a figure of speech.

As for whether he was a monster, well…maybe, maybe not. Every time I thought I had him figured out, he threw me another curveball. And sometimes he seemed to want to be perceived as a monster, and at other times, the comparison appeared hurtful.

"Charles, what happened that night goes right to the heart of these indictments," I pointed out. "You made accusations and filed formal charges without the facts. Do you expect me to spill everything I know when you've got this hanging over our heads? How would that not be playing right into your hands? Whether you're a villain or not is beside the point. What does matter is that I am not an idiot. "

"I want only to hear how they died. That is not part of the charges against you, Sean, or the Council. The matter of your involvement in Valas's departure from Court grounds is a separate matter that will be settled in Vampire Court."

"How do you know if her death is or isn't part of your ridiculous charges?" I demanded. "That's like saying the ending of a movie isn't related to the rest of the plot. Try again."

" ALICE WORTH ." He roared my name, causing me to wince and hold my phone away from my ear. "I must know if Valas and Vlad are truly dead!"

Ah-ha. I was right: Charles wasn't just worried about threats to himself and his regime from those around him. I supposed I couldn't blame him for fretting about Valas and Vlad. If anyone had the possibility of turning back up after allegedly croaking for the second and final time, it would be those two. Were the indictment and the demand to return Matthias an attempt to assert leverage for getting the information? I didn't think that was the whole reason, but one hurdle at a time.

"I'd be happy to fill you in on all the gruesome details," I said, my voice calm. "Once these charges go away, that is."

He hissed. The hair prickled on the back of my neck at the sound.

"I'm the only one who can tell you for sure if they're gone," I added. "Daniel and Matthias were there, but neither of them were in any kind of shape to see what happened at the end. And no, Daniel has not told Nan the whole story, since a lot of what happened isn't details I want others to know. I'm your only source for the information you want. I assume you can still sense deception, so you know I'm telling the truth about that. Let's make a deal. You change your mind about the indictments because they're baseless anyway, and accept that Matthias is part of our pack now and not the Court's property, and I'll tell you everything you want to know about what happened to Valas and her pet."

"Dropping the charges as a whole is not an option," he said, his tone cold. "Perhaps the list of charges relating to your alleged involvement in the initial change of regime could be dismissed due to lack of evidence. The role you, your pack, and the Council played in Valas's resistance and attempt to launch a counterattack must be ascertained in court. However, your continued possession of my stolen property is a blatant and indefensible violation of Vampire Court law. You will return Matthias Albrecht immediately."

"No deal. All the charges have to go. Matthias is part of our pack and under our protection. Any attempt to take him by force is an attack on our pack, as well as a violation of Council law."

"I would not be so sure of the latter, dear Alice." His voice quieted, became almost a purr. "The Council's laws of protection do not extend to fugitives from justice, regardless of their shifter status."

"Matthias is not a fugitive from justice. You didn't file any charges against him—just demanded we hand him over."

He continued as if I hadn't spoken. "Your pack is harboring a fugitive from Vampire Court law. The Council will not protect him or you from the Court's attempts to recover him."

"If he's a fugitive, it's only because you've made him one," I snapped. "He was bound to Valas. She fled and he was forced to go with her."

"He did not have to flee. He had the option to stay."

"Do you think she gave him an option, Charles? Really? "

"Matthias made his choice."

And here I'd thought werewolves were stubborn.

"It's not a choice if it's not a choice." I glanced at the clock. Shit and double shit . I was running out of time, and I got the feeling Charles still hadn't gotten to the real reason he wanted to talk.

"Charles, you had to know this would be my only offer," I said. "If you want to find out what happened to Valas and Vlad, all you have to do is drop the indictments and forget Matthias ever existed."

"I cannot do as you ask."

"Why the hell not?" I shouldn't lose my temper, but him acting as if he had no choice pissed me the hell off. "You're the head of the Vampire Court now. You make the rules. You call the shots. Isn't that what you wanted?"

He said nothing for so long that I thought he'd hung up. I had to check the phone screen to make sure the call was still active.

When he finally spoke, his voice had a heaviness I'd seldom heard before. "How can a woman who has seen so much, and suffered so much, and lived the life you have lived, be so naive as to think because I sit in the tallest chair I answer to no one, and owe nothing to anyone but myself?"

I sat back and finished the last of my whisky. What had he just told me?

Did he just imply the charges and his determination to take Matthias back were not entirely his decision? Was someone else pushing for this or even pulling his strings? Or was this yet another attempt at manipulating me by playing on whatever sympathy or soft spot, however minute, that I might still have for him? Was he pretending to be a victim when these charges threatened our pack and our lives?

Either was possible, but what did my gut tell me?

No matter how I looked at this situation, I kept coming back to one key fact: he'd kept this phone close at hand in case I called. And he'd let me know that, either on purpose or not, by answering the phone on the second ring.

He needed more from me than the story of how Valas died. He just couldn't ask for what he really desired because of his pride, and because now more than ever he had to seem invincible and fearless. Like Valas had always been.

If he needed something from me or my pack in order to make these charges and threats go away, he'd have to get desperate enough to ask. The question was, how much would the rest of us suffer before he reached that point?

Damn it, Charles . It wasn't the first time I'd thought that, and it sure as hell looked like it wouldn't be the last.

I saw only one way forward: push him further toward his breaking point and force him to ask—and to make it worth my while to even consider helping him. I hoped when I told the people waiting in the living room what I was about to do, it would make sense to them and not just to me.

"Call me when you've changed your mind," I said. And then I hung up.