Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

At ten o'clock, Sean, Ben, Malcolm, and I gathered in attorney Aaron Riddell's posh conference room on the twentieth floor of a downtown office building.

Years ago, Aaron and I had a relationship that ended when he wanted more than just something physical. Now we were close friends as well as lawyer and client. Unfortunately, I needed his legal help now more than ever.

On the table in front of Sean was a copy of the indictment filed by the Vampire Court. Ben had channeled some of his anger into organizing it in a binder with tabs. One corner was bent because he'd thrown it at the wall at some point.

"The Vampire Court sure wants their pound of flesh," Aaron said, his voice grim. As usual, the tall African-American lawyer wore a tailored designer suit that flattered his broad shoulders and athletic build.

"About three hundred pounds of flesh, or whatever Matthias weighs," Ben quipped, but without much humor and none of us laughed. "Which they can't have," he added. "These charges are bullshit. Our people were victims in Valas's plot, not perpetrators. Matthias Albrecht, who they demand be returned to the Court as its ‘stolen property,' is a person, not property. And he damn sure wasn't stolen . The Were Ruling Council's laws are clear about the rights of pack members once an alpha accepts them. The Court has always respected the Council's laws—even the ones they don't like."

Ben, like most of the pack, was a long way from forgiving Matthias, so I was surprised at how quickly and vehemently he'd spoken up on our newest pack member's behalf. Maybe it was the idea of calling someone "property," or that he understood that nothing Matthias had done was of his own choice, or simply that Charles was our enemy and an enemy of our enemy was at least a potential ally. Maybe his wolf instinctively wanted to help protect Matthias because his wolf was vulnerable. Whatever the reason, I was glad he didn't want Matthias turned over to the Court.

"Since the Were Ruling Council is also named in the indictment, I've reached out to their legal team," Aaron told us. "I have yet to get a response."

"Not surprising." Sean's voice was more than half growl. "The Council's priority has always been to protect their own interests. Our pack will have to do the same."

While Ben seethed openly, Sean's rage had become cold and hard and turned him nearly glacial. My hand rested on his thigh under the conference table. His muscles felt like steel.

Meanwhile, my anger and and frustration grew with every passing minute, to the point I'd eaten only a few bites of breakfast and my stomach hadn't stopped churning since we'd left the house on our way here. It wasn't like I'd expected to walk into Aaron's office and have him tell us it would all be fine, but seeing him so uncharacteristically grim really drove home the point that we were in seriously hot water.

Aaron steepled his fingers in a very lawyerly pose. "Just so I'm clear, on New Year's Eve, Alice and Mr. Daniel Holiday were kidnapped during an attack on members of your pack on the orders of Valas. A team led by Matthias Albrecht transported Alice and Daniel to a location in Colorado where Valas held them captive. At some point during Alice and Daniel's escape and the destruction of the home where Valas had taken refuge, Valas died and Matthias became a werewolf. You subsequently chose to bring him into your pack. Is that an accurate summary of events?"

I took a deep breath and exhaled. "Yes. That's exactly what happened."

"All right." Aaron studied me. "But now, as your attorney, I need to know the rest."

And because I trusted him, and Malcolm had already ascertained the room contained no listening or recording devices, I told him the whole story.

I began with our first encounters with Matthias in his capacity as Court enforcer, continued with our kidnapping on New Year's Eve, and concluded with how Daniel infected Matthias during a fight and why we'd opted to bring him into our pack. The only details I left out were that Daniel was my biological father and that we'd killed Vlad ?epe? at Valas's mansion.

Aaron listened, only stopping me to ask brief questions. When I finished, we all refilled our coffee mugs from the pot on the table as he thought about everything I'd revealed. Sean rubbed my back as I hunched over in my chair. As clinical as I'd tried to be while telling the story, the memories still left me nauseous, angry, and shaky.

"I have some concerns," Aaron said finally, in what might have been one of the biggest understatements of his career.

I sat up and folded my hands around my coffee mug like a security blanket. Sean pulled my chair closer to his and left his hand on my lower back.

"This indictment by the Court is of course our primary legal consideration," Aaron continued. "But by your own admission, Daniel Holiday committed a federal crime by infecting Matthias against his will. That information need not go beyond this room, but it will be extremely difficult to prevent others from coming to the conclusion based on circumstantial evidence that Daniel was responsible for the infectious bite. If Matthias cooperates with prosecutors and identifies who bit him, they will file charges immediately. As you know, the mandatory sentence for infecting a human with the shifter virus against their will is life in federal prison with no chance of parole."

The thought of my father going to prison had been one of many concerns preventing me from getting a good night's sleep since our return from Colorado.

Sean rubbed my back again. "Matthias won't identify the source of his infection to anyone."

Aaron raised his eyebrows. "On your orders, as his alpha?"

"By his own decision. I didn't need to give him any orders."

"To Matthias, the bite was no different than any other injury he's ever gotten during a fight," I explained to Aaron. "He doesn't hold it against Daniel, especially since he instigated the fight in the first place by kidnapping us."

"But if he's subpoenaed—" Aaron began.

"If subpoenaed, he will testify the bite occurred during a physical fight involving a lot of combatants," Sean said. "Which is true. There's no way to know for sure who was responsible. The destruction of the house where this occurred means no one will ever know all the people who were there. Unlike a vampire's bite, the shifter virus can't be traced from the person who was bitten back to who bit them. Theoretically, it could have been anyone."

Theoretically, my father might not spend the rest of his life in federal prison. Theoretically, my pack and I might not be implicated in the cover-up. Theoretically, the Were Ruling Council and the feds couldn't prove anything. Theoretically . I'd started to hate that word lately because it was one of only a few things standing between us and total disaster.

"That's all very true." Aaron nodded slowly. "And I admire that you've already prepared a strategy. We can discuss it more if it becomes necessary. At the moment, we need to focus on this indictment from the Court and legal strategies for how to proceed. First and foremost?—"

"First and foremost, Matthias is a member of our pack, and we are not handing him or anyone else over to the Court," Sean stated. "The rest of the charges are baseless."

Aaron said nothing for several moments. I couldn't tell if he was frustrated with Sean's interruptions and counting to ten or just formulating a response.

"So, moving forward," Aaron said finally. "I've argued before the Court before, as Alice has probably told you, but I can't claim expertise. A Vampire Court proceeding is more like a tribunal. Their laws, procedures, and rules of evidence are different. If we do end up in Vampire Court, I will bring on additional counsel whose specialty is Vampire Court law. I'll need co-counsel with more experience and knowledge of their laws and rules."

"What about Matthias, in the meantime?" Sean asked.

Aaron tapped the indictment. "From what I see in the documentation provided by the Court, they have a strong legal claim on him."

Ben growled quietly. "Based on what?"

"Primarily, the contract Matthias signed when he became an enforcer for the Court. As you mentioned, he was initially bound to Charles Vaughan, who then later transferred him to Valas's ‘keeping,' to use the Court's terminology."

"Valas is dead." My voice was sharper than I'd intended because I hated even hearing her name, so I tried to soften my tone and added, "She's not keeping anything anymore, except maybe a seat warm in Hell."

Ben chuckled, but Aaron remained grim. "That may be, but under Court law, Matthias's contract is with the Court as an entity, not with Valas herself. Valas's death didn't release him from his obligation. And neither does his new status as a werewolf, I'm afraid."

Fear and anger made my fingers tighten on Sean's leg.

He took my hand and squeezed. "I don't accept that," he stated, his eyes golden. "As a pack, we do not accept it. I'm not handing him over. We have to find a different solution."

"What about the Were Ruling Council?" Aaron wanted to know. "Will they stand with you against the Court on this? Will they endorse your refusal to hand Matthias over?"

Sean, Ben, and I exchanged glances. "That's a big question mark," I admitted. "Sean's on the Council, but in this matter he has to recuse himself from their discussions and their decision, obviously. At the moment, we don't know what they'll do."

"With my vote excluded, if they voted today with six members, the Council would be split three to three, I think," Sean said. "No definite decision is still a decision, though, because if they opt not to act, that is in effect a decision in favor of the Court and against us."

"We'll get a hearing before the Council," Ben told Aaron. "It'll be our only chance to influence them one way or the other. If they don't vote to stand with us, we'll have to fight the Court on our own—in the courtroom, or outside it."

Meaning when the Court's forces came to collect Matthias from us and we'd have to fight hand-to-hand, or hand-to-claw. To the death.

I felt sick and furious and a dozen other emotions. The mess seemed so big, so complex, that I hardly knew how to fight it. I knew how to square off against my grandfather or other enemies. You beat them with your fists, your gun, your magic, or your brains. I had no experience beating anyone with the law. As crazy as it might sound, I would rather have faced Charles in a physical fight than in a courtroom—especially Vampire Court.

Aaron leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. "Alice, Sean, Ben…I would like to tell you I have this all well in hand and you have nothing to worry about, but I can't tell you that. This situation is dire. The Court has demanded financial remunerations and Sean and Alice's imprisonment in addition to Matthias's return to their ‘keeping.' They've decided to come for you with everything they've got, at least in a legal sense. "

"And even if the legal way fails, they have other methods at their disposal," Ben said. "Their forces outnumber ours by a significant margin."

Half of our members thought bringing Matthias into our pack had been a colossal mistake. Maybe doing so had kicked a hornet's nest, but that didn't make it a mistake. The vamps were in the wrong here, not us. We just needed them—and the Were Ruling Council—to see it that way.

And I believed in Sean and our pack. I believed in Aaron too. As long as I believed, I had hope.

"Find us a legal reason to not hand Matthias over to the vamps," Sean told Aaron. "Prepare our defense for the other charges."

"I will do my damndest." Aaron finished his coffee and poured himself more. "And what about the Were Ruling Council?"

Sean didn't hesitate. "The Council will side with us. We will make that happen."

I wished I had half his confidence. Several members of the Council had hated me since day one. They hated Nan even more. And when we brought a former Vampire Court enforcer into our pack and blew up a century-long détente between the Court and the Council…well, suffice to say none of us would be on their Christmas card list this year.

But Sean was right—we did not accept that we had to turn Matthias over to the Court for likely execution. We didn't owe the vamps a damn cent and we didn't deserve to end up in prison. There had to be a way to protect Matthias and the rest of our pack without dying in battle with the Court.

What that way was, however, I had no idea. And judging by everyone else's expression, neither did they.

As we prepared to leave, Aaron took me aside. "I already said congratulations, but I wanted to say it again," he said with a smile, indicating my ring. "I'm sorry this Court bullshit is taking away from celebrating your engagement. You and Sean deserve to just be happy. "

"We are happy," I assured him. "I promise we are."

"I'm glad." He grew serious. "I know your plate is full right now, but one of my colleagues, Philippa Grayson, has a client who needs a mage private investigator with your special talents."

My mouth quirked. "Which special talents in particular is she after? The legal ones? Or the ones that lead to you telling me not to give you any of the details?"

"Fair question." Aaron chuckled. "Philippa wants everything on the up-and-up. I don't know much about the case, obviously, but it sounds like she's got a…unique situation."

"That's ninety-five percent of a mage PI's cases." I pinched the bridge of my nose—a habit I'd picked up from Sean. "I don't have another case at the moment, but keeping Matthias alive and Sean and me out of vamp prison sounds like it's going to take all my brain cells."

"All three of them," Malcolm interjected. I gave him my middle finger behind my back. Over by the door, Ben saw my gesture and chuckled.

"I told her I would ask if you were available for a phone call and consultation today," Aaron said. "Reading between the lines, I think Philippa's got a problem she doesn't know how to handle, and that's why I told her I'd ask. If you knew Philippa, you'd understand how unusual something has to be for her to ask if I know a mage PI willing to consider—and I quote—‘extraordinary possibilities.'"

"So of course you thought of me." I sighed. "I guess I'll accept that as a compliment."

How well would I be able to focus on a case with all this going on? Then again, maybe like Matthias I could use something else to think about besides wanting to punch Charles in the nose. I couldn't afford to not take on any clients until we sorted out the Court mess either. The indictments had just landed on us. The case might take months to go to court.

And maybe more to the point, I owed Aaron big time for coming through for me a dozen times over the years. He'd never asked me for a favor before.

"Okay, fine," I said finally. "I'm sufficiently intrigued to take her call and we'll go from there. No promises about saying yes, though."

"That's all I can ask. Thank you, Alice." Aaron gave me a hug. "Keep your chin up. We'll figure out a way to win."

"We will." This time I said it with absolute certainty because I wouldn't accept any other outcome. "And somehow, some way, we'll make Charles regret making an enemy of us."