by Juniper Hart
Landon Burke caught up with all of us, he thought, though he didn’t dare say the words aloud. Danica had enough to worry about without realizing that there was a target on her immediate back. Wes gritted his teeth together, the momentary relief he had experienced completely evaporating now. Catalina was wrong. It’s not over. It’s just the beginning of the end now.
“Wes?”
“I’m here.”
“What’s going on?” It was obvious that she could sense the stress in him, even over the phone.
“Nothing. I’m coming to you. What hospital is Catalina taking you to?”
“Don’t lie to me,” Danica pleaded. “Does Landon know about me? About you?”
He closed his eyes again. “Yes.”
Even when she tried to stifle a sob, Wes heard it loud and clear, the sound breaking his heart into a thousand pieces.
“Please tell me where you are,” he begged. “I want us to be together for as long as we have.”
“Catalina says we’re coming to you,” Danica said. “I’ll see you soon.” She disconnected the call, and Wes felt tears of misery burn his eyes, but he refused to let them flow.
It’s not over yet, he vowed. Not until the demon bites us both, which he was certain was the way the Council would put them to death.
However, it was hard to hold onto hope when Landon had already forewarned him of what was to come.
Wes was on the front steps when Catalina pulled up, his feet almost flying over the flagstone. Danica barely got a foot out the door before she was swept up in his arms to be smothered in kisses.
“I have a team coming here,” Catalina said, stepping from the driver’s side of the Scion. “We’ll have a definitive answer on the baby in less than an hour.”
Wes hurried Danica inside the house, their gazes locking as he moved.
“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled. “I have caused you so much trouble. I wish you’d never been thrust into my life.”
“I’m not sorry at all,” he said, lowering her gently onto the couch and kneeling at her side. “I would rather die knowing my mate than never having been loved by you at all.”
Danica shook her head miserably. “I don’t deserve your loyalty, your protection. I’ll tell the Council I threatened you, that Gabriel threatened you…”
Wes laughed, the noise filling the room warmly as he stroked her face with his finger. “No one will believe that, Dani. There’s a reason I was the one they asked to protect you. I can handle myself against a hundred Gabriels. I already confessed to Landon that I was aware of everything.”
“Oh no,” Danica mumbled, her voice thick. “I will do anything if they don’t execute you.”
“That really is in the Council’s hands now,” he told her softly. “All you need to worry about right now is the baby.”
“What about the baby?” she whispered, her hands splayed over her flat stomach. “Will they…? I mean, will he be terminated because of his father, too?”
“No! Of course not. He’ll…” Wes paused, not wanting to lie to her. “He’ll be fine, no matter what happens.”
“He will be,” Catalina agreed from the doorway. “The team is here.”
“Show them in,” Wes instructed, rising to his feet. “Where should we set up?”
“Here is fine,” she told them. “Danica, take off your shirt and prepare for an ultrasound.”
Wes helped Danica up, his hand grasping hers after she slipped off her button-down shirt.
“I’ve got you,” he assured her. “Right until the end. I promised you I would, and I’m still here.”
His phone rang before she could say a word, but as he stared at her face, she knew that she believed him.
“Can you step back, Wes?” Catalina asked. Reluctantly, he did as he was told, his hand reaching into his pocket for his still-ringing phone.
“This is a bad time,” he growled into the receiver without checking the display. His eyes were still locked on Danica, and her gaze on him.
“I just thought you’d like to know that the pack has been terminated,” Landon replied. Wes swallowed the lump in his throat.
“Thank you,” he muttered.
“Ironically, Gabriel didn’t say a word about Danica,” Landon added. “Just think—you might have gotten away with it after all if you’d just been a little sneakier.”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Wes, but he was in no mood to protest his innocence, not when the fetal doppler was pressed to Danica’s gut and he wanted desperately to hear the thump of the baby’s heart.
“I never did it to be sneaky or to go against you, Landon,” Wes told him. “I did it for love.”
“You can tell it to the Council tomorrow night. Is Danica with you?” Landon asked.
“Yes.”
“I assume she’s still with child?”
Wes looked toward the small team fussing over his terrified mate’s belly, and a long, sad silence filled the room as everyone fell back to search the monitor of the mobile ultrasound.
“Oh…” Danica whimpered. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”
Wes released a strangled sob, and he heard Landon inhale in unison.
“She lost the baby?”
But Wes couldn’t answer him, the phone falling from his hand. He rushed to comfort his sobbing lover as Catalina looked away.
14
“You shouldn’t be here,” Wes said again. “No one expects you to be here after losing a baby.”
Danica didn’t seem to hear him, and she glided toward the old church where the Council had gathered.
“Dani!”
Slowly, she turned around to give Wes an almost amused smile. Extending a hand, she urged him to come closer.
“There’s really no point in prolonging the inevitable,” she replied softly. “Let’s go and get this over with, darling. I couldn’t sit at home knowing you’re being sentenced to die while I’m watching Netflix. Doesn’t seem fair somehow.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen in there,” he said, trying to muster some semblance of optimism into his voice and knowing he was failing miserably.
“You’ve been strong for me long enough, Wes,” Danica told him, placing her hands on either side of his face. “It’s time for me to stand on my own two feet for once.”
“We’re mates,” he retorted. “We stand together.”
“Then let’s stand together and confess to our crimes,” she said. It was impossible for Wes to accept, but Danica continued to hold his gaze, shaking her head. “You forget that I was never supposed to live forever,” she reminded him. “This is much harder for you than it is for me.”
“Losing you when I only just found you is too much to bear,” he breathed. “Maybe we can run away—”
“You wouldn’t besmirch your own honor by doing that to Landon. You’ve already gone against your moral code for me once. I won’t have you do it again.”
“She’s a smart one,” Landon said lazily from the doorway. “But rest assured, even if you’d tried to run, we were watching you.”
Wes’ jaw locked in defiance. “You can’t fault me for speaking recklessly before a hearing like this.”
“I won’t use it in chambers,” Landon agreed, a near-twinkle in his eye. “You better hurry up. Keeping the Council waiting is a big no-no.”
“Come on, my love.” Silently, Wes followed Danica up the steps and entered the heavy wooden doors to greet the Council of Seven inside the apse.
“Finally!” Laurel grunted. “I get that you’re probably not in the biggest rush for this, but I am starving!”
“Shocking,” Henry, the vampire, snickered, rolling his eyes at the fairy queen.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” Danica said, looking around nervously. Seven sets of eyebrows rose in unison at her politeness.
“You can tell she was a mortal once,” the demon Raven sighed, her blue eyes gleaming as she leaned forward to glance at her. “You’re going to taste deliciously sw
eet when I bite that pretty neck of yours.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves!” Wes barked protectively, standing in front of Danica. “Don’t we get our fair trial? Or is that just a myth?”
“Let’s see if we have the facts,” Henry said, sitting back to look at his notes. “You, Wesley Vance, were commissioned with the task of protecting Danica—”
“An illegally turned Lycan,” Laurel interjected.
“An illegally turned Lycan,” the vampire continued. “But instead of reporting that she was in cahoots with Gabriel, you hid the truth that she had gone willingly with the others until Landon was forced to learn about this through a member of your own pack.”
“Mason, that bastard,” Wes muttered before he could stop himself.
“Your pack member is a ‘bastard’ because he did his ethical obligation and told Landon the truth?”
“As I have told Landon numerous times, I was not tasked with protecting just any Lycan. I was tasked with protecting my mate. It is a grim day when one must choose between his ethics and his partner, but I still feel as though I did the right thing.”
“You don’t regret it?” Lane Aldwin wanted to know, speaking for the first time. Her eyes gleamed with interest.
“I regret that I was forced to lie to my superior, yes,” Wes said, “but I also assume I was put in charge of such a delicate task because of my good judgement.”
“Normally, you do have good judgement,” Landon grunted.
“That’s not fair, Landon,” Lane said gently. “I can think of a time when you made some interesting love-based decisions of your own.”
To Wes’ amazement, Landon’s face flushed crimson. Although he wondered what that was about, that was hardly the time to find out.
“There’s being romantic and being treasonous,” Raven snapped. “This is a crime of treason against the Council and Landon Burke.”
“Ultimately, you got Gabriel and his pack,” Wes sighed, knowing that his words had no weight. “But I know nothing I can say will change your minds. That said, I would only like to beg for mercy for my mate. I expect to be executed, but please, keep in mind all she has been through since the turn.”
“And what exactly have you been through, Danica?” Laurel asked, a note of sarcasm in her voice. “It seems to me that you were playing double agent without a care in the world.”
“It wasn’t that simple, ma’am,” Danica breathed. To her credit, she kept her head up.
“Explain it to us,” Lane said. Wes knew if anyone in the Council might show a modicum of compassion, it was the witch. She was likely the most powerful and yet the most compassionate of all the Enchanted.
“Gabriel met me when I was in a very vulnerable place. That doesn’t excuse what I did, but in my defense, I had no idea it was punishable by death when I did it, either.”
There was a slight murmuring among the Council, as if they hadn’t considered that before.
“By the time I found out that I’d made a terrible mistake, it was all too late, and I was too naïve in the ways of the Enchanted to go anywhere for help.”
“What about your mate? Where was he during all this?”
“Wes was a part of my life even before I turned, although we only had a relationship as student and professor. I didn’t know just how important he was to me until a few short weeks ago. It was then that I realized that I had options, that I could escape from Gabriel… even if I hadn’t realized I’d been a prisoner for so long.”
“Did you love Gabriel?”
“I know now that I didn’t,” Danica answered honestly, looking at Lane with earnest eyes. “Only by finding love with Wes.”
“You were pregnant with Gabriel’s child,” Raven drove on heartlessly, and Wes bristled. Before he could speak, Danica beat him to it.
“I was, and Wes offered, without prompting, to raise that child on his own.”
“We don’t need to discuss the baby,” Landon interjected gruffly, shooting the demon a cold look for being so tactless.
“Did you ever consider turning Gabriel in?” Theo, the bear shifter, asked.
“No.”
The answer caused another stir among the Council.
“No?” Raven repeated. “Why not?”
“Because they were my pack, my family. They were the only family I’d ever known before Wes came into my life.”
A heavy silence fell over the Council as her words seemed to resonate with the members.
“I know what I did was wrong,” Danica continued. “And I am prepared to repent for what I did. I also would like to ask that you show mercy on Wes. He did what he thought was right to protect me.”
“I would worry about yourself, Danica. Wes is well aware of our rules and how things are done. You… you may not be judged so harshly.”
A spring of hope flowed through Wes’ heart, and he looked at Lane with warmth.
She doesn’t deserve to die for this! he pleaded silently, and Lane met his eyes dispassionately.
“When Gabriel first turned the pack,” Landon said, rising from his chair, “we gathered to discuss what to do with the women he had turned. The men were all low-lives; criminals, murderers, the worst of the lot. But the women… We didn’t understand why they were chosen.”
“They were picked randomly,” Danica offered quickly. “All of us. We were just there, and he needed us.”
“Why were you the only one who remembers what happened?” Alec, the dragon shifter, asked curiously. Danica pursed her lips and looked at Wes.
“Because I was the one who blotted out their memories,” she muttered. The din rose to meet Wes’ ears at a louder level than he’d ever heard the Council use before.
“You?”
“Why?”
“Maybe she’s not so innocent after all.”
The words all melded together inside his head until Henry banged the gavel and ordered them to stop.
“One at a time!” the vampire grumbled. “What are we? Heathens?”
The Council settled back. All eyes were on Danica.
“Do you want to elaborate on that?” Raven asked, any modicum of warmth gone from her face.
No! Don’t say another word! Wes cried out to Danica, even though he had no idea what she was going to say.
“We can elaborate on that.”
Wes and Danica spun as the doors opened and three young Lycan women stood like the cover page of a fanfiction novel.
“This is a closed hearing!” Laurel barked at them.
“It’s about us, isn’t it?” one of the women asked. “All of us?”
“Emily, this is about the fate of this woman, not you or Audrey or Hazel.”
“She saved us,” a blonde woman said, stepping forward. “I’m Hazel, by the way.”
“We know who you are,” Raven growled. “I just don’t understand why you think your testimony is pertinent.”
“It’s pertinent because we remember now,” the third woman, Audrey, concluded. “She’s the one who let us go.”
“Well, almost all of us,” Hazel chuckled. “But if I hadn’t gotten away, I’m sure that Danica would have released me, too.”
“Is that true?” Lane demanded. “Did you set them free?”
Danica’s face was twisted in wonderment as she stared at them, her head nodding slightly.
“It is,” she replied softly. “I didn’t want them to realize they had been taken, so…” She paused and then rushed on. “I waited until they were brought back to the compound and drained them fully. Gabriel told me once that it was almost like a factory reset, that someone wouldn’t remember being turned when that happened.”
“It worked for a while,” Emily agreed. “But your Lycanthropy isn’t strong enough. No offense.”
“None taken,” Danica assured her. “I’m so glad you’re all right. All of you.” There was a mistiness in her eyes.
“You see, Councilmen, she’s not evil. She wasn’t like Gabriel or the others in the pack. She w
as just caught up in a world she didn’t understand, and she tried to make it right!” Wes pleaded.
“Simmer down there, Wes,” Landon grumbled. “You’re not her lawyer.”
Inexplicably, Wes felt his shoulders sag slightly, and he looked at Landon with hope. They aren’t going to sentence her to death. They believe the others. She’s safe!
“All of you, excuse yourselves while we deliberate!” Raven barked at them. “And close the door behind you.”
Wes reached for his mate’s hand and led her out of the church to wait for the verdict.
“Thank you!” Danica breathed to the women, but her gratitude didn’t quite meet her eyes.
“We should be thanking you,” Hazel replied. “And I’m sorry for all you endured at the hands of that man.”
Danica lowered her eyes, and Wes pulled her against his hard frame.
“You’re going to lead a long, normal life now,” he promised, murmuring in her ear as the trio of women dispersed. “You’ll bake all those cookies and smother the hell out of your children.”
“Shut up!” Danica muttered. “I won’t have any of that if I don’t have it with you.”
“You will,” he told her softly. “Because you’re strong.”
“You made me strong.” She sniffled. “I don’t want to live without you, Wes. I just found you…”
“You and I will meet again in another life, perhaps,” he teased, though the stone in his heart was heavy.
“That’s not good enough,” she mumbled. “It’s really not.”
The doors opened, and Lane Aldwin exited, moving toward them without expression.
“You’ve decided already?” Wes asked in disbelief. “You need a unanimous verdict!”
“That’s a common misconception with the Council,” Lane said lightly. “Actually, unless it’s extreme circumstances, it’s a majority vote. Danica is charged with accessory and abetting a fugitive. She’ll do some community service with the at-risk Lycan youths and pay a fine.”
Wes blinked several time, his heart welling with happiness.
“Really?” he asked. Lane chuckled.
“Between the testimony from the others and the insider Landon had with Gabriel’s pack, there was enough evidence to show she wasn’t colluding with the enemy.”
