by Cara Wylde
Wisteria’s lawyer was a friend of my father’s. I hadn’t had to ask my father to go to him, though; I’d done it myself. He was one of the best lawyers, and I knew Wisteria was in good hands. Her case was a tough one, though. Tricky, as the lawyer had put it. He couldn’t promise me anything, but that was okay. As long as he did everything in his power, I was ready to cover the rest with prayer. I rolled the beads between my fingers. Callum, who was sitting next to me, saw me, and sighed audibly. I paid him no mind. My eyes were fixed on the lawyer representing the Council of the Elders. This was a strange trial, indeed. They wanted Wisteria back. They wanted to possess the Wolf Spirit so badly that they were ready to do anything to win.
Officer Bough was called as the first witness. The two lawyers asked her questions, but all that she revealed, we knew already.
“We were out in the woods, all the guards, hunting a black wolf that had escaped Dark Moon Prison. Warden Green hadn’t told us who the black wolf was. I, for one, thought it must have been an Alpha from cell block A. Imagine my shock when I found Officer Alaric with inmate Sierra Carmine, the Omega.”
“Where did you find them?”
“I ran into them… They were hidden behind some bushes.”
“Intentionally hidden?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to make any assumptions.” She swallowed hard and looked right at us, sitting in the back. In fact, she looked at Alaric. He nodded imperceptibly, and Officer Bough continued with more conviction. “Actually, I know. I’m sorry, my memory isn’t what it used to be. But no, I remember now.”
“Can you tell us exactly what you remember?”
“They were hidden intentionally. The Omega had been hiding in the hollow of a tree, and Officer Stone had shifted to his human form and coaxed her out. When I found them, they were in each other’s arms, and they were talking. She was telling him about the Wolf Spirit and how it had felt to be possessed by the beast. Then she said something about… them being soulmates.”
“Them? Who is them?”
“Officer Stone and the Omega. That’s what I understood, at least. I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught their entire conversation. And, as I said, I overheard them by accident. I’d had no intention to sneak up on them, I was just shocked that the Omega was there, because I thought… There was no way she could be the black wolf. I’d seen her shift, and her wolf was yellow and rather… well, clumsy.”
Officer Bough’s deposition got all kinds of reactions. Awe, disbelief, sympathy… Especially the young females in the jury were touched by the story of an officer and an inmate being soulmates. My heart clenched. Now everyone here thought Wisteria was Alaric’s mate. I stole a glance at Callum, and if the tension in his shoulders was any indication, he didn’t like that either. We were Alphas. The three of us. We all wanted to claim the Omega as our own and shout from the top of a building that she belonged to us. For now, Alaric was the only one who’d been recognized as a mate, and the jury seemed to love the angle. It didn’t matter than he was an officer and an authority figure and Wisteria was an inmate and completely at his mercy. This was a romance worthy of a novel or a Hollywood movie. They loved it to bits.
The Council’s lawyer asked Officer Bough a few more questions, and by the end of her deposition, the odds seemed against Wisteria. Too many secrets, too many hidden pieces of an obscure puzzle. The approach of the defense was to show that the Omega was an open book. So far, the opposition had managed to prove the exact opposite.
It was my turn.
“The defense calls Father Garrett Rivera to the stand.”
I made my way to the front. As I took my seat and vowed to tell the truth, I could not look away from my beautiful soulmate. She was absolutely gorgeous. Her hair shined like the sun, her eyes were large and innocent, and her pale skin was flawless. She’d lost some weight, but she was radiating. She smiled at me, and I couldn’t understand why, but… her smile gave me the impression that she had something to tell me. She couldn’t wait, but she had to wait. We all had to win this trial for her, because I could see it in her eyes – the hope for a new future. I knew for a fact that the Council had done horrible things to her, but she’d found the strength to survive, and now… to smile. I wanted to know where that incredible strength came from.
“Father, can you tell us about the first time you met Sierra Carmine?”
It was hard to pay attention to the lawyer when my blond, perfect beauty was there, fixing me with her big, gorgeous eyes, but I had to.
“I saw her for the first time the night she was brought to Dark Moon Prison. Doctor Sylvan had just taken the samples he needed to run some tests, Officer Alaric had taken her to the showers, and she was in a cell in solitary confinement when I found her. Warden Green himself had asked me to visit her and see if I could get her confession. Doctor Sylvan had concluded that the inmate was suffering from memory loss, but both Warden Green and Officer Stone believed that she’d feel safer talking to a priest than to any of them.”
“And did she talk to you?”
“No. She was in shock. And she was, indeed, suffering from severe memory loss. That first night at Dark Moon Prison, the inmate didn’t say a word.”
I kept referring to her as “the inmate”. So cold, so impersonal. I didn’t feel comfortable pretending that she meant nothing to me. I straightened my back and made my decision. Everyone knew she was Alaric’s mate now. I had to reclaim what was mine. And he could have a piece of her, sure, as long as I had my own piece.
“Father, what is your relationship with Sierra Carmine? Did she ever come to mass? Did you become friends, perchance?”
The defense lawyer knew exactly what my relationship with the Omega was. I’d told him everything when I hired him. He seemed to be stirring me in the direction I was going to go in anyway. It was time to make a real impact on the jury.
“We did become friends,” I said. “More than friends.” I looked my beautiful, glowing Omega in the eyes. “We are soulmates. It was hard to accept at first. Hard to admit. I am a servant of God, and I’d promised my life, my body and my soul to Him. Yet, when Sierra Carmine came along, I knew it at once. We were meant to be together. And yes, Officer Stone had claimed her already, and they were bonded, but that didn’t stop our bond. Fate has a funny way of placing everything and everyone where they’re supposed to be, and it placed me and her in the right place, at the right time. I’ve never questioned fate, just like I’ve never questioned God.” Complete silence fell over the courtroom. “Finding Sierra, claiming her, being bonded to her… I know now it was God’s will. Today, after this trial is over, I will renounce my vows and be a priest no more.”
Audible gasps from the jury.
I had them. A romance story more heartwarming than Alaric’s. Father Rivera giving up priesthood for his soulmate, for his Omega.
They were enraptured.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wisteria
I felt like my heart was about to burst. I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye and gently rubbed my belly, thinking: “That’s your dad up there.” Father Rivera kept his eyes fixed on me as he finished his deposition, and then the Council’s lawyer asked him a few more questions. I wanted to tell him that I was pregnant. I wanted to tell all three of them so badly, but the Administration had forbidden it. When they’d taken me into custody, they’d interrogated me for hours. But they did it in a decent, polite manner, so I felt safe telling them everything I knew, how it had all started, and how I’d ended up locked up in a glass cage in a cold, damp basement. They didn’t need to drug me, since the beast remained calm and silent as long as I was treated like a human being. The Administration knew every little detail of my plight, as well as the fact that I was mated to the three Alphas who’d initially been in charge of breaking me and making me confess. Even so, the Administration couldn’t decide my fate. What they could do was to give me a fair trial, so I could stand up for myself. So, here I was now, one o
f the best lawyers money could buy beside me, Father Rivera stating loud and clear that I was his mate, and Alaric and Callum sitting in the back, waiting for their turn. We could win this today. And not because my lawyer reassured me every few minutes that things were going great, but because I could feel it myself. My own instincts told me we were all going to be okay.
Officer Alaric Stone was called next. As he walked toward the stand, I watched him with big, hungry eyes. I loved how tall he was, how strong. His dark hair had grown since I’d last seen him. He was in dire need of a haircut. He usually cut his hair once a week, seeing how it grew very fast and how he liked it as short as possible. The fact that he hadn’t taken care of this aspect lately spoke volumes. He was too worried about me to look after himself. I was relieved to see that he’d healed after what happened at the mansion, when the Council of the Elders had kidnapped me.
Father Rivera had said most of what was to say. Alaric didn’t add much to the story. He did surprise me when he chose to talk about my first night at Dark Moon Prison and how he’d treated me.
“I know now that I was wrong. That night, and for a long time after, I was convinced that Sierra Carmine was guilty of the crimes she was accused of. I believed so much in the system, and so little in what my own gut was telling me. I… I was cruel to her.”
I shook my head. A tear tumbled down my cheek. “No,” I whispered. My lawyer cleared his throat, signaling that I was supposed to keep silent. I swallowed hard.
“At Dark Moon Prison, we don’t believe criminals deserve a second chance. And when the Omega arrived, we knew she was on death row, to be executed in the next twenty-four hours. Warden Green himself put me in charge of getting a confession out of her, and I spared no effort. I am ashamed to say… I was wrong.” He fixed me with his dark, intense gaze, and I could see how much he regretted what he’d done to me that first night. “I can only hope my mate will find it in her heart to forgive me one day.”
I nodded frantically. “Yes, I forgive you,” I wanted to scream. Or even better: “There’s nothing to forgive, I love you.” But this was not the time, nor the place. Alaric’s words had more impact on the jury if I kept silent. And that was when I realized… My Alphas were taking this trial as an opportunity to make up to me and declare to the whole world that I was their mate. This was better than anything I’d ever dreamed. All I had to do was to sit here and accept their love. Sit here and wait for them to save me.
When Callum was called to the stand, the jury was already in tears. So far, all the witnesses had said wonderful things about me. Well, except for Officer Bough, who’d only told the truth and nothing more. So, I was surprised when my lawyer started tapping his pen anxiously on the table. I reached out and placed my hand on his. He turned to me, and I saw a hint of fear in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your cellmate will be next, and then Marcia Frost. We know Marcia will defend the Council’s agenda. What about your cellmate?” He stole a glance at his papers. “Rosalind Marsh?”
“Oh, Roz is fine. She didn’t like me much, but she was always fair to me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
A knot formed in my throat. I tried to remember my interactions with Roz. She was the one who’d told me about Father Rivera’s promiscuous past. Before me, he’d apparently had sex with all the female inmates at Dark Moon Prison. My heart clenched. No, this was not a good time to think about that. It was all in the past. It had happened before I was arrested, before I met him. All was forgiven. All was forgotten. I couldn’t hold my Alpha responsible for the sins he’d committed before he even knew I existed and he had a fair chance at an Omega mate.
“Y-yes, I’m sure.”
I wasn’t though, was I? With every minute that passed, feelings of doubt and uncertainty grew in my heart. Callum was doing one hell of a job, but then again… I realized the Council’s witnesses had been intentionally left for the end of the trial. It was as if they were all preparing some kind of sick twist.
“For a long time, I tried to stay away from Sierra Carmine,” Callum was saying. “I didn’t know what to think about her. I wasn’t sure who she really was, since she was suffering from memory loss, and I didn’t know whether I could trust her. Deep down, I guess I’d known all along that she was innocent. But with such strong evidence against her and so little information about her life before the tragedy of the Carmine Pack, I couldn’t take any chances. So, to answer your question, no, Sierra Carmine did not receive preferential treatment. On the contrary. We were determined to make her confess.”
The Council’s lawyer wasn’t going to let it go, though. “There are rumors that you kept her isolated from the other inmates. Are the rumors true?”
Callum hesitated. He was going to tell the truth, but he was trying to formulate it in a manner that could help my case. Our case.
“We did keep her isolated. Yes. While at Dark Moon Prison, the Omega had her estrous cycle twice. We put her in solitary confinement to protect her from the male inmates.”
“And what happened in solitary confinement?” The lawyer grinned devilishly.
Callum cleared his throat. “I guess you could say… we discovered that Sierra Carmine was our soulmate. Garrett Rivera’s mate, Alaric Stone’s mate, my mate.”
The lawyer had been hoping for some gruesome details. He wasn’t a fool. He could probably guess how my Alphas had claimed me those first few times. It hadn’t been particularly romantic or nice, but I couldn’t hold it against them. They had done what they’d thought was best at the time. They’d thought I was a cold-blooded killer. They’d treated me like one.
“I have no more questions,” the lawyer conceded when he realized whatever Callum said would be painted to look good in the jury’s eyes. This was a true love story. The jury would have hated him if he ruined it for them. No, his strategy was probably based on something else, something I hadn’t even thought about.
Callum smiled at me as he went back to his seat. Roz came to the front, and I pressed my hand to my heart. I looked at her, but she avoided my gaze. As she answered the lawyers’ questions, she made it a point to never look at me. Not even once. Some of the things she said shocked me.
“Sierra Carmine wasn’t my cellmate for long. She screwed the priest on the very first day. She came out of the chapel reeking of him. Soon after that, she was thrown in solitary by Officer Stone, and only God knows what these three twisted men did to her in that dark, awful cell. But she liked it, for sure. She was all over them all the time. When they weren’t around, she sought them. Warden Green said earlier that they didn’t treat her preferentially, but that’s not true. Look at her! She looks better than ever! She’s glowing! They fed her well, kept her warm… Hell! For all I know, maybe they didn’t lock her in solitary at all. Maybe they took her at the warden’s cabin in the woods, and she lived like a princess, well fed and well fucked, while the rest of us ate plain rice and slept on old, dirty mattresses.”
Roz’s words hurt. I couldn’t understand why she said all those things. We didn’t even know each other that well. Why did she hate me so? She had no idea what I’d gone through in solitary, how Alaric had induced my first heat chemically, how he and Father Rivera had turned me into their obedient pet. Or mut, as Alaric liked to call me. I didn’t mind it, of course. Not when in heat, and not even later, when I was already in love with them, bonded to them.
Fortunately, the jury didn’t seem overly impressed by Roz’s deposition. She’d betrayed too much jealousy and spite, and no one reacted well to that. They didn’t relate to her erratic emotions like they related to my love story. Marcia Frost was next, and she focused on the Wolf Spirit, explaining to the jury what it was, paraphrasing the legend, and making a summary of the research she’d done herself to find out more.
“It doesn’t seem like she’s against me,” I whispered in my lawyer’s direction.
“Indeed.” His brows were furrowed. “I don�
�t like this. She’s unpredictable.”
In the next few minutes, Marcia confirmed his fears. However, for mysterious reasons, she chose to be unpredictable in our favor. What she said ended up being a huge blow to the Council of the Elders.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she fixed the members of the Council with a harsh gaze, “but I cannot stand and watch you destroy the life of an innocent Omega. Not when I know that as we speak, three pups are growing inside her womb.”
Gasps. Complete shock. Silence. Then murmurs. The judge was forced to intervene before it was too late and everyone started talking at once.
I turned around to see my Alphas’ reactions. The Administration had decided not to tell them about my pregnancy, and since we hadn’t been allowed to see each other either, so that an emotional meeting wouldn’t influence us in any way, they hadn’t known. It broke my heart that they found out like this, from someone else, from a stranger who hadn’t even been very nice to me. Father Rivera had gone pale. Officer Stone dropped his head in his hands, and Warden Green was too shocked to realize his jaw had dropped. My stomach clenched. Were they happy? Did they want the pups? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t tell whether Alaric was rubbing his face because he was frustrated, or because he was trying to hide tears. I turned back to the front and breathed in and out slowly. This was torture! I wanted this whole masquerade to end, so I could be returned to them, my Alphas, so I could abandon myself in their arms and entrust my fate and the fate of my babies to them.
The members of the Council were restless. Marcia was trembling. She had gone pale, looking as if she was going to be sick. Still, she continued.
“They want the power of the Wolf Spirit for themselves! They locked her up in a cage, drugged her, treated her like an animal, and they brought a sorceress, a witch, a charlatan to perform a ritual to exorcise the Spirit and put it in a host of their choosing. And when that horrible woman said it wasn’t possible, they started planning to poison her to force the Spirit to attach to one of her babies! And then… and then…” She was breathing heavily. The Elders stood up, rage written across their wrinkled faces. “Then they were going to take the babies away from her!”
