by Holley Trent
She didn’t want to be there, but…she had to be.
Asher led her out and toward the locked door of the private box.
Keith followed, staring across the high-ceiling room.
Jody was entering the box on the other side with Lora and Ótama, who was holding April. Tess must have been somewhere in the throng down below with her chieftains.
Keith would have bet his father’s sword that Lachlann skulked somewhere nearby. To be nearly seven feet tall and broad as an offensive lineman, that fairy was a true master of stealth.
He unlocked the door and told Asher, “Don’t bother with the light. No reason to help the nosy assholes down below leer at us.”
Asher surged ahead and righted the chairs that had been left in haphazard arrangements, likely after the ball held for Tess’s ascendance to the queenship. He made room for Keith’s chair and helped him navigate it far enough back from the railing to discourage any stares from down below, and then he locked the door.
Mallory settled onto one of the velvet-upholstered chairs and twined her fingers atop her lap.
Too prim.
Too nervous.
Keith couldn’t stop her from being nervous, but he could, for a moment at least, help her forget why she was.
He extended a hand. “Mallory.”
She gave her head a hard shake. “I-I can’t. If I touch you—”
“If you touch me, our connection will be that much more noticeable on the psychic web and you don’t want anyone to know.”
“No!” She groaned and pounded her fists atop her thighs. “It’s not that. I don’t care about that anymore. Of course people are going to find out. I’ve already swallowed and digested that pill, and I assure you, it went down just fine.”
Oh.
Keith was ready for them to find out. All of them. The idea of nothing else excited him more at that moment.
“Then what?” he asked.
“My father is somewhere in this building, and if he wanted to, he could get into my head. He could get in there and hear every thought, every piece of evidence that—”
Grunting, he thrust his hand out again. “Give me your hand.”
“Were you even listening to me?”
“Of course I was listening. Do you trust me?”
She would have been wholly justified in saying, “Absolutely not, Keith,” but she didn’t. She gave the tiniest of nods.
“I’ll keep him out of your head.”
“You can’t hold my hand forever,” she whispered.
“I won’t need to.”
But if he had to, he would. If holding her hand made her feel safe enough to open up to him and be her whole self, he’d clutch it until his hands were too feeble to grip her.
He tried to soften his rough voice and make it appealing to her. “You can ask me for anything. I’ll help you through this, and you’ll help me.”
“And I’ll help the both of you,” Asher said. He had his feet up on the railing and lounged casually in a chair near the front of the box. From down below, he might have looked like he was patently disrespecting the proceedings, but Keith suspected he was actually doing what he could to block people’s view of Mallory’s face. “I bet that when this is all over,” he said, “half the clan is going to want to hole up for a little while and not show their faces.”
“We’ll recover,” Keith said, truly confident of that. Yes, the council proceedings, which would likely span weeks on and off depending on how much information came to light, were going to wring them all out and make them cynical—and perhaps untrusting of each other. But the web would heal in time, and soon enough, they’d be able to find their equilibrium again. “Let me hold your hand.”
Mallory’s breath came out in a shudder as she placed her hand into his. He actually set hers on his lap to remove the glove he’d neglected before picking it up again. He gave her hand a careful squeeze and brought it to his mouth. Kissing the back of it was more instinct than calculation. He craved her touch, and after so much bullshit on both their parts, she was finally near.
“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered.
“I hope so.”
The proceedings returned to order. Uncle Joe was compiling all the complaints onto a master ledger, and Nan called out the first. The item was a property dispute in need of a juried decision. The first dozen or so were like that. Straightforward and low-angst for the spectators.
Boring, even. Mallory’s restlessness hadn’t ebbed much, but Keith was pushing back against it with some of his own energy. Chasing the fear away. He wasn’t afraid of Dan. She had no reason to be either.
“There’s Marty.” Mallory leaned forward and pointed down to the back corner of the room.
Sure enough, her sister was edging her way into the crowd with her partner at her back.
Marty didn’t look frightened at all. If anything, she looked pissed.
“Oh, God. She has Elliott with her.”
Elliott looked perfectly serene. He strode behind them with his hands in the pockets of his red hoodie sweatshirt, smiling at anyone who looked at him, seemingly unconcerned about whether or not they knew who he was.
Mallory let go of Keith’s hand and leaned onto the railing. She didn’t call down, at least not aloud, but Keith could see Marty stop in the aisle and look directly up at the box.
“Tell them to come up here,” Keith said.
“I did.” Mallory sat back, confused, and retook his hand. “She said she wants to be at eye-level. She’s in a mood.”
Asher snorted. “We’re all in a mood. I take it hers is unique?”
“She’s going to confront him. Maybe I should—” She started to stand, but Asher and Keith both yanked her down.
“If she wants to, let her,” Asher said. “You need to keep some distance between you and Dan.”
“Why?”
“Marty can be bold now in certain ways that you can’t,” Asher explained.
Keith was glad that he was taking point on that task because Keith didn’t have the right words to tell her. He didn’t have the diplomacy to explain that shit. Half the time, he forgot there even were rules. He was operating on instinct. Meanwhile, Asher was an outsider who’d had to study what was normal so that he could fit into it.
“Elliott and Marty aren’t attached to someone in the clan’s inner circle,” Asher said. “They don’t need to concern themselves with certain proprieties. They don’t need to be as discreet about their grudges or who they align themselves with.”
“But…I do?” Mallory asked.
Keith squeezed her hand again. “Shit. I do, too. I’m pretty sure my grandmother has fathomed sewing my lips together to keep me from embarrassing the family.”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
He re-laced their fingers and looked at Asher over the top of her head. He had been, in a way, but there was some truth in it. Everyone in Norseton knew him as the wildcard. That would never change. The best he could do was not bring any additional shame onto the family.
Marty and her entourage found seats near the front as Uncle Joe called out the next tier of arguments to be heard.
As time wore on, Mallory became more and more agitated, in spite of the magic Keith tried to push at her. She wasn’t receiving it well, or she was simply too scared, and he didn’t know how to filter her anxiety.
He was starting to feel that sense of unspecified dread, as well, and it sat heavily in his stomach.
Asher whisked around and glared at them both. “Whiskey.”
“What?”
“I’ll call downstairs for whiskey or gin or something. That ought to take off the edge.”
“You don’t want to give me liquor, Asher,” Keith said. “Have you forgotten how belligerent I get?”
Asher already had his phone to his ear. “No, I haven’t forgotten. I’d rather you be cranky and on your A-game than fidgeting and unsettled. This is unlike you.”
�
�I’m sorry,” Mallory whispered.
“Don’t worry about it,” Keith said. “After today, this shit with your father will be over.”
And they were going to do exactly what Asher said. They were going to go somewhere and hole up until they absolutely had to show their faces again. They wouldn’t answer any doors unless there were new developments with Anders or his lot. They wouldn’t take any calls.
They’d lay in the dark and kiss, touch, and make love until they felt like everything was okay.
That didn’t mean it would be—only that they felt like whatever happened would be endurable.
For the Afótama, that was everything they could hope for.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Mallory
Here we go.
They’d finally reached the main event—the last conflict of the day. Many hearings had been deferred, pending results of further investigations. The council would have to reconvene again soon, but the Petersen issue was one that could be immediately settled.
The only reason Mallory wasn’t thrumming with nervous agitation was that she’d drank so much whiskey that her body wouldn’t let her. She found it difficult to give a shit about much of anything at all.
She leaned limply against Asher’s side, still gripping Keith’s hand with all the strength she could muster.
Muriel stepped onto the podium again and put on her reading glasses. “Well,” she said into the mic, “I suppose we move on now to what so many of you have come for. I am obligated to caution you that no matter the results of this hearing, the justice will feel incomplete. There are many individuals responsible for the kidnappings that occurred in this community and perhaps others. Their crimes were sophisticated and ruthless, and we will be taking more aggressive actions in defeating them when these procedures are over.”
Lora would have to get her justice another day. She’d have to reckon with her parents on another day, as well. In the lead up to the council gathering, Lora had suggested putting her family under house arrest and informing them of why. Tess had obliged her. The Mollers had relented. They hadn’t confessed anything, but Shelly Moller’s whispered query of “Am I in trouble? Is Muriel angry?” to the chieftains had evidently been telling enough.
Looking across the room at her and Jody, Mallory thought that in spite of her inner turmoil, Lora seemed calm and attentive.
And that Lora was exactly where she was supposed to be.
Muriel turned to the emissaries behind her.
Tess, seated at the end of the arc, nodded to her grandmother.
“So, then, we proceed. To minimize the disruption in this trial, I will ask for you to withhold your objections and comments until the mic has been offered to you. Given the large number of Fallonites in this room, I caution you all to keep your tempers in check the best you can. They’re very sensitive to and aware of emotions. We don’t want to have any misunderstandings, do we?” She turned to the room’s rear door and gestured to the werewolf standing in it.
He nodded. A minute later, Mrs. Petersen followed another wolf out. She kept her wide-eyed gaze straight ahead and sat in the chair facing the middle of the arc.
Mallory’s grip must have tightened around Keith’s hand because he massaged it loose and kissed the back of it. “It’s all right. She’s easy.”
“But—”
“She has decided to confess,” Muriel said neutrally. “She has written a confession and it will be read into the record.”
Muriel handed the folded sheet of paper to Tess and let her do honors, dubious though they were.
The crowd was still and quiet, but even Mallory with her piss-poor psychic conditioning could catch the occasional hostile thought targeted at the woman.
“Do you have anything to add?” Tess asked Mrs. Petersen when she was done reading.
“Is my daughter here?”
Erin was not there. She’d known her limits and was checking into the group text chat with Mallory, Marty, and Elliott every fifteen minutes. Much like Lora, she simply wasn’t ready to confront the woman she’d thought for the first two decades of her life was her mother.
Tess told Mrs. Petersen of Erin’s absence.
The woman nodded. “Then I suppose I have nothing further to say, except that I am weak and I was dishonest. I understand now that there was no good excuse for my behavior.”
“Does the council have anything to add?” Muriel asked.
The group on the podium conferred. Mallory expected the most adamant arguing would come from the congregants from Fallon, but they were surprisingly restrained, at least, for the moment.
Tess leaned back and said into her mic, “The council agrees to withhold sentencing until we’ve completed our discussion of Dan Petersen.”
The room collectively gasped.
Mallory certainly understood the basis of the confusion. She was feeling a bit of it herself, even without tapping into the web.
The wolves guided Mrs. Peterson back through the door and when she was out of earshot, Tess said, “Bring him out.”
No delay. No rigmarole or stalling. Wolves yanked Dan through the other door.
Mallory found herself standing, staring down at him with all the hatred in her heart. She couldn’t find any pity in it for him. She’d tried to understand him, but couldn’t. She’d never forgive him for all the lies and for all the things he’d tried to take away from her and Marty. He’d made them believe they were unwanted and outcasts, and he’d never apologized for it.
She didn’t want his apology. She wanted him to be miserable, too.
“Will you cooperate?” Muriel asked him.
Dan said nothing. He cocked his chin, shoved his hands into the pockets of the wrinkled pants he must have been wearing when he’d been collected, and looked to the rear door.
“Fine,” Tess said blandly. She collected a huge tome of papers from beneath her chair and fixed the mic pinned to her lapel. “I’ll run down the timeline and summarize the evidence. Any registered member of the clans Afótama, Fallon, or other known descendant groups of the immigrant voyage may ask to personally examine any of these materials for legitimacy after these proceedings.” She opened the binder cover.
Keith tugged Mallory down to sit.
“This is going to take a while,” he projected.
“The individual standing on the podium is Daniel Edgar Petersen. He was born in Norseton to parents born in Norseton,” Tess said. “He was employed by my grandparents, supervising the kitchens here in the executive mansion. He…attended school with my mother.”
Tess dragged her tongue across her lips and took a breath.
“These are facts. In the past twenty-five or so years, Dan made numerous trips to Fallon to coordinate adoptions for members of the Afótama clan. We know now that many of the adoptions were coerced. We know now that many of the adoptive families were aware of where the children were from and how they were acquired. Others were not.”
The grumbles from the crowd seemed to confirm her summary.
“We have already sequestered those families and will be working with them in closed sessions. The families who voluntarily reached out to the birth parents in Fallon after learning of what Dan did have been excluded from scrutiny, with permission from the birth parents. Those affidavits are available and will be filed in the security office by five tomorrow should you wish to peruse them.”
Tess turned the page.
“These are also facts. Dan has several children out of wedlock whom his wife did not know of until very recently. We are aware of three. We have no way of knowing if there are more.”
Mallory didn’t think there were more, but she didn’t think that information would add anything to the proceedings.
“His adultery is not what is on trial here today,” Tess said. “That would be an issue between him and his wife, and she is in no position to ask for a hearing to memorialize her victimhood at this time. What we can do, however, is criticize him for is the fact that his
adultery occurred when he was supposed to be conducting Afótama business. He misappropriated funds. Further, we have reason to believe he was coordinating with the individuals responsible for the disappearance of myself and other children from this community.”
“T-that’s a lie!” Dan finally piped up. “You can’t prove anything like that.”
Tess was unmoved. “Perhaps not fully,” she said coolly. “The tendrils of connection are there. We’ll tie them together soon enough, I assure you.” Even from such a distance, Mallory could see the pure hatred in Tess’s small grin. “You’ll be tried for those things some other day, with the cooperation of witnesses new and old.”
Her aunt must have been one. Mallory didn’t know who the others were.
Perhaps that pilot?
She’d been out of the loop, intentionally so, at times. She wished she’d been following along more closely.
Next time, she vowed, it won’t just be Asher who knows what’s going on.
“Today, we’re making a judgment on the things we do have proof of,” Tess said. “Would you like to add anything regarding those?”
He stared toward the back of the room again.
“I’d like to hear from his children,” someone on the council panel said.
Mallory was pretty sure that voice had belonged to a Fallonite.
“I find it difficult to believe that they would be unaware of the schemes their father was perpetrating. “Let one come forward so that we may judge who here lies.”
Muriel turned her mic on. “Before this goes any further, I would like to take this time to caution you that those people are members of this community, and I will not have them needlessly abused and maligned.”
“You judge them innocent without having them stand trial?”
“They are not on trial!” Muriel nearly shouted.
Mallory had never seen her so piqued. Apparently, no one else in the room had, either, because they all went deathly quiet and were sort of huddling closer to each other as though they expected her to spit fire or something.
Maybe she could.
