Alpha (Shifters #6)(35)

So true, but… I stared at my lap, horrified to see that my hands were actually shaking. “What if I don’t have it, either? What if my heart’s not in it?” What if my heart died with Ethan and my dad? And with the part of my mother we would never get back? What if they were the heart of the Pride, and I was just the impulsive, stubborn bits of cardiac pulp left over in their absence?
That soft chuckle was back. “Oh, don’t even start.” Marc rolled his eyes, but when his gaze met mine again, his shined with sincerity. “You’re all heart, and we both know it. You care about the people in this Pride more than you’ve ever cared about anything else in your life, and even when you mess up, you do it trying to defend one of them. One of us.”
When I tried to look away, he turned my face so that I had to look at him, or make an issue of my refusal. “You’re in this for the long haul, and you have been since the first time the council tried to force you into a marriage and kids before you were ready. Since you figured out they’d do the same thing to Kaci and Manx, and that neither of them would be able to fight for themselves. You belong here, Faythe. You have purpose, and you have vision, and you have exactly what it’s going to take to see both of those through to the end. You know things have to change, and you know exactly what those changes should be. And the only way any of that’s going to happen is with you leading the call to action.”
He reached out to run his thumb over my bottom lip. “Besides, this mouth was made for shouting the truth and demanding justice. Among other things…”
I wanted to return his smile. Hell, I wanted to pull his thumb into my mouth, just to have a taste of him. But our problems now transcended our personal relationship, and I couldn’t afford to lose focus.
Marc was right. He was right about all of it. But that didn’t change the bottom line: the south-central Pride deserved the best, and I wasn’t there. Not yet. “Marc, I can’t do this on my own. I’m not ready.” And it hurt to admit that, a pang of angst that echoed the trail grief had already clawed through my center. But painful or not, it was the truth—my calling, according to him.
“I know.” Marc’s smile was smaller now, and bittersweet, like he’d swallowed a memory that didn’t taste good. “That’s why he asked me to help you. He made me promise to, even if…” He closed his eyes, took a breath, and the soft smile was gone. “Even if you and I don’t wind up…together.”
My heart thumped so hard I was sure he could hear it, and this time I didn’t even know which one of us I was hurting for. “And you did it? You said you would?”
“Yeah.” He blinked again, and his jaw clenched. “I swore to a dying man. And I meant it. I’ll be there for you, Faythe. No matter what happens. You can do this. He believed in you, and so do I. And if you give them half a chance, so will everyone else.”
I threw my arms around his neck and held on like he might dissolve in my grip. After a moment, Marc returned my embrace, lightly at first, and though his hesitance stung, I understood it. I deserved it.But then he hugged me for real, his chin resting on my shoulder, his stubble rough against my exposed skin. “Thank you.” It came out half whisper, half sob. “I can’t do this without you.”
“You can once you get your feet beneath you. But you won’t have to.” He pulled away, but didn’t get up. “And it won’t be just me. I’m sure your uncle would be happy to serve as an adviser, and so will your mom, once she’s had some time to deal.”
I nodded, but deep inside I wondered if it would be enough. Could one young, stubborn, impulsive woman and several part-time advisers possibly fill my father’s enormous shoes? Should we even try?
Yes. There was no other option.
“So, are you ready?” Jace asked, and we both whirled to see him standing in the half-open doorway, watching us. He swallowed thickly, and I understood that only part of his pain was from the loss of our Alpha. From the living room beyond came a soft background of muted voices. When had everyone gotten back? While I was on the phone?
I’d have to start paying better attention to my surroundings, or I’d be the shortest-lived Alpha in history.
“Ready for what?” I said, as Marc stood and pulled me up with him.
“For orientation.” Jace shrugged apologetically, his eyes still red from his own recent tears. “Apparently Alphahood is one of those jobs where you have to hit the ground running.”
“Why don’t you put some clothes on…” Marc bent for the bottle of peroxide. “And we’ll get you fixed up in there.”
Jace opened the door and stepped out of the way, still watching me as Marc headed into the living room. “Your allies await….”
Five minutes later, I sat on a kitchen chair someone had pulled into the living room, uncomfortably aware that every eye in the room was aimed my way. That wasn’t unusual, of course, but I was pretty sure I was the first Alpha in history to address her allies and enforcers wearing nothing but a crimson halter and a matching pair of boyshorts. Marc was going to sew up my gashes during our little powwow, so I couldn’t wear anything that would cover my limbs.
Lucas had laid my father on his bed, but the fresh, raw memory of his death still drew my gaze to the couch even though four enforcers now sat where he’d died, each covered in various cuts and nasty-looking bruises, as well as an assortment of bandages. Except for Elias Keller, we were a ragtag crew at best, and our Pride was now leaderless, unless I could get my act together.
“What did they say?” I asked, as my uncle sank into the chair closest to me. “Did they agree to a cease-fire?” At least long enough to arrange a funeral… 
He frowned and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, focusing his attention on me completely, as if we were the only two people in the room. That couldn’t be good. “They want you to make the request yourself.”
“Why? So they can try to arrest me again? Or just outright kill me?” Like I was going to willingly walk into a trap.
“It’s possible, but I don’t think that’s what they’re going for this time.” Uncle Rick paused long enough to scrub both hands over his face. “I told them your dad named you as his successor, and my guess is that they want to give you enough rope to hang yourself with. Or else they want to humiliate you. This is about power. Right now, they have it….”
“And they want to see me grovel for mercy long enough to bury my father.” The words tasted bitter—all of them—and I wanted to spit them out.
“Yes. But I think we can make this work for us. If you go in there with your temper in check and your feet on the ground, you have a chance to convince a couple of the other Alphas that you actually belong where your father’s placed you. And that you deserve a seat on the council.”
“But isn’t that kind of meaningless at this point? I mean, even if I wanted to be on the council—” and I wasn’t exactly eager to watch Malone pervert justice and promote himself in the name of “purification” “—they’re never going to let me in. Hell, they may not even let you guys back in.” I glanced from my uncle, to Umberto Di Carlo, to Aaron Taylor, a bit overwhelmed to be meeting with them without my father. I kept expecting him to walk in, apologize for being late, then take over. “We just started a war, and so far they’re winning. Why wouldn’t they want to press their advantage?”
“Because a cease-fire benefits them even more than it benefits us,” Di Carlo said from across the room, holding a short glass with an inch of whiskey in the bottom. “Malone’s grand scheme only works if he’s in charge of the whole council, not just one battered half of it. He’s going to want to put his little kingdom back together so he can wear the shiny crown. And he might even lose one or two of his own allies if he refuses to grant a respected fellow Alpha a proper burial. Though he probably has no intention of letting the council acknowledge you as an Alpha.”
“I’m having trouble understanding the part where that should matter to me.” I shrugged apologetically, and in his quiet corner of the room, Keller was nodding. “I mean, if I don’t belong to the council, they can’t stick their collective nose into south-central Pride business, right?”
And if that was the case, maybe we should have separated ourselves from the council a long time ago. No, that wouldn’t stop Malone from running our allies into the ground, but it would remove us from the immediate fallout zone, wouldn’t it? And we’d need that little bit of distance, at least long enough for us to adjust to the loss of our Alpha and the emergence of the youngest, most testosterone-challenged new Alpha in history.
Yet those very benefits were my first clue that leaving the council probably wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded. Malone might not want me sitting on his council, but he was never going to be willing give up his influence over the largest territory in the country.
We probably could actually have defected when my father was still Alpha, but he would never even have considered that. He wouldn’t have abandoned his fellow council members to Malone’s poisonous influence and emerging dictatorship.