Pride (Shifters #3)(42)

When they were gone, Lucas stood calmly and picked up one half of the coffee table. Marc took the other piece and followed him out the front door. Their footsteps disappeared around the corner of the lodge, and I assumed they were taking the broken table out back to join the chair he’d broken the day before.Marc was hard on furniture.
“He’ll be okay,” Dr. Carver said, and I glanced up to find him watching me. “The bottom line is that you got through to her when no one else could have, and they’ll have to see that.”
“I hope so.” But I wasn’t holding my breath. Marc was right. The Alphas obviously didn’t think the ends justified my means.
A door creaked open at the back of the lodge, and the classical music ended in midnote. “—bring them in,” Uncle Rick said, and a moment later he appeared in the hall, his face a mask of anger and frustration. He stopped in the middle of the living-room floor, the tension in his expression giving way to momentary confusion. “Where are Marc and Lucas?” He paused, eyeing the newly open floor space. “And the coffee table?”
“Collateral damage.” Marc stepped into the living room from the front porch and Lucas came in behind him.
“I see.” But my uncle didn’t look like he saw.
Marc shrugged and met his gaze unflinchingly. “So…what’s going on?”
“I’m not entirely sure.” Uncle Rick sighed, and rubbed his forehead, then met my eyes. “Your dad and I tried to get this handled on an individual-Pride basis, so we could each discipline our own. But Malone didn’t go for it. He made a conference call to the rest of the council and got a simple majority vote of six to four.” With that, my uncle sank into the chair his son had just vacated. He looked angry, frustrated, and very, very tired.
I knew just how he felt.
“Vote to do what?” Lucas settled wearily onto the couch cushion on my right, closest to his father.
“To turn jurisdiction over to the Territorial Council.”
“Jurisdiction for what?” I asked, my voice soft with dread.
Uncle Rick met my gaze with eyes the same crystalline blue as my mother’s. “You’re being charged with insubordination.”
Beneath his reddish freckles, Lucas’s face went pale with alarm, but all I could work up was mild irritation.
Insubordination was a relatively minor offense—what amounted to a misdemeanor. Under normal circumstances, a guilty verdict would call for the offending enforcer’s immediate dismissal, but it was hard for me to work up much fear over that, considering I was already suspended. And that I was facing the fucking death penalty.
“Insubordination, huh? Is that it?” I asked, and my uncle nodded. “Okaaay, but doesn’t that seem kind of pointless, in view of the other charges against me?”
He nodded again. “I don’t understand what they’re going for. Why bother to slap your wrist when they’re planning to break your neck with the next blow?” 
My heart dropped into my stomach. I knew what the death penalty meant, of course, but hearing it stated so bluntly wasn’t exactly pleasant. I liked my neck intact.
Lucas took my hand in his, and I looked up to find everyone watching me.
“Wait.” A brief wave of calm flowed over me as a nugget of werecat political trivia clicked into place in my head. “There aren’t enough of you here for that. Three Alphas are enough for a tribunal, but you need at least four to officially convene the council.” Ha! Take that, Malone!
But Uncle Rick didn’t look anywhere near as pleased as he should have been by my near-perfect recall of Territorial Council policy. Though Marc looked pretty damn impressed.
“The council ruled that your insubordination—”
“Alleged insubordination,” I insisted, though I knew damn well I was guilty.
“Wrong.” Lucas forced a smile. “Michael says that here, you’re guilty until proven innocent.”
“Whatever.” I ignored him, exercising my right to scowl in protest.
“Anyway,” Uncle Rick continued as all eyes refocused on him. “During the conference call, the council ruled that this is a separate issue from the hearing already in progress. They agreed that your father can avoid bias on such a minor indiscretion.”
Shit. With Daddy, they had enough Alphas to officially call the Territorial Council into session. Screw ’em! What were they going to do? Revoke my suspension in favor of dismissal? So what? As much as I was starting to like my job, I liked my life better.
“So, is that it? One more charge leveled against me?” As if that were no big deal. Maybe if I acted like I didn’t care, they’d believe me. Maybe I would, too.
Uncle Rick shook his head, eyeing me intently to underline the importance of what he was about to say. “It’s not just you, Faythe. We’re charging you all.”
Eighteen

“What?” My hand went cold in Lucas’s as his broke into an instant sweat. “No. They can’t.” I leaned forward on the old, dingy couch, staring at my uncle in search of some sign that I’d heard him wrong. I’d known I would get in trouble, and Marc and Dr. Carver would probably get yelled at, too, especially since I’d accidentally ratted the doc out. But I’d hoped they’d rant and rave, then let my father handle the situation privately. And I’d had no idea they’d drag Lucas into the fray, just because he was there. “You cannot hold them responsible for what I did.”
My uncle’s normally warm blue eyes went as cold as glacial ice, and he stood, physically distancing himself from me. “Yes. We can. You all broke the rules, and you’re all going to pay the price, whatever that turns out to be.”
Then his gaze singled me out, his lips drawn into a tight, straight line. I’d seen that very expression on my mother’s face hundreds of times, and now I knew where she got it. “Do not mistake my sympathy for an inclination to bend the law for you every time you step out of line. I believe you killed Andrew in self-defense, so I’m doing my best to keep the hearing fair. But you intentionally disobeyed a direct order this time. So you keep that in mind when you open your mouth in there.”
Well, crap. He had me there.
Ten minutes later, I was officially charged with insubordination, once again seated at the end of the long dining-room table, as revoltingly cheerful morning sunlight poured through the windows along the east wall.
I’m starting to really hate this room.
Dr. Carver, Marc and Lucas sat in chairs against the wall, but this time no one sat in the chair on my right. They’d given Michael the option to act as my adviser again, but he’d joined the search efforts instead, refusing to stand by me on matters of principle. Or, as he put it, I was a damn fool to pull such a stunt, and he wasn’t going to interfere with the heavy hand of justice. Or some such shit.The point was that he thought I deserved whatever token punishment they gave me—and I sincerely hoped he was right about the “token” part—so he and Jace scoured the mountainside with the other enforcer teams while I spent most of the next hour trying to convince the council that I meant no insult to their authority by visiting the tabby against orders. I was simply trying to help meet her immediate needs without wasting time with a bunch of pointless formalities.
That line of reasoning might have worked well for me if not for the fact that the council—indeed, the very werecat political model—was founded on that same bunch of pointless formalities.
Since my father had already had his say, he seemed content to sit back and determine which way the council’s collective wind was blowing before taking an official position. Unfortunately that wind was all blowing in one direction.
Though my uncle was more moderate in his censure than were Malone and Blackwell, he was disinclined to go easy on any of us in his official statement, for fear of being seen as soft on his own son and niece, and thus less than impartial. Also, he was truly and deeply pissed at having his authority disregarded, even if I had ultimately helped both Kaci and the council.
And the real bitch was that this time Malone didn’t have to say a word. He just sat back and grinned smugly while my uncle gave me a public dressing-down. The bastard even spoke up in my defense at one point, interrupting Uncle Rick to insist I was “probably doing what I thought was right at the time.” Which effectively implied that I had no idea what “right” really was.
Malone’s little show of support was no doubt also intended to combat rumors that he was unnecessarily harsh in matters concerning me. The manipulative prick.
After each of the Alphas had his say, I got a chance to defend myself. My father warned me to be good with his eyes as I stood to address the panel. “Look,” I started, but judging from his deep scowl, that wasn’t the proper way to address the Territorial Council. So I started over.
“You guys are probably every bit as tired of seeing me here as I am of being here, so I’m just going to lay it all out for you. The truth.” I gave them all a moment to object, and when no one did, I continued.
“Yes, I disobeyed a direct order in going in to see the tabby alone. So I guess technically, I am guilty of insubordination. But this whole thing?” I spread my arms to take in the entire room and the proceedings therein. “This is why I didn’t ask first—because she wouldn’t have calmed down enough to Shift in front of a roomful of enforcers, so we would have wound up right here, arguing about it for hours while that poor little girl sat up there stuck in cat form and scared to death. She’s weak, confused and half-starved, and every single moment we leave her like that, we’re guilty of neglect. She’s a child. She doesn’t know anything about your rules and forums. She doesn’t know a thing about us, period, and I was trying to help her. To help you, by getting her to talk. Which none of you could have done, if I may point out.”