LITMIR.BIZ

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no longer have the floor!” Mitchell snapped, glaring at me from across the room.

      “Neither do you.” When the first unruly tendril of my temper began to uncoil, I grasped at it desperately, trying to keep it in check. To keep my mouth from digging a hole my father couldn’t climb out of. I turned back to Blackwell, ignoring the complete outrage written in every line on Mitchell’s face. “Councilman, you know these charges have merit. You were there when the thunderbirds attacked. You know we’re telling the truth.”

      Blackwell’s gaze hardened beneath wiry gray eyebrows, and I realized I’d made a mistake, reasonable though my presentation was. I’d questioned his judgment in front of the entire council.

      “What I know,” Blackwell said, his creaky voice steadier than I’d heard it in years, “is that you’ve had your say and I’ve made my decision. This council is not unmoved by impassioned pleas, but neither is it governed by them. If we don’t abide by our own rules, we will fall into chaos. Little better than the lawless warlords to our south. When you bring eyewitness testimony, we will hear it, and we’ll decide then whether or not to try Councilman Malone on the charges your Pride has brought forth. Do you understand?”

      I understood. I also understood what Blackwell was not saying—that he was sacrificing truth and justice to preserve order in a legal system he would no longer be in the position to enforce. For all his ideals, Blackwell was about to lose his position of authority, and if Malone was voted in with enough support, he would be able to completely restructure the council.

      By the time we came back with a thunderbird to testify—assuming that ever happened—Malone might simply refuse to hear the testimony. If he retained the support of all of his current allies, his power would be virtually limitless. He’d be more of a dictator than a council chair.

      Especially if Blackwell insisted on remaining neutral. By refusing to accept our evidence, he was creating the very monster he was trying to destroy. How could he not see that?

      But for the moment, there was nothing I could do. Nothing any of us could do, without declaring war right then and there. And that would have been beyond foolish. We were outnumbered by our enemies, and most of our troops were hundreds of miles away, at the ranch.

      My father watched me intently, but sent me no signal. No silent instructions for my next move. He was as frustrated as I was. Maybe more so. So I could only nod and return to my seat, in spite of every impulse urging me to keep talking until they all saw reason.

      On my left, Colin Dean spread his legs to take up as much room as possible in his folding chair. His thigh met mine, and I wanted to reopen his newly healed scar with my bare fingernails.

      I started to scoot away from him, then realized that would mean scooting closer to Alex Malone, who’d been directly involved in Ethan’s death, his own brother’s murder, and the new scar bisecting my cheek. So I could only sit there, fuming and grinding my teeth, trying to ignore the unwelcome warmth leaching into my leg from Dean’s as Councilman Blackwell called for the official vote.

      It would be an open, vocal vote, for something this big. Each Alpha’s decision would go down on record. We might have actually pulled it off, if they’d used closed ballots. If the weaker of Malone’s allies—Nick Davidson seemed less than solidly on board—didn’t have to face him during the procedure, or admit that they’d switched sides.

      Or if Blackwell had voted. But he stuck to his guns, shaky though his aim was.

      One by one, they went around the table, and each Alpha said a name. My father and Malone were excluded, and Blackwell removed himself from the proceedings.

      The vote started with Milo Mitchell, whose son Kevin had been exiled by my father, then killed by Marc. “My vote goes to Calvin Malone.” No surprise there.

      Next came Umberto Di Carlo, across the table from Mitchell. “I support Greg Sanders.”

      Then Jerald Pierce, who had two sons—Parker and Holden—in the south-central Pride, and had just lost his oldest, Lance, to the thunderbird justice system. “Malone.” I wanted to shake him and ask how he could side with one son over the others. Especially considering that Lance’s cowardice had cost two other lives, and almost cost many more.

      After Pierce came my uncle Rick Wade, my mother’s brother. “Greg Sanders has my vote, and my unyielding support.” I wanted to cry.

      Wes Gardner, whose brother Jamey had been killed in our territory by Manx, voted with a single word. “Malone.”

      Aaron Taylor, whose daughter we’d saved from being kidnapped and sold in the Amazon, showed his loyalty by voting for my father.

      And finally came Nick Davidson, and for a moment, I thought he’d falter. I thought he was seeing the light at the last minute. Then he closed his eyes and sighed. And said, “Calvin Malone.”

      And just like that, justice died without so much as a whimper of pain. Four votes to three. If Blackwell had voted, he could have forced a tie and bought us time. But he went with his conscience, and as inconvenient as that turned out for the south-central Pride, a part of me respected him for sticking to his guns, regardless of the consequences.

      Yet there was another part of me that wanted to choke him where he stood.

      And suddenly I understood something my father had been trying to teach me for almost a year: sometimes you have to do the wrong thing for the right reason in order to truly make a difference.

      I’d come close to understanding that with Lance Pierce, when we’d had to turn him over to save Kaci. But in a span of ten minutes, by simply refusing to act, Paul Blackwell had driven home a point my father hadn’t been able to make me see in all my time as an enforcer.

      The world isn’t black and white, good or bad. The battles that make a real difference are fought in the murky area in between, where the greater good requires brutal sacrifice. Where both the means and the ends are just shadows in a featureless gray landscape.

      And that was the death of my idealism.

      

      Jace followed Marc out the front door by less than a second, and they glanced around in unison, both looking for me. Temporarily united in their common concern. They found me leaning against the wall to the left of the front porch, and their identical expressions of relief would have been funny, if we hadn’t just seen justice strangled by the steel-gloved fist of oppression.

      Melodramatic? Maybe. But also accurate. Calvin Malone couldn’t even define integrity, much less uphold it.

      “You okay?” Jace jogged down the steps first, but neither made any move to touch me, so we stood there like the first three kids at a junior high dance, unsure who should make the first move.

      “No. That did not just happen.” I sniffled in the cold.

      Jace shoved both hands into his pockets, probably to keep from reaching for me. We all needed someone to either hold or punch, but neither of them would cause any more trouble, after what we’d just witnessed. “No one’s less thrilled about seeing Calvin in charge than I am.”

      “Don’t bet on that,” Marc mumbled, leaning against the cabin wall beside me, only a few inches away this time. “His first act as council chair will be finding a way to get rid of me.”

      “That won’t be easy.” Jace sat on the top step, facing us. “This is a pretty damn hostile takeover, and he’s gonna have Faythe’s dad, her uncle, Bert Di Carlo, and Aaron Taylor fighting him every step of the way. Which means that for even a simple majority—that vital six out of ten votes—he’s gonna need Blackwell.”

      Marc kicked a pinecone across the dead grass. “Paul Blackwell isn’t going to lift a finger to keep me here, even knowing what Malone tried to do to us.”

      “Yes, he will,” I insisted, grasping for the silver lining surely edging the storm cloud that had just rolled over us. “Blackwell may not be openminded or progressive, but if Malone forgets to cross one single

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