Accused one
Elara
He stared at me for a good minute before he continued. “You need to understand how the dynamics work. Of course, everybody wants to kill you, but the progressives want to kill you because their patron, you know…” He skipped a little step, kicking something out of the way before he continued. “Their patron is vying to be the next Luna.”
I stopped in my tracks. “I’ve heard most of this politics explained to me, but I don’t want to understand, because I don’t have a place here anyway.”
He turned, placed a hand on my shoulder, and squeezed slightly. “You do,” he said. “You just don’t know what it is. The mere fact that you’re still here is enough,it’s proof.”
I shrugged his hand off. “It’s not that I don’t believe things, it’s just that I really don’t know. Everyone is against me, and the few people that aren’t… well, let’s just say they’re a little cuckoo in the head.”
He chuckled. “I’m not against you,” he said. “You see, the Beta is my friend. He talks about you sometimes.”
I looked at him, my heart filling with a bit of hope. “He’s my friend,” I said. “At least, I think he is. Recently he’s been a little out of touch,doesn’t talk to me.”
“Maybe I can give you some perspective.”
I looked up at Alexander with raised eyebrows.
“You can’t exactly be close friends because he is the sworn brother to the Alpha,and you are his mate. Too much between the both of you can literally lead to a national problem. I wouldn’t like to see that fight between brothers sworn for life over a woman who has no measure in full, at least of our ways.”
I wanted to be angry, but my mind properly pictured it. If they fought, it would be catastrophic,mostly for Lucas, I thought. Lucas was powerful, wasn’t he?
I opened my mouth to speak some more when suddenly I heard screams, a loud roar, and then some shouting.
“Stay here!” he said, breaking out into a run so fast my eyes could barely keep up with him.
Of course, I didn’t stay there. What was I, a spoon? I bolted after him as fast as I could to the source of the noise and found it to be the council hall.
With wide eyes and a worried heart,mostly for Alejandra,I began to weave through the crowd that had now begun to pour out in droves until the crowd nearly swept me away. My cloak luckily stayed on, mostly because I kept the hood to my head for dear life, despite being elbowed so many times by those running.
I heard another roar and then a yell: “Contain him! He will kill us all! Get over here!”
I heard a familiar voice, and a rough hand pulled me out of the crowd to safety. She rounded a corner and pushed me up against the wall.
“Are you all right? Have you been hurt?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer as she too began to search me, patting my body until at last she touched my waist and legs. “You’ll be fine,” she said. “Most likely just bruises. Now tell me,where the fuck have you been?”
I held up my hand. “I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“Exactly.” She pointed a finger at me. “I told you to stay put, not to move. I said I was going to be right back. I told you I needed to speak to someone.”
My eyebrows were raised. “I barely heard you mumble under your breath, and you expect me to hear?” I harshly whispered, pointing to the crowd still running beside me,a crowd that had now begun to thin out too much. “I don’t have your hearing,” I whispered. “You can’t expect me to hear something whispered about!”
“Come on.”
I rolled my eyes, angry at myself and her at the same time. “It’s not fair that you people place these expectations on me and expect me to know everything,expect me to understand everything, expect me to know that I’m supposed to fix things in a way that I don’t even know!”
My words began to jumble together into an incoherent mass of things.
“Fine,” she said. “I can see that you could not hear me. If I’d raised my voice a little more, I would have been thrown out of the hall. Then again, it looks like I should have been. But where did you go?”
“I just wandered around. I couldn’t hear anything, I was taking a walk. I was bored, so I stepped out and was better amused walking around and talking to myself. But I found a friend, so it was fine.”
She looked around, her nostrils flaring a little bit. “Alexander? It was him, wasn’t it now?”
I gave her a small nod.
“You are in safe hands. Come with me,” she said, placing a hand against my elbow and pulling me towards the now empty hallways.
Suddenly, there was another roar.
“Shit,” she said, grabbing my arm and pulling.
We ran out of the entire complex until we were well away from the building and towards the park that surrounded it. It might as well have been a forest, but positioned strategically with stone gazebos and even some lovely statues,or what appeared to be little pups. There were benches as well, in beautiful little clearings. Then again, when I thought about it, it was very similar to the place I had stumbled into,very similar to the place where they did the banquet when I came the first night.
“Okay, we’re clear. I can’t hear them anymore.”
She let go of me. I crumpled to the floor, panting for breath,but not tired, just mentally exhausted.
“What was that?” My voice shook. I was afraid, but a part of me, some little part of me, knew what was going on,or maybe sort of understood.
She shook her head. “You won’t be happy if you know,” she said.
“Know what?”
I stood up, dusting my backside free of the dried leaves and twigs that had stuck to the cloak. “Who was it? What happened? Was there a fight?”
“No.” She shook her head, her expression grim as she looked about. “I was there,” she said. “Everything was fine, everything was perfect. The council meeting was going as normal as all foolish figurehead meetings go on. They were smiling, they were laughing, they were talking as though they were friends,when suddenly the Alpha just… snapped.”
I felt my mouth drop. “What?” I closed my mouth and then opened it again. “That was him?”
“Yes,” she said. “The Alpha lost control,and I think it was your fault.”
“How,how is it my fault? He didn’t even know I was there!”
“He did,” she said. “He knew you were there because I told him you were coming to sit through the council meeting, because you wanted to talk to him. Wasn’t that the whole point of this in the first place?”
Slowly, she got angry. By the time she was done talking, her last word was just as loud as if I might have been screaming in werewolf ears.
“We came here to see him! You were to stay put, and after the meeting, we would find a way. I had found us a way! I left so that I could make sure that the way was still clear!”
“Hang on.” I raised up my fingers, stopping her. “Let’s take a step back. I left the hall because I was bored,you didn’t tell me that I couldn’t leave. I didn’t know I was a prisoner in the room, for heaven’s sake! And he loses control because of… whatever reason? Why? Why did he lose control because of me?”
“Because you left. Your presence might have been keeping his beast together, but the abrupt removal of you,not knowing when you were coming back, might have been enough to tip him over. And for the first time, the rumors have now been fueled. The fire that was once a small candle will now burn with the vengeance of its flame, engulfing an entire forest.”
I shook my head. “What rumors?” I started closer, my heart pounding in my ears.
“That you cursed him,” she said.