Chapter 36 36- The Council
RANDOM FACTS: Councilor Marchetti is the youngest person ever appointed to the thirteen seats. She got there by knowing things she shouldn't, like the fact that Riven Draken's blood doesn't just call Kael. It's the only thing that can kill him.
_____
Councilor Marchetti stares outside the window, her office just right outside the outskirts of this place that is her home but also her prison. She is fifty five of age and looks twenty-five. She is an Alpha.
She also wishes for the day that she may one day leave.
The glass reflects her face back at her. Dark hair pulled tight, sharp cheekbones, eyes the color of whiskey.
She's beautiful and she knows it, has used it as a weapon more times than she can count. But beauty doesn't open doors in the Council chamber. Only power does. Only knowledge.
A knock echoes through her barely furnished office, her voice coming out ever so sultry and filled with confidence, “You may come in, Crowheart.”
Aidan Crowheart’s scent is easy to pick— possibly because he always reeked of the other man’s pheromones, the useless one, a Thorpe? But it was significant in its own way.
Like a little humming bird singing its way into her nose instead of her ears. “You called for me, Councillor?”
She turns around, and for that second, her ebony dark skin glistens like rare polished marble as she says with a small upturn of her lips. “Councillor? One would think we have passed these games of yours at this point. Especially since we are alone now. You may call me Mother.”
The woman watches her son bristle. Probably because she had never lasted long enough in his life to even refer to herself in that manner. Which in her case, she could explain.
A female alpha was such a… problem for no bloody reason. Because as rare as they were, the bloody founders tended to have a habit of hunting each one they could find and turning them into sport.
She was one. And she used to resent them very much.
But she learnt unlike a few of the otter women that they had imprisoned and besieged in their stupid little cellars that fighting and resisting only made them wish to fuck you even more.
So instead, she complied even when it was against her biology.
Even when her body refused to produce slick or enjoy what was happening. Or when the other Alpha’s pheromones made her sick and throw up.
Mara Marchetti had a dream and she held onto it for many years.
Aidan… he was just an unfortunate byproduct of it.
“I would rather we keep things professional.” He looked proper, just like she raised him. He was in a salute, his eyes staring far off into whatever it was that was in front of him. “You asked for me?”
“I would be having a meeting with the other council members. I wish for you to be there.”
The words hang in the air like feathers with the weight of stone. Aidan's posture doesn't change, but something behind his eyes shifts. He doesn’t trust her. He never will. Marchetti is far too aware of this. “I'm not a Council member. My presence would be... irregular.”
“Your presence would be exactly what I need it to be.” Mara moves closer, close enough to touch him if she wanted to. She doesn't. She never does. “Everyone of them can attest of your brilliance even with your restrictions as a beta. You have also interacted with the Draken boy— which you tried to hide from me. Silly you. And you’ve witnessed firsthand what happens when his abilities manifest.”
Aidan doesn’t try to refute any of the statements. He knows better than to. She tilts her head. “They are all a bunch of old men with brain cells that have passed their time. They are too comfortable in this place. And now too scared that there are two beings that they have no way of controlling after being in power for so long.”
“Then quell their fears. Tell them Riven Draken is harmless.”
“Is he?” A thin smile flashed across their lips. “Because I hear the Thorpe heir is suddenly confessing his undying love after eighteen years of emotional constipation. That's not nothing, Aidan.”
Aidan's jaw tightens. “Cain's feelings are his own. The omega's pheromones may have accelerated—“
“Accelerated.” Mara laughs softly. “Such a clinical word for what happened. You know better than most that feelings don't just... accelerate. They are there, or they are not. What makes you so sure that he valued you before? Have I not watched you be his toy and nothing else? Do you think I wouldn’t know if there was… love somewhere in his pretentious heart?”
Aidan says nothing.
“Love is inconvenient,” Mara continues, stepping back to her desk. “It makes people reckless. It makes them vulnerable. It makes them do things they'd never otherwise consider.”
She picks up a file, flips through it without really looking. “Like falling for the son of a Founder who have persecuted and constantly damaged the existence of people like you.”
“People like me.”
“Betas who have even the slightest whiff of something they themselves do not possess." She finally looks at him. “Plus, Cain Thorpe is heir to one of the oldest families in Garouihl. If you're bonded to him, you become a target. Every enemy he has becomes your enemy. Every scheme against his house will run through you first. The Council knows this. They'll use it to get to me.”
“Must be a terrible inconvenience for you.”
Mara smiles. It's almost warm but it does not reach her eyes as she moves to the window again, giving him her back “You don't have to love me, Aidan. You don't have to forgive me or understand me or anything else. But you will listen when I tell you that your presence in that meeting is as important as the air you breathe.”
She watches him through the glass of her window. He still doesn’t trust her… but he’s not unsure what to do. He’s never been the kind of boy that was ever sure what he had to do.
But he asks eventually after a few minutes. “May I leave?”
Marchetti doesn’t bother to give an answer. Instead, she waves her hand dismissively, still facing the window.
The door clicks open. Then closes.
And the moment she is alone, whatever emotions she has masked drops to a simmering, boiling rage as she whispers to herself the words she had held tight to her heart for decades, “Soon, very soon, I will bring those wards down and show them all how truly terrifying the world can be.”