Chapter 54 She’s Mine
The woman with the silver hair and cold blue eyes looked down at Grace with an expression that suggested she’d already decided guilt before hearing a single word of defense.
“You stand accused,” she began again, her voice taking on the formal cadence of someone who’d done this many times before, “of conspiring with the bastard Maddox Barker to commit attempted murder against Lorenzo Torres, heir to the Nightfang pack and future Alpha of our people.”
Grace blinked, the words taking a moment to penetrate through her panic and confusion. “What?”
“Do not play ignorant with us, girl,” another elder spoke up, a man with deep-set eyes and a scar running down the left side of his face. “We know you’ve been in close contact with the bastard. Know you were present at the scene when he attempted to murder our heir.”
“I wasn’t conspiring with anyone,” Grace said, her voice rising with desperation. “I walked into a house and found them fighting. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t plan anything with anyone.”
The silver-haired woman’s lips pressed into a thin line. “The evidence suggests otherwise. You were his accomplice, his partner in this assassination attempt.”
“That’s not true!” Grace’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I was the one who helped! I was arrested by the police for being at the scene, not for running away.”
“Lies,” the bearded elder said dismissively. “You will tell us where the bastard is hiding. Where he’s gone to lick his wounds and plan his next attack. Tell us now and perhaps we can show mercy.”
Grace felt like she was losing her mind. None of this made any sense. They kept using that word, bastard, like it was Maddox’s name rather than an insult.
“Why do you keep calling him that?” Grace asked. “Why do you keep saying bastard like it’s what he is instead of what you think of him?”
Several of the elders exchanged glances. The silver-haired woman’s eyebrow raised slightly, as if Grace had just confirmed her stupidity.
“Because that is precisely what he is,” she said coldly. “A bastard. The unwanted result of an Alpha’s indiscretion with a wolf who should have known better than to spread her legs for someone above her station.”
The crude words made Grace flinch, but she pushed past her discomfort to focus on what was being said.
“Maddox is not one of us,” another elder added, a woman younger than the others but no less stern. “He never will be. He carries Alpha blood but was born outside the bonds of proper mating. He is a stain on our pack’s honor, and his very existence is an insult to everything we stand for. No wonder he can’t stand our actual heir.”
Grace’s mind was racing, trying to put together pieces of information that didn’t quite fit. Maddox had Alpha blood? But he’d never mentioned being part of any pack, had never talked about his wolf heritage.
“What do you mean he has Alpha blood?” Grace asked, though part of her was afraid of the answer
The bearded elder’s expression darkened with disgust. “He is the Alpha’s bastard son. The result of a shameful affair when his whore of a mother seduced the alpha. A mistake that should have been dealt with at birth rather than allowed to live and cause trouble.”
Grace felt the world tilt sideways as understanding crashed over her.
In other words:
“Maddox is Enzo’s half-brother,” Grace said slowly, the words feeling strange on her tongue.
“So you admit you know of their connection,” the silver-haired woman pounced on the statement. “You admit you know the bastard has reason to hate our heir, to want him dead. And yet you expect us to believe you weren’t helping him carry out his murderous plans?”
“I didn’t know until just now, what the hell?!” Grace’s voice cracked with frustration. “I had no idea they were related. Maddox never told me. No one told me anything about any of this!”
It made sense now. The way Maddox had always seemed to despise Enzo. The tension that radiated off him whenever Enzo’s name was mentioned. It hadn’t been simple jealousy or rivalry. It had been the hatred of someone who’d been rejected and cast aside watching the favored son receive everything he’d been denied.
“This is all news to me,” Grace insisted, looking from one elder to another, trying to find any hint of belief in their cold expressions. “I didn’t know Maddox and Enzo were even related. I didn’t know about the pack politics or the bastard thing or any of it. I’m not part of your world. I was just caught in the middle of something I don’t understand.”
The scar-faced elder leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “You expect us to believe that the bastard’s closest companion knew nothing of his heritage? Nothing of his grudge against our pack? You insult our intelligence with such obvious lies.”
‘Intelligence?’
At this point, she didn’t even believe that they had any.
“I’m not lying!” Grace could hear the desperation creeping into her voice and hated it. “Everything you’re saying is new to me. I didn’t even know werewolves existed a week ago. How would I know about your pack politics or who’s related to who or any of this?”
Several elders scoffed at that claim. The silver-haired woman actually laughed, a sound completely devoid of humor. “Enough of this charade,” she said, raising her voice to cut through any other responses. “You will tell us where Maddox Barker has gone. You will reveal his location and his plans. And you will do so now, before we lose patience entirely.”
“I don’t know where he is,” Grace said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “I haven’t seen him since he ran off. He lied to me for heaven’s sake! He’s been lying to me my whole life!” Her frown deepened. “So, no. I don’t know anything.”
The woman’s eyes went cold as ice. “If that’s how you want to play it…”
She lifted the small mallet again, preparing to bring it down in what Grace suspected would be some kind of final judgment. The silver-haired woman’s expression had gone from cold to actively hostile. “Your continued deception is an insult to this council. You play dumb, feigning ignorance while protecting the bastard who tried to murder our heir. Such behavior cannot be tolerated.”
She looked to the other elders, most of whom were nodding in agreement. Only one or two looked uncertain, but they said nothing to contradict her.
“Fifty lashes!” the woman announced, her voice ringing with authority. “Fifty lashes of the whip to encourage truthfulness. Perhaps pain will loosen that lying tongue where words have failed.”
Grace felt the blood drain from her face. “What? No, you can’t do that. I’m telling the truth. I don’t know anything!”
“Take her,” the woman ordered, gesturing to two men who’d been standing along the wall. “Take her out and administer her punishment. Bring her back when she’s ready to talk.”
The men moved forward immediately. They were both massive, built like the warriors Grace had seen in the rogue bar. Their faces showed no emotion as they approached her, no hesitation or sympathy for what they were about to do.
“No,” Grace backed away, her hands up defensively. “No, please, you have to listen to me. I’m telling the truth. I don’t know where Maddox is.”
The men didn’t slow down. One grabbed her left arm while the other took her right, their grips like iron manacles around her wrists.
“Let go of me!” Grace tried to pull free but might as well have been trying to move mountains. “I don’t know anything! You’re making a mistake!”
They started dragging her backward, toward a door at the side of the room. Grace could see what looked like an outdoor area beyond it, could see posts driven into the ground that looked designed for exactly this kind of punishment.
Terror flooded through Grace’s system. They were actually going to do this. Were actually going to whip her bloody for information she didn’t have.
“Stop!” Grace screamed, abandoning any attempt at dignity in favor of pure panic. “Please stop! I don’t know where he is! I can’t tell you what I don’t know!”
She kicked out wildly, her foot connecting with one man’s shin hard enough to make him grunt. But his grip never loosened. If anything, his fingers dug in harder, hard enough to make Grace cry out in pain.
“Someone help me!” Grace screamed, even though she knew there was no one here who would. “Please, somebody!”
The men had almost gotten her to the door when it burst open from the outside.
Everyone in the room froze and Enzo walked in.
He was shirtless, with white bandages wrapped around his torso where the worst of his injuries had been. His skin was still pale, almost grey, suggesting his body was still working to heal the massive damage it had sustained. But his eyes were clear and focused, burning with an intensity that made the temperature in the room seem to drop.
There was a scar visible just above the bandages on his left side, pink and fresh, where Grace assumed the bullet had hit him. The fact that it was already scarred over rather than an open wound spoke to his supernatural healing, but the scar itself suggested the injury had been severe enough to mark him permanently.
He looked like he should still be in a hospital bed. Should still be unconscious or at least too weak to stand. But here he was, standing in the doorway with his jaw set and murder in his eyes.
“Enzo,” the silver-haired woman stood, her expression shifting from authoritative to concerned. “You should be resting. Your injuries are severe. You need to conserve your strength.”
“Let her go,” Enzo said, his voice rough but carrying absolute command. He didn’t look at the woman, didn’t acknowledge any of the elders. His eyes were locked on Grace, on where the two men still held her suspended between them.
“Enzo, please,” another elder spoke up, trying for a reasonable tone. “This girl conspired with the bastard to kill you. She needs to be questioned, needs to reveal his location before he strikes again.”
“She didn’t conspire with anyone,” Enzo said, and now he did look at the elders, his eyes blazing green with wolf light. “She’s innocent. She had nothing to do with what happened.”
The room erupted in shocked murmurs. Several elders leaned forward, their expressions ranging from disbelief to outright skepticism.
Grace felt tears burning in her eyes. Not from fear this time, but from relief so intense it almost hurt. Finally, someone was listening. Finally, someone was telling them the truth.
“This is highly irregular,” one of the elders said, though his tone had lost some of its certainty. “The evidence suggests—”
“I don’t care what the evidence suggests,” Enzo said, his voice taking on that Alpha authority that made several elders flinch. “I was there. I know what happened. And I’m telling you that Grace is innocent. She had nothing to do with the attack. She’s a victim in all of this, not a conspirator.”
The silver-haired woman’s expression had gone through several changes, finally settling on something that looked like reluctant acceptance mixed with residual suspicion.
“If what you say is true—” she began.
“It is true,” Enzo said flatly.
“Then perhaps we have been hasty in our judgment,” the woman conceded, though she looked like the words tasted bitter. “But the girl still knows the bastard. Still has information we need to locate him before he strikes again.”
“She doesn’t know where he is,” Enzo said, moving closer to where the men still held Grace. “Release her. Now.”
The two men looked to the elders for confirmation. After a tense moment, the silver-haired woman nodded once.
The men released Grace immediately. She stumbled forward, her legs weak from fear and relief, and would have fallen if Enzo hadn’t reached out to steady her.
His hand on her arm was gentle despite everything, despite the pain he must be in, despite the ordeal they’d both been through.
“Are you alright?” Enzo asked quietly, his eyes searching her face for injuries.
Grace nodded, not trusting her voice. She wasn’t alright, not really, but she was alive and no longer about to be whipped bloody. That counted for something.
The elders were watching this interaction with varying expressions of confusion and disapproval. The silver-haired woman’s lips had pressed into that thin line again.
“This is most irregular,” she repeated. “The heir showing such concern for a girl with questionable connections—”
“Grace’s only connection is to me,” Enzo said, not taking his eyes off her face. “And anyone who has a problem with that can take it up with me directly.”
The challenge in his voice was unmistakable. The elders shifted uncomfortably, clearly not eager to contradict their injured heir when he was looking at them with wolf eyes and barely controlled fury.
Grace stood there in Enzo’s steadying grip and tried to process everything that had just happened. Tried to understand why he was defending her so fiercely, why he’d dragged himself out of bed when he could barely stand just to stop them from hurting her.
But mostly she just felt grateful that someone, finally, was on her side.
“Because…” he concluded. “She’s my mate.”