Chapter 21 Council Meeting.

Chapter 21 Council Meeting.


Zemirah

The council meeting started at dawn.

I'd been awake since three because I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, the memory of the blood on the rug, in my father's study room and the chair pushed back like he'd tried to stand, hunted me badly.

Fernandez was already in the kitchen when I came down. Breakfast was coffee, bread and a plate of fruit I wasn't even going to eat. He didn't ask if I wanted some, he just poured me a cup and pushed it across the table.

I drank it standing up.

Julian met us at the council room door, he looked like he hadn't slept either, his shirt was badly wrinkled, his jaw was dark with stubble, but his eyes were clear and focused.

"They're all inside, you can come in, they're the six heads of council who matter," he said.

"Who's against me on this, any oppositions?"

"All of them, but it can't be that bad, all you have to do is explain everything to them well."

I nodded as I walked past him and pushed the door open.

The room was smaller than I remembered. Dark wood, long table, and the six men seated on either side, their faces carved from stone. They'd been arguing before I walked in. I could feel it in the air, the way the tension shifted when they saw me.

I didn't wait for an invitation, I walked to the head of the table and sat down in my father's chair straight up.

The leather was cold, and the armrests had worn smooth from his hands.

"Thank you for coming," I said.

No one spoke. An older man at the far end—Councilman Harlow, I remembered—folded his arms and leaned back, his face was hard, it was no hidden discovery that he'd never liked my father. He definitely wasn't going to like me too.

"Some of you knew me as a child," I said. "Some of you watched me grow up in this pack and some of you stood in this room while my father made decisions that badly affected everyone sitting at this table."

I paused to let my eyes move across each face.

"I'm not here to ask for your sympathy, neither am I here to tell you I'm ready to be Alpha, i'm here because my father is dead and someone needs to lead until we find out who killed him."

"You think it was Tasha." That was Councilman Vance, he was younger than the others. He wore a sharp suit and had sharper eyes, he'd been angling for power long before my father died.

"I know it was Tasha, there's no need to remind me."

"Her mother told you that right? Sloane Bernard, that woman who had spent years trying to put her daughter in a position of power."

"Sloane came to me because she's scared of what Tasha will do next, and it wasn't it about wanting power, now I know it's because she's a mother who knows her daughter is a killer."

Vance smiled "And you believed her."

"I believe the journal Tasha left behind, it has pure evidence, she herself wrote about cutting my father's throat."

There was silence, I watched them process it, and we were all trying to process everything happening.

"We need proof," Harlow said finally. "The pack won't accept a murder investigation based on the word of a woman who's been trying to alienate your father from his own blood for years."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let us find Tasha so we can find the proof we need."

"And in the meantime? Who leads?"

"I do."

Harlow laughed calmly. "You're only a child. You've not been around, you don't know the anything about running a pack, besides, things have changed around here."

" Well at least, I know that my father trusted Julian and I know that Julian trusted my father, and I know that the two of you haven't agreed on anything in twenty years." I looked at Harlow.

"You really don't have to like me or respect me but this pack needs someone to hold the center while we hunt for my father's killer and I'm the only one who can do that without turning this council into a war."

"You're the Alpha's daughter," Vance said. "That doesn't make you Alpha."

"Yes it does not, but It makes me responsible."

I stood. The chair scraped against the floor, it was loud in the quiet room.

"I'm not asking for your loyalty or trust.
I'm telling you what's going to happen, by tomorrow, I'm going to start looking for Tasha, if anyone who wants to help, they can stay and anyone who wants to fight should leave, but if you stay, you follow my lead and trust me, I'm not doing this because I'm Alpha, but because I'm the only one who's willing to do what needs to be done."

I walked out of the room before anyone could respond.

\---

Fernandez was waiting in the hallway.

"They're not going to agree," he said.

"I don't need them to agree, but they shouldn't try to get in my way."

"And if they do?"

I kept walking. "Then I'd have no option than to deal with them."

He fell into step beside me. We walked through the castle, past the portraits and the guards and the servants who stepped aside when they saw my face. I'd grown up in these halls and walked them a thousand times. Now they felt like someone else's home.

"Your stepmother wants to see you," Fernandez said.

"Sloane?"

"She's been asking since last night. I told her to wait."

I stopped walking. "Where is she?"

"Around the east wing of the guest quaters"

I changed direction and Fernandez followed.

\---

Sloane was sitting by the window when I walked in.

She looked older and smaller than I remembered. The scar on her jaw was more visible in the morning light. Her hands were folded in her lap and she didn't stand when I entered, what am I saying, did I expect her to?

"Zemirah."

"Hi, Sloane."

She flinched at the name, I didn't call her mother. I never had.

"I know you don't want to see me," she said. "I know you have every reason to hate me."

"I don't hate you."

"Then what?"

I sat down across from her, the chair was hard and uncomfortable. 

"I don't know what I feel, i've spent years trying not to feel anything about you."

Sloane nodded, her eyes were wet, she wasn't even trying to hide her tears from me.

"I failed you," she said. "When you were little, when Tasha started—" She stopped. Swallowed. "I knew what she was doing, i knew, and I didn't try to stop her."

"Why?"

"Because I was scared of her, of what she'd do if I tried to intervene and what she'd say, what she'd tell your father."

"He wouldn't have believed her."

"He would have believed anything she said to him and I would have lost everything." Sloane's voice cracked. "I'm not proud of that dearie, I'm not proud of any of it."

"Then why are you here? Why did you come to Fernandez? Why did you tell him about Tasha?"

"Because she killed him, your father was the only man who ever looked at me like I mattered." She pressed her hand against her mouth. "She killed him and I couldn't protect him, it hurts me that I wasn't there to intervene.

I watched her cry silently, her shoulders were shaking, the mighty Sloane who'd made my life hell for years, sitting in a chair in a guest room, weeping over the man she'd loved and the daughter she'd failed, never thought I'd see the day.

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

"I want you to find her, before she hurts someone else, and I don't want her back her."

"Comes back?"

Sloane looked up, her face was pale and her eyes were red.

"She's not running away, she could be around waiting and watching and I'm sure she just wants to see what happens next." 

Sloane's voice dropped to a whisper. "She's going to come back, to finish what she began, Zemirah.

"Which is what?"

" Destroying the pack and its bloodline, destroying you especially." Sloane reached out and grabbed my hand, her fingers were cold. "She's not going to stop until everyone who ever stood between her and power is dead."

I looked down at her hand, the way it was shaking made me gag.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I'm done protecting her, I'm done pretending she's something she's not." Sloane let go, she sat back. "I spent years trying to make her into a daughter I could love, but not anymore, she's not my daughter, She has become someone else."

"You can't change someone who doesn't want to change."

"Then what do we do?"

I stood. “Let's find her and we'll make sure she doesn't get the chance to hurt anyone ever again."

\---

Fernandez was waiting in the hallway.

I closed the door behind me.

"She thinks Tasha is coming back," I said.

"Do you believe her?"

"I don't know, but I can't assume she's wrong, she's her mother, she knows her daughter more, so we have to be careful."

He nodded and we walked out.

The castle was waking up, servants moving through the halls, the guards were changing shifts, somewhere in the kitchen, someone was cooking breakfast, the sweet smell of bacon drifted through the air.

"Julian is calling for a vote," Fernandez said. " This afternoon, the council is going to decide whether to accept you as interim Alpha."

"And if they vote no?"

"Then we should just leave Mirah, let the pack tear itself apart, at least you did your best."

I turned to face him.

"You really think I can't do this."

"I think you're walking into a room full of men who have been playing politics since before you were born, they're going to test the hell out of your patience, they'll try to push you around and try to break you."

"Ohh, I'd love to see them try."

He looked at me for a long moment, he didn't say anything, then he smiled, I could tell he was already tired.

"You're not the woman I met in that bar," he said.

"No. I'm not."

We stood there in the hallway, the morning light coming through the windows, the sounds of the castle waking up around us.

"What happens after?" I asked. "After we find Tasha, the pack becomes stable. What becomes of us?"

"Oh dear, I don't know."

"That's not an answer."

"Okay, we'll figure it out when we reach that bridge."

I nodded, turned and walked toward my father's study.

The door was still closed, the guard was still outside, he stepped aside when he saw me.

I pushed the door open.

Someone had cleaned the rug and the chair was pushed into the right position. The papers were stacked neatly on the desk, It didn't look like anyone had ever died here.

I walked to the window, I looked out at the courtyard, the fountain was still spraying water into the air.

"I'm going to find you, Tasha."

I said it out loud, to myself.

"And when I do, you're going to wish you'd never been born."

I turned and walked out.

Fernandez and Julian were waiting, the council too was waiting.

Man, I had work to do.