Chapter 236 Arrested
ADRIANA
I hadn’t slept enough and I knew it before I opened my eyes.
Leo and I had stayed up talking longer than I’d planned. We somehow moved from the case to Elijah, and the way things used to run in this house before everything shifted, what it meant to hold authority when the person who was supposed to hold it wasn’t there.
I hadn’t meant to get into all of it, but he’d asked the right questions, and the conversation had gone where it needed to go.
By the time I made it to the courtroom, everyone was already seated and waiting. I walked in without rushing and took my seat, and the room settled.
Damon was already there. Whatever message had been sent the night before had apparently landed.
“Good,” I said, looking at him briefly. “We’re moving quickly today. I want to keep the momentum. Alpha Damon, I’ll be hearing your account of what happened in your pack leading up to Damien’s arrest. Firsthand, in full. Come up.”
He rose from his seat and moved to the stand with ease. As he walked, I looked at Nancy. She was watching him with the stillness of someone who had learned to make themselves invisible in a room where he existed.
Whatever he had done to her, it hadn’t started with the arrest. It had started long before and continued long after, and she had carried it without anyone looking.
I would deal with that. Today.
“I’ve already given this account to the council and to the King himself,” Damon said, settling at the stand. “I’m not sure what purpose this serves.”
There it was again. The same reflex and need to reframe every instruction as something he was choosing to comply with rather than being required to.
“I’ll decide what serves a purpose in this court,” I said. “You’ll speak when I ask you to speak and remain quiet when I don’t. That’s not a request. The next time you push back without being invited to, you’ll be finishing this proceeding from a cell.” I let that sink in. “And I don’t believe you bowed when you came to the stand.”
He looked at me.
“Go ahead,” I said.
He bowed, it was stiff and minimal, the absolute floor of compliance.
“Lower.”
A ripple moved through the room. The Chief Elder started to rise and I turned to him with a look that sat him back down before he’d fully straightened.
“Lower.”
Damon’s jaw was working. I watched him fold, inch by inch, until his head was nearly level with his knees. Hazel put a light hand on my shoulder and I held the position for another long count before I spoke.
“That is what respect looks like in this room. You will remember it.” I let him straighten. “Now. Your account. Everything, from the beginning.”
He reset himself, straightening his shoulders and back. His expression reorganized into something controlled but his jaw was clenched.
“I received information that Damien was planning to have me killed. I took the threat seriously and had his residence searched. A few items were recovered. He was held for questioning and then released when public opinion pushed back.” His voice was even. “I continued watching him because I believed he was still a danger. When the threat against the King surfaced, the connection was obvious.”
“And Nancy?” I said.
Something moved across his face. So brief and so quickly managed that most people in the room probably missed it. “Her husband was a convicted criminal. She had no protection, no income, no standing. I took her in.”
“You took her in,” I repeated.
“I gave her somewhere to go.”
I looked at him for a long moment. “At what point did you decide that taking her in entitled you to put your hands on her?”
The silence in the room was loud.
“At what point,” I continued, my voice staying absolutely level, “did you decide that her husband’s situation made her your property?”
His smile came back, small and tight and deeply revealing. “She told you that? My Queen, she’s a frightened woman trying to protect herself. Her husband is a criminal. That makes her dependent on my goodwill. I was generous with her.”
The word generous landed in my stomach like something physical.
“I see.” I kept my voice even. “So you’d like to characterize it as generosity.” I turned to the room. “Here is what is going to happen. You will make a formal public apology to Nancy. In front of witnesses, in front of the people of this pack. And her response to that apology will determine what happens to you next.” I watched his face. “If she forgives you, that will be taken into account. If she doesn’t — she decides the punishment. Not me. Her.”
The color shifted in his face. “You cannot be serious. I am an Alpha. She is—”
“A woman I am giving a voice to, because no one else in this room bothered to.” I kept going before he could respond. “Your title is the only reason I haven’t already had you removed from this proceeding in chains. You beat her. You violated her. In any court I preside over, that is not something a title protects you from.” I looked at him steadily. “You may sit down.”
He didn’t move. He turned to the room instead — to the Elders, to the guards, to anyone who might intervene. “Are you all going to allow this? She’s dismantling everything—”
“That’s the third strike,” I said quietly. “Guards.”
They moved immediately. He was still talking when they reached him, and the room watched in complete silence as he was taken out. I gave my instructions clearly and without heat. He was to be held, and the terms were non-negotiable.
When the doors closed, I took a breath and looked at Nancy. Her eyes were wet but her back was straight. Something in her expression had moved fragile to fierce at the same time, like something cracked open and still standing.
I turned back to the court.
“I apologize for the disruption. Damien, please come to the stand.”
He stood slowly from his place near the wall. The chains dragged against the floor with every step.
I looked at the guard nearest to me. “Take those off.”
“My Queen, security protocol—”
“He is standing in my courtroom in front of thirty witnesses and four guards.” I kept my voice flat. “If something happens to me, the failure is on every single person in this room. Take the chains off.”
The guard hesitated for exactly one second too long.
“Now,” I said.
Damien rolled his wrists once when it was taken off, then he looked at me, and straightened. For the first time since this trial began, he looked like himself.
“Take the stand,” I said. “And tell this court exactly what happened. From the very beginning.“