Chapter 55

Justin and I had been told to come alone, so I assumed the other werewolves arrayed across the grassy stubble were members of the Tribunal. Yes—there was Thomas Bell, our All-Pack's strongest alpha and my ride home since Fen and Ethan were already on their way back to Haven.

Or at least I hoped Thomas Bell would be my ride home. If I survived the session that was to come, that is.

But the rest of the Tribunal consisted of shifters I'd never met before in my life and who, I knew, had no reason to look upon me favorably. Regardless of their identities, the weight of the alphas' combined dominance was so powerful it lay like a pall across the field, bowing my shoulders and making it hard for me to look beyond my feet.

I could tell that even the rambunctious bloodling in my arms was chastened by the experience, or perhaps she whimpered due to a pang from the F2F that was even now coursing through her system. It was hard to say, but I cuddled the pup a little closer by way of encouragement and she melted bonelessly into my arms.

If I'd expected the common human courtesy of introductions, I would have been sorely disappointed. Instead, I was stuck glancing out of the corners of my eyes at a middle-aged shifter and trying to appear as if my gaze was trained on the ground while the Tribunal member in question called our meeting to order.

"Now that we're all here," he began, his tone making it sound like I was late even though I knew for a fact there were still five minutes to spare before the meeting's planned start time, "let's get down to business. I'm well aware that you, Justin Young, and you, Terra Wilder, chose to annoy us all with this session rather than dealing with what should have been a simple internal matter between two packs. I'm also aware that the bad blood between your clans is so severe that you broke up an All-Pack gathering so you could each take your toys and go home."

The fact that Ember was one of the "toys" in question should have angered me. But both my lupine and human minds were so deeply under the spell of the Tribunal that I could barely feel a hint of the annoyance I knew would have flooded my brain at any other time.

Instead, I was drugged by the uber-alphas' power, lulled into a headachy, somnolent state that resembled the way I'd felt after flying across the country once on a red-eye. It was a struggle to even make out what the Tribunal member was saying, and I found myself incapable of so much as nodding my head in response. It seemed I was finally meeting a werewolf stronger than Wolfie...and I didn't like the experience one bit.

"Given your past histories, I feel obligated to remind you of the terms of this peacekeeping session," the shifter continued. As best I could see by squinting at him while my head remained firmly bowed, the speaker didn't look like much. I was pretty sure the man boasted a pot belly and that his hair was more salt than pepper.

Still, each of the shifter's words pounded into my skull with the force of a railroad spike and I found myself bending lower as he continued to berate us. I couldn't even turn my head enough to find out how Justin was responding to the alpha dominance being rained down upon both of our shoulders.

"Rule number one," the shifter continued, "is that all decisions of this Tribunal are final. I'll break it down for you in tiny little words since the pair of you seem none too bright. If you choose to disobey the decision we make here today, we will find you and we will rend you limb from limb. You will not survive.

"Rule number two: there are no appeals. This isn't a toothless human court. When we decide, we decide and then you get to go home and deal with the consequences."

"Or we can deal with you here if you'd rather," another voice threaded into the mix. This one came from a much younger shifter, but if anything his dominance was yet more profound than that of the previous werewolf. In fact, as this second speaker's words faded from the field, I realized that I'd fallen to my knees and that only luck had left Ember still clutched in my trembling hands.

"That about sums it up," the first voice concluded. "Although there is one more issue to cover before we get started. Mates. I understand that your wife, Justin Young, has decided not to be present today. Are you willing to take on the duty of ensuring that she also abides by the decisions of this Tribunal?"

As the shifter's attention swung away from me, I was finally able to suck in a deep breath for the first time since the uber-alpha had started speaking. Ember whined as her own vocal cords opened up, and my inner wolf and I were suddenly able to feel the pup's impending shift rise up into the air.

It was almost like listening to a dog whistle with human ears, knowing that the sound was present just beyond the edges of my hearing. Please wait just a minute more, I begged silently. But I knew there was nothing I could do to affect the bloodling's imminent transformation.

"Yes," Justin said simply, the word strangled as if he had to force it out between frozen lips. My brother-in-law and I both knew that he had no control over Sarah's actions at the moment, but I suspected the pack princess wouldn't care one way or another about the Tribunal's decision. As long as she was able to live freely beyond the confines of Justin's pack, Sarah had made it clear that she didn't give a fig about what became of the bloodling pup in my arms.

"And you, Terra Wilder, appear before us mateless as well," the same Tribunal member continued. I could feel his gaze swinging back in my direction, pushing me down toward the earth from whence I'd partially risen during the brief respite. "Care to explain?"

I could tell the speaker thought it was strange for a female alpha to stand alone on behalf of her pack, but I also knew that I barely possessed enough breath to produce a single sentence of explanation. And the Tribunal member probably didn't care why Wolfie was absent anyway. All he wanted was to hear that my mate had similarly agreed to abide by the Tribunal's decision and that Wolfie wouldn't rush after his brother to create inter-pack strife if the alphas before us chose to wrench Ember out of our care.

But how could I make a promise for Wolfie when I wasn't even entirely certain he was still my mate?

I opened my mouth to say...who knows what...when a familiar scent wafted into my nostrils. Leaf mold and pine needles, the earthy odor of the bloodling who had last held me in his arms nearly a week before. It appeared that my mate had received my message after all and had rushed to the peacekeeping grounds in response.

The question was—had he hurried here to aid us or to prevent Ember from shifting before her time? Wolfie's human face as he came around the bend of the trail was poker smooth and his wolf showed no sign of his usual enthusiasm when their combined gaze met mine. A bad sign.

My heart sunk as I took in my mate's complete lack of expression. Because if Wolfie's goal was to prevent Ember's transformation, it was far too late for any of us to affect the course of the future. In fact, the wolfling in my arms was already wriggling free to stand on her own four feet as the impending shift wracked her body.

For a moment, we were all spellbound, watching the air shimmer as Ember slowly transformed from four legs to two. Her shift was much slower than any I'd witnessed before, and I suspected it was painful as well. But the bloodling pup didn't whimper. Perhaps she couldn't now that human vocal cords were taking the place of her lupine organs. Instead, she stood stoic and strong, just like Ethan had as his own wolf pushed his way free of a stubbornly human body.

But in Ember's case, it wasn't a wolf emerging from her hairless chrysalis. It was a human growing out of a lupine pup.

She looks like her mother, I thought with a twinge. Wolves mature much faster than humans, so even though Ember was only a handful of months old, she was already growing into her adult persona. And the young woman that the bloodling was developing into would evidently share Sarah's perfect bone structure, her pale blond hair, and her twinkling eyes. I found it shocking to see my adopted daughter standing erect, looking exactly like the ten-year-old proto-pack-princess she'd already been deep inside.

But Ember acted nothing like her mother. Instead, she turned on unsteady human feet and lunged into the arms of the older bloodling who had strode into our midst as we all stood riveted in place.

"Daddy!" Ember exclaimed.

And my mate didn't reject the human girl who he had hoped would spend fourteen more years as a wolf. No, he swung her up to rest on one hip, turned both of their faces toward the Tribunal, and spoke: "I'm here to accept the judgment of the Tribunal."