Chapter 224

Sarah POV

“You know she kidnapped his daughter.”

I kept my eyes front and center, not betraying with a single sign how that comment, which seemed to float across the room, like a gently thrown, sharply pointed paper airplane, right to my ears.

I was thrown back in time to the days I stood outside Chloe’s school, waiting with the other parents, rejected and suspected of some of the worst crimes a parent could imagine.

Breathing deeply, calmly, I reminded myself I wasn’t standing apart from the others as I waited for Chloe to emerge from her school.

No, you’re sitting apart from the others.

In the impressively vast debate hall of Pack Alpha Colette’s palace, the forty-eight Pack Alphas of this inter-territorial meeting about the revelations of the Luna Temple were seated at tables in the middle of the chamber. Against the high, windowless walls sat their mates and some of their adult children, as well as a few VIPs. These alphas, betas, and even gammas, male and female, watched in support as nothing less than the future of their society was being negotiated.

I had entered the debate hall at Zane’s side and then left him to go to the others. But when I went to sit with the Pack Alpha’s families, I was escorted by a gamma to a chair placed noticeably farther away from the others than any other chair.

The message was clear, and now the gossiping had begun.

“Why does he tolerate her in the house?” some male, he sounded like a gamma, asked in that same not-really-a-whisper.

“Well, she’s obviously just a nanny, for all she claims. CPS should take away her custody rights soon.”

The memory of those words seemed louder than what I was actually hearing. I reached back, though, to other words.

Their words stung as I indeed faced such a predicament. But they meant for me to hear, for me to be hurt by them and their attitudes. That’s why these mother wolves discussed me as though I couldn’t hear them, as if I were invisible.

I was being forcefully reminded that I had been living in something of a bubble lately at the villa, surrounded by my family, faithful house staff—except Dr. Hayes, who was currently in prison—and the “lieutenants.” These people who thought they’d get cooties or something if they sat next to me, they were the more typical werewolves. They were the ones blocking me from the life I wanted to live.

“When I grow up, I will be a strong and brave werewolf, just like my father.”

Chloe’s words soothed me yet again, and I was able to sit there with my back straight and my face unflushed. Chloe was growing up to be like her father, but something different as well. She was becoming her own person, and my pride for her was greater than any bitchy comments that floated my way.

Thoughts of Chloe turned to thoughts of Grace, whom I’d asked that morning if she would sing for Colette. I was prepared to say no on her behalf if she so much as hesitated, but instead she’d just looked at me with serious eyes and asked if it would help her father’s status. I admitted it would, and that was evidently that. Chloe said she’d help pick out a good song while we were in the debate hall, and I came near to tears.

There my daughters were, so young and yet aware of their duty to their pack and to their family. Only a couple weeks ago we’d celebrated their birthdays—quietly, considering everything that was going on—and now Grace was talking about helping her father’s status.

A Pack Alpha raised his voice, drawing me out of my thoughts.

“Obviously, werewolves have lived better lives since we’ve achieved peace with humans, and also obviously, the Luna Temple was fundamental to that achievement, but that doesn’t give them a free pass for this sort of conspiracy.”

“It wasn’t a conspiracy,” said a female Pack Alpha I didn’t recognize. “If anything, the omegas sought refuge in the temple because we literally gave them no place else honorable to go. And I have to say, if we’d been paying attention to how the temple’s traditions have been changing, we’d have noticed on our something was wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Alpha Colette asked. As this was her palace, she was playing the role of moderator, I saw.

“It was only a few decades ago they started wearing those hoods to hide themselves, and not long before that they started to live apart from the rest of society. Oracles and priests used to live among their congregations, so why the change? It’s been obvious for generations they’ve been hiding something and equally obvious we’ve been ignoring it.”

“Stop playing to the cameras, Alpha Leonne,” a male alpha snapped, and it was only then that I realized discreet cameras had been placed in the corners of the room. Were we being live-streamed? Were we on TV?

The same alpha continued, “The majority of Pack Alphas have known for decades the temples were staffed only by omegas.”

“What?” another alpha, female, shouted, standing up. “This was known?”

“Show of hands, please,” Colette said. “How many here knew?”

About two-thirds of the Pack Alphas raised their hands, along with about half the mates, but not, I thought, any of the children. I raised my hand with them.

Alpha Leonne leapt to her feet and pointed at me. “This human, Alpha Zane’s daughters’ nanny, knew Oracles were all omegas?”

Great. Everyone was looking at me.

Alpha Colette nodded at me. “Please stand, Sarah, and explain yourself.”

I stood and looked around. Disgust and curiosity seemed equally displayed on people’s faces.

“I saw the Oracles and their priests without their hoods,” I said. “It was clear they were all omegas.”

Alpha Leonne plopped back into her chair as though in shock. Personally, I thought she was overplaying it.

“I take it this was during your time at the Luna Temple when they attempted to press you into their ranks?” an alpha male I didn’t know asked.

“Oracle, well, ex-Oracle Janine believed that I had a connection to the astral plane and wanted to keep me at her temple to add to their own connections.”

“Yes,” said Alpha Colette. “I have heard of the rare human who can walk in the spirit realm and connect with the power we typically associate with omegas and some alphas.”

She turned to Zane. “You made a good speech about connections, didn’t you? Between wolves and humans?”

“It was Sarah’s suggestion, actually,” he said, and though it was calmly said I could hear the tinge of anger under it. Our eyes met, and I tried my best to convey I was decidedly not appreciating being on the spot like this.

“The history of the Luna Temple, the one you openly celebrate and teach to your children in schools, involves the Oracles’ pronouncement that human and wolf souls are inter-connected, and perhaps that involves the fact that some wolves and some humans can connect on the astral plane. However, I believe it’s questions like that that make you need the Luna Temple to guide you.”

“Meaning?” Alpha Leonne demanded.

“Meaning I believe you should ask an Oracle about it.”

“But I’m asking you,” she said. “Do you feel there is a connection between humans and wolves?”

“Yes.”

She made a show of looking at the location of my chair. “Some here would seem to disagree.”

There was the sound of a chair scraping on the floor on the other side of the room and then footsteps. Melissa came around the Pack Alpha tables, set her chair right beside mine, and sat.

A moment later there was more scraping and footsteps, and soon Ambassador Torrin was sitting on my other side.

Alpha Leonne made a lemon-sucking face, but Alpha Colette took advantage of the silence to return to the question of whether the omega-Oracles were to blame for their situation or if they had been forced into it.

When people were no longer looking, I murmured, “Thank you,” to the two women at my side. I caught Zane’s gaze again, and he gave a tiny nod of approval.