Blood Rule (Book 4, Dirty Blood series) (12 page)

Cord rolled her eyes. “Can you say it
so we can move on this guy already?”

I winced at the look Grandma gave
Cord. “I’m getting there. Let me talk,” Grandma said between closed
teeth.

“
Sorry,” Cord
muttered.

Grandma turned to me again and I
braced myself. I knew that look. It defined the phrase ‘waiting for
the other shoe to drop.’

“
There’s been a call for a
vote on the amnesty treaty with The Cause,” she said.

Everyone went silent. Despite knowing
it had been coming, it was still sobering. We all knew if Steppe
had called for a vote, it meant he was certain he’d get the outcome
he was looking for.

“
When?” I
asked.

She looked at each of us in turn.
“Tonight.”

“
They’re coming for more
than Wes. It’s all of us,” Derek said into the stunned
silence.

“
What about the Hunters
that have aligned with the group?” Cord asked. “What will they do
with them?”

“
Probably arrest them,
like they did Cambria’s mother,” Grandma said.

“
But they let my mom go,”
Cambria said.

“
Not until they’d tried
and sentenced her,” Grandma said.

Cambria fell silent. I hadn’t heard
anything about a hearing or sentencing. Whatever it’d been, it
wasn’t good judging from the look Cambria and Grandma shared. I
didn’t have a chance to ask.

“
Arrest us on what
grounds?” Cord asked.

“
It will be considered an
act of treason to work with Werewolves or even to encounter them
and not try to put them down,” Grandma said.

“
Put them down?” Cord
echoed.

“
It’s their wording, not
mine,” Grandma said.

“
I thought the council
went after Werewolves who’ve become a danger,” I said.

Grandma shook her head. “There’s an
amendment to that on the table as well. It states all Werewolves
are to be put down on sight.” Cord grunted but Grandma ignored her
and went on. “Any Hunters who help them, including letting them
live, would be considered traitors.”

“
What? Why?” This seemed
extreme, even for Steppe.

“
After the fiasco with the
hybrids, you turning and biting Alex, and Wes, a member of a
supposedly peaceful group wanted for murder—”

“
Steppe has all the
ammunition he needs to make it open season on anything furry,”
Derek finished for her. Grandma nodded.

“
How many do they need for
the vote to pass?” Derek asked.

“
He needs a majority, so
three.”

“
Majority is three? How
many CHAS members are there?” I asked.

“
With the Lexingtons gone,
CHAS is down to five. Steppe, myself, Hugo, Kane, and
Sandefur.”

Kane. After our conversation the other
day, I thought maybe he’d been on my side, but faced with the
chance to legally hunt the creature he hated most in the world … I
wasn’t sure I could compete with that.

“
Wait, Hugo? As in, my
teacher at Wood Point?” I asked.

“
Yes. And so far, he’s
been with Steppe all the way,” Grandma said.

My shoulders sagged. “Between him,
Steppe, and Kane, he has his three.”

“
Kane’s not voting with
Steppe,” Grandma said.

My head snapped up. “What? Why
not?”

Grandma shrugged. “He hasn’t said much
about it, but he’s made it absolutely clear he’s voting against the
treaty being rescinded.”

I looked at Wes. “Do you think it’s
for Vera?” I asked.

“
Maybe.”

“
Wait,” Cambria cut in.
“Are you saying the swing vote is Mr. Sandefur?”

“
Unfortunately, yes,”
Grandma said. “All of my attempts to reach him have been denied. He
won’t even speak to me outside official meetings.”

“
Sandefur. I know that
name,” I said.

Cambria’s eyes were wide as she
answered, “For good reason. It’s Logan’s dad.”

“
Logan’s … Are you
serious?” Cord unfolded her arms and waved a hand in the air.
“Well, what are you waiting for? One of you go call science-kid and
tell him to handle his daddy.”

I shared a look with Cambria. “I don’t
think it will be that easy. Logan’s pretty outspoken about the
politics of CHAS. And I’m pretty sure it’s not an opinion he shared
with his dad.”

Cord huffed. “Since when does any kid
agree with his parents?” No one answered. “You’re not even going to
try?” she added.

“
I’ve already spoken with
your friend,” Grandma said. “His father is unreachable through all
avenues.” I sensed a larger store of information there, but I let
it go. Whatever was going on between Logan and his dad, if it
wouldn’t help us with the vote, it wasn’t something I could focus
on right now.

CHAS was down to five. One of them—the
father of my friend—held the fate of this entire room in his hands.
And the fate of my pack.

I let it all sink in and tried to
figure out what the next move would be in a scenario like this. It
felt surreal. We’d gone from having amnesty to being fugitives in a
matter of hours. And it was all up to Logan’s dad. I hadn’t seen
that one coming.

“
How much time do we
have?” Derek asked.

“
The vote is in two
hours,” Grandma said. “After that, everything changes. If Steppe
gets his way and the vote passes, teams will be
deployed.”

“
We’ll have to fight,”
Derek said.

I winced at the hardness in his voice.
I had no doubt he meant the words. Or that he spoke the
truth.

I thought of Kane and his warning the
other day. He was a leader of the best strike team out there. Would
he be the one to come after us? Would one of us have to fight him?
I wasn’t sure if I could live with hurting someone else I knew, not
after Alex. Especially knowing Kane wasn’t even the one voting for
this kind of bloodshed.

“
It’ll be people we know,”
I said. “Friends.”

“
They aren’t my friends,”
Cord shot back. Her eyes were lit with a fire I only ever saw right
before she attacked something. She’d looked this way before she
staked Miles. I suppressed a shiver.

“
We aren’t going to
fight,” Grandma said. “Not yet.”

“
What?” Derek
asked.

Wes fisted his hands. “What do you
mean? We have to fight.”

“
We can’t run away,” Cord
argued.

“
We can and we will,” Jack
said, his voice raised over everyone else’s. The deep bass of the
alpha shut everyone else up. He wasn’t necessarily my alpha, but
when Jack spoke that way, everyone listened. “For now, anyway,” he
went on. “We have to figure this out, have time to plan it
properly. We can’t rush in with guns blazing.”

Cord opened her mouth like she was
going to argue, but Jack cut her off with a look. “It’s a figure of
speech. You know what I mean.”

“
Jack’s right,” Fee said,
her voice gentle by comparison but still firmer than normal. “We
need to regroup. Figure this out. They haven’t even voted
yet.”

“
Always the diplomat,” I
muttered.

“
We all know what’s going
to happen,” Derek said.

“
Until it does, we have no
grounds,” Fee said. “We can’t defend ourselves against something
that technically hasn’t happened yet.”

“
And once the vote happens
and they come after us? Then what?” Wes asked. His hands were still
fisted, as if attempting to hold his tension closer. There was
nothing I could do to calm him. Not now. I was as upset as he
was.

“
Then we can respond,”
Jack said, his eyes glinting with the prospect of a fight. That
seemed to calm Derek and Cord some, but Wes remained
rigid.

“
So we run … where?” Cord
asked.

“
And for how long?” Derek
added. “I’m not hiding forever.”

Fee sighed. Grandma and my mother
exchanged a look. “That’s the debate,” Grandma said. “Putting you
all in any one place is dangerous. But finding multiple safe
locations is proving to be a challenge as well. We have some ideas,
but …” she trailed off, her eyes on me, and I
understood.

“
My pack,” I
said.

Grandma’s mouth tightened around the
edges.

“
Tara, there are so many
of them,” my mother began. “It puts you at risk—”

“
I’m not leaving
them.”

“
We’re not saying you
should leave them,” Grandma said. “But you should know that Steppe
has summoned you for questioning.”

I looked at my mom for confirmation.
She nodded, her expression grave. “The notice came by messenger
after you left.”

“
It’s not quite as serious
as the warrant for Wes or the treaty being rescinded,” Grandma
said.

“
Not yet,” my mom
interjected.

“
But the fact that you
lead—or even associate with—the hybrids doesn’t bode well for you,”
Grandma finished.

“
I’m not leaving them,” I
repeated.

Grandma nodded and fell silent, as if
she’d expected my response. My mom shot her a look. It was obvious
this had been discussed already and that she was more determined
than Grandma to change my mind. “But if you can make it look like
you’ve separated yourself from them and everyone else leaves,
Steppe may go easier on you. Maybe let them stay somewhere else. At
least until after the questioning.”

Heat rose into my face at the
possibility of what she was asking. I couldn’t stand even imagining
that sort of separation. From my pack. From Jack and Fee. From Wes.
“No. Absolutely not.” I glared at my mother, challenging her. “And
if you try to force me, I will run away. With my pack.”

“
No one is running away.
And no one is forcing anything,” Fee said. She gave my mother and
Grandma a reproachful look. “Tara understands what’s at stake. It’s
pretty obvious Steppe has already made up his mind about Tara,
about all of us. If he gets a hold of Tara for questioning … She
needs to understand there’s the possibility she won’t come out
again.”

“
He won’t go outside the
law,” Grandma said.

“
He doesn’t have to. He’ll
create new ones to fit his agenda,” Fee shot back.

Grandma looked like she might argue
further, but Wes cut in. “Tara stays with me,” he said.

I looked at him in surprise. He hadn’t
said much outside of wanting to tear into Steppe. “You think Steppe
will lock me up?”

“
I think it’s not worth
finding out,” he said. “And I won’t be separated from you again. We
tried that already, when you went to school. It didn’t work out
well for either of us. From now on, you go where I go.”

I nodded, lost in the intensity of his
eyes and the pull I always experienced when he looked at me that
way. My arms tingled and I reached for his hand, not caring we had
an entire audience at my back. I gave him the tiniest smile. My
lips trembled, shaky in light of the uncertainty of whatever came
next, but it was an expression of the realest feeling I’d had in
hours. “I go where you go,” I whispered.

He nodded, his mouth hinting at a
smile to match my own. Someone behind me—Cord?—cleared their
throat.

“
I’m not going to CHAS,” I
finally said, turning back to Grandma.

Grandma’s lips tightened into a thin
line. “I never said you should. Fee’s right. Once you go in, I
can’t guarantee Steppe intends to let you out.”

“
Mom?” I
prompted.

“
I can’t make you do
anything,” she said. “If I did, you’d wait until you had an opening
and go your own way. I’m leaving it up to you, as difficult and
dangerous as that is.” She eyed Wes.

“
Which is precisely why
everyone here gets a say in what happens next,” Fee
said.

“
Like hell,” Wes
muttered.

Fee ignored him. “My priority right
now is keeping you all safe. Which means, for now, we are leaving.
We have two hours to get home, pack what we can, and get out of
town. Once we’re clear and safe, we can all decide together how to
handle this.” Her words were so diplomatic, so Fee-like, no one
bothered to argue. “Edie, did you speak with Astor?”

“
Yes.”

At the mention of the familiar name, I
perked up. “Is that where we’re staying?” I asked.

Grandma frowned. “No. It’s too
dangerous for him. But he’s helping to provide a safe
house.”

“
What sort of safe house?”
I asked.

“
The kind protected with
wards,” she said. “According to Astor, it cannot be breached by
Hunter, Werewolf, or human.”

“
Then how do we get in?” I
asked.

“
We
don’t,” Fee said, aiming a pointed look at Wes and then me.
“You do.”

“
What do you mean?” Wes
asked. “How can we get in if it won’t let Hunters or Werewolves
through?”