Chapter 20
1004 Words
Chloe’s pov
"He'll execute them both. Mark my words."
I heard them whispering below, I turned my attention to the two guards leaning against the stable wall with their heads bent together, unaware or unbothered that I could hear every word of it. The whole territory had felt different since the court hearing, tension threading through every conversation I passed in the halls.
"The old man, maybe. But the girl?" The second guard shook his head. "Even Nash has limits."
"Nash doesn't have limits when it comes to threats against this house. You weren't there for the last execution. I was. He doesn't do anything halfway."
I stepped back from the window before they could catch me listening, my stomach twisting into a knot that hadn't loosened since the court hearing two days ago. I'd been turning the same fear over and over since then, unable to set it down long enough to sleep properly, unable to talk myself out of a dread that seemed to grow heavier with every hour the sentencing remained unscheduled.
Tabitha hadn't chosen any of this.
A broken arm at eleven years old had taught her how little choice she'd ever had, and now she sat in a cell somewhere in this compound waiting to learn whether Nash's mercy extended past Garrick Voss and down to her.
I'd asked Wylie once, carefully, whether I could visit her, and Wylie had only given me a look that told me the answer before she'd said a word. Contract Luna or not, I wasn't family, and I wasn't law. I was just a temporary presence in their pack.
I paced the length of my room for the third time that morning, my hands twisting together in front of me, torn between two impulses I couldn't reconcile. I wanted to go to Nash directly, to plead Tabitha's case before he made a decision he couldn't take back.
I also knew how that would look, a contract Luna with no standing in this pack overstepping into matters of law and punishment that belonged to him alone. Whatever goodwill I'd earned with Alma and Jill, I doubted it stretched far enough to cover interfering in an Alpha's sentencing, and the last thing Tabitha needed was me making her situation worse out of good intentions I couldn't back up with any real authority.
Ray found me still pacing when she brought up my afternoon tea, setting the tray down without comment before she noticed the state of me.
"You look like you haven't slept." She studied my face, concern replacing the polite distance she usually kept when serving me. "Is it the girl? Tabitha?"
"I can't stop thinking about her." I dropped onto the edge of my bed, my hands still restless in my lap. "She's fourteen, Ray. She didn't choose any of this. Garrick broke her arm to force her into it, and now she might pay for his crimes right alongside him because nobody stepped in when it mattered. I keep imagining her sitting alone in that cell, not knowing whether tomorrow's the day they will come for her."
"You want to speak to Nash about it." It wasn't a question.
"I don't know if I have the right to." I pressed my palms against my eyes, exhaustion catching up to me all at once. "I'm not really his Luna. Not in any way that matters. What if speaking up makes things worse for her instead of better? What if he decides I'm trying to undermine him in front of the whole pack, and it costs her whatever mercy he might have already been planning to show?"
Ray was quiet for a moment, pouring the tea with the same careful precision she brought to everything, and when she spoke again her voice had lost its usual deference.
"You've only seen two sides of him so far. The one who lost control of himself at the ball, and the one who tore a man apart with his bare hands to get to you." She set the teapot down and met my eyes directly.
"Neither of those is the whole picture, Chloe. I've worked in this house since I was younger than Tabitha is now. I've seen him pardon wolves the elders wanted executed. I've seen him give up his own portion of meat during a hard winter so the youngest pups in this pack didn't go without. I've seen him sit with the kitchen staff at their own table when nobody else in his position would have bothered. People love talking about his temper because it's easier to gossip about than the rest of it."
"The rest of it?"
"He's fair. Underneath everything else, he's fair, even when he's furious." Ray pressed the teacup into my hands like she was trying to ground me with the warmth of it.
"I remember once, years back, a boy stole food from the storehouse to feed his little sisters. Nash could have had him whipped for it, and half the elders wanted just that. Instead he had the boy work off the debt in the stables and made sure the family got a proper allowance after that, quietly, so nobody would think it was charity. That's who he is when nobody's watching him being an Alpha. I'm not saying don't worry. I'm saying don't assume the worst of him before you've given him the chance to prove you wrong. He's earned more trust than the rumors give him credit for."
"How do you know he'll be fair about this?"
"I don't know anything for certain." Ray's smile came softer than I expected, patient in a way that eased the tightness sitting in my chest despite everything still weighing on me. "But I know him better than most people in this house, and I'd bet everything I own that he already sees the difference between Garrick and that girl. Trust him a little, Chloe. Just a little. He's earned that much, even from someone as new here as you."
- Writer
