The Captain's Forbidden Mate

Episode 18: THE COUNCIL’S PATIENCE

COLE

My father did not take it well.

I found him at the window when I came to the study, hands clasped behind his back as he always did when he was speaking to me with the certainty that he'd already made up his mind long before he'd even said the words, the late afternoon light throwing his shadow long and sharp across the old rug that had belonged to his father before him. He didn't turn around immediately, and it made the silence between us feel like something far more tangible than the absence of sound

"You told her no?"

His voice was even, the kind of even that meant he was far more furious than he was at that moment, far more furious than he was at any point, and the worst part was, he was right to be.

"Cole. Do you understand what you've done? Ridgeview's council meets in eleven days. If Damien Holt saunters in there with the last of the Corwins on his arm and we stumble in with nothing to show, we don't just lose our leverage. We lose the throne. You lose the throne."

"I'm not forcing her to go through with it," I said

"Nobody's asking you to force her. I'm asking you to convince her. To persuade a woman who is, apparently, far too ignorant to understand what's at stake here."

He rubbed his temples, and for the first time I saw something in his expression that I recognized in myself, though it was something he would have never admitted to under any circumstances. He saw the real fear behind the calculated mask, the desperate, grasping need to avoid a future he thought he could control.

"Do you think I want this for you? An ultimatum, a council vote, an arranged marriage waiting in the wings if you fail? I've spent the last eleven years trying to keep this pack running smoothly enough for you to inherit when the time came. I am. Not. Going. To. Watch. It. All. Disappear. Because you thought you had more important things to do than secure a wife."

"It's not that I think romance is more important than survival, Dad. It's that I think she has the right to choose how she dies." I said, my voice quieter than I expected. "You said it yourself. If Ridgeview knows what she is, she's a liability either way. The only difference is whether she decides to become one because of me, or if I decide it for her."

He studied me for a long moment, the calculating expression in his eyes thoughtful, even if the conclusion he came to was far from kind. I knew that look, too. I'd inherited it, whether I wanted to or not

"You've got a conscience at the most inconvenient time imaginable, don't you?" He sighed, and for once, the weight of his disappointment in me felt far more crushing than the prospect of having to actually convince Lena to come with me. "Eleven days, Cole. I can stall the council for another three at most if I push it, and if I do that, I want you to convince her. Persuade her, cajole her, whatever you have to do, but do it. Because if you don't, the council will do it for you, and you can be damn sure Damien Holt won't hesitate to jump at the chance to fill in the blanks for the rest of them."

I left the house that night with the weight of my father's words pressing against my ribs, and found Noah waiting by my truck, arms crossed, a look on his face that suggested he had even more unpleasant things to say after the last conversation we'd had.

"There's something else," he said. "I did a little digging after you left the restaurant. Damien didn't stumble onto that treaty by accident, you know. Someone slipped it to him. In the last few weeks, at the very latest. Someone thought it would be a good idea to make sure Ridgeview knew about Lena's status, and they've been feeding information to Damien Holt ever since, it seems. I'm guessing that someone probably thought it would be a good idea to have Ridgeview and Silverclaw circling each other at the same time, and they're the ones who pushed Damien to make his move when he did. I don't think this has been his idea the whole time, Cole. I think someone's been manipulating him from the beginning."

It was a cold night, but suddenly it felt even colder.

"Someone?"

"I don't know yet," Noah said. "But they've been feeding him information, and that kind of access would require a certain amount of... privilege, in my opinion. Someone who knows the territory, knows the histories, maybe someone with access to your father's personal records. That kind of thing isn't exactly on the street, Cole. It's not the kind of thing Damien can dig up on his own, no matter how much he might want it. I think there's a third party here, and I don't think we've even seen them yet."

I leaned against the truck, the weight of the last hour settling over me like a lead weight. The council, the deadline, the confrontation with my father - and now this, this latest piece of information that felt like it had somehow made everything far worse than it had already been.

"Any guesses as to who that might be?" I asked.

"A few," Noah said, running a hand over the back of his neck. "Nothing that's really worth dwelling on, but there are a few possibilities. Someone from your household, maybe. Someone who has access to the records and doesn't stand to gain anything from the war breaking out, really, aside from the fact that it would make them feel better about themselves for having known about it before it happened. On the other hand, it could also be someone entirely outside of both packs, someone who stands to make a profit of some kind from the situation, or who thinks they're in a position to control events from behind the scenes. I don't really want to guess at it until I have something more concrete, but I wanted you to know before you went back inside and assumed Ridgeview was your only problem."

"Great," I said. "Just what I needed to hear."

"I know," he said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. "For what it's worth, you did the right thing tonight. You let her make her choice, and your father is going to make your life miserable for the next few years, but it was the right thing to do, and I don't say that lightly considering the circumstances. Whatever happens with the council vote, you'll be able to live with this decision, and that's more than I can say for a lot of people in this situation."

I didn't say anything, really. There was nothing to say. I climbed into the truck and drove back to the house in silence, Noah's words pressing against my ribs, the eleven day deadline feeling far more ominous than it had before, the road stretching out before me in the dark and offering no answers to any of the questions that burned at the back of my mind, not one of them getting easier to hold as the miles stretched on and the radio crackled with static.