A Fang in the Sass

6

“How is he a daywalker?” came from the crowd.

Oh, s**t. They were getting into the technical crap now. She tried to remember what Julian told the Wolfe family a couple months back. “I’ll tell you after everyone takes a seat and quiets down.” The group settled enough for her to continue.

“I don’t know the scientific details, you’ll have to ask him. But it’s basically like this: after many years of building up layer under layer of skin, the flesh exposed to the air turns leathery and tough and thickens. This makes it resistant to the sun and hard to cut, thus unlikely to be badly injured.”

From the crowd a voice raised. “And this is because he didn’t drink human blood.”

“He didn’t drink it from a human. After the blood is exposed to elements outside the body, the enzyme quickly dies, rendering the remaining liquid safe.”

Another voice from the audience said, “Why can’t we drink that, then?”

She really should’ve thought out this sharing of info idea more. “I’m not really sure of Grandpa’s reasoning, but I’d think drinking exposed blood would be too much of a temptation for some, and they would eventually go straight to the source.” She wouldn’t tell them that packaged human blood had been served at Embraced for a long time. What they didn’t know, wouldn’t blah, blah, blah and all.

She worried about the next surprise she had for them. That could cause a full-out riot and she wasn’t ready for that.

“Okay, everyone. Settle down. Take a seat,” Aria said. The rumble from the crowd in the South clan community meeting room didn’t lessen. She brought the mic closer to her mouth. “Sit! I have another bomb to drop.”

The room fell instantly quiet.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said. “You’ll want to hear this.” She waited for the scuffle of chairs scooting on the tile floor to stop. All eyes fixed on her. Many curious, some afraid, some pissed-off. Those were the ones she wanted to talk to.

“All right. So you see, Grandfather didn’t make up rules willy-nilly to be a jerk. He had your immortal lives in his heart.” She needed to milk this. “He only wanted his people, his family, to be happy and long-lived. To be able to walk in the sun again.” She paused to let that sink in. Heads nodded.

“My only desire is to carry on his goodness, his belief that his family should have the best and fairest choices. History shows dictatorships and oligarchies never worked well for a large amount of people. So instead of having a single leader, like the clan has always had, you’re to have a five-person council.” She thought to throw in that Marxius would strip the first person to yell and hang their underwear from the flagpole. Throwback to summer camp years.

But no one made a sound. She wasn’t sure how to take that. Was everyone onboard with the idea? Was Filip such a horrible leader that the plan of a council made them wordless?

“So, no one has anything to say?” she asked. Clan members looked at each other. Some with fear in their eyes. Not good.

A voice came forward. “I thought Damon was the leader since Filip was dead.” Several agreed.

“He has been,” she said. “But now that all the fall-out has settled, it’s time to bring the clan up to date with the modern world.”

“What if we want the old-fashioned challenges where the strongest wins. That proved well for lots of clans.”

From the first row, Aria heard Maree call the speaker a nit. “He couldn’t pour piss from a boot if the directions were on the heel.” No need for translation. Aria agreed.

She hid her smile with her hand. “So what you’re saying is for all the strong guys to kill each other so only one is left? How does that bode for the strength of the clan overall?” The large group grumbled among themselves.

This was getting old. If these people wanted to be stupid, could she save them from themselves? “All right. If you insist on having one leader, then you all get to vote on who that will be. And pray that you’re right and he doesn’t take all the power to his head and do stupid s**t that could get you all destroyed like Filip almost did.

“You better hope like hell this one person doesn’t pick favorites and give those people more than they give you. Or protect them and send you to wolves. Be sure you pick the one who will always look out for your best interests, not his own.

“You want this person to listen to your complaints, all of them, and do something about them. Then, of course, they need to run the clan fairly and keep it strong against those who would take it over and enslave you.” She looked around the room for the second-in-command.

“Damon, since Filip has been AWOL, how much time do you get to see your family?” Before he could speak, a pretty brunette stood.

“I’ll answer that. None. He’s at the clan house working from sundown to sunup. His child doesn’t even know him well enough to call him da-da.” Her last words wavered and she gave a little sniffle.

Aria looked to Damon then back to the lady. She saw the love between them, but also the sadness. Hell, if this didn’t convince the clan to have a group of leaders, she didn’t know what would.

Then she realized something that had never rolled around in her head. She could be in Damon’s place, and that woman standing alone in the middle of a sea of faces could be her mate.

How would she feel if their child didn’t know or love her enough to call her mama? Trev—her mate would take care of the child, seldom seeing her. She thought back to her parents when she was little. How was her childhood? Was she really happy?