Chapter 27 Jabari
JABARI
The man at the head of the table smiled as if we had arrived precisely on time for something he had orchestrated weeks ago.
It was not the kind of smile that welcomed guests.
It was the kind that said the pieces had already been moved across the board and the rest of us were only just noticing the trap.
His gaze drifted past Malachi first. He dismissed him with the casual arrogance of a man who thought he understood the hierarchy standing in front of him. Then his attention settled on Nyx.
Slow. Deliberate. Appreciative in a way that made something low and violent tighten in my chest.
"Omega subject," he said smoothly. "Step forward."
The words were controlled and bureaucratic enough to pretend this was some kind of formal proceeding. They still landed wrong.
The bond snapped tight so fast it stole a fraction of my breath. It was not jealousy. It was not heat. It was instinct.
Four alphas recognized the same threat in the same heartbeat. A stranger's attention had fixed on something the pack had already claimed.
It started in my shoulders. That slow tightening that means my alpha done already picked which man in the room he fixing to kill. Muscle coiled under my skin while I counted distance from us to that table. Ain’t never been a patient man when somebody stare too long at what belong to my pack.
Nyx went rigid beside me. She did not shrink. She did not cower.
She went rigid the way steel does when pressure hits the blade.
Behind her, Kairo inhaled sharply enough to sound like the pull of a trigger. I did not need to look at him to know his control was hanging by threads. The boy carried his emotions loud when it came to her.
Elijah went quiet.
Not still. Quiet.
That particular silence meant his mind was already dismantling the room piece by piece. Cameras. Angles. Exits. Who had weapons and who believed they were important enough to stand near the table.
Malachi did not move at all. The air around him still shifted.
It always did when he decided a room belonged to him whether anyone agreed or not. His stillness was not passive. It was territorial.
Like a wolf settling deeper into a clearing and daring anything stupid enough to test it.
I kept my smile in place.
Not because anything about this amused me. Anger shown too early was a gift and I did not hand gifts to men who collected omegas.
My body stayed easy but my alpha was pacing hard.
Every instinct in me said step forward, pull Nyx back two steps, tuck her behind my shoulder where she belong.
But this room was bait and everybody in it knew it.
So I kept my smile, slow and polite, while my hands itched to break somebody.
Staring at her too long come with consequences. They just ain’t felt them yet.
But Nyx stepped forward before any of us moved.
She did not move cautiously. She did not move obediently.
She moved with purpose.
Her heels struck the stone floor in firm deliberate beats that echoed faintly through the chamber. Each step landed like a decision. Shoulders squared. Chin lifted. Spine straight as steel.
She looked less like an omega answering a summons and more like a woman walking into a den built to devour her and deciding she would make it choke instead.
Something tight pulled in my chest then.
Pride hit first. Girl walked straight into a room full of men who think they own the world and still stood like the floor belong to her.
Fear followed close behind it. Not for me. For her.
Not the quiet kind either. The kind that make an alpha mean. The kind that say if anything in this room touch her wrong I stop being civilized.
If one of them men at that table leaned toward her wrong I was going to redecorate the chamber with pieces of them. Polite about it too.
Council chamber or not.
Protocol or not.
The chamber itself had been engineered for discomfort.
A wall of thick, seamless glass cut the room clean in half, separating the Council from everyone else like we were something to be observed instead of heard.
Cold fluorescent lights hummed overhead and drained warmth from every face in the room.
Every movement echoed faintly across it. Every person in the room could see themselves reflected back in that mirror shine.
The effect was deliberate.
Nothing in this room belonged to you.
Nyx's reflection moved across that stone as she approached the table. Her silhouette stretched beneath her feet in the harsh light.
The Council believed they were summoning an omega.
What they really doing is testing the patience of a pack that already decided she ours. Men make mistakes like that and somehow they life expectancy get real short.
Nyx stopped a measured distance from the glass barrier that stood between her and the Council table. Close enough that refusing to approach would look like fear. Far enough that even without the glass, no one seated there could reach her, and with it, there was no crossing that line at all.
Smart.
Her hands rested loosely at her sides. Anyone who did not know what to look for might have mistaken that posture for calm.
I saw the small flex in her fingers.
Rage.
The pulse in her throat fluttered once. Her scent spiked through the sterile air before she forced it back under control.
"Full name," the Councilman said.
"Nyxelle Brooks."
No tremble. No hesitation.
He glanced down at the folder in front of him.
"Bonded under provisional authority to Meridian Syndicate."
"Yes."
"Registry irregular."
Elijah's voice cut across the chamber.
"Corrected," he said calmly. "Filed. Archived oversight acknowledged by Council systems."
The Councilman's smile thinned.
"Archived oversight dissolves jurisdiction."
"Still valid," Elijah replied. "Your databases recognize it."
The Councilman lifted his gaze again.
Not to Elijah.
To Nyx.
"Your sister," he said. "Remains under Council stabilization."
Nyx's fingers curled slowly into her palms.
"Where is she?"
"Under review."
"That is not an answer."
A pen began scratching across a legal pad somewhere along the Council table.
Nyx's head snapped toward the sound.
"Stop writing like she isn’t a person," Nyx said.
The pen paused.
The Councilman leaned back in his chair and studied Nyx with open irritation now. The polite mask he had worn when we first entered the chamber had begun to crack.
"You are emotional," he said. "Common in unregulated omegas."
Nyx laughed.
It was not polite and it was not quiet. The sound carried across the chamber sharp enough that several of the Council members lifted their heads from their paperwork.
"You kidnapped my sister," Nyx said. "You are forcing her to be your guinea pig like this is entertainment. And you think the problem in this room is my attitude."
The Councilman did not answer immediately. His gaze sharpened slightly as if recalculating the situation in front of him.
Nyx stepped closer until she was right up against the glass, close enough to see every detail on their faces but still completely cut off from them.
Malachi's hand tightened around her waist but he did not pull her back. He knew what the rest of us knew. Nyx was not built to stay quiet when someone threatened blood she loved.
"You want respect," Nyx continued. "Start acting like men instead of bureaucrats hiding behind a glass wall."
The Councilwoman with the legal pad began writing again.
Nyx's head snapped toward the sound.
"You really think this is just paperwork," she said. "Write this down then. Write that the Council needed five guards and a drugged girl to feel powerful in their own building."
Kairo swore softly behind her under his breath.
The Councilman's expression hardened.
"You are in no position to insult this Council," he said.
Nyx tilted her head slightly as if she were genuinely considering that statement.
"No," she said. "I think I am in the perfect position." Her gaze moved deliberately across the long table. "Because you already took everything from us that matters," she said quietly. "So what exactly do you think I am afraid of now."
Silence tightened across the chamber.
The Councilman stood.
Slowly.
The movement carried the quiet authority of someone who was used to people shrinking when he rose.
Nyx did not shrink.
"Bring the subject forward," he said, glancing toward the far side of the chamber behind the glass.
The guards came in forcing Tatum to walk toward the center of the chamber. Her knees buckled again and the guards hauled her upright.
Nyx's jaw tightened visibly.
"Look at her," Nyx said. "You had to drug her to stand in the same room with you."
A faint murmur moved across the Council table.
The Councilman slipped a hand inside his jacket.
"You misunderstand our authority," he said.
When his hand emerged the blade caught the fluorescent light.
The knife was narrow and perfectly balanced.
My body moved before my brain finished thinking.
Two guards moved the second I stepped forward.
Hands caught my shoulders and shoved me back before I could reach the glass barrier splitting the chamber.
Took everything in me not to tear through them anyway.
If that glass wasn't there that councilman would already be bleeding out on that pretty floor.
The Councilman stepped closer to Tatum and rested the blade lightly against the hollow of her throat. My vision narrowed down to that knife and the space between us. The alpha inside me went real still, the way something dangerous does right before it strikes.
Tatum blinked slowly, still fighting through whatever drugs they had forced into her system. Her eyes wandered across the room like the world would not sit still long enough for her to understand it.
Then she saw Nyx.
Recognition hit in pieces. Her brow creased and her mouth trembled before she managed to focus on her sister standing across the chamber.
"Nyx?" she murmured.