Chapter Two
The Council was meeting at a local hotel—at the hotel, if you happened to be part of the magical community in Vegas—known as Dante’s.
It was one of the few places where odd was normal, weird was winked at, and anything that didn’t burn the whole place down could be accommodated if you paid the avaricious hotel manager enough.
Which I guessed the Council had, because it had taken over the entirety of the extensive conference rooms for the last month, after the usual meeting place was, uh, made unavailable.
I suppose they had cleaned up all of the blood by now, from the events of a month ago, and burned the bodies. But that didn’t mean anybody wanted to assemble there, or probably would for a while. So, Dante’s it was, and I had to admit the place was impressive.
A little too much so, as the final ceremonies were in the biggest of the banquet rooms, with a soaring ceiling, cream and gold accents, and a marble floor that somebody really should carpet, because it caused every footfall to echo.
That would have been bad enough as we clickety-clacked across in almost dead silence, with me in backless heels I was trying to keep up with because Weres didn’t wear binding clothes.
A strap-covered sandal might have been as much of an insult as Ulmer’s caftan, going too far in the other direction, and I didn’t have his reputation for crazy to prevent the fallout.
Straps said overconfidence; straps said I’m backed by Clan Arnou and protected; straps said I think I can do whatever I want, like dragging a bunch of vargulfs into the heart of the Were world, and bind up my feet because I’ll never have to fight for it.
Straps would have been bad, like too much jewelry, which again said “I won’t have to fight.
” Or the wrong perfume, or too much of it, covering up my natural musk and making it appear like I was hiding something, because Weres’ scents changed slightly based on mood.
Or a color scheme too close to Arnou’s blue and silver, which could be taken for throwing the relationship in everyone’s face.
Or a thousand other things that I hoped I’d remembered when putting all this together, because anything, absolutely anything, that could be taken as an insult tonight would be.
Yet it didn’t look like it had been enough, as none of the surrounding faces were happy.
Even Arnou, our sponsor, was dour, probably because their leader had put their own vaunted reputation on the line by trusting a bunch of ex-vargulfs to form a workable clan.
But at least they kept their expressions stoic, which was more than I could say for most of the other clans.
Many faces in the crowd bore faint looks of disgust, some had full-on sneers, and a few turned their shoulders slightly as we passed, as if rejecting the very idea of us.
I was angry that clan law made it necessary to subject our boys to this, furious that my fellow Weres were still this freaking medieval, pissed off that I couldn’t do a damned thing about it but keep my chin up and keep walking. But inside, my blood boiled.
I knew Cyrus wasn’t doing any better, although he didn’t show it.
As clan leader, he couldn’t afford to broadcast his feelings, as they would influence those of every wolf he had, and these boys weren’t socialized well enough to handle something like that.
If their leader was boiling, they would be, too, and that could be a recipe for disaster.
So calm down, Lia! I told myself harshly. Because they could feel my agitation, too, I knew they could. But I wasn’t all that well socialized as a Were yet myself, having only Changed for the first time a month ago, and while I’d thought I understood Weres before that, I’d been seriously mistaken.
I had spent the last month learning that growing up clan, thanks to my mother’s blood, and growing up Were were two very different things.
As a war mage, I was supposed to have iron control, something the Corps drilled into all recruits, who were like walking magical tanks and couldn’t afford to pop off at every insult.
And then I’d had the added, accidental training of being a Were in a Corps that viewed my kind with serious distrust, and that was on a good day.
So, I’d thought I had a master’s degree in restraint, but swallowing this much of an insult…
Yeah.
Calm the hell down already!
And then it happened, as I had feared it would: halfway to the dais where Sebastian was waiting, an entire clan made an ostentatious show of turning their backs on us, all at once.
And since they’d thoughtfully taken up positions on the front row, there was no chance that anyone had missed it.
Even if they had, the collective gasp that went around the room would have gotten everybody’s attention.
Okay, what was this?
I didn’t know, but it was catching. Several other clans had started looking at each other, as if they were thinking of following suit, in a public spectacle that wouldn’t just reject us, a nobody clan few cared about, but Sebastian and the rule of Arnou as well. And maybe that was the point.
Because the clan in question was Rand, and Cyrus had killed their leader, Whirlwind, in a duel a month ago just down the hall.
I hadn’t actually expected to see them, as they’d been conspicuously absent from the proceedings all month, citing the need to bury and mourn their leader as an excuse. But most people thought they just hadn’t dared to show their faces. Only it seemed like they’d dared tonight.
And we had to answer this. There was no way to hold up our heads again, or even to be considered a true clan if we didn’t.
And if we weren’t a clan, these boys were still vargulf and could be killed on sight, something half the people in this room would have been fine with, and which the other half was likely jonesing for.
Jace had a reason for his concern besides just nerves.
But before anybody else voted one way or the other, before Sebastian could even intervene, Cyrus stopped, smiled, and tapped one of the offending clan members on the shoulder.
The man jerked, snarled, and spun on a dime. Well, at least he’s now facing the right way, I thought. And pulled Jace back against me, in case this got ugly.
And it was pretty much guaranteed to get ugly, because you didn’t pull something like this in the middle of Clan Council if you didn’t want to fight.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Ulmer said loudly and transformed, just that fast. Cyrus hadn’t yet, and he put out an arm to indicate that the rest of us shouldn’t, either, but I didn’t know how long that was likely to hold, as his own eyes were suddenly a lot lighter and brighter.
Wolf eyes, peeking out at their next prey.
Only I wasn’t sure that the math exactly mathed in this case. Rand was a big clan, and it looked like every one of them was here tonight, seriously outnumbering us. If we’d been on our own, we’d be dead.
But we weren’t on our own, something they knew very well. It was the reason, other than enjoying a good fight, that Ulmer was already in wolf form, despite being a member of another clan. Because, as pathetic as we might be on our own, we were sponsored by someone who very definitely wasn’t.
Someone who had just stood up and walked down the steps of the dais to back up his brother, but stopped at the foot, still halfway across the space, to let him handle this.
However, it had just been made very clear that Clan Arnou stood ready and willing to assist the fledgling Fireborn. And that was making everyone unhappy.
Every clan here was allied with either Rand or Arnou, and many with both, as they were two of the oldest and most prestigious of all the clans.
And nobody seemed to have expected this any more than I had, because low-voiced, rapid conversations were breaking out everywhere, as people realized they might have to choose sides. Immediately.
A civil war had been threatening for a while now, with half of the clans sick of supporting the Silver Circle in the current war, sick of Sebastian’s reforms to Were society, sick of anything and everything that threatened their positions.
I just hadn’t expected it to come to a head tonight.
And neither had Cyrus, who was looking pissed but also perplexed.
Was this a political ploy, meant to start a schism, or a son grieving his father and doing something stupid?
And was his clan really behind him, or being forced to go along with it, or prove themselves divided and leaderless at a vulnerable juncture?
“Bleddyn of Rand,” Cyrus said, his voice ringing out in the echoing space. “You have had a month to challenge, should you think it needful, yet you leave it so late?”
“No challenge,” the sneer was almost palpable. “Such a ‘clan’ doesn’t deserve the honor!”
“Such a clan?” Cyrus didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t have to.
His expression was eloquent as he swept his eyes over the disgraced Rand.
Which was the only one of the two of us to have lost a leader recently for treason, for cheating in a challenge, and for then losing said challenge anyway, along with his life.
Bleddyn caught the insult and flushed puce, which was dangerous for more than one reason.
He was a big man, standing at least six-foot-five and possibly a shade more, bald, paunchy, and yet as heavily muscled as all Were men, and some of the women, were.
He looked like he was in his late thirties, but heading for a heart attack in another ten to twelve, or possibly tonight if he didn’t calm down.
Of course, if he didn’t calm down, it wouldn’t be his heart that killed him.
Annnnd he didn’t, but his target wasn’t Cyrus.