Chapter 20: Smell It Yourselves

Odette's POV

My legs were mine again by the time Alasdair set me down.

The brown bottle had burned a hot path down my throat, and the green fog was thinning from the edges of my head.

I stood in the middle of the hall with his hand under my elbow and his torn shirt against my arm.

Four packs stared at us.

"Yes," I said again, louder, so there could be no doubt. "Alasdair Colquhoun is my mate. I answered, aloud, in front of the Moot."

"You answered drugged," the old man said. "That is not an answer."

A noise went through the benches.

I turned my head slowly and looked at him.

"Drugged," I said.

"You were ill. Anything said by a sick woman is void."

"Interesting," I said. "Because in the yard this morning, you told two hundred wolves I'd been kept asleep with drugs."

His face did not change.

"Nobody had said that out loud to you," I went on.

"I told Alasdair at six this morning. I told my grandmother. I told Padraig. That is the whole list."

"It was common talk."

"It wasn't common anywhere. Who told you about the tea?"

Silence.

I looked at Imogen.

She was standing now, with one hand at the locket.

The whole room watched her pale.

"I don't know what she's talking about," Imogen said brightly. "Daddy, make her stop. She's confused."

"Padraig," I said.

Padraig came forward from the doors, holding a leather satchel against his chest.

He set it on the oak table in front of the woman Alpha and took out two small tins.

"Both are labelled in Imogen Slade's handwriting," he said.

"One I took from Odette's desk the day she quit. One was left on her porch yesterday with a card."

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