Chapter 13: The Hearing

The old courthouse sits at the top of Mill Street, red brick with a clock that stopped in 1971.

The county sold it to the pack when they built the new one.

On Thursday night every bench was full.

Wolves stood two deep along the walls and sat on the stairs to the gallery.

The omegas were packed into the gallery itself, up under the dead clock, where they always sit.

I walked down the center aisle in my good blazer with a manila folder under my arm.

I could hear four hundred wolves breathing.

Abel walked beside me.

He had shaved the edges of his beard and put on a tie, which I hadn't known he owned.

"You look like you're heading to your own sentencing," I said.

"It's a clip-on," he said. "I'm keeping my options open."

June came behind us in clean purple scrubs.

On the drive over we'd agreed on two rules.

Nothing about Posy's pulse.

Nothing about Tansy.

Not one word of either until we'd found her.

The council sat at the long judge's bench.

Five Elders.

The senior Elder in the middle, with his silver pin.

Jarek sat in the Alpha's chair to one side.

He was gray under the eyes.

He didn't look at me.

Posy sat in the front row in her cream coat with her hands folded in her lap.

The new doctor from Billings sat beside her, smelling of his cologne.

"You're accused of drugging your Alpha while he lay in your care," the senior Elder said. "How do you answer?"

"No," I said.

"That's all?"

"It's a short answer to a short lie."

Somebody in the gallery laughed and turned it into a cough.

I opened the folder.

"The tox screen from Copper Falls General," I said. "Lorazepam, a heavy dose."

I held up the next sheet.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Rejected By The Alpha For An Omega from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.