Page 119 of Mortal Shift
“Nothing useful.” He snapped his eyes to me, all business again. “Alpha Cain wasn’t around so I checked in with Beta Blaine. He says they’re stalling as much as they can, but the vamps are getting restless. And Cole is standing by his confession. If he’d retract it, we could force a trial, at least. But he’s refusing—or so the guards say.”
He ground his teeth in frustration and I felt the urge to do the same.
“They’re still not letting anyone see him?”
Jax shook his head. “They’re keeping him locked down tight.”
“Dammit. This whole thing is ridiculous. He didn’t do it, so why is he saying he did?”
“If we knew that…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I slumped down in my seat and scrubbed a hand over my face. If I could see him, I was sure I could convince him to take his confession back. “Astor says she’s still pushing for them to let me see him, but I don’t know if I believe her.”
“You think she’d lie?” Ling asked.
“Iknowshe’d lie,” I said. “I just don’t know if she’s lying about this.”
“I don’t think so,” Jax said. “They usually let a shifter’s alpha take down his final wishes as a courtesy, but they’re not even allowing that. Seems like they don’t want anyone near him.”
“Which proves they’re hiding something,” I said, getting up from my seat.
“Itprovesnothing,” Ling said, catching my arm. “All our evidence is circumstantial at best, and most of it isn’t even that. If we go blundering in…”
“Yeah,” I agreed glumly. “I know that, too.”
I paced around the small library, looking up at the towering bookcases lining the circular room. How could there be so many books here, and yet none of them had anything even remotely helpful? There were cases dedicated to law textbooks and case studies, and yet not one of them covered what to do when the council tried to block someone visiting her true mate when he hadn’t even been convicted of anything. Of course, a shifter being fated to a human was almost unheard of, and cases where the mate bond hadn’t been sealed were rarer still—non-existent, in these case studies. Not for the first time, I cursed the stupid rules of this stupid world. What did it matter if he’d bitten me or not? What did it matter if I’d promised myself to him forever? He still had rights, he should still have some kind of representation, and the chance to see his friends and family.
“And why aren’t the healers doing anything to fix Thaden?” I demanded of no-one in particular. “You can’t tell me they have access to healing magic but they can’t fix one little bite from a shifter. I mean, how much damage could he really have done?”
Ling and Jax shared a look.
“Okay, fine,” I said, “I know we don’t know if it was a bite. But what else could have made them think it was a shifter?”
Jax shrugged but didn’t bother to answer. I didn’t blame him. We’d been over the same ground time and again, never getting so much as a sniff of an answer. And I was getting sick of it. I was going to find a way to fight this, and that meant I needed to know the facts.
“I’ll catch you later,” I said to the pair of them abruptly, turning on my heel and heading for the door.
“Where are you going?” Ling asked warily.
“To find Thessalia and make her take me to see her brother—and to hell with her stupid excuses.”
“Much as I’d love to see that,” Jax said, “how exactly do you plan to make a vampire princess do anything?”
I thought I might start by threatening to expose her secret, since we had nothing left to lose if we couldn’t get Cole out, but I could hardly tell Jax and Ling that.
“Jax is right. The last thing we need is you getting locked up. An attack on the sister of the vampire who was attacked, by the mate of the shifter who was supposed to have attacked him? It’ll condemn you both.”
I turned her convoluted sentence over in my head and, once I’d finished deciphering it, had to admit she had a point. There was only so much pressure I could put on her. And even if things didn’t get physical—and I very much hoped they wouldn’t, because I had no desire to get my ass kicked—anything I said about her now would be discredited just because of who I was. But I had to try. Anything was better than sitting around here doing nothing.
“I’ll be careful.”
Ling opened her mouth to object, but before she could get more than a squeak out, the library door swung inwards.
Zane stood outlined in the doorway. His eyes picked me out and pinned me to the spot.
“Get your shit. You’re wanted.”
“Um…” I shot a look over my shoulder at Ling and then back to the instructor. “By who?”
