The Council made it a rule not to meet late at night. It disturbed the nighttime routine and aroused suspicion.
The room was silent. Milo was not present. Tristan imagined him glancing around at each face and then back, his head rotating on its axis like a disorderly planet.
He and the other three representatives trained their gazes at anything except one another.
The single topic on the docket was the question of the human women.
Even if it were not his so-called executive power they depended on, they were split down the middle: Marcum and Hannibal for obligatory turning, Tristan and Killian against it.
“So, what’s the plan, then?” Marcum spoke up. “What are we going to do?”
“Turn any mated human woman who hasn’t conceived in her first year here,” said Hannibal coldly. “And keep the rest as breeders.”
“So, we’re not going the decent route,” retorted Killian, “and treating them like people.”
He was irritated, Tristan thought, in the way that someone could only be irritated when they have been interrupted during, or immediately following, sex.
“Play it cool,” muttered Tristan out of the side of his mouth.
“It’s hardly a question of decency.” Hannibal jumped to Marcum’s defense. “It’s not only Walker who’s lost himself after losing a mate. Look at what happened to Hayden. One option jeopardizes a few people, and the other jeopardizes the whole pack.”
“A few people?” exclaimed Killian. “These women were given a purpose, which was fucked up to begin with, and now they have nothing. Not all of them have mates. And there’s a one-in-four chance they could die while being turned.”
“We might have to sacrifice—”
“Sacrifice what, Hannibal? Sacrifice whom? I’ll tell you now, I’m not sacrificing my mate for anything in the goddamn world!”
Hannibal narrowed his eyes.
“You mean the Alpha pretender?”
Killian lunged across the table at him—if Tristan hadn’t restrained him, he would have had Hannibal by the throat.
“You condescending—”
“Killian,” pleaded Tristan.
“Talk negatively about my mate one more time and you’re a dead motherfucker.”
“Where the hell is Milo?” demanded Marcum as the two sides of the table began to separate again. “I hate to say it, but this is just like him.”
“It was naïve to even think he’d show up.” Tristan slumped back in his seat.
“He’s doing the best he can,” countered Hannibal.
“Well, if the best he can do is spacing out all the time, we’re all fucked.”
“The pack is better off in general since Milo became Alpha,” Marcum pointed out. “We’re kind of enjoying our lives now.”
“Are we?” Killian stared at Marcum. “You can tell me in all honesty that you enjoy the life you have here?”
“It’s better than it was before.”
“You mean with Hayden?” Tristan actually laughed. “That’s not a very high bar, if you ask me!”
“No one did,” spat Hannibal.
“Fuck off.”
“So,” Killian said, attempting to steer the discussion back on course, “we wait on Milo to settle the vote.”
“Right,” said Tristan, and the others nodded.
“And now we get the hell out of here before we all kill each other.”
“I don’t think that was ever our problem,” sneered Hannibal, gesturing to himself and Marcum.
Tristan stood up. “Good night.”
They filed out. The hostility in the air stung like a noxious fume.
The pain in Milo’s head was going to burst his skull.
He lay on his bed, writhing, breathing heavily.
His thoughts were hardly ever straightforward anymore—but this much was certain, this much pounded in every lobe of his brain, demanding, tumescent:
He had to get to the Appointment Room. He had to get some relief.
Slowly he pushed himself into an upright sitting position. The stabbing feeling was beginning to recede into a familiar, dull ache.
This ache came in waves. If he could measure the waves, he could maybe make it without falling.
One foot on the floor, then the other, but he remained sitting.
His whole body felt swollen, engorged. Tumescent, again. Like a walking tumor.
He could not remember the last time he had felt like an organic living creature.
Everything these days was about feeling. Sensation. That was what the outside world was selling you, and that was what the producers were trying to elicit from the viewers.
But he didn’t know how to go about saying such a thing anymore. It was easier to just lie down and take it.
And, frankly, he wasn’t even sure how to trust his own feelings anymore.
Perhaps nothing he was feeling was real by now. Perhaps he had been pumped so full of chemicals that they had edged out all naturally occurring emotions.
At the moment he had to figure out how to lie down and take something else.
Something that would ease this…throbbing.
He was vaguely aware that there was some event tonight at which he should have been present. Ask him what it was, or who would be there, and he was lost.
His brain was a chorus of confusion at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes he thought of making a break for the barbed wire, just to finally get the assurance of some rest.
According to Delaney, Milo had fans and haters, and they would duke it out.
If you asked him, he wasn’t worth being fought over. He didn’t understand.
Everything he did, every action he took, he only became aware of a second or two after he did it. So he was already stumbling out into the hall before he came to himself.
Was he dressed properly? Was that of any importance whatsoever? This whole ordeal had taught Milo, if nothing else, to prioritize.
Get to the Appointment Room or die trying. That was the priority.
At the end of the hall, he heaved with all his might and got himself through the door and out into the vestibule.
Where, naturally, he found himself face-to-face with an armed guard.
“Something you need, sir?” said the guard. Milo couldn’t see his face, but that gun in his hands didn’t need an explanation.
“App-point,” he stuttered. Speaking at length at this point was pretty much out of the question.
“Can’t let you out, sir. What is it you need from them?”
“Med…med,” he trailed off.
The guard appeared to understand. “We’ll see what we can do. Meanwhile, let me get you back to your room. No one outside the compound after hours without express permission from production.”
He took Milo by his newly muscular upper arm and led him back to the room.
As he deposited him on the bed the guard added, “We’ll alert you to your weekly appointments. Aside from that, don’t expect to be roaming outside. Liability.”
Milo stared with glassy eyes up at the ceiling long after the guard had gone.
Everything was spiraling out of control. This was a thought he’d entertained many times, more and more frequently as the months wore on, and each time he figured that was the end.
The last time.
The wall.
When was he going to hit the wall at last? When was he going to get free?
Even if freedom meant death... that was infinitely preferable to being a liability.
Infinitely preferable to being trapped.
Shannon’s eyes flashed. They were sitting in Shannon’s room during Blythe’s break from the kitchen.
“I agree, but don’t get yourself worked up,” Blythe reminded her.
They had a lot to talk about.
Or, more specifically, mind-link about.
Blythe knew that being marked by a shifter had given her access to the mind-linking abilities the shifters had.
They hugged and Blythe slipped out the door.
As Blythe began to make her way back to the kitchen, she couldn’t help but glance at every camera she could see from here. All the same style, all the same function, all recording different areas.
There was so much at stake. For her. For Shannon. For all of the human women.
She knew the viewers likely still weren’t aware of the history of the breeders.
Let alone the practice of taking the children from their mothers.
The producers chose what the audience saw, and the forcible impregnation of women certainly wasn’t what they were trying to portray.
But what would happen if the viewers knew?
As Blythe glanced up at the camera over the kitchen door, it came to her.
