As she kept her mouth shut and continued writing, she picked out a few choice phrases from the argument her
factionnaires
were still waging—just enough to let her know that there were two main schools of thought on the current issue. Either the Dragonstars and Shadowdrakes were provoking them and the Wyvernmoons were simply responding in kind, or the Wyvernmoons were doing the provoking.
She weighed the probabilities of both scenarios in her head, based on the information she currently had—which, she had to admit, was sorely lacking. She looked at them in combination with the things she’d already written down throughout the day and didn’t like the conclusions she came to.
“Why have we been provoking them?” she asked when the room finally fell into a seething kind of silence.
“We haven’t—” Julian started again, but she held up her hand to cut him off.
“I’m not aware of any raids from either of those clans on our compound in the past year. Longer, really, but let’s go with the past twelve months, just to be clear. Except for the one where my father was killed.”
“Like that wasn’t enough?” Luc demanded. “They came here and killed our king. We should already be at war, instead of just contemplating it behind closed doors. What kind of a message does it send if we don’t avenge Silus’s death?”
“We’ve tried,” Remy answered. “Brock got his neck snapped for the privilege, as have numerous others.”
“That’s because we’re going at this piecemeal,” Julian said firmly. “Everyone is doing their own thing, leading their own little faction. Whether it’s Wyatt’s group or Acel’s or even mine. We all have our own agendas and we’re not working together, when what we should be doing is uniting under one leader and going after them full force. This cloak-and-dagger stuff is ridiculous, especially considering the fact that we have the numbers to do it.”
“But why do we want to do it?” Cecily demanded again. “I know they killed my family. I understand that, believe me. Nobody in this room misses Jacob more than I do. But I keep trying to figure this out, and every way I look at this, the blame is on us.
We
attacked
them
.”
“That’s not strictly true,” said Garen. “Remember, they came here and killed Silus.”
“Because we had Dylan MacLeod’s mate!” Thierren answered. “Are you forgetting that?”
“The whys aren’t important,” Remy said with a wave of his hand.
“I beg to differ,” Cecily objected. “The whys are everything here. Are we responsible for the situation we find ourselves in? Did we
cause
this enmity with the Dragonstars?”
An uncomfortable silence, one that had her stomach sinking as her worst fears were confirmed, filled the room. “And what about the Shadowdrakes? Did we also kidnap Rafael’s mate?” she asked, referring to the Shadowdrake king.
“He has no mate,” Devin answered.
“Because he hasn’t found her yet, or because we killed her?”
“Cecily! You’re being ridiculous!” Julian burst out.
“Am I, Julian? Am I, really?” Taking a deep breath, she spent a long minute trying to figure out what she wanted to say—and how she wanted to say it. Their battles, their raids, their war—whatever they wanted to call it—had systematically been weakening the clan for years, taking money and resources away from the civilian dragons in an effort to gain . . . what? She didn’t have a clue, but whatever it was they were hoping to achieve, it hadn’t happened so far. All they’d done was hurt themselves—hurt the clan—almost beyond repair.
But she couldn’t say that, not now. After all, there really was no good way to accuse the men in the room—and her father—of treason. Or, at least, the closest thing to it. Because the longer she sat there looking at the evidence, the more it began to seem like that was exactly what had been going on.
Letting that fight go, for the moment, anyway, she asked, “What did we do to get the Shadowdrakes all worked up? They’re pretty reclusive over there in California, and I have trouble imagining them killing sixty or so of our clan mates without provocation.”
“It’s not that simple,” Nicolas said.
“On the contrary, I think it is exactly that simple. I have a hard time believing that two formerly peace-loving clans, acting independently of each other, suddenly have it out for us. Not for each other, not for anyone else, just for us. If we haven’t done something to provoke this, then what the hell is going on?”
No one answered her, and no one looked her in the eye. Even Gage suddenly found his shoes a lot more interesting than her words. “Come on,” she added impatiently. “Until I know exactly what caused all of this, how am I supposed to be able to stop it?”
“You think
you’re
going to stop it?” Acel burst out incredulously. “When your father couldn’t? That’s—”
A well-placed elbow from Remy shut him up, but as she looked around her, she realized that nearly every man in the room was staring at her just as dubiously.
“Cecily, darling.” Dax spoke up for the first time. “While we all very much appreciate your desire to be involved in the clan politics, the fact of the matter is, you’re out of your depth here. You don’t know all the history, you don’t know the particulars and you don’t know the players beyond the most superficial level. How, exactly, do you propose to devise a strategy to extricate us from this mess?”
His voice was soft, his body language nonconfrontational, but she knew when she’d been put in her place. Her father had certainly done it to her often enough.
The blood drained from her face as embarrassment filled her, along with a hopeless fury. Dax was her friend, had been for nearly her entire life. If he didn’t have any faith in her, how was she supposed to win over the other dragons like Remy and Acel and Luc, who had been around for well over half a millennia and who didn’t believe she had any right to even be in this room, let alone planning strategy for the clan?
For a minute, she reeled under the weight of just how much she had to do. A part of her wanted nothing more than to run back to her house and hide, never to be seen in this room again. She didn’t need this—didn’t need the suspicion and the sarcasm, the maliciousness and the doubts. She’d gotten more than enough of those things growing up as Silus’s daughter.
But she couldn’t just leave them to their own devices, either. With the route they were going, the clan would be under a full-scale attack in a matter of months. After all, you could pull a dragon’s tail for only so long before it showed you its teeth. She had a feeling Dylan MacLeod and Rafael Vega were on the brink of doing more than just showing their teeth—the two kings were about to gobble up the Wyvernmoons once and for all. And while the
factionnaires
would pay—more than likely with their lives—so would the clan’s civilian dragons, who would be dragged into the fight.
That she couldn’t tolerate, not if there was any way she could stop it.
She had to try, had to say something profound right now, or any progress she’d made—which was, admittedly, almost nonexistent—would disappear and she’d end up even further behind than she had been when she’d marched in here yesterday.
“Diplomacy.” She groped for a better explanation, something that would prove she at least had a clue about how this game was played. “We need to reach out to Rafael and Dylan, show them that we’re not—”
“Reach out to the man who murdered our king?” Julian’s fist banged down on the huge cherry table they were gathered around. “Are you insane? That will never happen!”
“I thought it was Dylan’s wife who killed Silus?” she asked, determined to get the facts straight once and for all. Bad enough that she was, for all intents and purposes, fumbling around in the dark here. The least she could do was make sure she knew what she was talking about when she did open her mouth.
“He was there, and he would have killed your father if his mate hadn’t gotten to Silus first. Besides, as anyone knows, the king is ultimately responsible for what his people do—particularly those in the royal family.”
He was absolutely right. She knew he was, but he was twisting things around to suit his own agenda. That responsibility he talked of worked both ways. Yes, the king—or queen—was responsible for the actions of his or her clan members. But at the same time, he or she also had a responsibility to those same clan members, and it seemed to her that this two-way street was something her father and his
factionnaires
had completely forgotten through the years.
Yes, Dylan was responsible for his wife’s killing of Silus, but Silus was responsible for having put her in a position where she felt murder was the only answer. They could go round and round for days, but whatever was said, whatever was thought, the fact remained that this problem belonged firmly on the Wyvernmoons’ doorstep.
And since, according to the
Conseil
’s own beliefs, she was now responsible for what the Wyvernmoons did, there was no way she would sanction any more raids or attacks or battles or whatever the hell the
factionnaires
wanted to call them, unless she really believed they were necessary and in the Wyvernmoons’ best interest. And she didn’t, not now when they had so many other pressing issues to deal with. And maybe she never would.
But when she said as much to the
Conseil
, they looked at her as if she were insane. Even Thierren and Gage, whom she’d believed were at least mostly on her side, didn’t seem to agree with the moratorium she was asking for.
“
Mon Dieu
, Cecily,” said Julian, outrage in every line of his body. “I know you weren’t close to your father, but I can’t believe his death means so little to you that you want us to just let it go. ‘Put it behind us,’ didn’t you say the last time we spoke?” He shook his head sadly, and she wondered if she was the only one who saw the gleam of triumph in his eyes. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“None of us can,” Remy agreed. “We need to avenge the deaths of your family and show both the Dragonstars and the Shadowdrakes that the Wyvernmoons are a force to be reckoned with.”
“But we aren’t. That’s the point, isn’t it? We’re losing power with every one of these ill-advised raids. Soon, we’ll be less than nothing.” As soon as the words were out, she wanted desperately to take them back. They were exactly what Julian had wanted her to say—hell, he’d even led her there like a sheep too stupid to know what was about to happen.
Looking around, she saw that every man in the room wore a look of affront, as if she had just cast aspersions on his very manhood. And maybe she had, though that certainly hadn’t been what she’d intended. But all dragons took the protection of their families, and their clans, very seriously, and that seriousness was doubled or tripled when dealing with the
factionnaires
. The most dominant of the clan’s dragons, they lived—and died—to protect their people.
By saying that the Wyvernmoons couldn’t stand up against their enemies—no matter how true that statement was—she had basically told the men sitting around her that they couldn’t be trusted to take care of the clan. While she might believe that, saying it straight out was a rookie mistake and one she wouldn’t soon recover from.
Once the significance of what she had done sunk in, she tried to backpedal as fast as she could. She knew it was too late, but she had to try to salvage a little bit of this disastrous meeting. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that you—”
“I think we’re done here,” Thierren interrupted her. “It’s been a long day. Let’s say we’ll pick it back up here tomorrow morning at nine.”
The other men nodded, started gathering their things, and she knew if she didn’t do something right then she was going to lose any hope she had of ever winning them to her side.
“Wait! I’m not done yet. There are still a number of things we need to consider. I want to talk about—”
“No offense, Cecily,” Thierren said with a grin that was all sharp teeth and razor blades. “But I don’t think anyone in this room really gives a shit what you want right now.”
“Damn straight,” said Dash as he headed for the door, the others right behind him.
And that was that. In less than a minute, the room was empty of everyone save her, and Cecily wanted nothing more than to lay her head on the huge cherry table and bawl her eyes out.
How could they just walk out on her like that? Yes, she’d said one wrong thing, but they’d been attacking her for two days and she was still there. She was still willing to work to save the clan. But she insulted them—accidentally—and they were through with her. It was bullshit, especially when she knew they never would have done it to her father.
But she wasn’t her father or her brother. She was just stupid little Cecily, and what she wanted didn’t matter. Just like it hadn’t mattered to them that they were being manipulated by Julian. She knew that most—if not all—of them were aware of it, could see it in their faces and the way they’d responded to him at various times throughout the day. And yet they’d chosen him. Chosen his subterfuge and veiled insults and selfishness over her desire to get the clan going in the right direction again.
How could that be? How could they care so little about the clan they professed to love that they would rather rally behind an asshole with an agenda than behind her, simply because she was a woman? Even worse, she hadn’t been able to do anything to stop it.
What it all boiled down to—what it always boiled down to—was that she had no authority to ask them for anything, let alone to enforce it. She was a member of the royal family, yes, but she was powerless.
Useless.
Her opinion of no import whatsoever.
They could walk away from her any time they wanted, and she had no way to stop them because she had no authority and she never would. She meant nothing to them, her opinions even less. The only reason the
factionnaires
had bothered to listen to her this long was out of courtesy—and respect for her dead father. But she’d killed that when she’d accidently said she didn’t think they were up to the task of protecting the clan.