"Half a dozen..." The shocked whisper of one councilor filled the suddenly silent room.
Madsen was still shaking his head. "Impossible. If this had been systematical, something that he did more than once, we would have noticed. Every kill has to be approved of by the majority vote of the council."
Griffin nodded slowly. "This is why we believe that one of you knew what Jennings was doing and was covering for him."
"What?" Madsen's outraged shout echoed through the council chamber. "You're not accusing me of —"
"No," Jorie said. She took a breath and gathered all her courage. "Not you. Her."
* * *
Kylin swiveled around with the rest of the councilors, following Jorie's outstretched arm.
Thyra Davis?
Gasps of surprise echoed through the room. Even Griffin looked as shocked as Kylin felt.
"Ridiculous! How dare you!" Her brown hair thickened, and Thyra roughly scratched one of her muscular arms. She lunged at Jorie without any warning.
Two empty chairs smashed against the wall, no match for Thyra's strength.
Jorie stumbled, trying to get away. She crashed into the table and fell. Her scream made Ky's ears ring.
Thyra pounced.
No!
Battle-ready muscles catapulted Ky forward. She grabbed Thyra's left shoulder just as Griffin's hands clasped the Maki's right upper arm in a vicelike grip.
They were fighting side by side.
This is the way it should have been fifteen years ago,
Ky realized.
I never should have let her fight alone.
Nella leaped forward with a roar that made most of the councilors scramble back. She landed in an aggressive crouch, ready to strike out should anyone else try to attack her daughters or Jorie.
Only when no one else moved and Thyra was struggling helplessly in their grip did Nella kneel down to help Jorie to her feet.
"Let me go!" Thyra raged, her speech slurred by her need to shift. "Can't you see that the damn human is lying?" She lowered her head and tried to head-butt Griffin.
Kylin struggled in vain to get a better grip on her.
"Stop it!" Jorie shouted, raising her voice over the commotion. She shrugged off Nella's helping hand and tried to push between Griffin and her attacker, ignoring the danger to herself.
Thyra swatted her away as if she were an annoying insect.
Jorie stumbled backward and collided with Nella.
Rage exploded in Griffin's eyes. She shoved Thyra against the nearest wall and cocked her fist.
"No!" Jeff Madsen's fingers snapped closed around Griffin's wrist. "You know the law. No violence within the walls of this chamber!"
Griffin stared at him, her fist still raised.
When two bulky guards filed into the room and pulled Thyra away at Madsen's orders, Griffin turned with a grunt of contempt and walked over to Jorie. Her gaze roved over every inch of the smaller woman's body. "You okay?"
"Yes," Jorie said. Her voice trembled. "I'm fine. I just wish you Wrasa would stop hitting me in the head."
Clearly, Jorie was everything but fine. A drop of blood dripped from her nose, and she quickly pressed her sleeve against it.
She's braver than all of the tough Wrasa in this room combined,
Ky thought with admiration. She shoved Thyra at the two guards but stayed between them and Jorie, determined not to let Thyra get close to the brave, but fragile human again.
Nella and the two guards dragged Thyra across the room, where Thyra kept struggling and glowering at Jorie. "You have no proof for your accusations!" Thyra howled.
"I saw it in my dreams," Jorie said. A cloak of fear trailed around her, but she didn't flinch when she faced the Maki who had attacked her.
Impressive
, Kylin thought again.
A murmur of surprise went through the councilors. Kylin smelled a change in their attitudes as they turned suspicious eyes on Thyra Davis.
"Cedric Jennings told you about his suspicions," Jorie said. "He told you there are human dream seers and that he wanted to stop them... kill them."
Thyra strained against the hands that had a tight grip on her.
Griffin stepped in front of Jorie, stopping Thyra's attempts to break free with a glare so feral that it took even Ky's breath away.
"But I didn't believe him!" Thyra Davis defended herself. "I thought it was just one of his crazy ideas. Human maharsi... that's crazy, right?" Her fake laughter rang through the council chamber, but no one joined in. She had lost the support of her fellow councilors when she had broken the age-old law prohibiting violence in the council chamber. It had also made her look guilty. "I thought it couldn't hurt to get rid of a few humans who could be a threat to us."
"You helped Jennings kill human dream seers?" the Ashawe councilor asked, his voice shrill with disbelief.
Thyra Davis wildly shook her head. "No! I didn't kill anybody."
"But you also did nothing to prevent it," Jorie said with a sad expression. If not for Griffin, she would have been killed too, and Kylin hung her head, ashamed that she had been a part of the group who had ordered Jorie's death.
"You covered for Jennings and made sure no one questioned his forged reports designed to sway the council's vote toward killing humans," Griffin said.
"I thought they were just humans, a threat to —"
"Save it!" Griffin interrupted. Her eyes were glowing with barely leashed anger. "I've heard the Saru propaganda, and frankly, I don't believe it any longer. I once thought humans were our enemies too, but now I think that Jorie's dreams show us that we're connected somehow. We can't keep hiding from them, because in the end, it's hiding from ourselves, and it's ruining our culture and tainting our souls."
"I think we should vote on what to do with the human," the Rtar councilor finally piped up.
"I vote for killing her," Thyra Davis said immediately. "I think she's tricking us."
Oh, no!
Kylin took a decisive step forward. The Maki councilor still had a lot of influence, and her vote could sway some of the less powerful manarks who still weren't sure whether to believe in Jorie's dream-seeing gift. Kylin couldn't allow that. "I don't think she should be allowed to vote," Kylin said. "She's involved in —"
"We had that discussion about being objective," Jeff Madsen cut her off. "It was you who pointed out that no one really is objective when it comes to this decision. Let Thyra vote. I can assure you it will be the last time she represents the Maki."
"What?" The Maki's brown eyes widened. "But I didn't —"
"It doesn't matter if you believed Cedric Jennings or not. You withheld information from the council," Jeff Madsen said. Being played for a fool was one thing no Syak alpha would ever allow. "You convinced us that the humans that Jennings killed were a threat when they very likely weren't and should never have been killed. You manipulated us, and now you got caught. You'll have to pay the price. We'll deal with that later; now let's vote."
One after the other, the councilors took their places around the round table and voted.
Sitting down, sharing the table with her colleagues as equals had never seemed so wrong before. They weren't on the same side.
Kylin was the first to vote, and she hoped to set an example for her colleagues. "My grandfather was thought of as the last dream seer," she said. "Now that title might be rightfully Jorie's, and I'll give her the same trust that I had in my grandfather. She deserves to live."
Next was Kendrick Ryle, representative of the coyote-shifters. He swallowed nervously under the expectant gazes of the other councilors. He licked his lips but then said, "This could be our chance of having a maharsi to guide us again. Killing her would be madness."
Grunts of surprise filled the council chamber.
No one had expected that kind of vote from Ryle — no one but Kylin. While the Ashawe weren't the most impressive or most dominant shifters, she had always admired how fast they adapted to new situations.
She gave Ryle a grateful nod.
Two down, seven to go. Oh, please, Great Hunter, let them be reasonable for once.
"Not killing her would be madness," Thyra Davis, still flanked by the two guards, shouted when it was her turn to vote. "She knows about our existence, and thanks to Griffin Westmore she even knows where our council is. She could destroy us all, so I vote for killing her." Her dark eyes glowed with anger and hate when she glared at Jorie.
Behind her, Kylin heard Jorie suck in a sharp breath.
The foxlike Rtar councilor took his time with his decision. "The young woman is right about the role of dreams and dream visions in a lot of the old human cultures," he finally said. "I'm not saying that I fully believe she's a dream seer. We need more information. We need to study her, so I vote for not killing her now."
Relief rushed through Kylin although Jorie's expression told her that she didn't like the thought of being studied by the Wrasa. The Rtar were scientists and scholars at heart. The prejudices of his colleagues hadn't stopped the Rtar councilor from studying human cultures, and he had obviously been impressed with what he saw.
Ky's gaze wandered over to the Kasari councilor, who was next to vote. In a lot of ways, Tyrone Greenly reminded Kylin of her father. But while she had finally managed to earn Brian's respect, she still wasn't sure whether Greenly accepted her as a fellow Kasari. She could only hope his opinion about her wouldn't influence his vote.
His powerful gaze rested on Jorie for a long time, then wandered over to Griffin. Finally, he leaned back in his chair and said simply, "Let them live."
Kylin's knees turned into rubber, and she was thankful that she was already seated.
Four votes for Jorie. Now if we can get just one more...
"I agree with Manark Davis," the jaguar-shifter said. "We can't afford to let the human live."
In short order, the representatives of the cougar and the bobcat-shifters gave the same vote.
Kylin gritted her teeth but wasn't surprised. The Scirye, the Arkwi, and the Pako as the three members of the Feline Alliance always made sure to present a united front, and they rarely disagreed with Madsen and Thyra Davis, the most powerful councilors.
The stinging scent of Jorie's fear hit Kylin's nose and made her dizzy. Still, she had to admire Jorie. She was now again standing side by side with Griffin, not hiding behind her. Only her scent gave away that she was not as fearless as she wanted them to believe.
Neither was Kylin.
Scratching her forearms, she turned toward Jeff Madsen. Her heart slammed against her rib cage.
His vote will bring the decision
. With nine councilors present, there couldn't be a tie vote. Four had already voted against Jorie, and Jeff Madsen would no doubt do the same. His vote would very likely mean her sister's death. She exchanged a worried gaze with her mother, who was slowly inching closer to Griffin and Jorie.
Madsen shoved back his chair. He stood ramrod straight, his head held high in a position of confidence, very much aware that he held Jorie's and Griffin's lives and the fate of the Wrasa in his hands.
The thick haze of emotions in the room made Kylin feel as if she were trying to breathe underwater. Tension rose.
Jorie's hands, clenched into fists, were trembling. Griffin's large body shook with tension as Griffin got ready to fight her way out of the council chamber if need be. Under the pretense of glaring at Madsen, she stepped in front of Jorie again and subtly moved her toward the door in the cover of her body.
Kylin's muscles clenched in response. The skin of her arms began to itch, the first warning sign that her body was putting itself into fight-or-flight mode. If the expected vote came, she would fight for Griffin's and Jorie's lives, knowing that it might mean forfeiting her own.
Her gaze darted to the door, then over to Griffin, who gave her a slight nod and moved Jorie even closer to the exit.
Nella joined them from the other side, establishing another wall of protection around Jorie.
Rufus, I hope you have all the traps and distractions in place and the car ready to make a quick escape
.
"My vote will be the end of this discussion. We'll all stick to the decision, including the Saru, no matter whether we like it or not," Madsen said, glaring at each of the other councilors in turn.
For the first time in her life, Kylin knew she wouldn't honor the council's decision. Not if it meant leaving her sister to fend for herself and killing a person who might be the last dream seer. Her muscles trembled as she inched back her chair and flexed her thigh muscles, ready to hightail it out of the council chamber.
The other councilors gave grudging nods, and Madsen continued, "With that understood, I vote for letting the human live."
"What?"
Five different councilors echoed Thyra Davis's shout of shock.
Kylin gripped the edge of the table and blinked up at Jeff Madsen in surprise. Had the dizzying scent of emotions made her hallucinate, or had Madsen really voted in Jorie's favor?
"Are you crazy?" Thyra shouted, her voice garbled by the nearly uncontrollable need to shift.
Madsen didn't answer her. "Get her out of here!" His voice boomed over the ensuing chaos. Then he turned to his remaining colleagues. "This human just told us that Thyra helped Cedric Jennings kill potential human dream seers," Jeff Madsen shouted to be heard over all the noise. "I'm not saying that I believe they really were dream seers, but what's important is that we never got to investigate and make that decision. Thyra and Jennings made it for us. It was going on right under our muzzles, and we never knew it!" He growled, enraged at this loss of control. "But somehow the human, despite seeing all of us for the first time today, knew it, so maybe what Nella says is true. Maybe her dreams really connect the human to us Wrasa. I say we investigate this thoroughly and then vote again. Until further notice, no human will be killed, dream seer or not."
He stared at the councilors until one after the other looked away; then he dismissively turned around, signaling that the meeting was over.