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personal autocracy. In Malone’s paradise, membership would be by invitation only. Not open to those lacking purebred pedigrees. Inaccessible to those without a Y chromosome, unless they bent to his will.
    My temper spiked just thinking about it, and some dark voice deep inside me insisted that if our evidence against him failed, we should simply screw the vote and bring on the pain. We’d been ready—even eager—to fight for weeks,
    But Paul Blackwell, the elderly interim head of the Territorial Council, had convinced my father to give peace a chance, as cheesy as it sounded. If we could possibly avert full-out civil war and the inevitable casualties on either side, we owed it to the entire werecat population to try. Even I couldn’t argue with that. In theory.
    However, in my experience, the concept of peace had a lot in common with the Loch Ness monster—I foundboth elusive and difficult to believe in. So, I would hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
    Marc popped the trunk, then slammed the driver’s-side door and I jumped, startled from my own thoughts. “Jace, run up to the lodge and get the key.”
    Jace went stiff, and I spoke up before he could growl. “I’ll get it.” As tired as I was of standing between them, it was safer to play peacekeeper than to break up the fight that would result if I didn’t. Safer physically and politically. The whole world would know about me and Jace soon enough—two of Malone’s men had figured it out and would surely disseminate the information whenever it would most damage our cause—and I wasn’t eager to clue anyone in early via a Marc-Jace death match.
    â€œYou can’t go by yourself,” Marc insisted. “Malone and his men might already be here.” And they were gunning for all three of us, after the trespassing/kidnapping/assault crime trifecta we’d pulled off the week before. Not that we’d had any other options.
    â€œBlackwell came down yesterday, so even if Malone’s here, he’s not alone,” I responded. “And he’s not going to make trouble just hours before the vote.” But the truth was that both Jace and Marc had more to fear from the Appalachian Pride than I did. Malone still needed me alive, but since the council had yet to officially recognize Marc’s readmission into our Pride, he technically had no rights within our society. Which meant that his word alone would not stand against his attacker’s, should it come down to that.
    And Malone was just looking for an excuse to get rid of Jace—his stepson—without witnesses.
    â€œYou guys stay and wait for my dad. Please.” OurAlpha had ridden from the airport with Umberto Di Carlo and his men, so they could talk strategy on the way. “I’ll be right back.” Then, before either of them could argue, I shoved my bare hands into my coat pockets and took off at a brisk walk with them both staring after me.
    We could all three have gone together, but frankly, after hours spent on the plane, then in the car with both Jace and Marc and the choking amounts of testosterone they were dumping into the air, I really needed a little time to myself, to clear my head.
    To think about my decision. And the fact that I didn’t want to choose. Or tell anyone else what was going on. But the expiration date on that option was rapidly approaching, even if Alex Malone and Colin Dean hadn’t been telling stories yet.
    My father was definitely suspicious. If we weren’t in the middle of the biggest series of catastrophes ever to hit the south-central Pride in a single month, he’d have already figured it out. We’d delayed telling him before to keep from adding to his stress level, but now our time was up. I’d planned to tell him on the drive from the airport, but I lost that chance when he rode with Di Carlo instead, so now I’d have to make time to get him alone and