“But don’t you think he should have?” Milo Mitchell leaned back and crossed his hands over his stomach, and anger raced up my spine. He’d always hated Jace and had voted against confirming him as Alpha.

Unfortunately, I had no idea how to answer. Claiming that he couldn’t be held accountable because I’d outsmarted him would not help his case. Before I could come up with a suitable response, Jace answered for me.

“Yes. I should have. I move that the council apply the charges brought against Abby Wade against me instead.”

“Jace…” I turned to him with tears in my eyes. He was ruining his career for me. He was ruining his life for me.

I couldn’t let him do it.

“I move to accept the motion,” my father said, and I spun on him in shock.

“Dad, no!” But my father looked right into my eyes, and I knew I wouldn’t change his mind. He’d found a way to save his only daughter, and he would seize it, no matter who else got hurt.

“I second,” Faythe said, one hand on her swollen belly, and the first tears spilled from my eyes to roll down my cheeks. “All in favor?”

A chorus of “Ayes” rang out, and my throat tried to close around a cry of denial. It was unanimous.

Why was the vote never unanimous in favor of any good idea?

“No!” But instead of shouting at the council again, I turned on Jace. “What did you do?”

“Abby…”

“Take it back!” I shoved him, and he rocked on his feet, but took the blow without complaint. “Take it back!” I pushed him again, and he was against the wall, and everyone was staring. His face blurred beneath my tears, but his blue eyes still burned bright. When I tried to push him again, he pulled me into an embrace, and that’s when I totally lost it, sobbing against his shirt.

The severity of the charges against me easily warranted the death penalty, but lockup was the worst they would have thrown at me, because they needed me. That was the only true break fate had cut me, to make up for the shitty stick I’d drawn, having been born female in an overwhelmingly patriarchal world.

But Jace didn’t have gender on his side.

“Get her out of here,” Milo Mitchell ordered, and my father growled at him.

One of Mitchell’s men grabbed my wrist. Jace snarled, and when the tom didn’t let go of me fast enough, Jace seized his arm and gave it a brutal twist. I heard both bones crack.

The tom backed away from us, whimpering and clutching his broken arm. Mitchell cursed softly and waved his injured enforcer out the door for medical care.

No one else tried to touch me. No one yelled at Jace.

You don’t cross an Alpha in his prime unless you’re looking to get hurt. Or you’re stupid.

Jace guided me toward the doorway himself, and I stepped through it because I had no choice.

Faythe followed me into the hall, ostensibly to use the restroom, but as soon as the door closed behind her, she turned to me, an apology written all over her face. “I’m sorry, Abby. I know how hard this must—”

“Then why would you second the motion?” I demanded, but even with tears in her eyes, she responded calmly.

“There’s more at play here than you understand.”

“Yeah, I get that. But how could you do that to him? You used to love him!”

“And I always will, but not like he loves you.” Faythe exhaled slowly, and I got the impression that she was stalling for time. Trying to figure out how much it would be prudent to explain to me. “Jace is determined to protect you, Abby. If we didn’t give him this option—the option he asked for—he’d find another way, and that would go even worse for him.”

There was something in her gaze. Something she wasn’t saying...

“You all planned this!” I hissed. Suddenly, the hushed phone calls made sense.

“No. He made us promise to support whatever motion he proposed if your hearing went badly, but your father and I didn’t know the details.”

“But they’re going to execute him!” I whispered, terrified of the words even as I said them.

“No.” She wiped tears from my cheeks with her thumbs. “No, Abby, I promise that’s not what they want out of this.”

The confidence in her steady green-eyed gaze gave me no choice but to believe her, so I sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly, counting the beats of my heart as it slowed to a reasonable tempo.

“Jace knows what he’s doing,” Faythe insisted. “He can handle whatever they throw at him, and if he didn’t do everything he could to protect you, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. I know because I feel the same way. We’ve failed you enough.”

“But I’m grown now—”

“Good.” She squared her shoulders, silently demanding I do the same. “Show everyone that by accepting his choice with grace and dignity.” I wasn’t sure I could do that, but she didn’t seem to have any doubt. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do need the restroom.”

A minute later, the dining room door opened again, and Jace was the first one out. His gaze found me immediately, and he led me down the hall, out the back door, and across the backyard to the guesthouse, where’d he’d lived when he was my uncle’s enforcer. Mateo sat on the steps, elbows propped on widespread knees, but he stood when his Alpha approached.

“Anyone in there?” Jace nodded at the closed front door of the guesthouse.

Teo shook his head. “They’re all in the main house, waiting on the sentence.” He obviously didn’t know what Jace had just done.

“Good. Make sure we’re not disturbed, but knock when the council calls us.”

Teo nodded and opened the guesthouse door for us, then closed it as Jace led me inside. I could see Teo through the glass panel in the door, standing with thick arms crossed over his broad chest. No one would get past him without taking a beating. And making one hell of a racket.

Jace gestured toward the stairs, and I turned on him the moment my feet hit the second floor landing.

“Why?” I demanded. He tried to pull me close, but I pushed him away and crossed my arms. I’d had enough of Alphas, and politics, and tears. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I love you. Because I need to protect you.”

Each word was an arrow shot straight through my heart. Love was supposed to make people happy, not tear them apart. “That’s not… You can’t…” I needed to argue, and he wasn’t fighting fair. “That doesn’t make any sense.”