Mated By Fate by Christa Wick

Chapter Eighteen

Esme Stone sat on trial,the collective weight of the meeting hall and its restless occupants squeezing at her. Jack Cooper, the clan alpha, had framed the meeting as something else. Yet, for the entire hour, Esme had been on stage in a high-backed chair answering Coop's questions about Hunters and her kidnapping while his beta stood guard behind her.

She wondered if her life was at stake, or if it was "merely" banishment from all clans that awaited her. The latter was almost a guaranteed death sentence. The magic inherent in the wolves fueled her magic, which, in turn, protected her from Hunters.

"Miss Stone!"

Coop's bellow snapped Esme back to the moment. He had asked something as she pondered her chances of escape.

Whatever the question was, her chances of a successful escape was low to nil. While she could wreak the necessary havoc and bloodshed, she wouldn't. And contrary to the reigning shifter opinion, witches couldn't dematerialize in one spot and appear in another. She could cloud minds, use the power to create an illusion of disappearance, then maybe sneak away in the confusion. But it wasn't easy to fool all of the senses at once of even one wolf.

At that moment, Esme had the hard, suspicious gazes of nearly a hundred shifters fixed upon her.

"You hid the fact that you are a latent," Jack prodded.

Esme cocked her head in his direction then scanned the audience as she remained mute.

Emotion hopscotched from one face to the next.

Fear, anger, support, curiosity…

"Respond, Miss Stone!"

A scowl struggled to cross Esme's features. She forced it down, if only to keep her still bruised flesh from hurting. Two weeks had passed since Quentin and his accomplices had kidnapped her. She could have healed herself completely in that time, but she had better things to do with her magic.

And she had sensed this day approaching. If the wolves were going to sit in judgment of her, let them see what she had suffered on their behalf.

"What exactly is the accusation?" she asked, buying time to figure out a response that wouldn't drag her mother into the same fire. After all, the charms Esme wore were identical to the ones Camille had cloaked her in since infancy. It was only after receiving the artifact from All-Mother and learning to read it that Esme had realized the possibility that she might be more than a witch.

"I am accusing you of knowing you were a latent and keeping it hidden."

Esme shook her head, the heavy blonde curls bouncing.

"I had no proof of what I was. We have only just discovered the first acknowledged latent in our lifetime. The charm I wore served an entirely different purpose, even though it is the same charm used to cloak a latent."

Her voice began to rise as she noticed the objection building behind Coop's predatory smile.

"Unlike you, Jack, I can't sniff out every last scent within a mile. Try walking around somewhere with everyone else around you having that ability. You can hardly claim you didn't already know I was charmed to avoid a constant, pervasive detection. You've bitched about it on more than one occasion."

The last of Esme's reply brought a nervous wave of laughter among some in the audience. Fresh whiskers peppered Coop's cheeks and chin at Esme's words and the response from his wolves.

"You spoke of latents for years, tried to convince me they were out there, explained their conception…"

He threw a pointed look in Camille's direction as his words trailed off.

"The Nakari—" Esme began, but a chaotic jumble of emotions from the audience froze her tongue.

Few wolves in the room had met the All-Mother. Esme had spent most of the last year of the woman's life by her bedside. There was still blame from all the clans for the witches' failure to stop the mysterious sickness that had robbed them of a leader and guiding light.

Their Queen, their Goddess, their Mother.

They couldn't, or wouldn't, believe that Esme's grief had run just as deep over the loss—if not deeper.

Feeling her throat tighten, she swiped angrily at the tears blurring her vision. She wouldn't cry in front of this audience. The act was alien to them. A fleck of dust might make their eyes water, but no emotion could do the same, no matter how gut wrenching.

"It was something the All-Mother had told me while I sat with her. When I tried to convince others of the possibility, no one believed me. Many actively sought to shut me up about it."

Looking out on the audience, Esme's gaze landed on Lana then bounced away. She still thought of the latent as a friend, but not all friends were allies. Lana had a cub growing inside her. She needed the clan's protection. And she was fiercely in love with Seth now that the walls between them were down.

Would Lana tell anyone about the artifact?

Had she told Seth already?

"Your own mother—"

"I can't speak for my mother," Esme softly interrupted.

Coop hated challenges to his authority. He was that kind of leader. It made him come down hard on the stronger pack alphas like Seth—and harder still on orphaned cubs who grew up to become colossal pains in everyone's collective ass, hers included.

For the first time since she had settled into the hot seat of Coop's interrogation, Esme searched the room for Denver, the orphaned shifter found abandoned among humans more than two decades ago. She only had to wonder in her mind where he was and she instantly knew.

She was his mate, after all.

Ill-fated, never to be consumed.

Her throat tightening once more, she quickly looked away, but not before she saw the heat burning in his gaze.

Blood pressure visibly rising, Coop pounded one fist against the palm of his other hand, his voice exploding to a shout.

"This is not the first tribunal on you!. Many questions were never—"

Esme silenced him with a soft laugh. A shiver of fear moved through her at the mistake, but anger quickly burned through it.

"Excuse me for not remembering the details." She tried to answer drolly, but witch light sizzled across her skin, lifting the fine blonde hairs along her arms with its static. "I was an infant at the first tribunal. Those proceedings were held within another clan's lands."

That was the heart of everything, really. After spending most of her twenty-five years living among Jack Cooper's wolves, they had thought they knew Esme at last. Sure, mysteries had remained. Camille had kept the pregnancy a secret from the California shifters she lived with back then. No one knew the father's identity, not even Esme. And that was a mystery to which Esme had frequently applied her magic as she grew more powerful.

Maybe now, with the documents and crystals they had harvested from the Hunters' compound, she would finally have enough power and tricks to discover the answer. Her abilities had increased exponentially in the two weeks she had convalesced, her time spent holed up in her house with few visitors but for her mother's constant presence, Lana once, and Denver constantly prowling the woods outside.

"You will stop interrupting my questions," Coop bellowed, his attention so focused on Esme that he did not sense Denver peel away from the back wall and start toward the stage.

Seth recognized the danger immediately and stood, his long strides putting him on a path to quietly intercept his friend and second-in-command. Catching on to the trouble brewing, Slater left his post behind Esme and started for Denver with a bloodthirsty grin.

Esme threw her hands in the air, arcane words spilling past her lips as a curtain of witch light descended in front of the stage to trap Slater on her side. Three small bubbles burst from the curtain to float across the audience, their size expanding as they descended to enclose the pregnant Lana, Camille…and Denver.

For one second, she thought he would throw himself against the barrier, but then he looked at her and grew still.

She turned to Coop, uncertain whether anyone on the other side of the witchlight could hear her words.

"Jack," she whispered. "I have only ever worked to help the clan. That hasn't changed. In just these last two weeks, I've fashioned new traveling charms stronger than we've ever had. And, if anything, I've recently been given more reasons to keep your lands safe."

The clan leader tilted his head, his gaze landing first on Lana then moving to the obstinate wolf Esme had wrapped with her protection.

A reluctant nod was Coop's only reply.