“She’ll be hurt worse if you don’t fucking stop.”
I was going to shift. My wolf would fight for her, and I dared any of these males to challenge it.
“Order!” Adalai roared, standing to his full height. “I will have order in this room!”
Everything went quiet and Tavia bent to help Ashla to her feet.
“Where is my queen?” Adalai growled.
“Right here, my king.” Zelene appeared near the throne, her schooled face barely hiding her troubled expression.
Adalai stalked to her, gently placing his palm over her bulging belly before bending to kiss her forehead. The tender move was in stark contrast to his vicious tone. There was no doubting the king adored his mate as he led her to sit beside him, but clearly it wouldn’t stop him from hurting her friend.
Ashla was brought to the front, guarded by the other three omega mates. When she stood beside me, Cassian let go and I broke my stoic silence.
“Are you hurt?” I growled low.
“Not really. Just a bump or two. It’s fine,” she answered quickly.
“Let us begin,” the king called out as he settled next to Zelene. His dark eyes landed on Ashla first. “Ashla of the Badlands, you have been accused of treason against the Kingdom of Luxoria, against your king and queen, and against your people by conspiring with the enemy to allow entrance into the royal armory. How do you plead, omega?”
Ashla faced the king to look him dead in the eyes as she spoke. “I would never betray her majesty, Queen Zelene, nor the kingdom which I have bled in battle for. I have served loyally. I am innocent.”
Zelene nodded slightly as if she approved, but the king just turned his gaze to me.
“Solen, General of the Eastern Borders and personal guard to the king, you are charged with treason against the Kingdom of Luxoria, against your king and queen, and against your people by aiding and abetting the accused omega, and furthering the beta resistance. How do you plead?”
I stared in disbelief, hearing the charges against me. I assumed he was outing me as an omega or accusing me of disobedience. But treason? Never. Aiding Ashla when he was the one who told me to keep her safe? Ridiculous. And no one was more against the beta uprising than me. I wanted peace for our pack. The despair and fighting was getting fucking old.
Narrowing my eyes at my cousin, I tried to read him. He knew I was too alpha to sit by and let this go unchallenged. And he also knew I was too omega to let innocent Ashla be disgraced for his cause… whatever it was.
What game was the king playing?
“How do you plead?” he repeated, sharper this time.
“Not fucking guilty, Your Majesty.” Nothing else needed to be said.
Adalai looked satisfied. “Bring the evidence,” he commanded, and Dagger strolled forward, carrying a case with computer equipment. He set the items on a long table and briefly made eye contact with me.
What was happening? If Dagger truly believed I’d betrayed the king he would be furious. I’d be able to see it in his walk, in the way he moved.
I looked at the others, Evander and Cassian. They couldn’t hold my gaze more than a second or two, but there was no scorn there either.
They didn’t believe the king’s accusations any more than I did.
Dagger set up a portable digital screen and inserted a disk containing whatever so-called evidence for the entire gathering to see.
“This was sent anonymously to the king,” he announced, as the screen lit up with the tell-tale lines and grooves of a retinal scan. “This is the scan that accessed the armory just before the break-in, and as you can see by looking at this side-by-side comparison…” Dagger turned to the audience. “It belongs to the omega, Ashla.”
Gasps rose from the crowd and Ashla twisted her gaze to me, her eyes filling with tears. “Guilty!” someone shouted.
“When we checked the scans ourselves, just after the break-in, the scan that unlocked the building was unidentifiable, leaving us with no clue to the identity of the traitor until this evidence was brought forward. We believe that General Solen, upon mating with the omega, helped destroy the evidence of her betrayal before taking her into hiding.”
“Bullshit,” I spat.
Ashla shook her head. “No, it isn’t true. None of it.”
Adalai raised an eyebrow. “Solen, I am told you arrived here as a wolf. Is that not true?”
“Yes, it’s true—”
“And everyone knows only mated alphas can shift.”
Yes, only mated alphas. But he knew I was omega.
“So the question is…” Adalai stood and came to stand before us. “Did you mate with the omega?”
I couldn’t lie. He knew I was damned either way, but lying about mating Ashla would hurt my soul. I wouldn’t do it.
“Yes,” I answered, and the crowd rumbled with sudden dismay. As if their king wasn’t mated to an omega himself. As if mixed matings were still against the law.
Adalai returned swiftly to his throne. “I will hear your defenses now. The omega first.”
Which one, I wanted to shout.
“Your Majesties, I am innocent. I didn’t do this. I implore you to question the source of this evidence. It was sent anonymously. Perhaps—”
“Dagger,” the king interrupted. “Is it possible for retinal scans to be forged?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir.”
“So there is no doubt, this is Ashla’s?”
“Yes, sir,” Dagger confirmed.
“And it was time stamped minutes before we were alerted to the break-in?”
Again, Dagger nodded.
The king turned his haughty stare to me. “Your defense, general?”
I stared at him, grappling with what to do. It didn’t matter what I said, the verdict would be the same. For some reason, me and my mate were being framed. And with
