An; for those who got the update notifs, make sure you read chapter 7 too. Apparently wattpad didn't send out a notification for it and it's SUPER important so definitely don't skip it!

Shit wasn't usually Matt's first impression when he walked into a room. But scarcely did he find himself gazing upon a bed fit for two people, a bed he was meant to sleep on, with a half-naked man sprawled out on the covers.

The room was beautiful—everything from the TV on the wall, hidden behind two silver panels that closed to form a mirror, to the long, hefty red suede curtains that only part-way covered the glass doors of the balcony. It smelled like potpourri and expensive woods, and the slightest hint of alcohol—probably from Bailey, who slept with a pillow clapped over his head to keep out the noise.

Matt couldn't understand what it was he was tuning out; everything was silent, save for the static buzz of the radio beside the bed. He walked over to it and turned the switch off.

"Turn it back on," Bailey grumbled from beneath his pillow.

Matt ripped the pillow away and Bailey laid there, still for a moment. Then he turned over on his back and looked to Matt, his black locks a tangled mess over his sharp, dark eyes. "You wanna die tonight, Buffalo Bill?"

Matt challenged his glare. "I never agreed to take the floor."

"I never agreed to suffer your bitching, but you took the only extra pillow."

"Fine, just give me a blanket," Matt returned. But Bailey rolled back over onto his side, leaving Matt with nothing to glare at but his back.

There was a good three feet of space between Bailey and the edge of the bed, so Matt tossed himself down on the mattress hard enough to make them both jounce in the air, but Bailey didn't acknowledge him. He just laid there on his side with his arms crossed, grumbling into his pillow, "Turn the radio back on."

"It wasn't even playing any music. And I don't feel like listenin' to Bump N' Grind while I'm sleeping ass-to-ass with another dude."

"You're not my type."

"Your type?" Matt snorted. "What's that? Tall, dark and Quentin?"

Bailey turned over onto his back then and Matt could smell the scotch on his breath. "No," he said, "men."

Matt ignored the insult and laid there, watching the moonlight bounce from the glass of the stained chandelier above them. "Aren't you too young to drink?"

"Aren't you shut-the-fuck-up?"

"I shoulda let Jay jump your ass," Matt said. "The hell was I thinking, volunteering for this shit."

Bailey didn't respond to that—and for a moment, Matt thought he might have fallen asleep, an arm draped over his eyes. But then he heard a sound, through the walls behind their heads. A moan, ghoulish at first, like a ghost was trapped somewhere deep within the wallpaper. But when the next muffled groan crept through the wood, it was unmistakably sensual.

Sex. Of course the couple next door were having sex. It couldn't have been the ones down the hall or on the floor up above. It had to be the young, passionate couple that had crossed him in the hall, their fingers entwined in the sparse moments when their mouths weren't. Their bed was probably right on the other side of the wall. Matt felt an embarrassment rock through him. Two young, attractive werewolves were bumping uglies, inches from his pillow. And he was in a bed with another man.

A soft, humored sound came from Bailey. "Turn the—"

"I'll turn the radio back on," Matt said, and launched up from the bed. He took a pillow under his arm and ripped the duvet out from under Bailey, and after starting up that static again, Matt stalked off to the bathroom to sleep in the tub for the night.

The next morning, he woke with a pain in his neck, a pinch between his eyes that panged with the metronome of the leaky sink faucet. Even from the bathroom, he could hear them all damn night. That couple in the next room over, knocking the headboard into the wall, groaning out like feral cats.

Sleep had found him at some point, but it hadn't given him much more than a single, short-lived dream. He dreamed of fishing with his dad, casting lines out on the river. Listening to the kind of music his friends made fun of him for, and coming home just when his mom was pulling her casserole out of the oven.

Things had never been like that, but he liked to imagine they were. Instead, he had a functioning alcoholic for a father. A mother who'd walked out of their lives because of it. And Clara, the sister he'd never met. The one he'd never get to.

His dad never wanted to be a cop, not really. Matt often found himself wondering what his life woulda been like if Clara hadn't disappeared that morning. If his mom had just kept a closer eye on her. If she hadn't let her wander off on her own at four years old. He wondered what would'a happened if her body had never been found. If his dad had never felt the obsessive, compulsive need to avenge his daughter's death.

Matt wondered what the hell life would be like if he hadn't been an accidental drunken fuck, two years later. If he wasn't just a disappointing, half-baked version of Clara.

His dad loved him, never laid a hand on him despite all the hell that raged in that man's head. His dad was his hero, but he'd never seemed proud of his son. He could always do better. He could aways be better. Sometimes, Matt blamed Clara for that. Mostly, he blamed himself.

His mom was distant, but she called now and again. Sent him birthday presents, photos of his new baby sisters in Delaware. Maybe she had the right idea by starting over somewhere new. She was a different woman. The kind that didn't really need a grim reminder like Matt, spoiling her white picket fence family.

Aside from his grandfather, who'd passed from the flu years ago, Clara was the closest Matt had ever come to death. No one knew—not even Tisper. All his life, his parents had associated him with Clara, kept him on a tight leash, never let go of his hand in public. He didn't need his friends making the association too. And besides, there was really no reason to tell them; Clara was a stranger. He never loved her because he never knew her. But somehow, he still hated his parents for letting them take her. Whatever sick freaks had taken his big sister, he hated them for letting it happen.

Matt had come to find some time ago that there was a natural anger that came with death. They were associated at the roots—wicked, nasty cousins that walked hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. And hours later, as Matt sat a bench away, watching Jaylin with his arms outstretched and a measuring tape lined from his shoulder to his wrist by the shop tailor, he could feel the twinge of pain in his cheekbone. An ugly yellow bruise swelled the skin, but he tried not to draw attention to it.

Because that was the anger that lived in Jaylin. The monster that was born when Julia died. Matt had been so desperate that night, when they'd moved Julia to hospice—desperate enough to get Quentin on the phone. To dig up his number from Tisper's contacts and to dial it again and again until he answered.

"What'f you change her?" he'd asked while he was pacing the hall outside of her room. "What'f you make her... y'know, one of you? Wouldn't that save her? Aren't you immune to diseases and shit?"

"It doesn't work like that," Quentin told him. "Maybe when she was stronger, maybe before she was sick, we could have done something, but changing her now would make things worse. We'd just be killing her slower. She'd be in unbearable pain."

Lisa had come not long after that, hugged them all with tears in her eyes. She never seemed the affectionate type, but Matt supposed death brought out the compassion in people. They'd become close, Lisa Sigvard and Julia Maxwell. Lisa had lost her confidante that night. That was Julia, after all; pressing bits of love into everyone she knew. That was why it broke them all just a bit when she died—but Jaylin was understandably the most broken of all. Still broken now, just breathing a little deeper.

He didn't give the tailor so much as an awkward smile as he was fitted at the shoulders. The old Jay woulda been fidgeting this way and that. Uncomfortable expressions on his face and goofy grins each time he caught Matt's eyes from across the room.

But this Jaylin just stared ahead until the tailor was done. Then he stepped down from the fitting dais.

"I believe I have something for each of you to leave with today," she told them with a meek smile. "The others will have to be cleaned and may need some minor adjustments."

They were rentals, of course. Izzy had made that very clear. "I'm putting these on Quentin's card," she told them, before they'd even left the parking lot. "Don't you spill a damn thing on them or he's gonna bite my head off."

Matt's suit was nothing out of the ordinary—gray, square-shouldered with a striped tie. Something he'd have worn to a job interview or a wedding. The arms were a bit tight and he was giving them a good stretch in the mirror when Jaylin stepped out of his own fitting room.

It was a rare occasion when he wore anything besides ripped jeans and plain t-shirts, but Jaylin looked five years older in the clothes the woman had chosen for him. They didn't have much in his size, so he'd been given a dark blue vest and a black bow tie that hung loose around his neck.

Jay looked to him and Matt knew his eyes were lingering on the bruise. So he strode forward to Jaylin and tugged up his sleeves again. "No one ever taught you to tie a bow tie?"

Jaylin shook his head and held still while Matt fumbled with both ends, trying to recall the tutorial he'd watched when he had to tie his own for his father's wedding. That was the only night he'd ever really gotten along with his step-mom. Maybe because he was drunk on appletinis the entire reception.

"Shit, I don't remember..." he grumbled, twisting the silk this way and that. "I think it's like this?"

Jaylin was quiet while he fumbled with it. Then after a moment, Matt could feel the heat of his quiet sigh against his hands. "Hit me."

"What?"

"Can you just hit me?" Jaylin said, his eyes somewhere on the shirt on Matthew's chest. "To make it even."

Matt snorted, finally managing to twist together somewhat of a proper bow. "I jumped out of a movin' truck for you, Jay. I could knock your teeth out and we still wouldn't be even. Worse than that, I messed with my dad's shotgun that night. Shoulda seen the ass-kicking he was about to give me when he found out." And when he felt that soft sigh against his knuckles again, Matt gave the bow tie a tight tug and stepped back. "It's a bruise, Jay. I'll live."

Just then, there was an eruption of giggling as the women's changing room door was thrown open and Sadie stumbled out, wearing a dress that clinched at the waist and swayed at her ankles. She dragged Tisper just behind her, who was struggling to find her footing in a pencil-skirt that nearly tied her her together at the knees. The blouse she'd been given was free and flowy—and just revealing enough that Matt felt a tinge of despair at the sight of her. Each time she walked in wearing something new, it was like a searing hot blade had been jammed into his gut and every single sizzle was hissing at him, "you could have had this, you could have had all this".

Think of Jessy, he reminded himself. Don't be that guy, Matt.

They were given shoes and Izzy paid with Quentin's card before they went on their way. That was when the nerves struck Matt the hardest. His sleep exhaustion was digging into him, those sleeves of his suit suddenly felt twice as tight. What if they really were in trouble with Qamar? What would she do with them then?

They were taken back to the hotel and Quentin met them at the doors with Felix and Alex at his sides. They split in two groups and took the elevator up to the highest floor, where a conference hall had been reserved for Qamar's meeting. It was much smaller room than Matt expected—shaped like a chapel and probably used for weddings and anniversaries. The seating arrangement was a tell, with wooden benches on either side and an aisle down the middle. Matt itched. It didn't feel like a friendly meeting, it felt like a day in court.

But luckily there was no bailiff stand, no podium—only a long table where those things would be. Nine old, stark faces sat at it properly, peering out at their subjects like they were calculating every face that walked through the door. Some of the nine were younger. Fifty, maybe. But most were graying and withering, plain old elderly folks with tentative eyes.

Then, in the middle was Qamar.

God, she was just a teenager. Matt couldn't understand why a kid so young was ruling over half a nation of wolves. How the hell did those things work? Not that she didn't fit the persona of a ruler. She looked stoic, her long black hair spun up into a cone-shaped bun on her head, a silver head dressing draped down between her brows, with a crystal that glinted in the conference room lighting.

Quentin led them in and they all took a seat, scattered around the front few rows. Izzy with Elizaveta, Sadie beside Alex, Tisper seated in the center of her own row. Felix was the only one out of the bunch that looked the least bit relaxed, lounging in the back row with his arms stretched over the backrest and his eyes shut. Jaylin sat somewhat close to Matt, something restless about him.

It was too quiet, and Matt felt a heat parch him, those old knowing faces scrutinizing over the lot of them. He wanted to ask what was taking so long, why they were stuck waiting—then a few more bodies made their way into the room. He recognized one as Dylan, another his wife. The others looked familiar, and it was a long moment of staring before Matt realized they were the patrols and sentinels that Jaylin had freed from Ziya's camp that night.

Then another throng arrived. Quentin's sentinels—the ones that had fought the lichund at the Sigvard manor. Not long after, in strolled Imani, in a dress much too revealing, but goddamn she wore it well. If only Matt wasn't so terrified of her. Just behind Imani was Leo, and with him joined a herd of men and women that Matt had never seen before in his life. A few of them lunged for the seat beside Felix, who greeted them with a grin and a tacky, overcomplicated handshake.

And then, when the room was nearly full, in walked the petite body of Mrs. Sigvard. She must have flown in strictly for the meeting, because Matt hadn't seen her all this time and she was dressed to kill. She wore thick pearls and sharp shades, and lipstick so red, it alone made all the other colors of her glow with vibrance. As she cut down the right of the aisle, she paused only long enough to greet Alex with a kiss on the head. Then she slid into the bench beside Quentin and the doors were sealed shut.

Two bodies pressed back against them—to keep people out, maybe. Or to keep them all in. But that was when Matthew recognized one of the men. The very same dark-haired, sharp cut stranger who helped Qamar into her car the night of the bad moon. Was he a boyfriend or a bodyguard? He caught Matt's gaze and held onto it, and Matt turned back around in his seat to escape that blistering leer.

Once the room went quiet, everyone settled into their seats, Qamar looked to the elderly woman beside her and nodded.

The woman reached for the vial of ink in front of her and twisted off the cap. "Is this everyone involved in the incident with Queen Ziya Faheem last Octob—"

"It is not," Qamar said. "We're missing a handful of witnesses, aren't we?"

Leo stood and slicked his fingers down the tie on his chest. "I got witnesses," he said. "But they had nothin' to do with that night. No accounts of their own that we can't supply you."

"Fine," Qamar said. "And you, Quentin?"

Quentin stood next, looking prim and proper in that suit of his. "We had a handful of maids there that night, but they were only witnesses."

"So they didn't participate in the incident?" the old woman spoke again.

"No," Quentin said. "I would have brought them along had they played any part."

"Very well," it was an even older man to Qamar's left who spoke this time. He had the kind of nose hair that made Matt feel like sneezing and a voice that wheezed with every word. He adjusted his glasses and dipped his pen in his own vat of ink. It looked like simple black ink, but Matt watched closely as he scrawled something down on the pages in front of him. He could see them, just barely from where he sat. It was like the ink was slowly absorbed into the paper, and in seconds, it was gone.

"Today, we'll be going over the accounts of everyone in the room," the old man said. "You'll be allowed a brief recess after the third hour."

Third hour? Matt felt like pulling at the tie around his neck until he choked himself out. The uncomfortable seats, the boring atmosphere. The empty grumbling in his gut. These damn wolves were thorough if they were anything.

The council spoke to each person in the room, asking for their accounts from the night. To Matt's surprise, they'd finished taking everyone's statements within two hours and Qamar called for a break. It was when they came back from stretching their legs that things took a turn for the worse.

Jaylin was called forward, asked to stand before the council. He did so without blinking, without acknowledging all of the eyes on him. He left his seat and followed the carpet of the aisle, to stand before Qamar and her elders. Matt wondered what kind of people these were, what gave them so much authority. Maybe they'd just been with the werewolf society long enough that they'd made a name for themselves, or maybe power was grandfathered in—or hell, maybe Qamar had appointed them each separately. Regardless, they stared down at Jaylin like their words were gavels, ready to drop.

"Jaylin Maxwell," one of the woman said this time. She looked a bit kinder than the others, her eyes creasing as she smiled gently to him. "In your statement, you mentioned a bout of memory loss that night. Is this correct?"

Jaylin's lips were raw from chewing—Matt could see the red, ripped flesh budding with blood.

"Yes," Jaylin said. "I remember things now and then. Flashes."

"Do you recall your fight with the lichund?" The woman asked.

Jaylin took a deep, deep breath and shook his head. "I remember its eyes. I remember getting hit."

"So," the old woman said, adjusting the glasses on her nose. "You don't remember the exact moment you ended its life?"

"No," Jaylin put firmly.

"It is unusual we are presented with a case about a lichund, let alone two of them. It's difficult to determine based on the books alone, whether these things are unlawful. The lichund you killed—it was not strictly wolf and not strictly human, like our laws specify. Had it been a typical werewolf or an alpha, this would be a simple case of self-defense, but our laws don't account for... alternative breeds. Because the lichund in this case was never integrated into a pack, and therefor never a werewolf, we must look at this case as if it were human. As I'm sure you're well aware of, it is undeniably important that we protect humans at all cost." She glanced to the bundle of papers splayed out before Qamar. Some of them blank with invisible ink, some printed computer documents—probably human things. Information that didn't need protected. "Therefore, " the old woman said, "we must still hold you accountable for the death of Olivia Black."

Matt felt a chill cold as ice slice down his spine. He could see Jaylin waver there at the sound of her name. Tisper launched from her seat and Sadie sought Matt's eyes in the crowd. Then Matt found himself standing, shouting out at the council. "The hell do you mean Olivia Black?"

The old woman looked confused. Qamar stood this time, tapping her stack of papers on the table. From it, she took a photograph from the top. Olivia's smiling face, in her high school graduation gown. Probably taken from a personal file or a social media account.

Qamar's voice was smoke and thunder. A low, beautiful rumble in her throat. "The lichund that was killed that night was identified as a twenty-six year old woman by the name of Olivia Black. A graduate from Stadium High school—an aspiring photographer."

"I know who she is," Jaylin said coldly.

Matt hadn't noticed Quentin standing, until his voice was thundering back. "Why wasn't this information brought to us?"

Qamar's eyes slid to him, sharp dark orbs—blinking slow like a satisfied cat. "Does this woman have any relevance to you?" she asked. "Is there a reason, Mr. Bronx, that I should have shared this information with you?"

Matt had never seen Quentin break into a cold sweat before. But a look of trouble sheened over his face and he faltered as he held the woman's hard gaze. Matt gripped it then—the big bad Alpha had done something he shouldn't have. 

He never reported the incident with Olivia.

Matt had no doubt in his mind why. Word of a second lichund would bring more scouts, more trespassers from the East. It would have put Jaylin in more danger than he was already in.

"No," the voice came not from Quentin, but Jaylin. "He doesn't know her."

Qamar tilted her head a bit to the right. Her eyes fell on Jaylin. "And you. Does she hold any significance to you?"

Jaylin wiped the the blood from his lip. "She was an old friend," he said. "That's all."

"Very well," said Qamar.

"Qamar." Quentin refused to slink back into his seat like the others. He straightened his tie instead. "He had no intentions to harm anyone. He saved my life."

"He saved mine, too." One of the men on the other side of the room rose from his chair. Matt recognized him as Bo, the patrol that had escaped behind Jaylin that night.

A a young girl stood beside him. "He saved me too. He's the reason we escaped Ziya, you can't—"

"Enough," Qamar ordered, not to the two of them, but to the collective room. She held up a palm and the crystals on her bracelet rattled. "We said nothing about punishment. His accounts will be archived. He'll be credited for the death in documentation, until we've recomposed the laws to account for situations involving lichund. Then we'll open this case again."

"Qamar," one of the councilmen grumbled from the other end of the table. "It will take months to recompose the laws while we're in a coldwar with Ziya. Just how many lichund could possibly be involved in unlawful situations?"

"Enough that we're having this meeting about it," Qamar said. The councilman shrunk a bit. "That's all, Mr. Maxwell. You may sit."

He took his seat. The questions started again, but they were directed toward Leo. To the attack on his pack. Then to Quentin's Oregon sentinels and their captivity in Ziya's cells. Lastly, Imani was called forward to answer about the Eastern alpha she'd killed.

Once all accounts were on paper, Qamar settled back in her seat while the documents were stamped with the some kind of official imbossment. She revealed that she had recent intel on Ziya. That her sister had engineered dozens of lichund cells, created from a glass harder than steel. That, as of Jaylin and Olivia Black, she had successfully captured five live lichund for experimentation.

"She has no interest in curing the curse, as she claims. In fact, my sister no longer holds any interest in eradicating the lichund. Now, it seems, she's intent on using them for personal gain. I'll have more intelligence gathered soon. And I'll be sure," she said, those dark eyes setting on Quentin, who looked just a bit tense under the crushing weight of her gaze, "to keep you filled in"

Then she organized the papers in front of her, back into the binder they'd come from.

"This will mark the end of our meeting," she said. "Enjoy the exposition."

And before anyone could even rise from their seats, Jaylin was gone, the doors swinging shut behind him.