Northern Lands: Bound by fate

Chapter 14

CALANDRA

To say that the Council meeting had been difficult was an understatement; it was an utter disaster.

I had told my story including every honest detail, explaining the sacrifices made to save my people, the marriage that had been forced upon me, and the fear that my past sought me out now. Pleading them to offer me sanctuary in Northern Lands, protect my secret so that the Drysdan family wouldn't be able to find me.

Their answer was nothing like I expected. Horrified that I would single-handedly put their community in jeopardy, Zander's plan to involve the Council backfired; right in our faces.

The vampire representative freaked me out. She made it sound like she would enjoy personally hand delivering me to Tybalt Drasden's doorstep, and I was more than fearful at that point.

I knew that Zander and his pack wouldn't let any harm come to me, that they already considered my part of the Aurora pack as their Gamma female. They accepted me because I was Zander's fated mate, no questions asked. But I could not say the same about the Council.

The meeting drew to a close, the members gathering for a closed door voting about whether or not they would help me. It was a foreign sensation, leaving my fate in the hands of people I didn't know from a supernatural council.

My head lowered to my chest, and I let the tears fall. I knew that this would be a turning point, and that we didn't really have to wait for their answer. From the words they exchanged during the brief conversation between the members — excluding Zander from immediate negotiations — I knew that all had been in vain. And I feared we had made the situation worse by running to them for aid.

I only heard the voices of three of the members. Raoul Bran, I had encountered around town before, because I had business with his wife Yuna, and I knew him to be a serious but fair goblin. The other council members mostly remained a mystery to me. Zander, however, knew them personally, and the vampire representative had awoken the most primal urges in Conan and himself. I heard his molars crunching together and the splintering of the chair when he uttered the last words before Leander hung up the conference call.

The other male that had spoken was clearly not on board with helping us either. The pit of my stomach sank deeper when I thought about the echoing voices in agreement. I didn't think the voting would turn out positive for my case.

Leander and Zander stood up and motioned towards the closed door. We swiftly exited Leander's office and followed Zander towards the kitchen, where Alpha Kaan and Luna Moriko were going through the schedule of the day.

Both males' anger whipped around them in furious waves. Leander was reigning in Novak better than Zander with Conan. His eyes burst a bright yellow, his breathing was erratic and his hands balled into fists at his side. I was too defeated to muster the strength to reach out to my mate, and walked behind him, with my head hung and my shoulders slumped.

"How did it go?" Alpha Kaan whipped his head in our direction, his brow crinkled with worry at Zander's expression.

"It could have gone better," Leander responded in his place, snagging a pastry from the breakfast tray and shoving it in his mouth.

A moment of silence hung between the leaders of the Aurora pack. I thought they were mindlinking each other, but then remembered from Ilaria's book that they could only do that in wolf form.

"I have pack business to attend to now." Alpha Kaan looked apologetically at us both. "I'll send someone to get you when I'm done and we can run through whatever happened in the meeting." He stood up and wrapped his large hand over Zander's shoulder in a comforting gesture. "We'll figure something out."