Alpha: An Urban Fantasy Novel (War of the Alphas Book 3) Read online

  “No.” She swallowed hard. “Let me on camera. The seelie are still polling low, and I think I killed the unseelie Alpha last night. The only real, legitimate competitors are Stark and Rylie.”

  He lowered his phone slowly. “What are you saying?”

  “I want to take you up on your offer, if it’s still good. I want to make that statement that says Stark is participating in the election.”

  To his credit, he barely registered surprise. “That might quell the riots. But only until Stark refutes your statement.”

  Deirdre felt numb. “He won’t make trouble.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” she asked. “The only question is, is the deal still good? Will you let me make this statement and walk free?”

  “You’re not stupid, Ms. Tombs. What a pleasant surprise.” Secretary Friederling gestured to summon his makeup artist again. “Prepare her for the cameras.”

  It must have taken almost an hour to get her makeup and clothes done. They swapped out her destroyed, bloody shirt for a clean black t-shirt. It also took a long time for speechwriters to prepare something for her to say.

  Then she was standing in front of a green screen. And people were filming her.

  Deirdre grimaced into the brilliant, shining lights, and wondered if Stark’s stomach got all knotted and queasy when he was preparing to make a statement, too. If he did, he hid the feeling well. She hoped that she was hiding it well, too. After all the time she’d spent pretending to be on Stark’s side in the asylum, she should have been able to fake any emotion, no matter how disingenuous.

  She could barely see the camera that was filming her. She couldn’t see any of the crew waiting behind the camera. But she could see the teleprompter, and the blue words that were poised halfway up the screen, waiting for her to begin speaking.

  “Ready when you are,” the cameraman said.

  Deirdre looked at those first few words.

  I am Deirdre Tombs, Beta to Everton Stark, who has…

  The rest of the statement was waiting to scroll up.

  If she said those words out loud, then Stark would truly never forgive her. He already hated her for making him weak. For making him fall in love with her.

  She might as well find an empty grave and crawl into it.

  But she thought of the pathetic little polling station at the abandoned elementary school, and Darryl’s hopeful eyes, and Mallory’s vain words of hope. They were taking a truly pathetic and underfunded shot at democracy for gaeans.

  Pathetic, underfunded, and…well, kind of inspirational.

  Those were the kinds of people the country needed. Not visionaries like Stark, who saw a body count as the solution to every problem. Not Deirdre, who failed at everything she did. Not Melchior and Rhiannon, who only wanted power for the sake of power.

  Democracy. True democracy.

  “Ms. Tombs?” The prompt came from Secretary Friederling. Even though she couldn’t see him, she knew his voice.

  She cleared her throat, blinked into the light, and began to speak.

  “I am Deirdre Tombs, Beta to Everton Stark, who has made it clear he plans to seize the role of Alpha from Rylie Gresham.” She only stumbled over the scrolling words a little bit. They were faster than she expected. When she paused, the teleprompter did too, and it didn’t continue until she resumed speaking. “He’s come to realize that violence…”

  Violence isn’t truly the answer to the problems our country faces.

  That was what it said on the teleprompter.

  Deirdre didn’t need to see the rest of the words to know that she wasn’t going to be able to say them. The statement on the teleprompter was wrong on so many levels.

  “Everton Stark is running for Alpha,” she finally said. “He’s joined the election and taken the oath. Not because he’s violating his principles, but because he knows what matters. This country, and this world, belongs to the gaeans. It belongs to the people, not to the politicians who throw decadent parties and pretend it’s diplomacy. The sidhe want you to riot. They want you to destabilize this election because they know they can’t win fairly. All they want is your blood, but Stark wants to free you.

  “That’s why you should elect Everton Stark when you go to your local polling station. A vote for him means placing control where it should be. With you.”

  The teleprompter had frozen when she went off-script. The staff exchanged uneasy looks behind the camera.

  She plucked the microphone off her lapel, got off the bench, and walked away.

  The back of her neck prickled as she left the set. Nobody stopped her. She’d given Secretary Friederling what he wanted.

  And now there was a target on her back. Stark was going to kill her.

  Deirdre could feel it coming.

  War of the Alphas Book 4

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