Free Prey by Rachel Vincent Page A

piled high with accessories and necessities, and a dirty-diaper storage…contraption… thing . Which I was pretty sure hadn’t even been invented when Sara was born.
    The Di Carlos had gone shopping for Manx’s baby.
    “Very nice,” Manx agreed. But tears stood in her eyes, and in spite of the room full of furnishings, she still clutched the baby to her chest, as if he were the only thing keeping her above water in a swirling, churning whirlpool of fear and confusion.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked, then immediatelyregretted the question. What wasn’t wrong? “Do you want to…maybe… put him down while you get settled in?” I gestured awkwardly toward the crib, and Manx glanced at the baby bed as if seeing it for the first time.
    But instead of moving toward it, she met my gaze, her gray eyes magnified by tears. “What will happen to me, Faythe? The truth. Vic says all will be fine. What do you say?”
    Well, shit. I picked up a stuffed lamb from one corner of the crib and played absently with the soft, curly wool. “Manx, I honestly don’t know. This is kind of unprecedented.” I was the only other tabby who’d ever been on trial in the U.S., and my case wasn’t much like hers, in spite of the surface similarities. The charges against her were more serious—three counts of murder to my one count each of murder and infection—yet her chances of getting off were much greater than mine.
    Which was probably exactly what she needed to hear.
    “Okay, on the bright side, I don’t think they’ll vote to execute.” I glanced at Manx, then at the door open into the hall. Everyone else was downstairs, and none of the tribunal members had arrived yet, but I wasn’t taking any chances. “Why don’t you sit? I need to explain something to you.”
    Manx’s beautiful lips thinned in dread, but in the end her curiosity won out. While I closed the door, she laid the sleeping baby in the crib, then collapsed into the rocker as if it were a massage chair. I settled cross-legged onto the bed.
    “Okay…” In the absence of my own punching pillow, I had to make do with a frilly sham from Manx’s temporary bed. I pulled it onto my lap and traced the lacy pattern as I spoke. “You’re on trial for killing three toms, but that’s not all this hearing is about.”
    Her forehead knit into several thin lines. “What does that mean?”
    I wasn’t sure how much my mother had already explained to her, so I started at the beginning. “It’s political.” From what I’d gathered, the South American Prides’ council held much less authority over individual Prides than ours did, so our political struggles were largely foreign to her. “You know my dad was suspended as head of the Territorial Council a little while ago, right?” I asked. She nodded. “Well, his enemies will probably try to use your trial to manipulate more Alphas into siding against my father. This is as much about him and the way he dealt with your… crimes as it is about you.”
    Her frown deepened. “I do not understand.”
    I exhaled slowly, struggling with how best to explain. “Some people think my father should have punished you for killing Jamey Gardner. Jamey’s brother Wes is Alpha of the Great Lakes Pride, and Wes is pushing for the death penalty for you.”
    Manx nodded, but her hand began to tremble on the arm of the rocker. She’d known execution was a possibility, of course, but knowing something and hearing it spoken aloud were two entirely different animals. To which I could personally attest.
    “But like I said, I don’t think they’ll do that. You are a tabby, and we really don’t have any of those to spare.” Which was probably the only reason I was still breathing.
    The tribunal had threatened me with execution, too, but that threat had merely been a bargaining chip meant to force Marc out of the Pride and me into a marriage with someone else. Someone they considered a more appropriate match for me than a stray.
    They’d