Ivar attempts to go after them as Draco and his friend walk up the stairs and away from us but I stop him
"Ivar!" I say, firmly holding his hand, preventing him from going after them.
"Not today! Let him go for now! We'll have a lot of time to deal with him later, just not right now." I say but to my surprise, he struggles to remove his hand from mine.
"No, General! You heard him. He threatened to kill Ella! I have to kill the son of a bitch now otherwise we might not be able to get our hands on him after today! How can we even find him, he's a rogue! Rogues don't belong to any pack! If we don't kill him right now we might not have another opportunity again and... He said he would kill my mate, General. You heard when he said he would kill her!"
This is the first time any of my men apart from Eric will directly or indirectly question a direct command from me. But I understand the circumstances and how he's feeling so I let his first act of disobedience slide. I would do the same or more if the situation was reversed and it was my mate's life that was being threatened.
"It will never get to that point, believe me," I assure him.
"I will never stand by and watch this serpent hurt any member of my pack again, let alone my family members. Do you understand me!?'' I ask, tightening my grip on his arm and he nods curtly
"I understand!" He replies
I nod
"Good! Let's go then!" I say and turn to start walking down the stairs. We have less than five minutes to get to the court.
We enter the courtroom at about the same time the judge is settling into his chair. The moment his eyes meet mine from across his high judge bench, I know he will be a royal pain in my ass.
"This is the Council court, Mr Quinn. My courtroom, and not your pack. Tardiness will not be tolerated. I will hold you in contempt of court the next time you're late to my court, do I make myself clear?" He asks, obviously expecting me to reply to him but I turn to Alpha Nate, who is standing beside me instead.
"Mr. Quinn?" I say loud enough for the judge to hear me.
"Last time I checked, I am Alpha by blood and also the Alpha of the Silver Moon pack. Judge or not, he has no right to address me as just Mr. Quinn!"
"Well, Mr. Quinn, the last time I checked, you only won a duel, you've not been formally sworn in as the Alpha of Silver Moon pack. So in this courtroom, you'll be addressed as just Mr. Quinn. Alpha blood or not!" He replied to me before my lawyer could. Then he directs his gaze to Alpha Nate
"I've heard a lot about your client and his reputation so this is the first and also the last warning I will give him, so keep your client in line, otherwise!..." He threatens
I can feel my face heating up with anger as he talks but Alpha Nate hurriedly takes my arm, leading me to our seats.
"Thor, I know you're angry right now but hear me out. It's obvious the judge is one of Evelyn's stooges, so let's not give him the opportunity to hold you in contempt because if he does, you'll be lucky to get a heavy fine and not jail time.
I very much intend for this charade to be over today. So if you don't wish to drag it longer than necessary then calm down, bear with everything and anything he will be throwing your way, and play along, okay?" He says as he shows me to our seats.
I take a deep breath in before letting it out slowly to calm my temper
"Okay..." I finally reply and sit down.
I take the brief opportunity of the asshole judge looking through a file on his bench to look around the courtroom. I see the big courtroom is filled to the brim with people who came to watch me get disgraced and sentenced. Some pressmen, all the former elders, the patrol members, not including those in my dungeon of course.
My eyes meet with Evelyn and Justin who smirks happily at me.
'The wimp who could do nothing without his mother now has the courage to smirk at me, I see!' I think as I also smirk back.
The mother and son thought they had me. I can't wait to see their faces at the end of today when everything will finally be over.
I see Victoria and Carol where they're sitting directly behind Evelyn and Justine. Carol is going through something on her phone but my eyes meet with Victoria's who quickly turn away from me.
Even if we're on good terms, we're not on the same team today. I'm standing trial for the death of her father and mine after all.
Eric and Henrik aren't in court right now, they are with my dad until it's time to call them in. The rest of my men are sitting directly behind me. I turn back to look at them and Ella gives me a reassuring smile. I smile back at her and want to say something but the judge's voice reverberates through the courtroom right then.
"Counselors approach. My chambers please." He says and immediately stands to return to his office.
The other lawyer immediately stands up to follow him but I hold Alpha Nate's arm briefly to stop him. I've not been to a trial before and want to know why the judge is returning to his office.
"What's going on? Why is he going back to his office? I hope he's not going to adjourn when we've not even begun. I don't care what happened Alpha, but whatever it is, everything must be over today. I don't want to return here tomorrow and deal with this same shit all over again!" I whisper furiously to him
"No, he's not going to adjourn. I'm sure he just wants to speak about an aspect of the case that can't be talked about in the presence of everyone here and needs our position on it. I'm sure it won't be for long. Just get busy on your iPad and ignore them..." He points with his face toward where Evelyn and Justin are sitting. "Don't allow them to draw you into any sort of conversation please."
Alpha Nate said that their discussion won't be long but he was wrong. They were gone for almost twenty minutes. While they were gone, I was agitated and began to wonder...
The case concerns us so what could they be discussing for that long without the prosecutor and defendant's presence? Are we not also supposed to be in there with them?
They finally returned about thirty minutes later and only Evelyn's attorney had a smile on his face which got me worried. What took them so long? What did they discuss that got my lawyer frowning and Evelyn's lawyer smiling like they already won the case?
We have an edge over them, which is my dad. Isn't that enough to exonerate me of this false accusation? But then, I was accused of killing two people, one is alive while we never get to find out what happened to Victoria's father. Apart from his bloodied ripped shirt and a shoe that we found on the scene, nothing else was there. What could Evelyn and his lawyer have up their sleeves?
"You guys were gone for long. What happened? What's the problem?'' I ask Alpha Nate as soon as he sits beside me.
"Hold on, I'll explain everything to you in a bit..." He replies and stands up again
"Your honor, I would like to have a word with my client in private, please. He's worried and I need to quickly explain something about the case to him."
"Okay, the court is in recess then..." He says and hits his gavel on his desk. We'll return in fifteen minutes.