Five

Vali

I fucking hate France. For no other reason than the amount of people that are constantly here. We were staying in Paris tonight, just because of the ease of access and then going to the manor tomorrow to storm the opening meeting of the Summit. Right now I was staring at the stupid dress that Jackson had picked for the event, and the heels. The damned heels.

I could only imagine what he planned to do to my face come morning.

“You are abnormally quiet.” I said, my eyes on Jackson as he paced our room. Marcy had gone to find some food, she should be back any second now.

“Just thinking. We need a plan of attack for tomorrow, and currently there isn’t a good one.” He said, I sighed.

“I thought me going in was the plan.” I joked, standing up and putting my hands on his shoulders.

“Please, don’t joke with me about this.” He said.

“I’m sorry, but you need to calm down.” I told him.

“I didn’t tell you to calm down in the forest, did I? This is what I do. You deal with safety of our people, Marcy deals with your safety and I deal with the whole politics situation which is definitely the hardest fucking job out of all of us. We have one chance at this tomorrow… if we fuck it up-”

“Jackson.” I cut him off, his eyes finally landed on mine. “Whatever you plan, I will follow it to the letter. You know what’s best, you just need to tell me what to do.” I said, the door opened and Marcy walked in, so I let go of his shoulders.

“Do I want to know?” Marcy asked, closing the door behind herself and bringing the pizza over to the small table in the room.

“We have no set plan.” Jackson repeated.

“Then we make one.” I said, he shook his head.

“This will be the first Summit ever where the White Wolf has actually been present. We have never been included before, so we need to make sure that we are showing that we have a right to be there.” He said, Marcy nodded as she opened the pizza box.

“How do we have the right? Specifics.” Marcy said, picking up a slice and eating it.

“The Summit, the laws around it, never specify us not being able to attend. In fact they recommend that we do, it’s just the societal base around it because of the vampires means that we have never been welcome.” Jackson said.

“Well, there’s my rebuttal if anyone tries to tell me that I can’t be there.” I said, picking up my own slice of pizza.

“And normally only one person from each of the races is used as a voice. So it would be best if only Vali spoke, if we have opinions we need to tell her directly through whispering or written notes.”

“That’s not a plan, Jackson. That’s the etiquette.” Marcy said, Jackson nodded as he kept pacing.

“The first meeting is about putting all discussion points onto the table for the groups to go away and discuss how they would proceed or vote on a situation. Even if we don’t get a vote, bringing up the Hunts during the meeting will make it necessary to bring it up later. If it is brought up during the first meeting, it will also be brought up next year when they read through the previous minutes.”

“So I have to bring up the topic of the Hunts-”

“More importantly, you need to bring stance and a proposal to resolve said issue.”

“Easy, stance is strongly against the Hunts and proposal is to get it stopped.” I said, but Jackson just shook his head.

“Just saying you want them stopped won’t be enough, you need to bring up exact reasons why it should be. The statistics we pulled from the census you initiated to track our numbers should work.”

“I have to bring up our rapidly declining numbers to prove the Hunts aren’t being used as a control method anymore, and instead being used to wipe us off the planet.” I said, he nodded. “Okay, so I have to bring it up and be specific. Please don’t tell me this was all you were worried about…”

“I’m worried that there is a counter plan.” He said, I rolled my eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes at me, I’m serious.”

“How would they know that I’m even coming?” I asked, he took a short breath.

“Well… politics.” He said. If that wasn’t the most vague sentence I had ever heard in my damned life… I sat up straighter in my seat and stared him straight in his eyes.

“What the fuck do you mean ‘politics’?” I asked, he tilted his head to the side in an attempt to use puppy privilege with me. It wouldn’t work for the grown ass wolf. “Jackson.”

“Rumours, they are a powerful tool. I wanted them to worry about us, to think that we would be coming, so I started a rumour mill with my witch contact about you. While most believe it is just rumour, they have an idea that you exist and are female and are possibly going to storm the Summit.” Jackson said, and I was about to continue pressing him as to why he thought that would be a good idea, but instead Marcy simply began growling.

“It would work to make them afraid, but it could also give them warning if they are either cautious or paranoid. Which, from what I hear, Traian is both.” He explained. I nodded.

“So, you wanted this to go well and got rid of our element of surprise?” I asked him, he nodded slowly.

“Not entirely. They don’t know for sure that you’re coming, and the rest probably assume that you aren’t. Like I said, you would be the first wolf to ever go to the Summit, they highly doubt you would turn up.” Jackson said.

I took a slow breath and grabbed my second slice of pizza before standing up to look at the dress again.

“Do I really have to wear a dress?” I asked.

“Beauty and power.” Jackson said simply, I let a little growl of annoyance slip out of my mouth.

“Okay, is there anything else we should worry about?” I asked, turning to look at Marcy who was already halfway through her third slice of pizza.

“All good on my front, unlike Jackson I don’t leave things until the last minute.” She said with a smile, Jackson faked offence at the statement by placing a hand over his heart and gasping.

“I do my best work under pressure, thank you very much.” He said, I turned towards him and shook my head.

“If by ‘best work’ you mean ‘stressing me out completely’, then yes, you do.”