Alpha Assignment (BL) Chapter 58 (Early Access) (Patreon)

Breakfast came with a side of rough re-chaining. Every day Remi wriggled free, and the following day would bring a more elaborate attempt to contain the pair of them. Even an omega was being bound in metal now. Disgusting. Quinn snarled at them, wolf-teeth bared, at every touch to his mate.

Luckily, their guards were too ignorant to know how lithe and flexible an omega was. And so, every morning Remi contorted himself back out of the ridiculously oversized chains, and released Quinn, too. Instead of lock-and-key like the humans used to secure bonds, werewolves preferred systems that required a memorised puzzle-of-sorts. Intertwining the chains together to lock them into place. Even more luckily for Quinn, his mate was perceptive and artistic, which allowed him to visualise the system and reverse it. It was a small win, and about all the success they got to feel as days passed with no updates on their case.

Sometimes Remi cried for hours, sometimes he sat in Quinn’s lap and tried to comfort him. They received no visitors outside of their squalid meals. The time passed slowly. Only their weariness helped them tell that it even was passing at all, although it was possible they were going to bed earlier and earlier so as to avoid discussing their trial and their lack of options to fight it. Curling up in their wolf forms helped them avoid the reality that they were shrinking, too. Fur did wonders for the figure.

Remi wondered aloud one evening if they could claim to have dragged Eveline and Wes from Sanctuary in order to get them free, since he and Quinn had no defence for themselves, at least they could help the others… Quinn didn’t respond to the suggestion. His first priority was Remi, that is who he thought to sacrifice for, and now he was marked, they couldn’t be separated. The only way to get Remi out was to get himself out, and he hadn’t a clue how to do that.

They were awoken earlier than usual when their cell door was unlocked with all the grace of a tranquilised hippo. Something was different - it definitely wasn’t breakfast time. They had gotten used to the small portions and long waits and Quinn wasn’t on the brink of starvation, yet, so it couldn’t be time.

“Shift,” grumbled a heavy-set and shaggy-faced guard. More men appeared at his back, they watched Quinn with wary eyes.

On two bare feet they were taken back through the prison. Quinn carried Remi and the chains. The guards kept a tight circle around them, awaiting a wild and ferocious escape attempt at any moment. As if every door and floor didn’t look exactly-the-fucking-same.

They were not provided with fresh clothes before their trial, shoved into a cage for the witnesses and officials to gawk at. Looking the part of the crazy rogues they were being accused of being. Wes and Eveline were swaying, bleary-eyed and dirty, in their own containers.

The room wasn’t as big as Quinn had imagined, it was a hall half-filled with benches facing one direction, and a line of cages, elevated platform, and judging panel facing the opposite. In the centre of the two was open space, presumably for parading around prisoners, Quinn thought darkly.

Only a fraction of the seats were taken, and a few had sleeping occupants. Either they were about to have a very speedy corrupt trial… or a very slow corrupt trial. His father had once told him they had to have a minimum amount of ‘witnesses’ or the trial could not go ahead - people within the Assembly whose opinion was respected enough for them to sit in and watch official proceedings and then offer advice to the decision-makers at the end. He couldn’t remember what the exact number was, but it was definitely a single digit - they would get their trial today. For better or worse.

The slow corrupt trial became accurate when Quinn’s knees and ankles began to ache from standing so long in expectation of the trial even beginning. His feet, already chilly all the time in the dank cell, were almost numb. Wes and Eveline had both given up much sooner, slumping down on the floor of their cages. It was then that Quinn noticed Eveline still had her box of paperwork clutched to her chest. She didn’t hand it over… it gave him a smidge of hope…

Quinn refused to lower himself and his mate before the Assembly, he had some pride left. They remained standing as long as it took for their trial to begin.

A slimy man in an ostentatious outfit embroidered with all kinds of allegiances and commendations strutted into the room eventually, and a crowd followed to take their seats. He sat in the centre of the judging panel, and was joined by two slightly-less impressively-dressed women. Greasy Graham did not make an appearance.

When the man raised his hand, the quiet burble of conversation in the room fell to silence. He greeted everyone grandly, naming himself Justice Mile and introducing his fellow judges: Justices Williams and Kelly. It was a practiced speech he must be obliged to give at the start of all the cases he oversaw, but Quinn still wished he’d hurry up.

The charges were declared:

- Non-Assembly-registered pack formation. Three counts for membership and one for leading.

- Conspiracy to form a non-Assembly-registered pack.

- Resisting Assembly arrest.

- Harboring a minor without parental or birth pack permissions.

Quinn choked on his breath for a moment. His head snapped to Wes, searching his face for any indication that this was not true. A minor, within a pack, was sixteen or younger. Wes avoided his eyes, chewing his lip guiltily.

Quinn wanted to bang his head against the bars, but it would only prove the Assembly’s narrative that he was a batshit alpha. A runaway child, an ex-Assembly agent and an omega with a falsified delinquency history… and him. Maybe playing crazy was the only hope they had…

An Assembly agent laid out their crimes first, with photos taken from long distances, buried in bushes, and videos of their comings and goings. While Quinn’s alphahood had been enough to keep them from approaching immediately, it had only kept them as far back as a lens could reach. They’d been watched for weeks.

It only proved that they had all stayed in the same house, but a pack was what the Assembly chose it to be. A gathering of otherwise untethered werewolves was enough.

Surprisingly, they were all given a chance to speak and plead their case on the elevated platform once the prosecutor was finished. Even more surprisingly, Eveline didn’t cite a thing from her box of paperwork. Her defense was weak, and she seemed to know as much: her shoulders limp and her eyes jumping about the room nervously. She had also lost the meagre weight she’d gained under Quinn and Remi’s roof, and it hurt Quinn’s heart to see.

They stuck to their story: that they were applying for Sanctuary and that they were not a pack. No one was believing them. The witnesses sat facing them looked bored and ready for the group to be tossed back in their cells already.

“If I wanted a pack, I could have one with just a bit of paperwork - I’m an alpha,” Quinn reminded them. “But I have no interest in leading anyone. My mate is all I need with me, and we want to build a Sanctuary.” He finished his testimony with a reiteration of their one piece of proof. “We sent our application into the Assembly, we complied with your rules and you could confirm that by checking with whatever department deals with Sanctuary requests.” But you won’t, he added in his mind, because Sanctuary areas strip the Assembly of control - even in a space as small as Quinn’s home.

If Remi was playing ino his omega cuteness, he was doing a fantastic job. He stood in front of a hundred or so people, shivering in chains that looked oversized on Quinn’s frame, and spoke in a timid voice of how he had once needed Sanctuary. He spoke of his uncle, now in a cell, and offered gratitudes to the Assembly for their involvement and investigation (very undeserved, in Quinn’s opinion but it caught the attention of the half-asleep audience nicely). He offered the room a means of viewing Sanctuary as a space that worked in tandem with the Assembly to bring justice. A place for pause while paperwork bogged the hardworking Assembly agents down. He was a waif before them, armed with a flattering and carefully-worded speech. When he stopped speaking and nodded at the prosecutor that he was finished, a few heads in the crowd bobbed with him. Success. He was brought back to the cage to be reunited with Quinn, and curled into his arms like a sleepy puppy. The witnesses were lapping it up. Quinn stroked his hair tenderly, so incredibly proud of his mate.

Wes was last, and Quinn could no longer see him as anything but a boy. He stuck to their Sanctuary story - what he understood of it, that was - and added to Remi’s tale of the need for Sanctuary with his own story. He went a little far with the dramatic reconstruction of Quinn and Remi bringing him back from the dead. It was overzealous, albeit true for the most part. He didn’t have quite the charming hold on the audience that Remi had, but he did well. Quinn couldn’t help but feel proud of him, too.

The Justices did not take long to deliberate, and the witnesses filed in an out of their private room to share their own opinions at a swift speed so they couldn’t have had much to say… which worried Quinn.

He squeezed Remi close and glanced at Eveline, then Wes. They looked to him with wide eyes and dirty faces and he wished he was stupid enough to make a break for it. Bold and brash like a normal alpha. Break the cages, take his pack and run. His body ached to do something, anything, even if it was a fool’s move.

Everyone returned to their seats. Justice Mile stood once the room had fallen silent.

He spoke to the witness benches first. “Thank you for your time, and your insight, it is always valued and appreciated by myself and my fellow Justices.” There was a genial murmur that ran through the room at the praise. “I will keep this brief, as we have much work to do.” He flashed a knowing smile at Remi and received another round of agreeable noises from the witnesses. “Our decision is unanimous across all charges.” The Justices either side of him nodded heavily.

“We, the Justices of the Assembly, on this day of the twenty-first of December, find the accused guilty on all charges.”