Chapter 266 Fifteen Panels – Aleksandr’s POV

Chapter 266 Fifteen Panels – Aleksandr’s POV
The white lights had burned all night. I counted the fifteen fluorescent panels above Amelia’s bed because numbers were easier than watching her chest rise with the shallow rhythm of someone whose body had chosen sleep over consciousness.
Her hand rested cool inside mine. Hours of contact had warmed our joined palms, but her fingers remained slack. Burgundy silk had given way to a hospital gown; someone had taken her crown, and her hair spread across the pillow in dark tangles. Every detail looked too ordinary for a night that had nearly cost us everything.
Sylvia had returned after twenty minutes became forty, then two hours, then dawn. Her report had been clipped and clinical because facts offered more use than comfort. Amelia’s body was processing the poison. The pups’ heartbeats remained strong and consistent for twelve weeks and five days. Toxicology showed botanical compounds and traces of metal, but nothing likely to cause permanent damage at the dose she had swallowed. Even so, she had not woken. Her consciousness had withdrawn beyond Sylvia’s instruments, and the healer’s only explanation had been a tight shake of her head. “Her body knows what it needs.”
What it needed, apparently, was to keep me waiting.
Skoll remained restless. He circled the dark edge of our shared mind, every turn carrying the same demands. ‘Wake mate. Protect pups. Find threat.’ The repetition had worn language down to instinct.
I had stopped arguing with him sometime before dawn. My anger no longer burned; it had sharpened into a narrow, disciplined purpose that left no room for sleep.
The door opened. Dominic entered with the controlled efficiency of a man who had spent the night putting his fury to work. He checked Amelia, the monitors and the IV line before turning to me.
“How is she?” he asked.
“No change.” The words came out rough. “Body’s processing it. Pups are fine. She hasn’t woken.”
Relief briefly softened his expression. “We’ve made progress on the investigation, my King. The kitchen assistant and the waiter have been interrogated. Their statements led us to two more arrests.”
I stood. The chair scraped across the linoleum, obscenely loud in the quiet room. Releasing Amelia felt wrong, as though distance itself amounted to failure, but the people who had put her here were waiting below.
“Take me to them.”
The cells lay three levels down, reached by a service elevator lined with scratched steel. Dominic stood beside me and delivered the briefing in compact pieces, offering names, roles and facts while the lift carried us beneath the palace.
“Owen Mercer, kitchen staff. Sixty-seven, omega rank, employed by the palace for decades. He admitted making the poisoned pastry. Finn Ashby collected it from the kitchen but was stopped by a guest on the route to the Queen. Seraphina Kane, wait staff, completed the delivery.”
“Kane,” I said. The name landed cold.
“Related to Councillor Thaddeus Kane, yes. Distant branch. Lesser family. Seraphina and her brother Percival both secured positions through the Kane name, though Thaddeus himself has never acknowledged the connection publicly.”
The elevator opened onto reinforced obsidian and sparse light. Guards stood at intervals with weapons visible, and the corridor carried the sterile chill of a place designed to keep its occupants contained.
The interrogation room waited at the far end. Four people knelt on the stone floor, gagged and bound, with two guards behind each captive. Bruises marked their faces. Dominic’s team had not wasted the night.
I identified them from Dominic’s briefing. Owen was stocky, sandy-haired and calloused from kitchen work. Finn was lean and unnaturally still, the trained invisibility of a waiter surviving even on his knees. Seraphina remained neat despite her loosened dark hair. Percival shared her angular features and poorly concealed panic. Their resemblance made the connection impossible to miss.
Dominic pinched the bridge of his nose. Exhaustion had stripped his usual composure to something thinner. “Their accounts overlap only where the evidence forces them to. Every other detail changes according to who believes blame will buy survival.”
“Owen made the pastry. Finn collected it. Seraphina delivered it. She first denied knowing anything, but poison residue was found in Percival’s quarters. He supplied Owen. Since then, the questioning has become a family feud. Percival claims he followed instructions. Seraphina says she protected her brother. Owen says he was threatened. Finn insists he followed protocol.”
I stopped before Percival and tore away his gag. He dragged in a ragged breath and tried to recover enough dignity to meet me squarely.
“What did you hope to achieve?” I asked.
He remained silent. Calculation moved across his face, but every option had already narrowed to confession or consequence.
I drove him back against the obsidian and held him there by the collar. Stone struck bone with a flat crack. His defiance vanished.
“Answer me.”
His feet scraped for purchase. When he spoke, the words came fast and broken, panic finally stronger than loyalty.
“Better life,” he gasped. “For me. For Sera. Thaddeus needed our help. Said we’d be rewarded. Said the Queen was... contaminating the line. Said the pups couldn’t be allowed.”
The name cut through every other thought.
“Thaddeus Kane is behind this?”
From the floor, Seraphina nodded. Quickly, frantically, her bound body straining toward the confirmation like a drowning woman reaching for rope.
All four captives began talking at once. Owen insisted he had been threatened. Finn denied knowing the pastry was poisoned. Seraphina and Percival turned on each other, arguing over who had approached whom and who had allowed the plan to reach the Queen instead of arranging an interception.
The truth emerged in fragments. Thaddeus Kane had approached Percival months earlier, before the prison break, beginning with small requests for observations and information. Once Amelia’s pregnancy was confirmed, the expectation escalated. Kane avoided written orders and direct participation. Percival chose the method, recruited Seraphina, selected Owen as vulnerable and exploited Finn’s access. Four ambitious conspirators had taken Kane’s prejudice and turned it into a plan they hoped would purchase status.
Kane was probably nowhere near the execution of this attack. His movements after the prison break had been tracked, and the timing did not fit. The poisoning had developed earlier, shaped by people who saw an opportunity and believed the Queen and her pups were an acceptable price for advancement.
Skoll went utterly still inside me. His silence carried more danger than rage: four targets, one wounded mate and no reason, in his mind, to leave any of them breathing.
‘End threat,’ he said. Nothing more.
The captives kept shouting, each voice desperate to rise above the others. Their explanations had stopped carrying information. They were only noise from people who understood that consequence had entered the room.
I looked at Dominic. His expression tightened. Four decades at my side had taught him to recognise the moment before restraint failed, and he had just seen it.
My mind returned to the medical wing: white light, a silent monitor and Amelia’s cold fingers lying unresponsive in mine. These four had discussed her life as an obstacle. They had considered our pups contamination and treated miscarriage as a route to influence. Whatever distance remained between the king who demanded evidence and the wolf who demanded blood narrowed with every breath.
Dominic took one step towards me. “My King,” he said, low enough that the captives could not mistake restraint for mercy. “We have names now. We can trace Kane’s network, identify his remaining allies and determine who else knew. They are more useful alive.”
He was right. The rational part of me catalogued the arguments: records, contacts, financial transfers, messages routed through intermediaries. A wider conspiracy might still be active inside the palace. Killing these four would close mouths before we had emptied them of everything they knew.
Percival must have recognised the hesitation. Relief flickered across his face, small and premature. Then his sister accused him of choosing the poison, and Owen swore he had been told the dose would only make Amelia ill. Finn claimed he never touched the box. Their voices rose again, each lie grinding against the image of my wife unconscious upstairs.
The room narrowed to breath, heartbeat and the taste of restraint breaking. Skoll did not push or roar. He waited, certain I would reach the same conclusion.
My control fractured.