Chapter 142 142
Damien's POV
The poison cleared faster than Lucas expected. Maybe touching my son did it. Whatever lived in his blood worked through mine and cleaned it out. I underestimated the poison and what Clara give to me. It clearly wasn't enough because this was the same poison that knocked out our entire family.
So hard to stand up so that I can just hold on to my son and not be a burden to her. Amelia was sitting with the baby when I came back to her. We already went back and she was getting the good treatment but she deserved.
"You're better," she said looking so much relieved.
"I'm better." I sat beside her. I looked at my son. He had stopped crying. "I'm going after Richard."
She was quiet for a second.
"Come back safe" she said, more like he was ordering me.
I know she's worried and she doesn't want to me to know. Richard already got me once, there is no way he's getting me again.
"I'll come back," I told her.
She nodded and looked back at our son.
I looked at him for one more moment. Then I got up and found Lucas and we left the pack house.
...
Richard didn't gone far. He couldn't have been able to go far anyway because he lost everything he was planning for so many years. All the resources and all the time he spent on it was wasted. He was at the eastern edge of the territory, moving slowly, and my team found his trail in under twenty minutes.
Either he was tired. Or he wasn't trying very hard to run. I found out which one when we caught up to him.
He was sitting on a fallen tree at the edge of the tree line. He heard us coming and he didn't move. He watched us approach and when I stopped in front of him he looked up at me with the expression of someone who had already finished making their decisions.
I had a lot of things I wanted to say and do to him. Killing him was part of it but I wanted to listen to Amelia's suggestion to let him go to trial. He looked at me for a moment.
Then he said, "Your parents were exceptional people."
"I want you to know that," he said. "Before anything else. Whatever you think of me, and I understand what you think of me, your parents were genuinely exceptional. Your father especially. He was the most capable protector the court ever had. I respected him enormously."
"And you had him killed," I retorted.
"Yes." He said it without looking away. "I did. Because he helped the child get out and I couldn't leave that loose end." He paused. "I want to tell you something about that specifically and I need you to hear it fully before you respond."
I looked at him. I clenched my fists, ready to cut off his head.
"They knew," he said. "The new that helping save that child was going to kill them and they would have to abandon you. They didn't care and they went on with it anyway." He held my gaze. "They chose her. Because they believed in what the royal bloodline meant for this world and they believed that child deserved the chance to grow into it... But not you."
" shut the fuck up!" I couldn't hold in my anger anymore and point him in a way that it made him fly off. I went to grab him again and continue to.
Lucas was a few feet behind me and I could feel him being very still. My parents were honest people who were doing their job in protecting the royal family because that is what they pledged for.
"Don't try to sow discord here." I told him, "not stupid enough to believe in anything you're saying. If you think you can buy your time and plan something else, you are very wrong. You can't manipulating like manipulated idiots."
I was already mad at him and I hated him. The hits I gave him was more than enough for any normal person and he wasn't a normal person anyway. He deserved to be beaten up so much more. I was told not to kill him but I wasn't told not to beat him b
"Is there anything else you want to say," I asked him.
He looked at me for a long moment, trying to recover but I pressed his legs to the ground as I could hear his bone breaking. It was a satisfying sound for me.
"I'm tired," he said simply. "I've been doing this for so many years and I'm tired. I know it's over. I'm not going to run from you. I'm not going to try to negotiate. I just want you to give me some time to think about myself and how far I came."
"I became like this because of my parents bias towards me. Delete my younger brother take over the pack when I was clearly the older one. I didn't deserve to go through everything that I went through. I just wanted power–"
I hit him again to shut him up this time around because I was tired of listening to him talk.
I grabbed his hair, putting him in pain. "You killed thousands of people because of your own parents attitude towards you and you think that okay?"
"You became like this because of your greed and evil. No one made you like this so stop trying to be victim blame anyone. I won't fall for any of that nonsense."
I scoffed at him. Then I turned and signaled my warriors forward.
Two of them moved to either side of him. He stood up from the log without being forced to. He didn't fight it. He just stood up and let them take his arms and he looked like someone who had put something very heavy down.
They started moving him back toward the territory. I watched them go. Then Richard stopped and turned his head back toward me.
"One more thing," he said.
I looked at him.
"The poison I used on the royal court." He held my eyes. "The compound. I made five doses total. I used four of them on the court." He paused. "The fifth one I hid. Years ago. In a location nobody knows about but me."
The tree line was very quiet.
"I'm not telling you this as a threat," he said. His voice was even. "I'm telling you because I'm done and I don't want it used by someone else after I'm gone. Someone will eventually find it. Find it first."
"I don't need you telling me any of this. I'm going to burn the entire place down so that poison doesn't surface. You can be rest assured while you're going to hell."
He turned back around and let the warriors walk him forward and didn't say anything else. I stood at the edge of the tree line and watched him until he was out of sight.
Then I looked at Lucas. He was already looking at me.
"Start looking for it," I said. "Burn the entire place down immediately you find it."
"Yes, Alpha."