Chapter 82

Chapter 82
Maddox

When I walked out of that room, the door hadn't even finished clicking shut when the rage boiled over. 

I turned around and slammed my fist into the stone wall of the hallway. Then I did it again. And again. I didn't care about the pain in my knuckles or the way my skin split. 

I just kept hitting it until the brick started to crumble and dust coated my boots.

He rejected me! He sat there, in my own house, in my own room, and straight up rejected me!

Delusional? He called me... he called me crazy. Me? Crazy?

I leaned my forehead against the cold, damaged wall, breathing hard. 

My heart was thumping so fast it felt like it was going to burst out of my ribs. 

Jesse wasn't supposed to find out about Gale. Not like this. Not today. It was way too early for that. 

I had a plan. I was going to ease him into it, make him feel safe first, and then show him the truth when he was ready to accept it.
But no. 

He had to go and find that gallery. He had to go and look at that face before I could explain it. I cursed at myself. Why didn't I lock that wing of the house? Why was I so careless?

Wait...

I stood up straight, wiping the stone dust off my hands onto my pants. How did he even get out? 

I thought about the door to his room. It’s a reinforced door. It’s heavy wood and iron. Even a rogue as strong as him couldn't have kicked that down without making enough noise to wake up the whole floor. 

And he didn't break it. I would have seen the splinters.

So, if he didn't break it, that means it was opened.

"Who?" I whispered. The thought made my blood run cold. Was there a traitor in my house? Did someone help him? Or was my beta guards just that incompetent? 

I didn't waste another second. I marched down the hall, my boots echoing like thunderclaps on the floorboards. 

I saw two guards standing near the main staircase and I barked at them before they could even salute.

"You two! Move! Go to the guest wing right now," I ordered, my voice booming. I saw them flinch, and honestly, good. They should be scared. Jesse rejected me. Everyone should be fucking scared!

"I want the guards who were on duty when Jesse escaped brought to the courtyard. Right now. Don't let them go anywhere else. If they try to run, break their legs. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Alpha!" they shouted in unison, scurrying off as fast as they could.

I turned and headed for the courtyard. I needed the open air before I suffocated on my own temper. The moon was high, casting everything in a pale, ghostly light, the same light that Gale used to love. I shouldn't be thinking about him right now, but I couldn't help it. Everything was falling apart because of a single open door.

Those incompent beta guards will answer for their stupidity. This was all their fault. I’m the Alpha.

By the time I heard the sound of footsteps, I had already decided what I was going to do. I didn't care if they had a good excuse. I didn't care if they were sorry. 

Jesse was my second chance, my miracle, and they almost let him slip through my fingers.

The two incompetent guards were dragged out into the open. Beta Jon and Beta Khan. Two men who were supposed to be seasoned.

"Tell me how does a locked door just... open itself? Is my house haunted? Or are you just a pathetic excuse for a soldier?"

"You absolute idiots!"

They both fell to their knees before I could even get closer. Their knees hit the stone with a loud thwack.

"Alpha, please!" Jon started, his voice shaking. "We had no idea he was gone. We didn't see him leave, we swear!"

"It’s the truth!" Khan added. "We didn't see a thing. One minute the door was shut, and the next—"

"Shut up!"

"Just shut your mouths. I don't want to hear your pathetic excuses. I want the truth."

"Where were you? You were posted at that door for a reason. You had one job. One. Where were you when Jesse walked right out of that room?"

"We... we both went for a bathroom break, Alpha."

I stopped dead in my tracks. I stared at them for a long second, and then a laugh bubbled up in my throat.

"A bathroom break?" I asked. "So, you’re telling me that both of you two grown Betas decided you needed to use the bathroom at the exact same time? And not one of you thought, 'Hey, maybe I should stay back and make sure the most important person in this house is okay'?"

They didn't answer. They just stared at the ground.

"Did you just decide to ignore him completely?" I asked, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. 

"Why? Tell me why. Is it because he looks like Gale? Is that it? Does seeing his face make you uncomfortable?"

Maybe it did.

I grabbed Khan by the collar and jerked him upward. 

"Why would you want to ignore Gale, huh?? Did you always hate him? Was it all an act for five years? Maybe you were against the fact that your Alpha was mated to a man. Maybe you wanted to get rid of him then, and you’re trying to get rid of him now. Is that it?!"

"No, Alpha, it's not like that!" Khan stammered, his eyes wide with terror. "We... we would never—"

"You would and you did!" I screamed, shoving him back down. 

"By leaving that post, you endangered him. You left him vulnerable. Anything could have happened to him out there in the halls. He could have been hurt. He could have run into someone who actually wanted to harm him. You practically handed him over to the shadows."

I looked at them both, and all I could see were the rogues. 

They were guilty. It was so obvious. They wanted Gale dead then, and they wanted Jesse gone now. They were traitors. All of them!

"I find you guilty," I said, straightening my back. I felt a weird sense of calm wash over me. It was the calm that comes after a decision is made. 

"You failed your Alpha. You failed your Luna. You endangered the miracle the Goddess gave back to us."

"Alpha, no! Please!" Jon cried out, reaching for my boots.

I needed someone to pay. Jesse had looked at me with so much hate, calling me a crazy person, and it had to be someone’s fault. It couldn't be mine.

"Haul them out!" I shouted at the other guards standing around. "Take them to the center of the square and execute them. I want everyone to see what happens to traitors!"

But to my surprise, nobody moved. My own guards, men who usually jumped when I cleared my throat, were just standing there. 

"Did you not hear me? I said move! Now! Or do you want to join them on the floor?"

Beta Khan, looked up at me. His face was a mess of tears and dirt, but he managed to find his voice.

"Alpha, p-please," he stuttered. "He didn't break out. You have to listen to me. He wasn't some rogue who overpowered us. He was let out. He used a key."

I froze. My foot was half-raised to turn away, but I stopped dead. He used a key?

"A key? What are you talking about?"

"The lock! When we came back and realized he was gone, we checked the door. The wood wasn't splintered. The metal wasn't bent. It was clicked open, Alpha. Clean. Like someone just walked up and turned the lock for him."

If Jesse he had a key, it meant someone had handed it to him. Someone had stood right in front of him and given him the means to walk away from me. 

My mind started racing, jumping from one face to another. So someone was trying to help him escape?

"Whose key?" I asked. "Whose key opened that door? Was it yours? Did you sell it to him?"

"No! We didn't! We have our keys here."

I stepped back, my brain working through the list of people who had been in that room. Jesse had been injured. He’d been tied up. I had sent people in to fix him and feed him.

The nurse. And that maid... what was her name? Raya? Did they let him out?

They both had keys. They were the only ones who had been close enough to him. 

One of them must have looked at his face, at Gale... no Jesse's face, and felt some kind of misplaced pity. 

Or maybe they were working for Rhea? Maybe they wanted to help her take him away from me again?

The thought made me want to sick. If it was one of them, it meant the betrayal was coming from inside the house. It meant the people I trusted to care for my mate were the ones trying to set him loose.

"Guards!" I yelled, turning to the men who were still standing around looking confused. 

"Leave these two for now. Tie them up, but leave them. I want the nurse and the maid, Raya, brought to me immediately. Search the servants' quarters. Search the infirmary. I don't care if they’re sleeping, drag them out here in their nightclothes if you have to!"