Chapter 140 ALL COMES TUMBLING DOWN

Chapter 140 ALL COMES TUMBLING DOWN
MERRIELYNN.

We were tangled together under a blanket on the couch, completely lost in our bubble while One Piece played on the massive TV mounted on the wall.
Cormac had one arm wrapped around me and I was tucked into his side with my head resting on his chest. I could hear his heartbeat under my ear, steady and strong. The mark on my neck pulsed with warmth every few seconds, sending little waves of contentment through the bond between us.
I felt his emotions through the mark I’d given him after mine.
Our bond was complete.
It felt like we were one.
This moment right here was everything I’d been missing for so long without even knowing it.
When the episode ended, Cormac shifted underneath me. “I need topiss,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of my head before carefully extracting himself from our blanket cocoon.
I watched him walk away, already missing the warmth of him against me.
I grabbed the remote and started scrolling to queue up the next episode, settling deeper into the couch cushions and pulling the blanket up to my chin.
A few minutes passed in comfortable silence.
Then I heard soft sounds coming from somewhere near the front of the house. Shuffling footsteps maybe. Muted voices that I couldn’t quite make out.
Cormac reappeared in the doorway wearing gray sweatpants, his hair damp like he’d splashed water on his face. He paused right there by the foyer, his whole body going still. His head turned slowly toward the front door.
The sounds were getting louder now.
“Cormac?” I started to sit up.
The front door exploded inward.
It didn’t just swing open. The entire thing was blown off its hinges with so much force that chunks of wood and splinters scattered across the floor like shrapnel.
I screamed.
Men in dark uniforms flooded through the destroyed doorway so fast they were almost a blur. They moved with this terrifying precision, spreading out through the room like they’d done this a thousand times before.
Three of them descended on Cormac immediately. They grabbed his arms and slammed him face-first against the wall by the door hard enough that I heard the impact.
More were heading straight for me.
My brain finally caught up with what was happening and I scrambled off the couch, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard it hurt. “Get away from me!”
Hands grabbed at my arms, my shoulders, trying to get a hold on me. I shoved them off as hard as I could, twisting my body away, but there were too many of them. For every hand I knocked away, two more appeared.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!”
Cormac’s voice tore through the riot like a physical force.
I whipped around just in time to see him break free from the three men holding him. He shoved two of them aside like they were made of paper and started charging toward me.
But more guards piled onto him before he could make it three steps. Four men, then five, then six, all trying to wrestle him back under control. He was fighting like something feral, all raw power and desperation. I could feel his rage and terror bleeding through the bond between us.
“Get off him!” I was screaming now, still fighting against the hands grabbing at me from every direction. “Let him go! Stop!”
The arms holding me were so tight I couldn’t move. I watched helplessly as the pile of guards on Cormac grew larger.
One of them pulled something from his belt. A syringe filled with clear liquid that caught the light.
My stomach dropped.
“No!” I lunged forward with everything I had but the arms around me just tightened, then lifted me completely off my feet. “Don’t! Cormac, no!”
The guard with the syringe moved fast. He uncapped it with his teeth and drove the needle straight into the side of Cormac’s neck.
Cormac’s entire body jerked. His movements started slowing down immediately, his struggles getting weaker and less coordinated. His eyes found mine across the room and they were filled with so much panic and fury and helpless apology that I felt something crack inside my chest.
“Cormac,” I sobbed. “Please, what did you do to him? Cormac!”
His eyes were still on me but they were getting unfocused. Glazed.
“No, no, no,” I was babbling now, tears streaming down my face while I fought uselessly against whoever was holding me. “Let me go! I need to get to him! Cormac!”
One of the men restraining me grabbed my arm so hard I felt his fingers dig into bone. I tried to yank it away and he made this frustrated sound.
Then he drew his hand back and cracked me across the face with the back of his fist.
The blow snapped my head violently to the side. Pain exploded across my cheekbone and jaw, white-hot and blinding. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.
The world tilted sideways.
Then everything went black.
––•––
It was cold.
That was the first thing I registered when consciousness started creeping back in.
Everything was so cold it felt like the chill had seeped into my bones and settled there permanently.
My head was throbbing with this deep, pulsing pain that made me want to throw up. My face felt swollen and tender where I’d been hit. When I tried to reach up to touch it, my arm felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and I could only lift it halfway before it fell back down.
I forced my eyes open even though it took more effort than it should have.
Stone walls surrounded me on all sides. Gray and damp and ancient-looking. There was a small barred window set high up near the ceiling letting in weak gray light that told me nothing about what time it was or how long I’d been unconscious.
A heavy metal door with a slot at the bottom sat directly across from where I was lying.
I was on a cot. If you could even call it that. It was more like a thin piece of fabric stretched over a metal frame, doing absolutely nothing to protect me from the cold seeping up from the stone floor underneath.
A cell.
I was in a fucking cell.
The realization sent ice water through my veins.
I pushed myself up slowly, fighting through the waves of dizziness and nausea that threatened to pull me back down. Every movement sent fresh pain radiating through my skull. When I finally managed to sit upright, I had to stay completely still for several seconds while the room stopped spinning.
Then I looked toward the bars.
Two guards stood on the other side, both dressed in the same dark uniforms as the men who’d stormed Cormac’s house. Both were armed with weapons I didn’t recognize but looked extremely lethal. They stared straight ahead with blank expressions, like I wasn’t even there.
“Where am I?” My voice came out as this horrible rasp that barely sounded like me.
Neither guard moved. Neither guard spoke. They didn’t even blink.
Panic started rising in my throat.
“Where’s Cormac?” I tried again, forcing more volume into my voice even though it made my head pound worse. “Please, where is he?”
Nothing. Not even a flicker of acknowledgment that I’d spoken.
I was about to try again when I heard something that made my blood freeze.
A door opening somewhere down the corridor. The sound echoed off the stone walls, making it impossible to tell how far away it was.
Then footsteps. Slow and measured and getting steadily closer.
The two guards outside my cell went rigid. Their postures shifted from relaxed alertness to something that looked almost like fear. They both bowed their heads slightly, their eyes fixed firmly on the ground.
Whoever was coming, they outranked everyone here.
The footsteps continued their steady approach. Each one seemed to take forever. Each one made my heart beat faster.
Then a figure came into view and every bit of air left my lungs.
King Killian.
He looked exactly like I remembered him from three years ago when I’d lived in the palace. Tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair that was streaked through with gray at the temples.
His face was all sharp angles and hard lines. He wore formal clothes that screamed royalty and power. But more than any of that, it was the way he carried himself. This absolute authority that seemed to make everyone and everything around him smaller by comparison.
He stopped directly in front of my cell and looked at me through the bars with eyes that were the exact same shade of green as Cormac’s.
But they held none of his familiar warmth.
I wanted to crawl backward until I hit the wall. Wanted to make myself as small as possible and hope he’d forget I was here. But I forced myself to stay exactly where I was sitting on that awful cot.
“Where’s Cormac?” The question came out steadier than I’d expected. “What did you do to him?”
The King tilted his head slightly, studying me like I was some kind of interesting specimen. “Guards,” he said without taking his eyes off me. “Leave us.”
The two men didn’t hesitate or question. They turned in perfect unison and walked away, their footsteps fading down the corridor until I couldn’t hear them anymore.
Which was somehow infinitely worse than having them there.
My fear must have been written all over my face because something that might have been amusement flickered across the King’s expression.
“Why are you afraid of me?” he asked. His voice was smooth and cultured and completely devoid of any warmth. “If I recall correctly, we’ve never actually met.”
“Yes, we have,” I said quietly. My hands were shaking so I clenched them into fists in my lap. “I remember you. I remember everything now.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. For just a second, he looked genuinely surprised. “You remember?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice anymore.
A slow smile spread across his face. It was the kind of smile that made my skin crawl. “Very good. That means I don’t have to waste time reminding you of your past transgressions.”
My heart turned to ice in my chest.
He was talking about Lorelai. About the accident. About how his daughter was dead and he blamed me for it.
“Where is Cormac?” I asked again, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. I needed to know he was okay and that they hadn’t hurt him worse than what I’d already seen. “Please, just tell me where he is.”
“He’s safe,” the King said, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the wall opposite my cell. He looked completely relaxed. Like we were having a casual conversation about nothing important.“But his current condition is of no consequence to you,” he continued, examining his fingernails like this was boring him. “Considering you’ll be dead in a few hours.”
The words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest.
Dead.
He was going to kill me.
All the air left my lungs and I couldn’t seem to get it back. My vision went fuzzy at the edges.
“You have to pay for your crimes,” the King said in that same conversational tone, like he was explaining something simple to a child. “Three years ago, you murdered my daughter. You stole her from me. From her brother. From everyone who loved her.”
“It was an accident,” I whispered. The words came out broken. “I didn’t mean to—”
“And now,” he continued, speaking right over me like I hadn’t said anything at all, “you’ve killed the Alpha heir to the Bronxe Wolves. Valtor Bronxe. Another life destroyed because of your recklessness.”
I felt like I was going to be sick. “That wasn’t—Cormac didn’t mean—”
“You will be executed before the masses at noon tomorrow,” the King said, pushing off the wall and straightening to his full imposing height. “A public display in the palace square. Justice for the families you’ve destroyed. Justice for the lives you’ve stolen.”
Noon tomorrow.
I had less than twenty-four hours to live.
The reality of it crashed over me and I couldn’t breathe.
“And after you’re dead,” the King said, and something in his voice made me look up at him through my tears, “my son will finally be able to focus on what’s important. On his duties to his kingdom. On his future as the next king.”
He took a step closer to the bars. Close enough that I could see the absolute conviction in his eyes.
“On moving on from you.”
He looked at me for one more long moment. There was no sympathy in his expression. No mercy. No hint of humanity at all.
Then he turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing down the corridor with that same measured pace.
I listened to them get quieter and quieter until finally they faded completely and there was nothing but silence.
I was alone in this freezing cell with stone walls that felt like they were closing in.
And I had less than a day left to live.