Chapter 124 Charred
❀ Maeve ❀
I stood my ground, though my fingers trembled in my skirts.
Treason was exactly what I was accusing Vladis of, but even though I was queen, I understood my limitations.
Vladis had too much influence for me to go toe to toe with him.
I jutted my chin, showing him I wasn’t afraid.
“No one else sees you. They think you’re just a warden in the shadows who is satisfied with just that. They don’t see your influence, your patience. I won’t be bullied into rescinding my statement. I know for a fact that you were involved in the town’s uprising one way or the other.”
As I spoke, his eyes lightened with pride, not in me, in himself.
He finally felt seen. And I wanted him to know I saw. But did I just put myself in danger to prove a point?
“Finally, someone appreciates the position I occupy.” His shoes scuffed the floor as he rounded the table. “Though I must say, you give me too much credit there. I didn’t have to do more than observe. The culprit is the other obvious choice.”
I caressed the fabric of my skirts for patience. “Who?”
He was in front of me now, peering down with glowing red eyes. “Drusilla.”
I shivered from his tone. From the admission.
I had to tread carefully.
“Drusilla has accepted my rule. She won’t hurt me because she feels she owes her sister, my… mother...”
“Then you’re a foolish, foolish girl.” He raised a hand to touch my hair. “Do you know why you have white, silvery tresses? Did you ever question it?”
I stood frozen, my heart pounding erratically. I released a breath to calm myself.
“I had no reason to. Mother was tight-lipped with answers.”
Vladis chuckled. “Gwen was brave, I’ll give her that.”
My throat flash dried. “Y-you knew her?”
“Your birth mother, Lyssa, must have used her magic close to the time of your birth. That’s what gave your hair its silvery sheen,” he said, avoiding my question.
“You knew Gwen had me? And you never thought to come for me?” I insisted, my head reeling.
“Calm down. I did not.” He stepped back, sounding irritated. “Drusilla shared it with me.”
It had always been at the back of my mind, my unique looks. Gwen was brunette. The crimson vampires all had pitch-dark hair.
One factor remained uncounted for, but what were the odds my father was a silver-haired wolf?
I swallowed, following him around the vast office as he picked up and studied random objects.
“You mentioned drawing close to Lyssa after she was cursed. So you must know this.” My voice firm, I demanded, “Who is my father?”
Vladis responded immediately, bored. “Unimportant.”
“Unimportant?” I seethed. “That’s the exact same thing Drusilla said to me.”
“And for good reason. Look around you. Does this seem like a place where men are idolized?”
I stuttered, “Still…”
“In a queendom, a matriarchy, your line rests firmly on your mothers side. Your father is inconsequential.”
“So do you know who he is or not?”
“He’s dead to you,” Vladis snapped. “Whatever dreams of reconnection you have, bury them.”
I folded my arms stubbornly, my chest burning. They were hiding this from me. Why?
“You said he is dead to me, not that he is dead. Keep it to yourself all you want, but as you’ve seen, I have a way of walking straight into answers.”
“And yet you haven’t figured your aunt is actively trying to take your throne,” he said sarcastically.
“Fine, I’ll bite. What is Drusilla’s grand plan that involved supporting and crowning me publicly?”
He moved to an empty panel on the wall. After some deft tinkling, the wall folded upward, revealing a balcony not unlike Nikolai’s and Drusilla’s.
I’d just noticed my chambers didn’t have a balcony.
“Do you know what your pet is up to this instant?”
I glanced back at him.
“Pet?”
Did he mean Nikolai?
I clenched my fists, barely holding myself back from punching the wall.
“You keep dancing around subjects!”
“Because there’s so much you can barely figure out, bless your ignorant heart.”
Vladis kept stringing me along, playing with what I thought I knew. One thing remained constant, though: I couldn’t trust him.
“Why would you even be keeping tabs on what my mate is up to?”
The moon played on his crisp white shirt and glinted off the metal of the railing. His rings made small musical notes as he lazily dragged a palm across the bar.
“As warden, the activities in the dungeons concern me a great deal,” he said, feigning a wondering expression. “Like, for instance, why there is a tortured Lycan prince in the biggest northern cell.”
My breath hitched.
Silence. Then…
“What did you just say?”
Vladis flashed toward me, then grabbed my arm.
“Listen, and listen very carefully,” he sneered. “I have exhausted my capacity to babysit you. If you don’t get proactive and cut off the loose ends, they will wrap around your pretty little neck and squeeze until your head pops off along with the crimson crown.”
My breaths came short. I hyperventilated. “What proof do you have?”
“Tell me you haven’t scented the wolf for days? Nikolai douses him with dragon rose, a powerful scent-muting concoction to hide his deed. But nothing is more powerful than a mate scenting its other half. Think.”
My body felt light as I hung onto Vladis’s tight grip on my hands.
He was right. I had been scenting Bastian, but I’d thought I was imagining it.
“The night of my coronation…”
“Bastian infiltrated Veilmoor. He came for you.”
My eyes heated with molten tears. I shook my head. Nikolai had said it was just marauders and nothing serious. But deep down, I’d known. I had.
“Drusilla—”
Vladis’s eyes blazed as he spoke. “She plans to use Bastian to lure Mordane into surrendering the Crimson Amulet.”
My gaze snapped up to Vladis. “But he won’t. You don’t know Alpha Mordane. He will never give up the power of the amulet, not even to save Bastian.”
Vladis paused as if processing this. Then he released me and began pacing.
I followed him with my eyes, “You said Bastian is being tortured. Take me to the dungeons, now.”
“No,” Vladis barked.
“No?” My rage flickered. “What do you mean no? My wolf mate is right below me, tortured by my vampire mate who lied to my face…” I sucked in a breath. My hand pressed against my thundering chest.
“Nikolai is just a pawn in Drusilla’s game. When she gets what she wants, Lyssa’s blood destroyed, Nikolai is to take you away from here, to flee with you. Or at least that’s what he believes.”
I pressed my hands against my temples. “Wait!”
It was all too much. Nikolai betraying me and burning Bastian? I wished I could doubt it. But hadn’t he returned smelling like smoke and lying that he’d hosted a bonfire?
A bonfire? I laughed.
And he hadn’t invited me?
My throat burned with brimming tears.
And Drusilla? I’d been a fool for trusting her on Nikolai’s instruction.
But still, I needed proof. Cold, hard proof.
I turned to Vladis. “Take me to see Bastian.”
“If i do that, you’ll render everything I set in motion useless.”
“What does that mean?”
He dragged a hand over his mouth. “I shouldn’t have told you this early in the first place.” He muttered.
I grabbed his arm, fangs bared. “Finish what you’ve started, or else I’ll bring the walls down around us.”
“You asked for it,” he hissed back.
Vladis grabbed me around the shoulders, claws digging into my flesh. I panicked.
But before I could retaliate, he traced us.
My feet hit stone floors with Vladis’s hand covering my mouth.
The surroundings were starkly different from the deep blue of the night sky from the balcony window. No, we were somewhere deep underground, the pressure heavy and sticky.
Only one lamp sconce lit the utmost end of a corridor.
The dungeons.
As my eyes adjusted, I realized we stood directly in front of one cell.
I dragged in a breath, and what followed nearly felled me.
Pine smoke and cocoa. It was stronger here. Muted, but there.
My mate. Bastian.
Vladis kept his hand firmly over my mouth like he didn’t want me to make a sound.
The figure in the corner of the cell… moved.
“Ah, gods. Her scent is more torture than anything else—”
He froze, words cutting off. Then he squinted in our direction. The skin of his face was mutilated with burns, one eye swollen.
“I know you’re there, you bastard. Let me out!” he bellowed. But even his yell was weak, ending in a cough.
The smell of burnt flesh nearly overcame his scent. Tears blurred my vision.
“Face me like a man instead of drugging and burning me, leech!” Spittle flew from his mouth as he lurched but didn’t get far.
“Answer me, Nikolai!”
My blood froze.
Vladis traced us back to his office.
I staggered as he let me go.
I’d gotten the proof I needed.
Bastian had named his captor.
Nikolai.