Chapter 129

Chapter 129
Lucian's POV

‘We can use the rogue king without him knowing,’ my wolf said as my mind continued to struggle with the idea of saving my mate by betraying the world.

‘How the hell will I do that?’ I asked him.

By sending Agnes off to marry the Rogue King, the silence that followed in my head was daunting. I could not possibly sacrifice the world and everyone I knew, but perhaps I could sacrifice just Agnes. It felt morally wrong to even think that way, but she had already offered herself up for this. Would it be so wrong to actually go through with it? How would that even work?

“How would that even work?” I asked my wolf, Arthur.

He replied to me, ‘If she can make the Rogue King fall for her, he may take her to the realm where Samara might be.’

That made sense, but how the hell was she even supposed to do that? I feared that this guise, no matter how good it was, would be spotted immediately by the Rogue King. He had access to magical powers that were incomprehensible to anything that I knew, or even Azazel knew.

But my wolf was not done pointing things out to me. ‘The pendant. The pendant has magic more powerful than the Rogue King does. If Agnes was to keep the pendant close to her, it would protect her until she could send a message to Samara.’

My heart twisted painfully. Perhaps that was all I had to do. But would I really send Agnes to the Rogue King? I still felt doubt when I thought of that plan. It made sense, and yet it could go very wrong. If the Rogue King was to figure out what I was trying to do, or Freya was to pick up on it, the results would be quite disastrous.

And what would happen if Samara were really the dragon-wolf? Or rather, I knew she was the dragon-wolf. The possibility was getting likelier with every new piece of evidence that came up. But if the Rogue King had brainwashed her into believing myself and the entire werewolf clan were the enemy, that outcome would be unfavourable to me. I could be sacrificing everything to reach out to Samara, and she could just be intent on destroying me completely. I had to be very careful with this, and yet it was the only way.

“Alpha,” a voice called out.

I turned around to see Edgar standing on my balcony. How the hell had he gotten into my room in the first place?

“You’ve shut us out since you spoke to Azazel,” he said. “But we need answers. We need to know what to do next.”

The reality was I did not have an answer for Edgar, and the answer I had for him was not what I wanted to deal with. Because if I sent Agnes to the Rogue King and things turned out terribly, or she ended up dying, it would mean that I had failed her thrice. First, when I had exiled her family and reduced her noble status to that of a servant because Freya had set up her family for treason, and second, when I had made her Samara’s maid and she had ended up almost losing her life because of Freya. And now—

“Alpha, is there something I should know?” Edgar interrupted my thoughts. “You can tell me what it is, and we can make this decision together.”

I looked at Edgar. He was a good man, and from the very beginning, I should have trusted him. I should have trusted him when Samara entered my pack, and he had advised me against every other person’s opinion that I should not end her life. I should have trusted him when he had opted to treat her instead of throwing her in jail like I initially wanted to. Instead, I had trusted the wrong people, and they had betrayed me.

But Freya’s words were in my head, and suddenly I could not think straight. She had told me that someone around me would betray me. What did that mean? Did she really mean that, and did she know, or was she only trying to mess with me so that I would be isolated and could not think without others’ input? It was driving me insane that I did not know what to do at the moment. Could I trust Edgar enough to tell him everything?

I decided against it and decided instead to ask about him. “The lady who helped us get into the palace again... what about her? I never heard from her again.”

Edgar’s eyes furrowed as he stared intently at me. “The lady?” he echoed.

“Yes, the sex worker. She brought us into the palace as Azariah’s lovers. Do you not remember her? The both of you seemed rather tight, and if I remember correctly, you mentioned that your sister would not approve of the relationship, and that is why she had to remain a secret.”

“Oh,” Edgar looked like he was finally recalling. “We kind of broke up.”

“You kind of broke up?”

Whatever the hell happened, Edgar looked confused at the questions I was asking.

“Alpha, that is not important right now,” Edgar pressed. “We are fighting for our lives here. My love life, or lack of it, should not be a factor in this.”

“It is important, Edgar. If the world was ending, wouldn’t you want to be with the one you love?”

He went perfectly still.

“If the world was ending,” he muttered, “I wouldn’t want to be with her,” he finally admitted.

I raised an eyebrow. Something must have gone wrong between the both of them, and I was curious. “Why?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just don’t love her anymore.”

That struck me as odd. Could you love someone and then just decide not to love them anymore? Was that possible? “Did something happen?” I asked him.

“Well, I think her lifestyle and everything about her is just very different from me and who I am now.”

I folded my arms. “Does this have anything to do with you being better now? Does it make you feel like maybe she’s beneath—”

“No, no,” Edgar shook his head. “It is not that. We had some issues we could not resolve, and she told me that she did not love me, and I have tried my best. I have tried to make her see the reason for her to give up the life of a you know and be with me, and she would not just listen. I cannot force someone to love me, and I have made my peace with that.”

To think that Edgar was going through his sister betraying him alongside a heartbreak was just so sad. And here I was, considering betraying everyone else just for a love that may not even—

I stopped myself. Could I even say that I loved Samara? Was I thinking about doing this because of my guilt toward her, or because I actually loved her? But how would I ever know that?

I had never taken the time to actually get to know her—to learn the things she liked and hated, to know what her scent truly smelled like without that magic suppressing it, or to recognize every sigh and gasp that escaped her lips. I had never taken my time to know her, and yet here I was, trying to claim that I loved someone. What my mother had with my father, and what Edgar had with his ex... I did not have even a fraction of that with Samara.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Edgar,” I told him softly. “And I do not discriminate. I would have approved of your marriage to her if it had come down to it.”

He shrugged quietly. “I know.”

“How is she doing now?” I asked. “I want to promote her in my court. What she did was heroic, and—”

“She left,” Edgar interrupted me. His voice sounded completely heartbroken, and I realized then that her departure was the main reason for their ‘breakup.’

“She left?” I echoed.

“Yes. She disappeared without a trace,” he said, his voice thick. “She left a note and just... left. I do not know where she is now, and she made it very clear that she does not want me to look for her—and I respect that. She also does not want any compensation from you for what she did. She just wants to remain a ghost.”

The heavy tone of his voice was laced with unshed tears that threatened to fall. I nodded, knowing better than to ask further questions and dig deeper into his open wound.

“Finally,” I said to Edgar, shifting my focus back to the grim task at hand, “I think we will prepare Agnes to go to the Rogue King.”

Edgar’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward. “Really? You’ve made the decision to do that?”

I nodded gravely. “I think it is the only way.”

In truth, it was the only way to reach Samara—not because I cared about saving the werewolf realm from absolute destruction, but because I needed to reach her.

Edgar looked relieved, almost happy. “Of course. Of course! If we can get Agnes to the Rogue King and she gains access to him and his secrets, there just might be a way to win against him after all.”

I highly doubted that. But if Agnes could pass the pendant to Samara, then Samara would be able to break free from that realm—if that was what she truly wanted. And if she, as a dragon-wolf, ultimately decided that the werewolf realm needed to be wiped into extinction, then who was I to question fate? I would accept my destiny and die happily in the fire that left her breath.