Chapter 86 Eighty-Six.
Chapter 86 Eighty-Six.
OLIVIA’S POV.
I freeze entirely. My fingers halt in his hair, and my heart almost stops dead in my chest. I stare down at him, my eyes wide like saucers. “What did you just say?”
“Kyle,” Sven repeats, his voice completely cool like a cucumber. “He is fine, hearty. He has been cured from his poison.”
Panic and hope war violently inside my stomach. I grip his shoulder, leaning down slightly. “How do you know that? Sven, please don’t play games with me. Did your men find the cabin? Is he in your captive? Did Orion do something to him?”
Sven closes his eyes again, his head settling back down comfortably against my chest as if he didn’t just drop a massive bomb on my entire life. “No one touched him. He drank an antidote. The poison is gone from his blood as we speak.”
“But how could you possibly know that?” I stammer, my voice rising in a frantic whisper.
I know he can’t lie, because he has no reason to, which means he is telling the truth. Still…
“You said you didn’t even care! How do you know Katniss found a cure, or that Orion actually brought a physician? Tell me, Sven. Please."
“I just know things, Olivia,” he murmurs, his tone nonchalant, as though he is talking about the weather, not the fate of my brother. I can tell he is on the verge of falling asleep. “Stop shouting. Your chest is vibrating with every word you speak.”
“Sven—”
“Sing,” he commands softly, his hand pressing slightly against my waist to keep me from moving away. “Serenade me to sleep.”
I stare down at his face, my mind spinning into absolute chaos.
‘I just know things, Olivia.’ What kind of an answer is that? Did he get someone to monitor Kyle and Orion wherever they are? But that would make no sense considering how hellbent he was on serving Justice on my brother.
But looking at the relaxed lines of his jaw, I know I won’t get another word out of him tonight. I let out a shaky, trembling breath, swallowing my endless questions, and begin to hum.
The soft and wordless Fae serenade leaves my lips, gently vibrating off the stone walls. I keep singing through my confusion, my fingers resuming their slow path through his hair, until my own eyes grow too heavy to keep open.
When I wake up the next morning, the bright sunlight is already streaming through the window, painfully blinding my eyes. I need a curtain, but I have no right to ask for one.
I blink rapidly, shifting on the mattress when I suddenly remember that last evening I was not alone in my room. I do not turn to the side immediately, saving myself for an inevitable heartbreak.
Eventually I turn, I see Sven isn’t there anymore.
I sit up slowly, my heart sinking back into reality as I look at the empty expanse of the bed, then my room. I knew this would happen. Two times in a row now that he would wake up before I did.
My stomach lets out a sharp, painful growl, reminding me that I barely ate yesterday.
However, now that I know Kyle has survived his poison, I have one less thing to worry about and decide to have some actual food. I have a quick shower and wear a new set of clothes before heading out of my room for breakfast.
As I approach the main kitchen area, the loud clattering of iron pots and wooden plates are completely drowned out by the heavy, tense voices of a group of royal guards gathered near the diner.
I immediately freeze by the doorway, my instincts telling me to keep my head down and listen to what they are saying.
“I’m telling you, it makes absolutely no sense,” a scarred guard snaps, slamming his wooden cup onto the table. “We spent weeks tracking that rogue Fae. Ten of the Shadow Moon Pack guards were slaughtered in the forest close by, and the beta’s son was torn to pieces! And now we are just supposed to drop it?”
Heh? Could they be talking about Kyle?
I listen closely.
“Keep your voice down, Marcus,” another guard warns, glancing around nervously. “The King’s mercy precedes us and his orders are absolute.”
“Absolute? It’s madness!” Marcus barks back, leaning in close to the other wolves. “King Sven literally just withdrew the bounty on the Fae boy head! He ordered the scouts to pull back from the Northern forest entirely. No more hunting, no more tracking. He officially cleared the bounty from the ledger this morning and order for all posters to be taken back. Even order that we should not attack if he is seen on the streets. What part of that does not scream madness?”
My breath catches in my throat.
I press my back hard against the stone wall, my hands trembling violently as my mind completely explodes.
Sven actually withdrew the bounty? He stopped the hunt for Kyle?
“The high council is going to have a fit when they find out,” a third guard chimes in, shaking his head as he sips a cup of what I assume to be ale. “A criminal slaughters our people, and the King just pardons him in secret? People are already whispering at the gates, Marcus. Some of the pack Alpha’s are beginning to openly questioning his authority. They think King Sven is becoming soft. When last did he even use that ‘million-ways-to-kill handbook’. They think he’s losing his mind over that Fae girl he keeps in his quarters, especially since there are rumours that she is his mate.”
“If the King can’t even enforce the laws of Māui because of a slave,” Marcus growls, his voice dripping with nothing but pure resentment, “then maybe he shouldn’t be the one wearing the crown.”