Chapter 231 Court Proceedings
ADRIANA
Hazel walked back into the room holding a folded piece of paper, and the look on her face stopped me mid-step.
Something was wrong. Not surface-level wrong, the kind of wrong that lived underneath things, the kind you didn’t find until you went looking for it and wished you hadn’t.
“I think you need to see this.”
I didn’t move right away. My mind was already running ahead of my feet, pulling at threads, constructing worst-case scenarios before I even knew what I was dealing with. The anxiety sitting in my chest didn’t help. It had been there since the event last night, low and persistent, like a sound just outside the range of hearing.
“Where did you find it?” I finally asked. “Where was he keeping it?”
Hazel crossed the room toward me, her steps deliberate. “There was a time — maybe eight months ago — when I saw him open a photo frame. Just for a second. I asked what it was and he said it was nothing.” She held the paper out. “I’ve been thinking about that moment ever since. I think I understand it now.”
I took it from her and unfolded it carefully, like the paper itself might be fragile. The first thing I noticed was the seal printed in the upper corner. A red crown.
My stomach dropped before I even read the first line.
‘Your Majesty,
I write out of concern for your life. There is a plan against you, against your entire family. They intend to remove you from the throne and eliminate every obstacle in their path to take it. I have spent considerable time tracking them down and what I have found cannot wait.’
Below the letter was a location. I read it twice, then a third time.
“This isn’t anywhere in our territory.”
“No,” Hazel said quietly. “I checked twice just to be sure.”
I folded it again and set it on the desk slowly. My hands were steadier than I felt. “Think about this with me.” I looked at her. “Whoever sent this letter — they’re the same person who put the hit out on me. They knew enough about the threat to warn Elijah, which means they were close enough to the plan to have details. And Elijah kept this. He hid it.” I pressed my palm flat against the desk. “That means he knew who sent it. He had a relationship with them. And that seal — Hazel, only an Alpha uses a seal like that.”
The weight of that settled over both of us. This wasn’t an outside threat. It was intimate. It was someone who attended the same meetings, sat at the same tables, shook the same hands. Someone who had looked Elijah in the eye without flinching.
“We need to figure out which Alpha this seal belongs to,” I said. “We have to get their seals without raising any suspicion.”
Hazel sat down across from me. “We could make it official. Ask all the Alphas to submit their seals directly as some kind of administrative requirement.”
“No.” I shook my head. “That’s too obvious. A request like that comes out of nowhere with no precedent — within an hour, word will travel. Whoever this is, they’re smart. Smart enough to frame an innocent man, smart enough to stay hidden this long. The moment they sense we’re looking, they’ll pull back and we’ll lose the trail entirely.” I stood and began to move, because I thought better on my feet. “We need them to give it to us voluntarily, without realizing that’s what they’re doing.”
Hazel watched me. “An event.”
“A formal dinner. Printed invitations sent to every Alpha and every nobleman on the list.” I turned back to her. “They’ll have to respond in writing to confirm their attendance. And when they do—”
“They’ll seal the envelope.” Her expression shifted to something sharp and focused. “They won’t think anything of it.”
“Exactly.”
I exhaled and stood still for a moment, letting the plan settle into something solid. What had started as one attempt on my life had become something layered and deliberate, a web with more threads than I could currently count. And I was standing in the middle of it without Elijah.
I turned to the window. The sky had shifted, the deep black of the middle of the night softening into grey at the edges, that first pale suggestion of morning beginning to press through.
“The sun’s almost up.”
“We’ve been awake the entire night,” Hazel said. She didn’t say it like a complaint. Just an observation.
“I know. And we still can’t stop yet.” I reached for the notebook sitting on the edge of the desk and uncapped a pen. “Let me write this down before anything else.” I started a list, speaking as I wrote.
I capped the pen and looked up.
“But none of that works if we fall apart before it even starts. Sleep first. A few hours, nothing less. Then we move.”
My body seemed to take that instruction seriously because I came awake exactly three hours later with the kind of alertness that meant real rest hadn’t happened, just the bare minimum the body needed to function. Hazel was already sitting up on the couch across the room, pushing her hair back from her face, looking exactly as tired as I felt.
Neither of us wasted time.
I pulled the chair up to the desk and began drafting the invitations by hand. Every single one. My hand started cramping before I was a third of the way through the list, but I couldn’t delegate it — the royal seal was mine to press and mine alone, and allowing anyone else to touch it was a criminal offense. So I worked through each one methodically, folding, sealing, pressing the crown into the warm wax, setting it aside, picking up the next.
By the time the last envelope was sealed and stacked, Hazel had appeared beside me and was steering me physically toward the hallway before I could reach for the next file.
“Food,” she said. “Now. Non-negotiable.”
“Hazel—”
“You haven’t eaten since before the event last night. You got three hours of sleep at most. You are still breastfeeding.” She gave me a look that left absolutely no room for argument. “Elijah would come back from wherever he is just to be furious with me. Downstairs. Let’s go.”
A laugh burst out of me. I stood up and followed her without much argument.
Leo was in the dining room finishing breakfast when we came down, phone propped up against the juice glass. He looked up when we walked in and his face broke into a grin.
“Hey. The event last night was actually kind of sick. Thanks for bringing me along.”
He’d been in that room last night and seen a party. He hadn’t seen the way certain men’s eyes moved over him with something that wasn’t admiration. He hadn’t heard the things said in corners. He didn’t know yet that there were people in that room who had decided before he was old enough to speak that he didn’t deserve what he was born into.
“Glad you had a good time,” I said, and kept every single other thought off my face.
He grabbed his things and headed out, and the room quieted around Hazel and me. We ate quickly and talked through what was coming.
“The Elders are going to want a reason,” Hazel said, keeping her voice low. “We can’t walk in there asking to reopen a closed case without something to show them. They’ll say we’re creating problems.”
“I know.” I turned my cup in my hands. “Right now what I have is a letter and instinct and the look on Damien’s face when I picture him in that cell. None of that is enough yet.” I set the cup down. “He stays where he is until I can build something they can’t dismiss. But I will get him to trial, Hazel. The Elders cannot override me. I am the Queen in Elijah’s absence, and if they don’t like the decision, that is something they will simply have to carry.” I stood. “Get the trial files pulled from wherever they’re stored and move them to the courtroom. And keep that letter on your person. Don’t set it down, don’t leave it in a drawer. It’s the only concrete thing we have right now.”
“Understood.”
The moment I walked through the courtroom doors, the session sealed behind me. No one in or out until we were finished. Damien was brought in and held near the side wall, pale and thinner than the last time I’d seen him, and I had specifically requested that Nancy be permitted inside. Not to testify, not even as a formal participant, just as his wife, because she had the right to be present for this.
The Chief Elder rose and addressed the room.
“This court is now in session. Queen Adriana presiding in the absence of Lycan King Elijah. The matter before us involves an individual previously tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for conspiracy against the King and the royal household. The Queen has exercised her authority to call for a formal review. Today marks the opening of those proceedings.”
I watched Damien while the Chief spoke. His eyes moved immediately through the room until they found Nancy, and when they did, something in his whole body shifted — not hope exactly, not relief, but steadiness. Like she was the thing tethering him to himself.
I turned back to the Chief.
“Then let us not waste another minute.”