172- When the Beast Listens
POV Aldren Valmorin:
My dwelling rose in dark wood and stone. Three floors shaped by the calluses and sweat of my people. Glass windows greened by time, yet clean and gleaming like vigilant eyes that never slept.
From there, the view of the entire forest and territory lay at my feet.
Even being a man of little anxiety, I longed intensely for Kehin’s return. I still had no information about which substance he had administered to the spy, and she slept as if she might never wake again.
Pacing back and forth, I stopped impatiently beside my dark brown leather sofa with titanium legs.
After a few seconds, the regent of my household and my friend approached, her brow slightly furrowed.
She halted like a statue before me, her light-brown hands faintly marked by age, clasped together over her black uniform. Her slanted eyes sparkled with curiosity, and her black hair, cut in a masculine style, was neatly combed as always.
“What is it, Nerin?”
“Lord Aldren, did something happen?” Her eyes ran over my clothes. “You’re still in resting attire, pacing back and forth as if the apocalypse were going to happen in a few hours. And in one hundred and fifty years, I’ve ne—”
“You’ve never seen me like this?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, sir.” I hated her insistence on the formality of calling me sir; we were like family.
“The world isn’t ending, and there’s nothing you need to worry about.”
Of Nerin’s four hundred and twenty years, she was right—at least one hundred and fifty of them had been spent by my side in complete devotion.
“Would you like to have your tea now, sir?”
Just the idea of drinking my blend of sacred herbs made my stomach churn.
It was then that I understood my deplorable state and burned with anger inside.
Damned spy.
What nauseated me even more was feeling anxious over something that no longer posed any threat. Besides the supposed spy being a pup, she was also imprisoned. Why did her presence disturb me so deeply?
Before putting an end to the intruder, I needed to understand what ground I was standing on. Who she really was.
Her beauty, almost camouflaged beneath all her disarray, did not interest me—but my beast stubbornly noticed it: snow-colored skin and hair long as veils of onyx, bathed in silvery moonlight.
“I don’t want tea. Leave me alone, please.”
Nerin nodded softly and respectfully before leaving.
Irritated by Kehin’s delay, I turned to summon my guard from the sublevel and order him to bring Kehin by the collar. My sharpened senses caught movement at the main gate, even from a distance, and I froze where I stood.
I crossed my arms and waited for him to open the door. His blond muzzle crossed the threshold and his mouth began to open, but I snapped my fingers for him to be silent and pointed toward the sublevel, signaling for him to follow me.
Seconds later, we descended together the stairs that vibrated through the steel skeleton anchored in the stone.
Upon reaching the ground level, if we went straight down the narrow corridor of gray stone, we would reach a few small cellars. In one of them was the cage.
Instead, I marched in the opposite direction, beneath the skeleton of the staircase, which led to my private library. The door opened at the touch of my fingerprints. Only after we entered and the door closed did Kehin speak. He knew that there, the walls had no ears.
“I thought you’d be happy about the captured spy…” he murmured, settling comfortably into one of the two reading armchairs, also leather and titanium.
Instead of sitting across the table, I merely rested my hands on the back of the upholstery and stared at him. Before me, beyond him, were two walls of built-in shelves and my piano, which had been a gift.
What Kehin did not understand was that after being named alpha in training, our friendship would never again be light and carefree.
I was placing my people in his hands, so I needed to be strict with him, so that he would not become a weak alpha in the future.
“I hope your arrival went unnoticed. Which wolves know about the prisoner?”
“No one.” He flashed a self-assured smile, not a shadow of doubt crossing his face.
“How, no one? Lucius and Savian were with you.”
“They were, but I stayed alone in the city for the hunt.” He sounded honest, though his intentions did not seem clear to me.
“And for what reason did you not enlist their help?”
He let out a muffled laugh and shook his head before answering:
“The girl sent us a plate of Mici poisoned with pepper before fleeing…” He laughed inwardly, restraining himself. “The two of them were the first to eat, Aldren, they almost died.”
My face twisted at the exaggeration. One of us would not die even by swallowing a truckload of the strongest pepper on Earth.
“So that’s the idiotic reason you went after her alone? Seriously, Kehin?” As always, I demanded nothing less than perfection from him.
“They wanted her neck. They shouted it loud and clear. If you had seen their furious faces… the two of them looked like they’d been stung by a swarm of bees.”
“Was your arrival witnessed by anyone else?”
“No one, besides your guards.”
“Did you tell anyone that you found her?” I would interrogate him until I could see every step he had taken.
“Does that matter?”
“You don’t question what matters or not. You simply answer my questions,” I stated, once again reminding him that in situations like this, friendship was set aside.
He nodded, straightening in the armchair and abandoning his carefree posture.
“Of course. I apologize.”
“Victor informed me that you recognized her at the bar by her scent, correct? Could anyone have seen the capture?” I continued.
“That’s true. I recognized the scent from far away… to make sure she wouldn’t escape, I grabbed her hand and sniffed it, to reinforce it. The clever girl ran, but it was easy to follow her trail through the forest.”
“Was there a physical struggle?”
“No. I found the poor thing unconscious in a mud pit, right in front of an old cabin, north of the bar.”
I grew suspicious. Something did not align in the lines of that narrative.
“If there was no physical struggle, why does the female have bruises like someone who was beaten?”
Kehin swallowed hard and blinked more than usual.
My beast caught his unease.
“We don’t lie to each other, Aldren, remember…? I found her like that. There was her blood on the trees, so I believe part of the bruising was acquired during her desperate escape.”