*Maddox*
Taking hold of Trinity’s wrist, I force her to let go of the knife. It falls from her grasp, and I catch it with my other hand, ready to turn it on her.
“Whoa! Whoa!” she says. “I wasn’t trying to stab you, Your Highness!” she tells me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I was only trying to show you the blade.”
Her eyes are wide, and she seems genuinely scared. Perhaps she’s even telling me the truth.
But I don’t know that for certain. Why would anyone pull a knife on me in the dark in a garden if they didn’t intend to stab me with it?
I can feel her entire body trembling beneath my hands, though, and I am starting to think perhaps she is telling me the truth.
It might not make any sense, but I actually believe her. Perhaps her father had told her to go ahead and try to kill me now, so she wanted to be able to say that she did try but I foiled her.
It would make more sense for her to have waited, though. Get to know me better. Catch me off guard. Even see if there is a chance I might fall for her and take her home with me, which would give her a lot more opportunity to try to seduce me and then kill me.
No, I have no idea why Trinity would pull this blade on me under the circumstances.
But then I catch a look at it in the moonlight, and I realize that the knife is familiar to me. “Where did you get this?” I ask her, my eyes focusing on the jeweled handle. The bright sapphire eyes of the wolf carved into the handle twinkle in the faint light.
“It’s not hers,” Trinity says quickly. “I know that Rebecca had one just like it, but this is a different one. Our grandfather had one made for each of his grandchildren. This one is mine. It looks the same, but it’s not.”
I study it and see a few minor details that are different between this dagger and the one Rebecca had in a drawer in her bedroom.
The knife went missing shortly after she died, and I have no idea what happened to it.
I believe her that this one isn’t the same, though. It looks so much like it, if she hadn’t told me it was different, I wouldn’t have noticed.
“Listen, Alpha King Maddox,” Trinity says with conviction in her voice. I release her wrist, but I keep the knife. “My father and uncle will pretend to help you with the war effort if you say you will consider marrying me. They will do whatever it takes to get me into that castle where I can tempt you. I don’t intend to do any of that, but that’s their plan. So… if you want to exploit the situation, you can do that. Pretend that you’re unaware of the situation. They’ll help you fight off Beach Front pack and bring this area of the kingdom back under your peaceful control. Then, when you have what you want from them, you’ll know you have to take care of them as well.”
I shake my head and run a hand through my hair. Everything she’s telling me is quite complex and contradictory to what I thought I would be doing here. “Why?” I ask. “Why would they only pretend to want to help me?”
“It’s simple, really, isn’t it?” she asks me. “They want revenge against you, and they think that the best way to do it is to kill you. Once you’re dead, it won’t really matter if you won the war or not. They will seize control of the kingdom, and one of them will take over until I find my mate, marry him, they make sure he is a puppet for them, and make him the next king.”
Her sincerity in the description of what her family relations want is almost bone-chilling. I just don’t understand how they could shift on me so quickly.
“I thought…” I begin, not wanting to sound like an overly sensitive whiney ass, but the words come out of my mouth without censoring. “I thought they were my allies and wanted to help me because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Sorry, Alpha,” she says, and while I can hear that she means what she’s saying, I think she is also being very black-and-white and not sugarcoating anything. “I know it’s not easy to hear any of this. But you should know, I don’t appreciate them trying to make me a pawn in all of this. My father doesn’t have my best interests in mind. He wants me to do his bidding without any regard for what’s best for me, and I resent him for it.”
The more time I spend with Trinity, the more I hear her cousin’s conviction coming through. She isn’t the timid young woman I thought she was at first. No, she’s bolder, stronger, and more direct than I had given her credit for.
“So what are you proposing?” I ask her. “What is it that you think I should do?”
“I think you should go along with it,” she says with a shrug. “Show some interest in me. Tell them you’ll consider it. Maybe even go ahead and accept the other Alphas’ proposal about a consort, a queen contest to see who can earn your hand. Ultimately, you’ll get their support, but you won’t have to do what they want you to do in the end.”
“I have a woman back home that I am very connected to,” I remind her.
She nods. “I understand that, but you aren’t intending to marry her, are you? Aren’t you still convinced that taking another Luna Queen isn’t right for you after what happened with Rebecca?”
I’m not sure that she understands what happened with Rebecca. It’s clear that her family blames me for her death, and I’m unable to hold that against them because I blame myself as well.
But with every day I spend with Isla, I am more convinced that I am capable of moving on from what happened with my wife. I can start over and leave all of that behind me. That wouldn’t have been possible with a lesser woman.
I’m not sure if she is possibly a second-chance mate for me, and I won’t know until she is twenty-one. We still have a couple of months before that happens. I would like to think that, on that day, she will know that I am her mate, and I will recognize that she is the Moon Goddess’s gift of forgiveness to me.
Having a bunch of other women at the castle allegedly competing for my hand, for the title of Luna Queen would be devastating to Isla. I might be able to make her understand that I have no intention to choose one of them, but she would have a hard time accepting that. She would be concerned, and I couldn’t blame her.
No, it would be a dick move for sure, especially now that I know that she is a princess, and she is more than capable of ruling as the Luna Queen if I ever chose to have another one.
Why would I need all of these women prancing around the castle, trying to compete for my hand? Just having one in Zabrina almost got Isla killed and caused more trouble than anyone would’ve ever imagined.
It is a bad idea.
But… if I can find a way to let the Alphas think they have a chance at winning my favor by coming in to help me squash the uprising, then maybe they will fight alongside me with hopes that I might choose their daughter to be the next queen.
This took the usual complications of war and negotiations with allies to a whole new level.
I knew better than to open this can of worms….
“Just think about it?” Trinity asks. “Don’t decide anything right now. And whatever you do, don’t tell anyone that I let you in on all of this. I’m sure you can trust your Beta, but you can’t trust anyone else. Absolutely no one.” She gives me a look that lets me know she is aware of even more trickery going on with my alleged allies than she has told me, and it makes me want to go shout in all of my so-called friends’ faces.
I won’t though. I give her a nod of understanding. “Thank you for the information,” I tell her. I get up, intending to escort her back to the castle.
“Can I please have my dagger back?” Her eyelashes flutter as she stands and looks me in the eye, asking politely. “If my father knows I don’t have it anymore, he’ll start asking questions.”
Arching an eyebrow, I ask her, “You expect me to just hand over a blade to you that you might’ve just been trying to stab me with?”
She scoffs and folds her arms. “I wasn’t trying to kill you, Alpha King Maddox. I’m not that stupid, believe me. I know you could’ve snapped my arm right off if you wanted to. I’m not even old enough to shift. Your wolf would tear me to shreds.”
If she knows all of this, why did she pull the knife? She must’ve really just been trying to show it to me and not thought of telling me before she pulled it on me.
Reluctantly, I hand the knife to her. She thanks me and slides it back into a sheath that’s connected to her thigh. I try not to look, but I do see a flash of her smooth white skin.
When she looks at me, she knows I didn’t look away fast enough, and her face turns a little pink. I say nothing. Isla would kill me if she knew…. It had been an accident, I think. I will not repeat it.
Silently, the two of us walk back inside, and she tells me she must return to the ball and let her father and uncle know that she has done her best to try to persuade me to either marry her outright or consider the queen contest.
I thank her for letting me know what she has told me and watch her walk down the hallway, thinking she looks even more like Rebecca from behind.
With a sigh, I go into my room and lock the door. I take a look around and see that I am alone, thank goodness.
Collapsing on my bed, I consider what I should do. She’s right. The only person I can discuss this with is Beta Seth, and he is so cautious. I know he will give me good advice.
I’m just not sure I will take it.