*Maddox*
I’m at my desk going over a few reports, trying to decide whether or not to continue to take Beta Seth’s advice when what I really want to do is plan a huge festival and announce to the entire kingdom that I’m having a child with the woman I love when a knock at the door interrupts my thoughts.
“Yes?” This had better be important. The guards usually steer away anyone who is just a nuisance.
Trinity pokes her head in, and like most times when I first see her, I forget, and confusion washes over me for a millisecond before I recognize the girl fully. “So sorry, Your Majesty, but I have something important to talk to you about.”
“Of course.” I set the files aside. I know that Trinity wouldn’t barge in to talk to me if it wasn’t something that needed my attention right away. The look on her face tells me that whatever it is, she’s distressed.
Sitting down across from me, she takes a deep breath. “I ran into Isla in the library. She wasn’t alone.”
My immediate reaction is to become jealous. I think about the possibility of Trinity walking in on Isla with some man, and anger bubbles up inside of me. “Who was she with?” I bite out.
Trinity blinks at me a few times, clearly surprised by my tone. “A group of girls,” she says, and I immediately feel like an idiot. Of course, Isla would never cheat on me. I’m such a fool.
“What girls?” Now, I really am alarmed, and in a way that makes me want to shake her a little bit to get more information out of her faster.
“Well, they were other candidates. Six of them in fact. I can name them for you. They had her cornered in there, threatening to hurt her.”
Blood boils in my head as I wish I were holding a pencil or something to snap in half. I am furious. Whoever those women were, they are going to wish they had never come here. “What happened?”
“I intervened. For some reason, they were willing to listen to me. Isla is… too sweet, too gentle. She didn’t think they would actually hurt her because she would never dream of doing something like that. She thought they were bluffing, but I know those women, and they weren’t. They would’ve hurt her, maybe badly enough that she wouldn’t have been capable of telling you or anyone what had happened to her.” Trinity’s eyes are narrowed. She’s not as mad about this as I am, but it’s close.
“So you got them to leave?” I ask, wondering why Isla didn’t use the mind-link to tell me about this.
“I did. Then, I walked Isla back to her room and told her not to underestimate anyone. If someone says they’re going to hurt her, she needs to believe it.”
I have to take a few deep breaths because I’m about to explode. Someone threatened my pregnant… whatever she is… in my own home? Unbelievable.
Reaching into my drawer, I pull out a pad of paper and then give it to her along with a pen. “Write down their names and their packs.”
Trinity doesn’t hesitate to pick up the pen and writes down the information that I have requested. I am beginning to wonder what I would do without her. Even if Isla had called me, she wouldn’t have known who the women were if they got away. I almost wonder if she would’ve been willing to point them out. Trinity is right. Isla doesn’t think like that. She doesn’t want anyone to be hurt, ever, even if they deserve it.
When she’s finished, Trinity slides the paper over to me. I glance down and am only surprised by one of the names. Five of the packs belong to Alphas that I have never fully trusted. The other is an ally, though. “Margaret of Swollen River pack?” Trinity nods. “But her father came into the war with hardly any coercion whatsoever.”
“In fairness, Margaret didn’t even say anything to Isla. She was just standing there, and when I warned the others that you would find out, she started crying, begging me not to tell you that she was there. But then, she couldn’t even get Isla’s name right. I don’t think she knew what she was getting herself into hanging out with bitches like Veronica and Beatrice.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her, still trying to control the rage within me. “It doesn’t matter because no one treats Isla that way or stands idly by while someone else treats her that way.”
Trinity nods in understanding. She gets it. She’s been raised to be a leader her entire life. “Perhaps it’s time that you let everyone know that you’ve made up your mind, Alpha. I’m not here to tell you what to do, obviously, but if you made the announcement that you’ve chosen a Luna Queen, you could send all of these other girls home.”
Trinity’s never been the sort to presume to know what I should do, so this catches me off guard a bit. “Perhaps.” That’s all I say, for now.
“She’s beginning to show.” She leans in a bit, catches my eye, then relaxes. “You’ll have to soon.”
“Right.”
Pressing her lips together, Trinity swallows hard enough for me to see it. She’s tired of all of this. Never wanting to have anything to do with it to begin with, she’s now been sucked into a world she can’t escape.
“Thank you,” I tell her in a dismissive tone.
Trinity nods and gets up. “If you need anything… you know where to find me.” She smiles at me and then heads out.
I wish, in a lot of ways, that Isla was more like her. More assertive, more self-confident. If she were, it might make it easier for me to persuade myself that I do, in fact, need a Luna Queen.
But she isn’t and I can’t have two queens. I don’t want one, why would I try to have two?
After Trinity leaves, I take another look at the list and then call Seth into the room using the mind-link, telling him to bring at least eighteen of the best guards with him.
Then, I contact Commander Vember, who is here in the castle while Commander Givens is out in the field. He will have the difficult job of notifying all of these Alphas that their daughters have acted inappropriately and will be punished.
Just as soon as I figure out what the punishment will be.
When Seth arrives, I brief him on the situation and watch his face twist in shock and horror. He has always been fond of Isla, and I know he doesn’t like this either, though he isn’t quite as ready to snap someone in two as I am.
The twenty of us take off for the girls’ rooms, marching together down the hall, the guards in step with one another. I want the culprits to be shaking in fear when we approach.
As we pass by, several doors open, and women stick their heads out. Seth knows who is in each room, so he knows who we need to apprehend and who can be ignored.
One of the doors that does not open belongs to Veronica of Snow pack. Seth bangs on it with his fist. “This is the Beta. Open the door. Now.”
I can hear two heartbeats beyond the door and assume it’s the Alpha’s daughter and her maid, but the door stays closed tight.
Seth gestures for one of the guards who is with him to unlock the door, but I don’t wait for that. Lifting my heel, I ram it into the door near the knob, splintering the wood, and leaving it flinging open. The women inside scream and grab one another as I storm into the room.
“Your Majesty!” the Alpha’s daughter says, tipping her head. “Wh-what’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” I ask her. In the mind-link, I verify with Seth that this is the right girl. I don’t know who any of these women are, but he does. “I heard about what happened in the library today, Veronica. And you are in an unbelievable amount of trouble!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, my King,” she says, looking up at me through her eyelashes. “I haven’t been feeling well, so I’ve been here all day.”
Elsewhere in the hallway, the other guards are taking the five remaining women into custody. I hear screaming, banging of doors, loud footsteps. They certainly know how to scare the shit out of someone, which is exactly what I want. I want these girls to understand that their actions have serious consequences.
Returning my attention to the liar in front of me, I ask, “Are you sure you want to go down that road, trying to convince me that I am wrong when I have it on good authority that you were in the process of attacking another one of the candidates in the library today when you were stopped by a passerby.”
“That lying bitch!” the girl shouts. “Forgive me, Sir, but that’s simply not true. Whoever told you I had something to do with that is the liar.”
“Do you know what happened in the library today?” I ask her, not sure why I’m even pacifying her.
“One of the other girls mentioned that they were in the library, and some girl that hardly ever even speaks to any of us because she thinks she is better than us tried to convince them that she is going to marry you, and then when one of the girls said she should stop, she started saying how she was going to tell you that the other girls were being mean to her.”
“When did you hear that?” I ask her.
“Today at lunch,” she says with a shrug.
“But you just said you haven’t left your room all day, Veronica.”
“Uh… well… other than lunch.” Her eyes dart around as she tries to figure out a way to get out of her web of lies.
“Do you really expect me to believe that?” I ask her. “You can’t even get your own bullshit story right!” Giving a signal to my guards, I step aside so they can grab her.
“No! Wait! Please! It’s true, though, the part I told you about that stupid bitch Iris making it all up!”
I signal for the guards to stop, which they do. Veronica looks at me hopefully, but then, Seth backhands her so hard, her neck cracks. “You will not speak about Miss Isla that way,” he says. I might not have been the one inflicting the blow, but the pain came from me.
She begins to cry as the guards drag her out of the room.
All six of the girls are crying as they are dragged down the hallway by my guards. If they think this is bad, wait until they see the dungeon.