*Maddox*
“What do you mean Zabrina is gone?”
The words leaving my mouth sound like they can’t possibly be true, like there’s no way in hell that Seth is accurate with his description to me of what the situation is at the moment.
Zabrina can’t be gone. I killed her myself! I can still taste her entrails in my mouth from when I leaped up and grabbed hold of her with my teeth and tore her middle apart so that that black wolf who was trying to save her would be unsuccessful.
“We’ve looked everywhere for her,” Seth says, shrugging and shaking his head. “We have no idea what happened to her.”
“But she’s dead,” I tell him. “I took care of her myself. I know she has to be dead.” I have a very vivid picture in my mind of her guts spilling out of her body as it continued to swing on the noose. “The black wolf ran off the moment he saw that she was dead. It’s clear to me that she was the reason that he was here, that the riot started to begin with. They were trying to keep her from being killed.”
“We seem to have gotten the same understanding from the witnesses we’ve interviewed,” Seth says.
“Did you get any of the rioters alive, though?” I ask him.
He shakes his head no again. “We didn’t. All of them either got away or were killed. We think only a few actually escaped, and I’ve got soldiers out looking for them now.”
I make a fist and ram it into my other palm. I don’t know what to say to that. It seems like we can’t fucking do anything right. “That big black wolf… he is memorable. Someone has to have recognized him.”
“Yes, some of the people in the crowd say they know who he is, that they saw him before he shifted and recognized him, and that they’ve heard rumors of him, a large black wolf who is notorious in battle, but I’ve never heard those types of stories about him,” Seth says, rambling a bit.
“About who?” I have to know. “Who is he?”
“He’s the son of Alpha Henry from Southern pack, Sir,” he tells me. “His name is Austin.”
“Why would he be after Zabrina?” I have to know. “Her pack lands are far from Southern pack.”
“I don’t know, but… do you think… Alpha Jordan would tell us?”
Seth finally has something intelligent to say. “Yeah, maybe, but we’ll have to torture it out of him. He’s so frail right now, we’ll have to be careful or we’ll kill him.”
“It might be that the reason we can’t find Zabrina’s mother is because she went to Southern pack. We were looking for her in her own pack and her neighboring packs, mostly in the north, so we wouldn’t have found her down there.” Seth seems to be thinking aloud as he speaks.
“Let’s start with Alpha Jordan,” I suggest. “Maybe he can tell us why Austin would be after Zabrina, and then we can see if his father, Alpha Henry is smart enough to cooperate with us or if he’s going to make bad choices like his son.”
“Yes, Sir,” Seth says as I turn to head inside to speak to Alpha Jordan. I still don’t understand how Zabrina’s body could be gone. Who would’ve snuck her out of here? And toward what end? It’s not like she could have left under her own power. She was definitely dead, and since I don’t believe in bringing dead people back to life, regardless of what Isla may claim happened with her brother, I know she’s still dead.
Which means someone took her from here while all of my guards were in the process of making sure that the rebels who had started the fighting were either dead or being chased out of the courtyard.
We have cameras in the courtyard. We can go back and look at those. They were installed after Zabrina kidnapped Isla and no one knew what had happened to her. Perhaps that will lend us some sort of a clue as to what has gone on here.
But for now, I want to know why Austin, the son of Alpha Henry of Southern pack, was here trying to rescue Zabrina.
Seth and I head down the stairs to the dungeon. When we arrive at the cell and I see the broken, skeletal-looking Alpha, I think this might be helpless. He’s not going to cooperate with us.
Still, I have to try. I walk inside, and he looks into my face. “Is she dead?”
“I think so,” I tell him, and his face falls, but then a look of confusion settles in. “What do you mean you think so?”
“I mean, I’m pretty sure she’s dead, Alpha Jordan, but there was an uprising at the hanging, and now, Zabrina’s body is missing.” I don’t even like saying the words.
His expression shifts again, and he looks like he is hopeful that she may still be alive. I want to be able to squash that look right off of his face, but I can’t. “Why would Austin from Southern pack be here?” I ask him.
His eyebrows raise as his tongue lashes out to wet his dry, cracked lips. He has streaks of dried blood on both sides of his face. He’s filthy and reeks of body odor. Perhaps if I offer him a shower, he’ll speak…
“You don’t know?” he asks me, and a low chuckle rumbles out of his dry throat.
“If we knew, we wouldn’t be fucking asking you,” Seth says, obviously irritated.
He chuckles again, this time at Seth, I believe. I put a hand out and tap my Beta on the arm, trying to remind him he needs to be nice to the half-dead asshole we need information from.
“Well, this is rich.” Jordan turns his head so that his eyes are focused on the ceiling of his cell. It’s so dark in here, with only one bare bulb swinging overhead, and the shadows cast over his face make it impossible to tell what he’s thinking. “I guess you really aren’t in touch with the far reaches of your kingdom.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, but it seems pretty clear to me that he does know the answer to my question.
“Jordan,” I begin, “I know you’ve got to be tired. You’ve been in here for a while now. You look like hell. Why don’t you tell me what you know, and I’ll move you to a room upstairs, someplace where you’ll be more comfortable while you–”
“While I wait to die?” he asks me, shaking his head slowly. “What makes you think I care where I die?”
“There’s a chance you might recover,” I tell him. “I can get your medical attention.”
“What would be the point?” he asks me. “I have nothing else to live for. I’ll never leave this castle again, not unless by some miracle I am saved by another band of rogues during an uprising. No, I don’t see the point in trying to prolong a life without my family, with my daughter likely dead, and my pack stripped from me.”
I bite back the urge to tell him that this is all his fault, that if he hadn’t attempted to organize against me, he could still be the alpha of his pack. His daughter would be alive, and he could be back there in his own home, relaxing in front of the fireplace with a good book.
But I see no reason to bring all of that up now, and I think that Seth is about to say something until I give him a look.
“Do you remember what I told you the first night I came to the castle?” Alpha Jordan asks me. “Or were you so blinded by your emotions for that damn breeder at the time that you didn’t hear a damn thing I had to say?”
I think back over the conversation we had when he first arrived. I remember he was trying to tempt me with Zabrina, saying she would make a good Luna, that I should consider marrying her and having a baby before my time ran out and I reached my thirtieth birthday without an heir. At the time, I didn’t know that I would fall in love with Isla, who had just arrived on the same day.
I did know that I wasn’t at all interested in Zabrina, not even a little bit, and that was the case even before I met her when her father was just telling me about her. When I met her, it was confirmed that she was a terrible person, and I wanted nothing to do with her.
Yet, I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about now, so I go back over that conversation. He’d wanted me about Duster pack and Hill Country pack, as well as some of the other packs where there had been attacks.
None of those attacks and uprisings were anywhere near Southern pack, though. They were all in the far west, away from Alpha Henry’s territory.
I am at a loss when I look at him again, and Alpha Jordan has an expression in his eyes that tells me he thinks I am dumber than the stones that make up the walls of this building. “You asked me a question about my daughter, remember? If you can pull that information out of your ass, then you’ll have the answer to the question you’re asking now, but unless you do, I can’t help you. One of these days, King Maddox, you’re going to learn that listening to other people is important.”
I want to punch him for making that remark. I absolutely know that listening to other people is important. If I wasn’t a good listener, this place would’ve fallen apart a long time ago.
Although, in fairness, it does seem like we’ve had an awful lot of problems lately…
Turning to Seth, I say, “He’s not going to tell us anything else.”
I can tell my Beta is reluctant to go with me, but we are wasting our time here, so we step back toward the door of the cell.
“I can’t feel her,” Alpha Jordan says, and I don’t know if he’s talking to me or just talking in general.
Glancing back at him over my shoulder, I see that his eyes are glassed over, and it seems that he is really concentrating. “I can’t reach her at all. I do believe she is dead.”
My mouth drops open, and I intend to say something respectful because even if he’s a traitor, there’s no reason to be a jerk now, but Seth says, “Good. She deserved to die,” and that’s that.
Alpha Jordan’s gaze narrows, and we turn to walk away.
“What the hell is he talking about?” Seth asks me.
I continue to go over the conversation I’d had with him again and again in my mind, but I can’t remember all of it.
“Why would Austin want to save her? Does Jordan owe Henry money? Do they have an alliance? Are they friends?” Seth asks all the right questions, but I have no answer.
And then we walk back outside and the notion strikes me, something I should’ve figured out from the beginning. I feel stupid and want to blame it on being distracted, but I have no excuse as I gasp and put my hand on Seth’s arm to steady myself.
“What is it?” he asks me.
I have only one word for him as a response: “Mates.”