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I kicked the door to my compartment, trying to startle the seven guards that were watching me before I charged at them. I made it three feet before the chains went taut, keeping me in place. I pulled at them again and again, trying to rip them off the Goddess-damn wall.
I heard Scottie scream. One small shriek from her and then silence.
“If you hurt her,” I sneered between gritted teeth at all seven of the males with me, “ I will fucking murder you. Every single one of you.”
The guards my father had brought tensed, watching me closely throughout the entire trip. I didn’t stop pulling at the chains, even when all their weapons were angled at me. The monorail ride was short. It didn’t take long to get back to the castle from where I had teleported her days earlier. When it finally came to a halt, I jolted up. “Care to unchain me?”
“Not yet, Prince,” one of them snapped back. I stared him down first, taking in his features. I’d remember every single one of them. I heard the door to the compartment click open across the hall, and then I heard shuffling. Scottie was being dragged across the floor. Dragged for fuck’s sake.
The guards assigned to me were smart enough to wait ten minutes after they pulled her away before unchaining me from the wall. The shackles remained on my wrists, the Alluse still working, as one of the larger guards yanked on the chains, forcing me to follow.
Again, probably smart of them considering how deathly pissed off I was right now. I glanced into the compartment that Scottie was in and swore under my breath as I noticed a small pool of blood on one of the cushions. I tried to steady myself. I needed to remain calm to focus on what would come ahead. Plead Scottie’s innocence, free her, then revenge. Revenge on every single one of them. And not just the males who came with my father, but whoever planned her kidnapping with Kole. And Kole. I would track him down and find him. Later.
I let the guards pull me through the grounds toward the small meeting room used by the High Council for more intimate proceedings. Good. This would be easier if it wasn’t a public affair. The fewer people that knew about Scottie, the better. I noticed the servants and housekeepers gawking as I passed.
The Prince, who had been missing from the castle for a few days, was now being escorted back in shackles. I could imagine the rumors spreading around the halls and had no doubt the entire court would know within minutes. I didn’t care what they thought about me as long as they didn’t see Scottie. I was sure my father’s men were discreet about wherever they’d put her, waiting for the right moment.
Once directed inside the small meeting room, I was thrown in the center of the floor. No one bothered to offer a chair or to unchain me. My father—no, Commander—seated himself behind a table situated across from me. Synder Phillips and Braven Bask flanked either side of him. King Lunder was nowhere to be found.
I was surprised to see Peter. He wasn’t sitting with them but standing to the left side of the room where the guards were gathered. He tugged on his ear, the gesture so casual it seemed like he just had an itch. It was our signal for me to enter his mind, but I couldn’t with these damn shackles. I tried to give him a sideways glance to read anything from his expression, but I was jerked by one of the guards and forced to look at my father. The Luxian book was positioned front and center on the desk.
Synder gave me the wickedest grin as he eyed my shackles. I knew the sick bastard was enjoying this. “Like what you see?” I scoffed at him.
His grin only widened. “On the contrary, Prince, it brought me grave despair to have to call upon this meeting today. I don’t wish to see you chained. Although the same can’t be said about your wife.”
I glanced around the room again, looking to see how many guards were here and who they were. Were they loyal to me or to Synder? “Care to enlighten me as to why I’m chained and my wife was taken from me?”
Synder tapped his thick finger on the book’s brown faded leather. “No denying it. Your father found this at the lake with you. This is an illegal text and brings up the question of why you would have it.”
“I already told him,” I gestured toward my father, “why I was reading it. I see no reason for the shackles based on some light reading,” I said in a bored tone. I needed them to take these off of me. I needed to get inside Peter’s head to figure out what happened.
“Interesting that it went missing from Addler the day before. If you weren’t worried about the consequences, why steal it?” Synder remarked.
My father waved his hand in the air and gestured toward the guards. “Release him,” he said to them. “Our quarrel is not with Sie but with the female he calls his wife. We only had to chain you to keep you from getting to her. Now that she is properly locked up”—he smiled at me. He actually had the audacity to smile at me—“you won’t need those chains. You won’t be getting to her.”
Synder frowned and I had the suspicion that his goals weren’t aligned with the Commanders. My father probably had no idea what was going on and just wanted to make sure our bloodline didn’t lose its power, wanted to make sure I didn’t lose my power. Wanted Scotlind as far away from my bed as possible, Goddess forbid I taint my blood with a lower rank. Except she wasn’t really a zero. I turned my gaze toward Synder, trying to glean what he knew, what he sought from this, what the hell he wanted. My father—easy—he wanted me to have a different wife and make sure my spot as King was secured.
My teeth ground together as the guards stepped up and started to remove my shackles that I was surprised they didn’t chip. “What does my wife have to do with anything?”
“We have reason to believe that she is not who she says she is. We have reason to believe that she is a spy, a traitor to the throne,” Braven said, speaking for the first time.
“Be careful of what you are suggesting, Braven. She is my wife,” I growled at him, at all of them.
My father lazily waved a hand in the air. “Oh, stop playing these mind games.” As he spoke, the door opened behind me, and Kole walked in. I tensed. He just walked right fucking in, casually, strolling toward the table with his hands in his pockets. It took everything in me to not lunge myself at him.
“What is he doing here?” I gritted out. “He kidnapped Scotlind and tried to murder us.”
“Oh, please. Don’t tell me that you are suggesting that one guard, a rank four, has overthrown our Prince, our only rank five. Please tell me that you aren’t suggesting that our future ruler is so weak that one male almost killed him?” Synder almost laughed.
My father chimed in, “That is what can happen when you mix your blood with a nix. They make you weak. Or is she even a nix?”
Finally, with the shackles off, I wielded my mind into Peter’s.What the hell happened?
Peter didn’t dare look at me as he thought back,They know she is Luxian. I don’t know when Kole came back. I was just summoned here a couple minutes before you.
“Kole here is actually a hero to the crown. I expect you to reward him well,” Synder continued. “He has informed us all about the night at the castle. How he saw Scotlind’s Luxian markings while he was being a loyal guard and protecting her, and how she tried to murder him in cold blood when he confronted her. Then, she framed him when she couldn’t get the deed done. She even went as far as cutting her own leg for the theatrics of it.”
I saw Peter tense out of the corner of my eye. Kole was fucking twisting the story for his own benefit. I knew exactly how this looked to them.
