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I shook my head again for what felt like the hundredth time. “No,” I said again in a scratchy voice. “I’m trying to tell you; I came alone.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s a little crazy, Darcy,” Asher said, squatting down beside us. “You must have hit your head. No way you came here all this way and found us on your own.”
Wyatt shot him a look, not liking his tone, I guess, but Asher shrugged an apology. “Sorry, Wyatt, but he’s not making sense.”
“I’m not lying,” I said, getting angry. Why were Alphas so obtuse? Did they truly think that because I was omega, I didn’t have enough intelligence to find them. “I came alone.”
“Darcy,” Wyatt said in a gentle tone, like he was talking to a child or an idiot. “We don’t think you’re lying. Only confused. We just can’t understand how you knew to come here to the baron’s castle—which is a long way from where I left you at your aunt’s home—all the way to this village, this dungeon room,inside this castle, to find us. You must admit it’s hard to believe.”
“Must I?And yet here I am and here you are. And maybe if you hadn’t tried to kill me as I came in torescuethe three of you, I’d have been able to tell you how I got here.”
Brandon snorted a laugh, and I noticed for the first time how weak he sounded and how he had to hold onto the wall to stand up. He looked even worse—pale and thin and exhausted. He needed a physician as soon as we could find him one.
Meanwhile, as I’d been distracted by Brandon, Asher and Wyatt had been exchanging looks. “You have an unusual omega, Wyatt,” Asher said, with not a little sarcasm.
“You can say that again,” Wyatt replied and gave me a look that said he, too, thought I was altogether too mouthy. “You have no idea. Look, Darcy, I’ve apologized for attacking you, but how were we to know it was someone friendly coming in here in the middle of the night? We’ve been expecting the baron to try and finish what he started ever since we got here.”
“Speaking of the baron,” I said, “maybe we need to stop talking and just get you out of here before somebody comes down to see what all the noise is about.”
Wyatt shook his head. “These stone walls are two feet thick. And we’ve barely seen anyone resembling a guard since they threw us in here. We have time for you to explain to me how you’re here, Darcy.”
“Oh, for the gods’ sake, I took a public carriage to Redmill, the town at the foot of the mountain. Then I paid a local farmer to bring me up here on his cart. When I got here, I asked for a job as a servant at the front gate.”
“You asked for a job?”
“Yes. From the baron himself actually. He was riding your horse, by the way.”
Wyatt gave me a tight-lipped look. “Never mind that for now. Are you saying you simply waltzed up to the gate and asked thebaronfor a job?”
“Not saying I ‘waltzed’ anywhere, but yeah, I asked him. And he gave me one. I’ve been here working as a footman, and a stable hand and whatever else they needed me to do for almost two weeks now. Seems like they have a hard time getting people to work up here. Imagine that.”
“And then what? You just decided to go exploring in the middle of the night?”
“Something like that, yes. I’ve been searching for you every chance I got. It’s why I came looking in the first place, obviously. And I have a lot to tell you.”
Wyatt and the other Alphas were looking at me like they were stunned, so I kept going. “The lady you were looking for is here. She did arrive, despite what the baron told her family.”
“The viscountess,” Asher said. “Yes, we know. We saw her at dinner the first night we arrived, and the baron allowed us to talk to her.”
“She told me she saw you.”
“You’ve actually spoken to her too?”
“Yes. I went to her room, and she let me in.”
Wyatt clapped a hand over his forehead. “You went to her room.”
“Yes. It was the only way I could talk to her. I’m a footman, after all and not a lady’s maid. But she talked to me and admitted the baron was abusing her. She has bruises and marks on her arms and shoulders. I’ve actually seen him abuse her at dinner. This last time, he dragged her out of the room and then up the stairs. I know he hurt her, but when I tried to intervene, the butler stopped me.”
“Thank the gods for small favors,” Wyatt said, his mouth twisting sarcastically.
“Well, I haven’t seen her since, and he was open with his abuse of her, I can tell you that for free. The servants never even tried to help her, because they’re all terrified of him.”
“Darcy, don’t you see how dangerous he is? If he caught you…”
“Well, he hasn’t so far. Once he did, actually, on the upper landing, but I talked my way out of it—told him I had been exploring the castle and took a wrong turn.”
Wyatt put his hand over his forehead again and sighed. After a moment, he took my chin in his hand and made me look into his eyes. “This stops now, Darcy. Do you understand?”
