Chapter 192: Careless Men Make Mistakes
By the time the first grey light of dawn crept over Dravengard, two truckloads of warriors, the same men Derek had ridden out with to dismantle Rolf’s pack, came rumbling back through the broken gates.
The whole estate still lay in ruins from the night’s battle.
Derek sat in the front passenger seat, staring blankly out of the window, fury churning slow and black in his chest.
Physically, he looked like he had been dragged through a hedge backwards. He had dark soot patches on his face from the explosion, a deep gash near his temple that had only half-healed, and a nasty split lip.
The vehicle rolled to a stop in front of the medical centre. Instantly, teams of nurses and doctors scrambled out of the building, wheeling stretchers and carrying oxygen masks towards the trucks to tend to the heavily wounded gammas.
Derek opened his door and climbed out of the vehicle with a visible effort, his muscles aching.
Someone along the way had given him a casual shirt and a pair of khaki trousers. His left arm still hung at a slightly awkward, stiff angle from the painful dislocation he had popped back in himself.
He stood by the truck, his eyes sweeping over the courtyard. He could see gammas from various allied Western packs carrying in the wounded fighters of Dravengard, helping each other like true brothers in arms. His stomach churned at the sheer scale of the chaos.
"Oh, Derek, dear!"
Nana’s voice cried out behind him. He turned to see her hurrying over, leaning on the arm of Dot, her personal maid.
His second unit had told him of the chaos here the moment he reached them, but seeing it was another thing entirely.
"Nana." He crossed to her quickly, his eyes raking over her.
There was a small cut glinting at the corner of her eye, and a bandage wound around her wrist. Something in his chest twisted painfully at the sight of it.
"Did you fight?" he asked, incredulous.
Nana sighed. "I had to, my dear. They were far too many, and our men were so badly outnumbered. They struck us out of nowhere. We all had to throw ourselves into it. Every one of us."
Derek drew her into him with his good arm and held her.
"How are you holding up?" Nana asked against his shoulder, her voice cracking with emotion. She pulled back slightly, looking up at him with worried eyes. "Please tell me the others are fine. Tell me you didn’t lose anyone out there."
Derek did not reply immediately. He looked away, his jaw clenching tightly. "We lost some men. As for the others...we will have to wait and see the final medical reports," he said quietly.
Then, shaking off the grim thought, he looked back at her. "How are you and my brothers? Kai, Tan, Aunt Angelica, everyone. Tell me I didn’t lose anyone."
Nana quickly wiped a stray tear from her cheek and managed a small, reassuring nod. "They are alive. They are inside being treated. They are going to be fine."
The knot in his chest eased, just barely. He pressed a kiss to her hair. "Go and rest now, Nana. Please."
"You need to rest as well, young man," Nana countered, giving him a stern grandmotherly look. "You look like death warmed up."
Derek nodded politely, but in his mind, rest was the last thing on his agenda. He wasn’t going to sleep a single wink until he tracked down every single traitor and mastermind involved in this coordinated attack and made them pay in blood.
As Nana and Dot shuffled away, Dr Lorenzo approached.
"Your Grace," the man said bowing slightly.
"I must insist you come inside with me immediately for a full neurological workup. I have just received information from your men that you lost consciousness for quite some time after the explosion. Head trauma is not something we can simply ignore, regardless of how well you believe you feel right now."
Derek let out a grumpy sigh, nodding his head in agreement. He turned to follow Dr Lorenzo inside the clinic when a gamma from the third unit came striding up, calling for him.
Derek turned to face him.
"Your Grace." The gamma bowed. "We succeeded in capturing the girl."
Derek gave a single nod at the sweaty gamma’s announcement. His face didn’t change, but his eyes turned completely icy.
"Splendid. Throw her into the deepest inner dungeon we have, and make sure she is bound with silver chains from head to toe until I am ready to deal with her. Keep a strict, twenty-four-hour eye on her."
He paused, leaning in slightly so the warrior could see the seriousness in his gaze.
"If she somehow manages to pull a magic trick and escape that cell, I won’t just hold you responsible. I won’t spare a single one of you or your families. Do you understand me?"
"Understood, Your Grace."
The gamma bowed quickly and hurried off to carry out the order.
Derek turned on his heel, pointing a finger at another waiting gamma.
"My wife. Go and find my phone immediately. I need to reach the queen this very second and make sure she is safe and sound."
The gamma nodded and rushed away.
Derek drew in a slow breath, and finally walked through the double doors of the medical centre to check on his kingdom’s casualties.
***
Back in Rolf’s camp, deep in the forest, Lydia sat very still on a low stool while Rolf paced the length of the tent like a caged animal, fury radiating off him in waves.
Lydia watched him stew for a while, saying nothing, letting him burn through the worst of it. Then, at last, she spoke.
"Will you please calm down and actually use your brain for a second?" Lydia asked with irritation. "Or are you planning to just fume, charge like a mindless beast, and completely spoil the rest of our plans?"
Rolf snapped. He spun around and stared at his wife as if she had just grown a horn right out of the middle of her forehead. "Calm?" he demanded. "How on earth can I be calm when that royal bastard has my daughter? You are sitting there talking as if Chloe isn’t your own daughter too."
Lydia sighed. "She is my daughter, and that is precisely why we must stay calm and think. Rage will only make you careless, and careless men make mistakes."
Rolf stood there a moment, then dragged in several deep breaths, visibly forcing himself under control.
"It seems," he said bitterly, "that we’ve been beaten at our own game. How on earth did they even find out about the secret pack where we hid Chloe? It makes no sense."
"This plan was supposed to be simple," Lydia muttered. "Divide them. Conquer them. Take Kira. That was all." Her fingers curled in her lap. "Why must that girl be so bloody elusive?"
Rolf glared at her, his temper flaring again. "Is that wretched girl the only thing you care about right now? Our own daughter is currently sitting in the hands of the enemy, and you are—"
"Stop it!" Lydia snapped, slamming her hand down onto her knee. "Just stop talking, Rolf! I told you I need to think."
She pressed her fingers to her temples. "Chloe is far more valuable to the Lycan King alive than she is dead. Can’t you see what is actually happening here? Derek does not want to hurt her; he wants to use her as a piece of bait to lure us out into the open."
Rolf went completely quiet. He stood there for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek, before letting out a sigh. He rubbed his temples.
"Do you think that traitor Crane had something to do with this? Maybe the bastard wanted to get back at us for ditching him after he let us in."
Lydia shook her head. "I doubt it. We probably just missed their spy giving them that specific bit of information."
She ran her fingers slowly through her hair.
"This night should have been our greatest triumph. It would have been our best chance to finally get every single thing we have ever wanted. If only I had caught that wretched Kira myself."
Her hand stilled. "Why did that brainless girl have to remove her royal wedding ring? It would have led me straight to her."
Rolf sighed again, lower this time. "Perhaps," he murmured, "we shouldn’t have discarded Crane quite so quickly."
"We don’t need him," Lydia said flatly. "In fact, the next time I lay eyes on that man, I’ll kill him myself."
She rose from the stool and stepped toward the open flap of the tent, gazing out into the breaking dawn.
"If Kira managed to escape our clutches this time, we need a change of strategy. We need her to get back to Dravengard and put that wedding ring back on as soon as possible. So that we will know their every move—and then we can plan our next move around it."
