Ruthless Alpha, and his Curvy Saint

Chapter 140: Chapter 140

Merrick’s POV

"The child you’re looking for," she continued. "Is mine."

Agnes moved beside me.

I put my hand on her arm.

"My lady," I said, trying to maintain the peace and calm. "We are not here to cause difficulty. We are simply here to confirm. It’s entirely possible the child you have is not the one we are looking for - there were multiple children moved through the same trader during that period." I held her gaze. "If you would allow us to see the child, we can confirm whether there’s any connection and proceed from there."

The Luna looked at me.

Then at Agnes.

Something moved through her expression when she looked at Agnes.

"I know why you’re here," she said to Agnes directly. "And I understand it." Her voice was not cruel. "But he is mine. He has been mine for months now. He knows my face. He reaches for me when he’s frightened." She looked back at me. "I will not give him up."

"I understand..." I started.

"Bring him," Agnes said.

Not loud. Not aggressive. Just firm.

"Agnes..."

"I just want to see him," Agnes said. She was looking at the Luna with the expression of a woman who had been on a horse for three days and had sat in five wrong rooms and had looked at five wrong faces. "Please. Just let me see him."

The Luna looked at her for a long moment.

Then she turned and spoke to the nursemaid.

The nursemaid brought him in.

A boy. A beautiful happy toddler who was well-fed and loved.

I looked at Agnes’s face.

I saw it happen.

She reacted like someone who had been looking for a specific face and had found it. Her breath left her body in a sound that was not a word and not a cry and was both of those things.

She moved.

The Luna shifted into her wolf form before Agnes had taken two steps - the wolf emerging with the speed of a mother responding to what her body had categorized as a threat to her child, and she was between Agnes and the boy, teeth showing, a low warning growl.

Agnes stopped.

I watched the fear cross her face - the fear of a woman who was not a werewolf standing in front of a shifted wolf who was fiercer than her - and underneath the fear something that was worse than fear, the look of someone who has found what they have been looking for and cannot reach it.

I stepped forward.

"We don’t want a problem," I said calmly. Directly to the wolf, because the wolf’s intelligence was fully present even if the wolf’s form was not human. "We are not here to take anything by force. We are not a threat to you or your child." I held her gaze - her amber eyes, how focused they were. "I understand you love him. I understand he is yours in every way that daily care and presence and love can make something yours." I kept my voice steady. "I am asking you to hear me."

The growl continued.

Through the mind-link - the wolf communicated: mine. He is mine. I will not let him go.

I turned to the Alpha.

He was looking at his Luna with an unhappy expression, like the matter was out of his hands.

"Alpha," I said.

He looked at me with regret. "Lord Merrick," he said. "I understand your position. But this..." He looked at his Luna. "Is not mine to decide."

I stood in the hall of a northern castle and looked at the shifted wolf between Agnes and her son and I made my decision.

I turned to Agnes.

I put my hand on her arm.

"We’re leaving," I said quietly.

She looked at me.

The look she gave me was the look of someone who has just heard something they believe is the wrong thing but have no immediate counter to, and the frustration was in every part of her face.

"Merrick..."

"Trust me," I said.

"My son is here. After being away from him for a long time, I finally found him. He needs me. His mother."

"I know." I held her eyes. "But you just have to trust me."

She looked at me for a long moment - searching, with the focused intensity of someone who was deciding whether the request was worth honoring. The tears were there, at the edges, and I watched her fight to control it. To keep it from falling.

"Trust me," I said again. Quieter this time.

Her jaw was tight. Her eyes were wet.

She nodded.

We left.

We rode a short distance and found an inn close by. It was small and clean - the floors swept, the fire going, the atmosphere filled with the smell of food.

I ordered food for everyone. The soldiers outside, the slave trader, Agnes, and myself. Then I went to take my seat opposite Agnes, who sat down solemn and quiet.

The food arrived, and I digged in.

Agnes sat silently, looking at the wall and disregarding the food.

"Eat up," I said.

Nothing.

"Agnes." I kept my voice even. "You need your strength. Tomorrow requires strength."

She looked at the wall with the focused attention of someone who had decided the wall was the only acceptable object in the room.

I finished my food. I drank my water. I thought about the next twenty-four hours systematically. I was a man with tough problems and I needed to find the correct approach to it.

I thought about my options.

The direct approach - return to the castle, invoke territorial authority, demand the child be surrendered on legal grounds. The problem with this: the Luna had not done anything technically wrong. She had purchased the child through a transaction that was, at the time, legally conducted. She had cared for him. A legal argument here was complicated and slow.

The political approach - bring Terrell’s name and authority to bear more explicitly, have formal documentation drawn up establishing Agnes’s claim, present it to the Alpha - as Alpha to Alpha - and allow the proper channels to run. The problem with this: time. Slow. And Agnes was not going to survive slow.

The conversation approach - return to the Luna not with authority but with honesty. Woman to woman. What had been taken from her. What the boy had come from. The morning she had left her village with an infant and the morning she had come back to flames.

This one had something the others didn’t.

It had truth in it.

Just then the innkeeper appeared at my side with the room keys.

I took them, and put one in front of Agnes without comment.

"Go up to your room and sleep. You need your rest." I said.

She looked at the key.

She looked at me.

Then she looked back at the wall.

I had nothing else to say.

So I stood up, picked up my key, and went upstairs.

The room was small but comfy enough. I washed in the basin with the water available, which was extremely cold but I had no choice. By the time I was clean and ready for bed, my mind was still running through the problem, thinking of an answer.

The Luna.

The conversation approach required access to the Luna without the Alpha present. It required her to be willing to hear something she had decided she didn’t want to hear. It required...

I didn’t know when I fell asleep.

What I knew was when I woke.

My eyes opened and I tried to orient myself. Bringing myself back to were I was.

My ears perked up with a familiar noise, and I found myself listening.

A horse.

Not the horses at rest, but the slow shifting sound of animals in a stable being disturbed.

I was at the window before I thought twice about it.

Agnes was in the yard below.

She had a horse by the lead and she was in the process of mounting it.

She didn’t look up.

She was not thinking about who might be watching. She was thinking about the northern castle and the boy in the nursemaid’s arms and the Luna between her and him.

She was going back.

Alone.

In the middle of the night.

To a castle with a determined shewolf who had already demonstrated what happened when she got too close.

I left the window and ran.

I was down the stairs and into the yard before she had fully settled into the saddle.

"Agnes."

She pulled the horse up and turned.

She looked at me with the expression of someone who has been caught doing something they had every intention of continuing to do and wasn’t backing down.

"Don’t," I said.

"Merrick..."

"Not like this. Not tonight. Not alone." I held her gaze across the dark yard. "You go back there tonight, alone, without a plan - you don’t get your son. You get yourself killed, and he loses the person who has been looking for him for months."

She was holding the reins with both hands and her jaw was set.

"I told you to trust me," I said.

"You also told me we were leaving," she said.

"We were. I had a reason."

"What reason?"

"Come inside," I said. "Let me tell you."

She looked at the road up ahead. Then back at me.

"If your reason isn’t good enough," she said, "I’m getting back on this horse."

"If my reason isn’t good enough," I said, "I’ll get on a horse with you."