Chapter 150: Chapter 150 I do
_Author’s POV_
The hotel room was much better than the hospital had been, which was exactly why Rowena had refused the hospital in the first place.
“You need proper medical supervision,” the medic had sai.
“I need a real bed and a room that doesn’t smell like antiseptic for now,” Rowena had replied, in the equally firm tone as his.
Alaric had stood to the side during the exchange, arms crossed, watching. When the medic looked to him for backup, he’d simply said, “Get her what she needs. She’ll be monitored here.”
The medic had not looked pleased. But the medic had complied. She was Marchioness, Alaric was Alpha King.
So now Rowena sat propped against pillows in her hotel room with her wrist freshly wrapped and her head wound cleaned and bandaged.
Her phone had been returned to her. The first thing she did was call Celeste cause she hadn’t followed her in.
It rang twice before her cousin picked up.
“Rowena.” Celeste’s voice came through, like she’d been holding the phone in her hand waiting. Knowing Celeste, she probably had been. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” Rowena said, biting back a smile. Celeste asking that question was so rare.
Celeste exhaled finally. “I swear I aged ten years this few days.”
“You look fine,” Rowena snorted. “Stop being dramatic.”
“You were in a burning room cuffed to a bed.....”
“The sprinklers handled it.”
“Rowena.”
“Celeste.” Rowena paused and breathed. She knew her cousin was worried sick under all the tough act. “I’m fine really. Tell me what you have.”
Because Celeste always had something. That was the thing about her cousin that most people underestimated. She might be quiet about her work, but she definitely gathers information in the background while everyone else was busy being loud. Rowena had trusted her with a few things precisely because of that.
Celeste didn’t waste time. “I found Virella two days before Alaric’s team did,” she said. “I just didn’t have enough people to move on it myself, and I wasn’t going to go in underprepared. I’ve been building a file on her. Virella and Theo both. The trademark case against Kaelen, the shell company, the facility, and the money trail.” She paused. “Rowena, it goes deeper than you think. There are signatures on documents that tie Theo directly to the facility’s funding. And Virella has been in contact with someone inside Kaelen’s own legal team.”
Rowena closed her eyes briefly. “She bought someone on the inside?”
“Looks like it. I’m still tracking the payments, but once I have the full chain, it’s airtight.” She smiled behind the phone. She loved things like this. Ruining someone was her specialty. “They can’t run far enough. I’ve already put things in motion. They won’t see it coming from my direction. They’ll be too busy watching Alaric.”
“Good,” Rowena said. “Keep it that way.”
“How are you?” Celeste asked again.
This time, it was gentler.
“I’ve been better,” Rowena finally relaxed. “I’ve also been worse.”
“That’s the most you-answer you’ve ever given me.”
“Get some rest, Celeste.”
“You too. Actually rest, Rowena. Don’t sit there planning your next move until three in the morning.”
Rowena said nothing, she would definitely do that.
“Rowena.”
“Goodbye, Celeste.”
She heard her cousin make a sound of complete exasperation before the call ended, and despite everything, the corner of her mouth lifted.
Alaric came back not long after.
He’d stepped out while she was on the phone, which she suspected was deliberate. He was giving her space.
He brought food, sat beside her while she ate, close enough that she could see him watching her between moments when he thought she wasn’t looking. He didn’t hover.
When the food was done, he changed the bandage on her head himself. She had already told him how she sustained it and Alaric’s expression had remained tight.
“I’m sorry,” he said while his hands worked. “About your wolf.”
Rowena was still for a moment. “It’s not your fault.”
“It happened while you were under my protection. That makes it.....”
“It happened because of Virella and the people she works with,” Rowena said. “You didn’t put me in that room.”
He didn’t respond immediately, which meant he was doing that thing where he accepted the words but didn’t fully let himself off the hook. She recognized it because she always did the same thing.
“We’ll find a way to reverse it,” he said finally.
“Celeste thinks there may be a way,” she said. “I’m looking into it.”
He finished with the bandage and sat back. They were quiet for a while, and it wasn’t uncomfortable at all.
Eventually, exhaustion won. Rowena drifted off mid-thought to sleep.
Alaric watched her for awhile before he left.
When she woke up, the trio came in to see her.
Kasper arrived first, then Ezekiel and Pierre, all three of them filing in. They looked worried sick.
“You look like you’ve been through a war,” Ezekiel announced, dropping into the chair beside her bed like he lived there.
“Thank you,” Rowena said flatly.
“I mean that as a compliment. You survived. You look like someone who survived.” He tilted his head. “You’re still beautiful, though. Unfairly, honestly.”
“Ezekiel,” Pierre groaned.
“I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking.”
Kasper shook his head slowly, though there was something relieved in his face that he was trying to hide behind the neutral expression. “How’s the wrist?”
“It’s wrapped now,” she said. “It’ll heal.”
They talked for while. They filled her in on anything.
Pierre also told her about calling Theo, about the bar, about the mating mark. Kasper gave her the operational rundown in his no-nonsense way.
Ezekiel just contributed chaos.
“Kasper,” he said, about forty minutes in, wearing an expression of complete innocence that fooled absolutely no one. “Tell her what I said. When we didn’t know where she was.”
Kasper gave him a look. “Ezekiel...”
“Go on. Tell her.”
A long-suffering pause. “He said,” Kasper began, in the tone of a man deeply regretting the company he kept, “that if we got you back safely, he was going to propose to you. Which his father already sent Nana a proposal and Nana accepted.”
Rowena turned to look at Ezekiel.
Ezekiel spread his hands wide, completely unrepentant. “I was emotional. The sentiment stands. My dad was fast too.”
“I do,” Rowena said.
They both stared at her in confusion.
She looked back, expression perfectly straight. “My answer. I do.”
Pierre made a sound that was definitely a laugh disguised as a cough. Kasper pressed his hand over his mouth. Ezekiel looked genuinely delighted, and opened his mouth to respond with something that would almost certainly make the situation worse but then the door opened.
Alaric stood in the doorway, taking in the scene before settling on Rowena.
He frowned at Ezekiel, his gaze darkening my “Propose to who?”
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