Chapter 16: Bastard 1
LYSANDER
The elder who’d suggested it did not so much as blink at my tone.
"It must be public, Alpha Lysander. That is rather the entire function of it." He folded his hands in front of him, patient in the way men were patient when they’d already won an argument and were simply waiting for the other party to catch up. "A quiet arrangement satisfies no one. The visiting Alphas need to see the crime answered. The Lunas need to carry word home that the new King handled a violation against his house with strength, not mercy hidden in a back room somewhere. If we do this quietly, it reads as weakness. It reads as a King unwilling to make hard decisions in his first hours. You cannot afford that impression right now, of all times."
"I am aware of what I cannot afford," I said. "I am telling you this particular solution costs more than it buys."
"It costs her something," the elder said, gently enough that it almost sounded like sympathy. "It costs you very little. That is, forgive me, rather the point of the arrangement."
I looked at him and thought about several things I could say. None of them would have moved him an inch, and every second I spent arguing in this library was a second longer she stayed in that cell with wolfsbane working through her skin. I could feel her through the bond even now, a low ache sitting behind my ribs like a held breath, and every part of me wanted to be moving toward her instead of standing here debating the optics of my own cruelty.
There was also this. I did not actually need their approval for what I intended to do once night came and the doors were closed and the visiting court had gone back to their rooms to sleep off the wine. Whatever ceremony they wanted to stage in front of witnesses was theater, and theater could be managed, redirected, quietly unmade in private once the audience had gone home. Let them have their spectacle. I would decide what happened to her once I had her somewhere safe and the eyes of a hundred foreign Alphas were no longer on either of us.
I exhaled slowly through my nose.
"Fine," I said. "Tonight, then."
The elder inclined his head, satisfied, and something in his posture eased the way a man’s shoulders eased when a difficult negotiation had finally landed where he wanted it. "Wise choice,Alpha Lysander."
"I don’t require the compliment." I stood from the chair, and the motion drew every eye in the room back to me. "This meeting is finished. I don’t believe we need the full Elder Circle convened again today. You have what you need to manage the arrangements. I have a pack back home to hold together as well with all the new developments."
Nobody argued with that. They gathered their papers and their folios and filed out in twos and threes, murmuring to each other in the low, satisfied tones, and within a few minutes the library had emptied of everyone except Johann, Cormac, and me. Cormac took one look at what remained of the room’s temperature and decided his business was concluded as well. He tucked the folio under his arm, and went out the door without a backward glance.
That left Johann and me.
He hadn’t moved from where he stood near the desk since the will reading finished. He was staring at the empty chair, the one I’d vacated only a moment ago, like it had personally wronged him, and when he finally looked up at me his eyes had lost every trace of the smooth composure he’d walked in wearing.
"You are not leaving this room," he said, "until you tell me what happened with my father."
I studied him for a moment. His jaw was tight, his breathing a fraction too fast, and beneath the outrage there was something else moving, something that looked uncomfortably close to fear.
"I think," I said carefully, "that only two people in this estate could have done something to warrant my uncle rewriting an entire succession three weeks before he died. And I am fairly confident it was not me."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means what it means, Johann."
"Say it plainly." His voice had risen. "You’ve spent this entire morning speaking in riddles designed to make me look guilty in front of the one circle of people whose opinion actually matters. Say what you’re implying, or admit you have nothing and this is simply cruelty for its own sake. You fucking have Lily of the Valley for fuck’s sake."
I considered how much to give him. My uncle’s confession still sat in my chest like something I hadn’t finished swallowing, a secret he’d handed me in a library not unlike this one, hours before someone put a bullet in him. I hadn’t decided yet what I owed Johann in the way of truth, whether kindness or cowardice would be served by keeping it from him.
"Uncle told me something interesting," I said finally, "before he died. Something I don’t think you know." I paused. "Your mother, however, I suspect knows it very well."
Johann’s face did something complicated. Confusion first, quick and genuine, and then something wary underneath it.
"What does that mean."
"Ask her."
"I am asking you." He took a step closer, close enough that I had to hold my ground or visibly retreat, and I chose to hold it. "You clearly think you know something. So stop being political about it and say it with your full mouth, cousin, or I will assume you’re bluffing to unsettle me."
"I’d rather not have this conversation in an open room."
"Excuse me?"
I turned toward the door, intending to simply leave the rest for a room with fewer ears and less blood still drying into the rug, when Johann’s boot caught me hard across the back of the calf, buckling my knee before I could catch myself.
"Fucking talk," he snapped.
That did it. Whatever patience I’d been holding onto through the will reading and the elders and their disgusting old tradition finished burning off in that single moment, and I turned back to him with something considerably less careful in my expression.
"Fine," I said. "It is a known fact that a bastard cannot take the Alpha’s throne."
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