Page 37 of Exiled Heir

The shower shut off, and Cade came out, a towel wrapped around his waist.

Except for his face, every inch of him was covered with tattoos. They scrawled from his throat down to his calves. They writhed like a nest of snakes. Ignoring me, he walked into the closet, and when he came out, he was in his long pants and high-necked sleep shirt again.

“He brought up my parents on purpose,” Cade said, his back to me. He reached for a small jar of something on his dresser, opening it with swift movements. He rubbed it on his hands, and the lines of tattoo shrank back from the pungent, medicinal smell.

“Leon?” I guessed. “He was needling you. Reminding you of your parents’ death.”

“He was reminding me of myduty. The only reason I’m in this position now is because they died. Because those rabid animals killed them.” Each word was colder than the last, as though Cade was dipping himself in an ice bath, willing himself to not feel anything about the worst moment of his life.

I was glad his back was to me because I felt my entire body seize up, my teeth biting crescents on the inside of my lips.

“Do you think it’s the werewolves? Finally striking back?” Cade asked. He turned to me.

I stared at him blankly. Then my mind put together the puzzle pieces. He didn’t realize that my interest was personal. He thought I was shaking trees, finding the rotten fruit as it dropped to the ground.

“No. At least not the Castillo Pack. Everyone knows the whole family… the whole pack was killed.” I said the words emotionlessly, trying to forget the stain of blood on the living room carpet. The way the cold air had dragged over my throat as I ran into the darkness, sure that I was next.

“That’s what Leon said.” Cade blinked, looking down where his hands were clenched at his sides. He shook them loose. “Would you be able to find out for certain? That’s a lead that Isaac hasn’t pursued because… well, the poisoning was so obviously magical.”

I nodded, although I didn’t need to make sure. I had been there. I knew that every one of the Castillo alpha’s children had been killed, except for two.

“Good.” Cade sat on the edge of his bed, one hand on the curtain. “If you hear screaming tonight, please ignore it.”

Then he shut the curtain, effectively ending the conversation.

Even though it was night, and we’d only woken up a few hours before, the siren call of a chance at sleep wasn’t something I could ignore. I used the bathroom first and found a new toothbrush placed on the counter. Raising my eyebrow, I opened the package and used the fresh tube of toothpaste. As I stared at myself in the mirror, I tried to see the similarity between me and my parents.

My father was right. I had his size, even his pale skin.

But I had my mother’s dark hair, her eyes. And I had inherited whatever it was about her that made her an alpha.

I spit the froth into the sink and rinsed my mouth, placing my toothbrush next to Cade’s in the holder.

When I went back out into the bedroom, the lights had been dimmed, and I lay on the bench, my head on the pillow. A blanket sat at the foot of the bench, and I tugged it over myself.

As I closed my eyes, my mind wouldn’t stop spinning. Every angle of the job was at odds with each other.

Cade strongly suspected it was someone in his own house, and I didn’t disagree with him, even though the evidence could point another way.

If it involved Declan Monroe, well, there was a rogues’ galley of people who might have hired him. That was if he didn’t have a reason to do the poisoning himself. I still needed to find out what business Cade had had with him. The vagueness of his response meant it was something he was still ashamed of.

I still couldn’t wrap my head around a bombing and a poisoning. The methods of assassination were too different. If it was House Morrison, I had to believe their chosen assassin would be more efficient. It was hard to believe they’d fail twice.

Isaac bickering with Leon was simply another thread to pull on. Did one of them benefit from the chaos of multiple assassination attempts? Cade trusted Isaac, but apparently, when Cade took on a consort, Isaac’s duties shrank. People did plenty of things for power.

The way that Leon had needled Cade, reminding him of his parents, was exactly the sort of thing someone might do to try and throw the prince off his game. It was also the sort of thing that an older advisor might do to try and make the past relevant to the present. If he wanted to keep his position, it paid to remind Cade that he was only alive because of Leon.

I drowsed off, my thoughts still swimming in circles, unable to make sense of all the different elements that had been introduced.

* * *

I dreamed. Blood on the living room carpet, Miriam standing behind wolves. She was staring at me blankly, the way she had that night.

The other wolves were fully shifted but human at the same time. In one of those dream impossibilities, they were both.

The alpha turned to me. He opened his mouth, and it was so big, so large, that he swallowed me whole.

Panicked, I fought, struggling until I woke.