Page 37

Chapter

Thirty-Seven

A ZALEA

“Liar! You are not that whore’s son!” Trey growls, and Peter flinches as Trey goes to get up. I grab his arm, and it ripples under my hand just as Liam moves so quickly, he knocks the air out of my lungs, getting me out of the way as Trey shifts. Liam shoves me out the cell door, the guard grabbing me before I can fall, and Liam also shifts, pinning Trey to the wall.

“Calm down!” Liam snarls while Trey’s eyes are on Peter, who whimpers in the corner, cowering away from him. I swallow, petrified, and my heart races as I watch Trey’s nostrils flare, his face savage, and a deep reverberating growl rips from him, challenging Liam, who returns it with a deafening one. Their auras clash and batter one another, and are both potent and deadly, the testosterone in the room making me dizzy. I have to fight the urge to run to my mate, not liking the charged energy after days of only being under Kyson’s calming calling.

“Choose wisely, Trey. I was coming around to not hating you. Challenge me, and you go back on my shit list,” Liam warns, his tone ice cold and threatening.

“Trey?” I plead, and he looks at me. He puffs out his massive furry chest before shoving Liam who barely moves. After another tense moment, Liam releases Trey, who storms out of the cell and down the corridor.

Liam shifts back, standing in his naked glory before glancing around at Peter before looking at me.

“What the fuck was that about?” Liam says while I stare at the roof, still recovering from being knocked to the ground after my recent injury.

“Liam! Pants!” I squeak, not knowing where to avert my gaze without seeing that monstrosity between his legs.

“Oh! Sorry, my Queen, forgot you have only seen the King’s twinkie,” Liam says, clicking his fingers at the guard who chucks him a hessian bag. Liam holds it up and looks at it.

“Fucking pants, moron! What will I do with this? Have a potato sack race?” Liam asks. The guard rushes off, returning minutes later with shorts, while I stand awkwardly staring down the corridor. Once he has pants on, I turn to look at him. He is standing over Peter, who looks up, even more terrified than before.

“Now you’ll tell me why Trey just fled,” Liam says.

Peter looks at me before looking up at Liam. “I… I don’t know, I barely know him,” Peter stutters.

“You’re asking the wrong person. Let’s find Trey, but first, I want to go to town,” I say, and Liam turns to face me, but my eyes go to Peter.

“I want to speak to your grandparents,” I tell him.

“They didn’t do anything! I swear! They aren’t part of this,” Peter begs, his eyes widening as fear graces his face; I’m not sure if he is scared for them or of them.

“I just want to speak to them,” I assure him, though he doesn’t deserve the reassurance. Yet, it’s hard for me to comprehend Peter the boy in front of me, and the Peter that stabbed me as the same person.

“What? Why?” He says, looking at me petrified.

“Because if I am going to convince Kyson not to kill you, I need the information to back my reasoning.”

“My Queen, Kyson won’t let him live after what he did, and I wouldn’t recommend telling him otherwise,” Liam says. I chew my lip.

“Would you let him live?” Liam asks, and his aura slips out with his outrage at my idea.

“He is a child. I don’t forgive what he did, and he will be punished, but I won’t let Kyson kill him. That is for the Moon Goddess to decide. If I choose it,” I tell him. Liam growls, clearly not agreeing, but I turn my gaze to Peter.

“I want your address, now,” I tell Peter. He rattles it off, and I nod. I go to leave, only to pause and turn back to him.

“If you’re lying to me, I will let Kyson decide your fate. I never made your mother leave. Kyson did. After he woke up to her trying to touch him in his sleep,” I tell Peter. He gasps, clearly shocked by this news. Obviously, not all news gets around the castle or maybe it was kept from Peter since he is a child.

“Mom always had a thing for him,” Peter admits, and I nod, not knowing how to reply.

“She shouldn’t have done that knowing you were his mate,” he adds.

“No. She shouldn’t have but this is your chance, Peter. If you are lying, tell me now because if I leave here and find out you lied, I won’t stop my mate from killing you,” I tell him.

“I’m not lying. You can command me, though sometimes it doesn’t work,” Peter says, glancing nervously at Liam, and I look at Liam, who returns his gaze.

“Pardon?” Liam asks.

“Your command, it hurts but doesn’t affect me as badly as the King’s,” he shrugs.

“So you lied when I commanded you? Faked it?” Liam growls but Peter nods his head.

“I thought you would let me go, but you didn’t,” Peter says, yet Peter has not shifted yet, so how could he resist it?

“We will figure that out later. For now, we should go. I just felt Kyson wake up, and I want to go before he comes looking for me. Kyson won’t ask for answers. He will demand blood,” I tell Liam.

“And Trey?” Liam asks.

“When we get back,” I tell Liam before turning on my heel and walking out. The mindlink stirs as Kyson wakes, but I can feel he is pretty hungover.

‘Azalea!’ He says frantically through the mindlink.

‘I’m fine. I am with Liam, ’ I assure him. I feel the tension leave him through the bond, relief flooding through me from him.

‘Where are you? I will come to you,’ he tells me as Liam holds me steady, helping me climb the stairs leading back into the kitchen. I stop just outside the pantry doors, waiting for Liam to lock the cellar door.

‘I’m in the kitchen, but you should shower and wake up. Clarice will send up something for you to eat to help get rid of the hangover,’ I tell him while looking at Clarice, who nods to me. She seems surprised to see me but doesn’t comment on it, which I appreciate.

‘That can wait. I’ll be down soon,’ Kyson says.

‘Kyson, I’m fine. I just want to go into town. Liam is with me. I promise I will come to see you when I get back,’ I tell him.

‘Azalea!’ He says my name like an order, daring me to challenge his word again, and I sigh, knowing he is already on his way to me. I can feel him getting closer when he appears in the doorway leading into the kitchen after a few minutes, there is no point running; he would chase me down so don’t even bother to try.

Yet as he appears, the sigh that leaves him and how he rolls his shoulders tell me he needs to see me to ensure I am alright. His smell overrides my senses and is more potent than the robe I am wearing, which has me moving to go to him. He meets me halfway, pulling me into his arms, his hand going to my head while he wraps his arm around my body, his lips in my hair.

“You shouldn’t have left without telling me. I woke up and thought…” he doesn’t finish, and I don’t question, not wanting to know where his mind had just taken him.

He sniffs me before burying his nose in my hair and then pressing it to my neck. A low thrumming growl leaves him, making goosebumps rise on my arms, and his grip tightens but not painfully, more like he is trying to remove the scent on me and replace it with his.

“Where were you?”

I know he knows, so there is no point lying.

“I went to see Peter. Liam and Trey went with me because I asked, and there were also two other guards down there,” I tell him knowing Peter’s scent is heavy down there; he growls, grabbing my face in his hands and turning it up to look at him.

“Out!” he growls, watching me. The room is evacuated under his order within seconds. Yet he doesn’t let me go. Instead, he rests his forehead against mine and lets out a breath. I wait for the wrath, his fury. I can feel it through the bond as he fights the urge to break something, or maybe me. I’m not sure, so I don’t push him.

After a moment he seems to calm himself down enough to speak. “Explain…. Please,” he growls.

“You wouldn’t have let me go,” I tell him. He pulls his forehead from mine, looks away, and nods because I am right.

“I may have,” he breathes out.

“You don’t seem so sure of that,” I tell him. I struggle to read him through the bond yet I press my face to his chest. He purrs, a sound I relish, calming and relaxing me.