Page 10 of Pregnant, Rejected and Exiled By the Lycan King (Forbidden Alpha Kings #45)
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Damon
The great hall reeked of death and politics when I arrived, summoned from my private study where I’d been reviewing territory reports. Someone had burst through my door, breathless, speaking of tragedy and blood, but nothing prepared me for the scene that waited.
My mother, Lucinda Kildare, the image of poise and perfection, stood over a covered form, her usual composure shattered into something raw and terrifying.
When attendants pulled back the sheet, my brother’s mutilated body seemed impossible.
Laziel was many things. Competitive, charming, occasionally cruel.
But he was blood. The only family besides Lucinda who shared memories of our father’s better years.
The wounds defied comprehension. Claw marks had opened him from throat to groin, the kind of savage attack that spoke of rage beyond reason.
His face, always so animated in life, was frozen in an expression of shock.
As if he couldn’t believe what was happening even as it killed him.
Blood had pooled beneath him, dark and sticky on the marble floors we’d played on as children.
Council members ringed the scene like vultures, their royal suits making them look like judgy executioners. They maintained careful silence, but I could read their thoughts in the way they shifted, the glances they exchanged.
“Your omega whore did this.” My mother’s accusation cut through my emotional paralysis.
Her perfectly manicured nails had left crescents in her palms, blood dripping onto marble floors.
The sight of my mother drawing her own blood in grief made a crack inside my chest. She’d always been the strongest among us, the one who held the family together after Father’s death.
Now she looked broken, aged a decade in a single night.
The gathered council maintained careful neutrality, but I read judgment in their calculating eyes. An omega in a heat frenzy, they were thinking.
The mate bond thrummed with Rhea’s distant panic, but rage drowned out its insistence on her innocence. How convenient that she’d gone into heat at my ceremony. How convenient that I’d abandoned everything to claim her. And now my brother was dead.
My brother’s blood demanded justice. The thought crystallized as I stared at his ruined form.
Laziel and I had competed for everything growing up.
Father’s attention, mother’s pride, the best training masters.
But he was still my brother. Still the boy who’d snuck into my room during thunderstorms, who’d taken beatings meant for me when Father was in his rages. Whatever our rivalry, we were blood.
Harrison, eldest of the council, cleared his throat. The sound echoed in the vast hall, drawing every eye. He’d served my father and grandfather before me, his loyalty to the bloodline absolute. If he spoke against Rhea, the others would follow.
“We should examine the evidence before making accusations,” he said carefully. “The Lycan King deserves facts, not speculation.”
But even as he spoke, I saw the doubt in his eyes.
An omega in heat was capable of violence beyond their normal strength.
It was documented, studied, warned against. That’s why unmated omegas were supposed to be secured during their heats, kept safe from others and others safe from them.
Instead, I’d claimed her publicly, let her heat drive me to abandon every protocol.
The council shifted, waiting for my response. They expected leadership, decisions, the kind of cold justice my father would have dispensed without hesitation. But all I could see was my brother’s blood and my mother’s tears, while the mate bond pulled at me like hooks in my chest.
“Bring me everything,” I commanded, my voice steadier than I felt. “Every piece of evidence, every witness statement. I want to know how this happened.”
They scattered to obey, leaving me alone with my mother and my brother’s corpse. Lucinda hadn’t moved, hadn’t stopped staring at Laziel like she could will him back to life through sheer force of grief.
My fists clenched hard enough to crush bones. The mate bond pulsed again, carrying Rhea’s growing terror. Part of me wanted to go to her, to protect what was mine. But the larger part, the part staring at my brother’s corpse, wanted answers that only evidence could provide.
Harrison returned with preliminary findings, presenting them with clinical detachment.
Time of death: between midnight and three AM.
Cause: massive trauma from claws, the wounds showing characteristic curved patterns.
Location: Rhea’s room at the Thornback’s house.
The evidence built like walls around Rhea, each fact another stone.
Security footage showed Laziel entering the Thornback wing around midnight, but nothing after.
The cameras mysteriously malfunctioned for crucial hours.
“The malfunction is suspicious,” Harrison admitted. “But it could be a coincidence. The Thornback wing hasn’t been updated in years.”
Or it could be deliberate. Someone covering their tracks. The thought made acid rise in my throat. Had Rhea planned this? Used her heat as bait, knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist? The timing was too perfect, too convenient.
I forced myself to examine my brother’s body properly, pushing past the gore to read the story written in wounds. The defensive marks on Laziel’s hands suggested he fought back. Deep gouges on his forearms where he’d tried to protect his face and throat.
The clinical part of my mind acknowledged the possibility of Rhea being the culprit, while my mate instincts roared with denial.
“The omega quarters should have been secured,” Harrison observed, careful to keep the accusation from his tone. “Standard protocol during heat situations.”
“My son had every right to move freely in his home,” Lucinda snapped. “This is his house, his birthright. That omega should have been locked up the moment her heat started, not spreading her legs for the king.”
The crude words made several council members shift uncomfortably.
But none defended Rhea. No one pointed out that I’d been the one to drag her from the ceremony, that she’d tried to leave when her heat hit.
The narrative was already forming: a calculating omega who’d used her body to trap a king and murder a prince.
But why would Laziel visit her chambers at midnight?
The question nagged as I studied the evidence.
My brother wasn’t stupid. He knew the dangers of approaching an omega in heat, especially one newly mated.
The territorial instincts alone should have kept him away.
Unless he’d had another reason. Unless someone had asked him to go.
“Where is she now?” I asked, not trusting myself to say her name.
“She is outside,” Harrison replied. “The guards went to the Thornback residence with a full unit. We couldn’t risk her escaping.”
Escaping. Like she was already convicted. The mate bond flared with fresh panic, strong enough to make me stumble. She was terrified, confused even. She felt betrayed that I wasn’t there, that I wasn’t protecting her. The irony tasted bitter.
How could I protect her from justice when my brother’s blood demanded it?
They brought Rhea in chains that seemed excessive for an omega, but I didn’t protest. She looked smaller in custody, the fierce woman who clawed my back during sex last night and this morning reduced to a culprit. Her eyes found mine immediately, green depths pleading for intervention.
The trial proceeded with the formalities our territory required.
She denied every charge with increasing desperation, her voice breaking when she described waking to guards and gore.
But she couldn’t explain Laziel’s presence or the locked door that should have kept him out.
Her parents sat in custody beside her, her father’s political career evaporating with each testimony.
Lucinda watched like an avenging angel, tears cutting channels through perfect makeup.
“I would never hurt him. Damon, please,” Rhea begged, and the sound of my name on her lips made a blade twist in my chest. Just last night, she had screamed it in passion. Now she wielded it like a weapon, trying to pierce through my walls.
“The evidence speaks louder than denials,” I said, voice cold because anything else would shatter me. The council nodded approval at my objectivity, but inside I was screaming.
The bond between us screamed her innocence, but grief roared louder.
My wolf wanted to tear apart anyone who threatened our mate.
But the man, the king, the brother, needed justice for the Kildare blood spilled.
The two parts of me were tearing apart, and I could feel Rhea experiencing every fracture through our connection.
Witnesses testified. Servants who’d heard nothing. Guards who’d been mysteriously assigned elsewhere. The case built itself while Rhea grew quieter, her pleas fading as she realized I wouldn’t save her. Each time she looked at me, I saw the hope dim a little more.
“The preliminary evidence suggests,” Harrison began formally, “that the omega Rhea, in a state of heat frenzy, did attack and kill Laziel Kildare when he entered her chambers. Whether premeditated or spontaneous requires further investigation.”
“No investigation needed,” Lucinda declared. “She’s guilty. My son’s blood is on her hands and her hands alone.”
The council murmured agreement. The evidence was damning. The politics were clear. An omega had killed the prince. That omega must pay, mate bond or not. They looked to me for judgment, for the words that would seal her fate.
I rose from my seat, feeling the weight of the crown I’d barely worn.
Rhea must have sensed the shift in me. Her pleas stopped mid-word. Those green eyes that had looked at me with such trust, such need, now watched me with growing understanding. She was reading my face, seeing the choice I was making. Blood over bond. Family over mate.
“The evidence is substantial,” I began, my voice carrying through the silent hall. “The investigation will continue, but…”
I paused, meeting her gaze one final time. Rhea’s eyes shifted from pleading to something harder, and I witnessed the moment she stopped begging and started surviving.