Page 19

Chapter

Ten

Argus

U ntil the day I died, which would be a very long time indeed if I had anything to say about it, I would never forgive Freslik for ruining what should have been a quiet and special time with my omega and our first, newborn egg by forcing me and Obi to chase after him.

I would have delayed action against him for a few days or a few hours at least if I hadn’t known that whatever magical control I had over the bastard was slipping and that Freslik would soon be completely unfettered in his desires to destroy everything that didn’t worship him.

“Being back here feels weird,” Obi murmured by my side as we crept through the hallways of Freslik’s castle, searching for the merchants who had been taken prisoner and any other sign of Freslik or his wrath. “This place has been my home for my entire life, but it doesn’t feel like that now.”

“Did it ever truly feel like a home?” I asked, pausing at a corner and peeping around it to make certain we didn’t walk into disaster.

Obi sighed. “Not really.” I glanced back at him as he pinched his face, then went on to say, “It was tolerable when Papa was still alive, although I was still just a boy when he died. And as long as my brothers were here, too, it felt like…something.” His distant expression focused as he looked back at me.

“A home is where love is and all the love has gone out of this place.”

I smiled sadly at him and reached out to cup his face for a moment. “You are so right, my love. With any luck, if we are successful, Lord Osric will take up this place as his home and bring love back to it.”

I checked around the corner, and since the castle hallways were empty and quiet—far too empty and quiet for my liking—I gestured for Obi to follow as I moved on.

“Do you think Cousin Osric will find a mate and start a whole new dynasty when he defeats my father?” Obi asked, looking this way and that as if searching every corner and cranny of the hallway as we walked on.

I smiled at my mate’s extraordinary ability to think ahead to brighter days, even though we were in the middle of the darkest night imaginable. He truly was a sunny soul, and now that the two of us had come to a place of understanding, I could feel his natural disposition shining through.

I was glad, because he might need that inner light with what we were surely heading toward.

“I’ve no doubt that Osric will find the love he deserves as soon as he is able,” I said, slowing my pace as we reached another cross-hall. I was confident of that statement, particularly as there were things about Lord Osric that his cousins didn’t know yet that would change everything.

It was a good thing we paused at the cross-hall. Footsteps and voices rang out from one of the side halls. I pressed back against the wall, reaching out an arm to hold Obi back as well.

“…understand what is going on here,” the deep voice of one of my fellow councilors, Councilor Pisic, echoed as it grew closer. “Just last week, the king urged me to strengthen a trade deal with Braxia, and now he’s demanding the man be found and thrown in the dungeon for torture?”

“I have the same questions,” Councilor Arnstadt said as the two men came closer still.

“A month ago, I was part of a small party the king invited for drinking and carousing in his private chambers, but not more than two hours ago, he cornered me in the great hall with two of his goons and interrogated me about whether I was loyal and how far I would go to support him.”

“He’s grown paranoid,” Pisic said, lowering his voice, though I could still hear them as the two men had almost reached the cross-hall. “They say it’s because Lord Osric has a legitimate claim to the throne.”

Arnstadt huffed a humorless laugh. “To be honest, I would not mind a change in leadership if?—”

The two men stopped dead as they reached the cross-hall and spotted me and Obi. It was futile to attempt to hide, although magic would have accomplished that in a trice. After what I’d just heard, however, hiding was the last thing I wanted to do. My two fellow councilors had given me an idea.

“Dormas? What are you doing here?” Pisic asked as I grabbed Obi’s hand and stepped away from the wall.

Arnstadt’s eyes went wide. “Is that Prince Obi? Where did you find him? I thought the princes were lost.”

I felt a rush of questioning, curiosity, and excitement from Obi through our bond. In return, I sent him confidence, asking him to trust me.

“This one was captured,” I said, tugging Obi tightly to my side. “I’ve been tasked with taking him to the dungeons with the other merchants and noblemen. But, er, it seems I have forgotten which of the dungeons our liege has ordered them kept in.”

Without so much as blinking or questioning my story, Pisic said, “They’ve all been crowded into the west dungeon.”

“Freslik plans to start interrogating and executing them at dawn,” Arnstadt said sickly.

The fact that neither of the two men, both of whom had stood by Freslik’s side and advised him to take horrific action against everyone from the princes to the peasants was an undeniable sign that Freslik was losing control of even those closest to him. I could use that to help the cause.

Obi evidently sensed the same opportunity.

“You should get out of here while you can,” he said, pretending to struggle and weep with fear.

“He’s going to kill us. He’ll kill us all.

Do you think he’ll stop with the merchants and noblemen?

No! My father has gone mad, and he’ll turn against those closest to him at any moment. ”

“Now, now, Prince Obi,” I said, playing my role of the doddering, old councilor perfectly.

“You’re overstimulated and tired. Your father knows who is loyal to him and he would not hurt those who have helped him in the past.” I paused and stroked my long beard, tilted my head to the side, and said, “Granted, he is losing his mind and he might not recognize those who support him for long. Once he begins lopping off the heads of those merchants and noblemen in the dungeon, he may develop a taste for it and want more. But he would never turn against you, Pisic, or you, Arnstadt. He knows that you have always been true to him, you have never accepted bribes, and you have never spoken ill about him behind his back.”

In fact, Pisic owned half the land that he had now because he had accepted a large sum of money to bring certain social climbers into Freslik’s court, and Arnstadt routinely griped about the king behind his back.

Both men paled at my words.

“Perhaps now is a good time to visit my country estates,” Pisic said.

Arnstadt, who had a hand around his throat as if to protect it, said, “My omega has been wanting to visit his sister on Ilmenau Island for quite some time. Now might be good.”

“Oh, but you cannot go,” I said. “The king will be taking action within a day to shore up his defenses against his nephew. He will need all of his most loyal men with him.”

My two fellow councilors ignored me.

“I must go,” Pisic said, turning and hurrying back the way he’d come.

“There isn’t time to waste,” Arnstadt said, rushing off a different way.

As soon as the two men were gone, Obi let out a laugh. “They’ll be away from the castle and fleeing to the farthest corners of the realm before we make it to the dungeon.”

“They will,” I agreed, adjusting the way I held his hand and moving on.

“Maybe we could try to find the rest of my father’s councilors and convince them to flee as well,” Obi said, enthusiasm and calculation sizzling through our bond. “Do you think that would help Cousin Osric by weakening Father?”

“It might,” I said.

“Then we should do it,” Obi said with determination, walking slightly ahead of me.

My heart brimmed with love for my omega.

He truly was a warrior and braver than most of the men from his father’s inner circle that I’d spent so much of the last few years associating with.

He was clever as well, as shown when we stumbled into a room with three of the other councilors from Freslik’s inner circle.

We were as surprised to happen across the three frightened, anxious men as they were to see us, but Obi didn’t miss a beat before calling out, “Help! Help me! My father is trying to kill me!”

I fell immediately into the charade, huffing and rolling my eyes as I chased Obi around the table where the three councilors sat, as if I was trying to corner a frightened cat.

“Now, now, Prince Obi,” I scolded. “Your father might be lining up merchants and noblemen for the chopping block, but there is no chance that he would murder his own child.”

“Chopping block?” Councilor Rybnik, one of the youngest men who had attached himself to Freslik in order to gain favor and wealth, asked, standing and pushing his chair back. “So it’s true? Freslik has begun a purge?”

The questions played perfectly into the mission Obi and I had set for ourselves.

“He’s lost his mind,” Obi shouted, still dodging away from me, but appealing to the councilors as he did.

“He’s already taken Councilors Pisic and Arnstadt.

I heard him say he would confiscate all their property and turn their omegas into slaves.

He thinks everyone is against him, and he’s coming after the rest of us next! ”

The effect of those words was instant. Rybnik and the others scrambled back from the table, falling all over themselves to get to the door.

“Calm yourselves, calm yourselves,” I said in full Dormas mode.

“The king merely wishes to ascertain who is loyal to him. Yes, Lord Osric will begin his attack on the city and this castle very shortly, but we are all perfectly safe just where we are. Everyone in the castle is dedicated to the king.”

We all knew that was a lie. It was a lie that had the three men running out into the hallway and likely all the way out of the castle to wherever they called home.