Page 7 of Wedlock

“We have not.”

‘Ah, so Falcon has named him as a way of labelling the baby, and Jag, with shame. Asshole!’

“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Angelina? The only way your baby could become Falcon’s heir is if the paternity is altered.”

I stand frozen to the spot as my brain furiously does the sums. Falcon must be lying to the Queen. He’s pretending he has an heir to retain his title, even though he believes he doesn’t have one. But he knows the Queen has spies everywhere and might eventually learn the truth — and, no doubt Viper will be very happy to supply that information, although Falcon can’t know that. Still, he’s a cautious man, so he’s buying time. The only logical explanation is that he still intends to kill me and marry again as he’d once said he would. But to do that I’d have to conveniently disappear, and he’d have to claim another child was his firstborn, not mine.

“Eleanor,” I pin her with my stare, “you said you told the Queen a baby was born. What did you tell her about me?”

Her lips turn to a thin line as she looks away from me and down to her long, pearl-pink nails.

“I told her exactly what Falcon permitted me to say.”

“Did you tell her I was alive?” I whisper.

Her silence is all I need to know.

I’m a prisoner here, potentially dead or dying, depending on whatever story has been spunfortheCourt.He’s goingtomarryagainandget a‘real’ heir.But he’s also going to make me feed the baby for the required length of time before it’s sayonara, Angelina. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps because deep down, he won’t kill Jag’s child? He’ll kill me though, he has to. This means I have three years to get the fuck out of here. And I can’t count on any external help because I’d ordered Yin to make my hidden daughter her priority, not me. I’d also impressed upon her with the utmost importance that she never, ever, take a call from me, because it wouldn’t really be me calling, it would be Viper.

I have to figure out a way to escape all by myself, preferably before Viper gets a chance to talk to me and command me to do anything else.

‘Oh,Christ.’

Eleanor clears her throat and looks back up at me.

“Will you change your assertion, Angelina? Will you admit the baby is Falcon’s?”

“Be sure the nanny looks after my little Tiger,” I whisper as I hand the baby to her and bury my face in my hands.

6

“I can’t believe it,” Wolf says for what seems like the hundredth time as we sit astride our horses and stare down the hill. We can see for miles, the moonlight paving a clear path for us across the fields towards his castle, but my view is inwards.

The night is peculiarly still, no breeze even ruffles the grass surrounding our horses, but the quiet does nothing to soothe my inner turmoil.

“Believe it,” I grunt. “I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself. As soon as Viper said it, Jag’s face confirmed it. Angelina added without hesitation that the baby was his.”

‘And that she’d never loved me.’

“Wait,” Wolf scowls. “Viper was the one to announce this treachery?”

I nod.

“My brother finally came through and protected me.”

“Better late than never,” Wolf sniggers, “although I don’t for a minute think he did it out of the goodness of his heartorout of concern for you.”

“You and Jag are always on his back,” I growl. “For once can’t you acknowledge that your friend, our comrade, was the canker in the apple and not my beleaguered brother?”

“And you say,” Wolf goes on as though I hadn’t spoken, as we urge our horses forward to begin our slow walk home, “that Jag called to confess.”

“Yes. And I voiced my vow.”

“What exactly did he say?”

I snort.

“He said he wanted to speak to me about my brother.”