Chapter 56

I lost track of the time as I remained shackled to the dungeon walls. Seconds turned into minutes; minutes turned into hours. I felt like I was delusionally talking to myself, or my wolf. I couldn’t tell who was talking and who was responding.

As time went on, I found myself beginning to doze off. I was so sleep-deprived that it didn’t matter where I was or how uncomfortable it was. Maybe if I slept, I would forget about my current state, and it wouldn’t seem as bad. By the time I woke up, everything would be over. Which meant, I would either be dead, or the war will end, and Marlon would have won. Which, honestly, I wasn’t holding my breath for.

I wanted to have faith in Marlon and believed him when he says he wanted to protect me and Mateo. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it; despite the protests from my wolf. I was terrified about what was to come and I couldn’t stop thinking about where Mateo was.

As I slept, I began having this delusional dream about these voices. They were familiar and distorted at first, but as the dream went on, I could hear them as clear as day.

“You are going to get her pregnant,” the woman said.

“What? Are you serious?” The man said next.

“It’s the only way we can get rid of her. Marlon would never let her stick around if he found out she got pregnant again. Especially when he finds out it’s not his.”

The woman’s voice was getting more familiar the more I listened. For some reason, even in the dream, I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t see. It was like I was shackled, but I was obviously on a bed. The woman and the man were standing over me; I knew they were talking about me and from the sounds of their tones, they didn’t like me.

I felt nervous being in their presence; it was a familiar sensation, and her scent was almost potent. It was a rosy smell with a bit of lilac perfume. I feel like the perfume didn’t belong to her though; like she might have stolen it.

“Do I get her naked?” The man asked.

“You aren’t making love to her,” the woman said back in a snarky tone.

“I don’t know if I can get off if she’s not naked or anything,” the man shot back.

“Maybe I can help,” the woman said teasingly and seductively.

She had a natural seductive tone to her, which was even more familiar now that I thought about it.

Wait…

Seduction.

Petra.

It had to have been Petra; the more I listened to her, the surer I was that it was definitely Petra.

If that’s Petra, then who is that man she’s with? Surely it couldn’t have been Alex, he wouldn’t work with Petra. Despite how much he disliked me. But this didn’t even smell like Alex, so I don’t think it could have been him.

Another familiar scent filled the room shortly after.

“Jacob?” Said another female voice; she sounded furious.

It was Beatrice.

She was scolding them; but why would she be sticking up for me? Beatrice hated me most of all out of everybody.

Soon, the other voices were gone, and it was just Beatrice and me. She was trying to calm me down, but I wasn’t being erratic or anything. I just couldn’t move. Something was seriously wrong, and Petra was involved in it.

Beatrice lifted me and began walking me towards the manor and to Marlon. Realization hit me instantly. This was when Beatrice and Marlon were talking in his room and Alex came in with Mateo. That’s when Beatrice found out that Mateo was Marlon’s son.

Which meant that Petra was somehow involved with drugging me into an almost coma. I remembered being in the dining courters and I was about to grab a plate when Petra called me over. She wanted me to sit with her and eat with them. The other maids were acting weird as to why Petra was being nice to me the entire time.

It was Petra.

She drugged me. Just like she drugged Marlon that time, and accidentally drugged me, she was trying to drug me again. Except for this time, she gave me a dosage that was too great for my body and left me in a paralyzed state. She nearly killed me with that dosage.

I was shaking as I struggled to wake myself up. I didn’t want to remember any more of this; I didn’t want to know what I knew. I had a target on my back from everywhere and I had no idea who I could trust and who I couldn’t.

As I came through, I blinked a few times to adjust my eyes to the darkened dungeon lighting. I had beads of sweat piling on my forehead, and I was beyond confused as to what was going on.

I didn’t hear any commotions coming from upstairs, so I knew the war hadn’t started yet. But what I wasn’t expecting, coming out of the shadows was a familiar figure that stood on the other side of my gated cell.

Petra.

(Alex)

Alex was able to catch Bob outside of town; he could track his lingering scent for miles without any issues. He hadn’t gotten far when Alex caught up to him; he was holding the slave’s baby, Mateo, in a blanket and hidden from view. He had made it to the outer edge of the woods. Alex wasn’t sure where Bob was planning on hiding a dirtball infant without being detected but it was laughable to think he could pull something like that off.

Bob could feel Alex’s presence, not to mention probably smell him nearby, and turned to face him. His eyes widened as he saw his brother standing there and staring at him. He looked around to make sure no one else was in the area with him and when he saw that they were alone, he breathed out in relief.

“What are you doing here, Alex?” Bob asked, eyeing his brother carefully and holding Mateo close to his chest.

It made Alex feel disgusted knowing Bob was helping the slave protect the child.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Alex responded, glancing at the baby.

Bob looked uneasy for a few moments.

“How did you know I was here?” Bob asked.

Alex had to force himself to keep from laughing.

“I could smell you for miles, brother,” Alex said, taking a step closer to them.

“Stay away from us,” Bob ordered. “I’m warning you, Alex. If you try anything…”

“You always were the one to go beyond the rules and be disobedient,” Alex said, keeping his voice even and his eyes locked on Bob. “I’m always cleaning up your mess.”

“I’m following orders this time,” Bob told him. Alex already knew that of course, but it didn’t make things any better. He was still going against the rules of the kingdom, regardless of what father said. “If you do anything to jeopardize this…”

“You’ll do what? Kill me? Good luck explaining to the kingdom that you killed your own brother to protect a dirtball infant and his slave mother. Do you honestly think they’d accept you as their leader after that?” Alex laughed.

“Father will figure something out,” Bob insisted.

Alex scoffed.

“Don’t be stupid, Bob. Father isn’t as smart as he makes it seem. He’s having a relationship with a dirtball slave. That’s lower than low. You can’t come back from something like that,” Alex told him.

“I have faith in him,” Bob shot back.

“We can make this easy, Bob. It doesn’t need to be difficult. Just hand me the kid and we can pretend this never happened.”

“No,” Bob said in return. “Just let us go.”

“We can work together to get rid of the competition. Even you must admit that things weren’t the same since that slave came into the picture. Father is different now. Don’t you want things to go back to the way they were?” Alex asked.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Bob told him.

“We always have a choice. You just need to learn to choose wisely. Brother and brother. We can walk out of here together and resume our friendly, family competition. We don’t need any outsiders disrupting anything.”

“He’s our brother too,” Bob told him, motioning for Mateo who was still hidden in the blanket.

“He’s no brother of ours,” Alex hissed in return. “He’s a dirtball. I refuse to have a dirtball as a brother. You are my brother. I am your brother. That’s all we need. The quicker you realize that the better.”

Bob looked as though he was in deep thought for a moment; he looked down at Mateo with questions in his eyes. Alex could tell he was finally getting through to him and he was relieved to see that.

“There is no one we need more than each other. You know this and father knows this. This is a test. Don’t fail this test like you’ve failed all the others,” Alex added.

Bob sighed; he looked almost defeated. But then his lips formed into a thin line and stared at Alex with such pity it sent a wave of anger through Alex’s blood.

“I am not as naive as you think, brother. The only way I would fail this test is if I listened to you over father. He always liked me more and trusts me more than he trusts you. That’s why I’m in charge of hiding Mateo and you were left out in the dark. He wants me to be the sole heir of the estate for a reason and that’s because I’m nothing like you,” Bob argued. “If you want this child, you’ll need to fight me for him!” Bob yelled as he placed Mateo next to the shade of a tree and turned to face Alex.

The brothers turned into their wolf forms and lunged at one another; anger spiking through Alex as sunk his teeth into Bob’s shoulder blade and tackled him on top of him. It seemed as though Alex had the upper hand, but Bob was much stronger and only allowed Alex to take the first advantage. Bob’s claws were out and ready to stab Alex in the side of his narrow body. Alex yelled out as Bob’s claws dug through his flesh; he tumbled to his back as Bob jumped on top of him. He had his teeth out, ready to attack Alex again when a voice came through Alex’s mind through the wolf link.

“I found the key to the dungeon. The slave is shackled as you said. This should be easy,” Petra said, humor dancing in her voice.

For a moment, that pleased Alex. Until he realized that Bob also heard the link message, and his wolf eyes were wide with shock. He stumbled backward, allowing Alex to get to his feet.

“Was that Petra?” Bob asked, staring at Alex with disgust clear in his eyes.

Alex just laughed as he caught his breath.

“What is she planning on doing?” Bob asked, also catching his own breath.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Alex continued laughing.

That’s when he noticed that Mateo was still near the tree and being unguarded by a distracted Bob. He took that second opportunity to leap towards Mateo; he grabbed the blanket between his teeth, lifting it and Mateo off the ground. Meanwhile, Bob was trying to channel Petra to get her to stop doing whatever it is she was doing.

What an idiot.

By the time Bob realized he let his guard down and that he wasn’t watching Mateo, it was too late.

Alex and Mateo were both gone.