Chapter 281

Steven agrees to stay with Mia for now. “Leave it to me to get this guard outside,” he adds. I have no idea how he is going to manage that without anyone noticing, but I trust Steven. If he says he’ll be able to do it, I trust him. I also notice him eyeing the window.

“Okay,” I say.

He looks at me critically then. He’s given up holding my face, but his hands have found my arms instead. He rests his palms on my upper arms and doesn’t seem keen on letting me go.

“Be careful down there,” he says.

“I will,” I say. I want to drown in the depths of his eyes, filled to the brim with concern for me. But I can feel Mom’s curious gaze burning a pair of holes on the back of my neck. I clear my throat and look away from Steven. “We should go.”

Steven lets his hands fall away. He continues to watch me though, even as we walk through the door. I know because I glance back just before I disappear into the hallway and see him.

I’m feeling a bit nervous. Mom must be too, because as we start to descend the stairs, she reaches her hand out and laces her fingers with mine. He clutch hard at each other when we return into the dining room.

“Oh, there you are,” Isaac says with a relieved smile.

The brothers also ease some of their tension. They must have been worried too. They likely noticed the disappearance of one of the guards by the door.

The Alpha King, however, looks up at us and his features widen with surprise. That expression lasts for only a moment, before it’s replaced with annoyance.

“We apologize for the delay,” Mom says smoothly. “Mia, tired as she was, struggled with sleep. I think she was afraid she might miss something.”

“Yeah,” I add. “She was fussy, for sure.”

My addition probably did not help sell the lie, but I’m not sure anyone would have believed it to begin with.

Mom’s gaze falls over the table. Most of the food has been eaten by now. “Are we ready for desert?”

“I’m not sure,” the Alpha King says.

“You must try my wife’s chocolate chunk cookies,” Isaac says, with genuine excitement. “She’s won awards at the local fair. They really are delicious.”

The Alpha King might not trust me, and probably not Mom now, but he still seems to accept Isaac’s words at face value.

“Very well,” the Alpha King says.

“Chloe,” Mom says. “Help me in the kitchen.”

Neil gives me a subtle, curious look that I don’t dare return. Instead, I go with Mom into the kitchen.

She already has the ingredients to make her chocolate chunk cookies. She likely truly did intend to make them as desert for us. But now, she pulls out enough ingredients for a second batch.

She also pulls out the bottle of laxative she hid in her shirt after she told Steven and me her plan upstairs.

Gods, it’s risky to try to poison the Alpha King, but it’s much safer than trying to fight him head on. And since it’s not like we’re trying to kill him, we might have a chance to actually get away with it. The proud, infallible nature of the Alpha King likely meant he wouldn’t want to own up to what is about to happen to him.

Mom makes her cookies as usual, careful to keep the two batches separate as she works. I help as best I can. To help Mom’s conscious, I make sure I’m the one to add the laxative into the second mix. Mom then hides the empty bottle back under her shirt.

In the end, we have our two cookie batches. They look identical. We carefully arrange them on a plate so I know which is which. A second plate is made with mostly safe cookies. Mom keeps track of that one.

Then, with everything ready, we enter the dining room. It’s no less tense than when we left it. The Alpha King has become so annoyed that he’s no longer responding to Isaac’s attempts at small talk, though Isaac barrels on regardless, determined, apparently, to make this visit a success.

He doesn’t realize how it was doomed before it even began.

Mom and I move about the room, personally handing out the cookies to everyone. I make it to the Alpha King first, as planned, and move to hand him a cookie.

“Wait,” he says. I pause at once. His eyes narrow. “You eat that one. Now.”

I’m holding a cookie intended for him in the air. At his insistence, I have no choice but to raise the cookie to my own mouth and take a bite. I chew and swallow. It’s delicious.

It’s also safe. Mom and I planned for this. I had correctly guessed the Alpha King’s suspicious nature would make him question me. He likely thought we were out to poison him for real.

While I eat the cookie that I was ready to fake give to him, the Alpha King picks his own from my plate.

We’ve planned for this too. The only cookies left on the plate were ones laced with the laxative.

He eagerly eats it. I’m not surprised. Mom’s chocolate chunk cookies are delicious, and the laxative shouldn’t be detectable in the mix.

With the cookies served, Mom and I take the plates back to the kitchen and then return to the dining room and sit down.

We don’t have to wait long for the laxative to take effect. The Alpha King’s stomach grumbles so loudly that it interrupts whatever Isaac’s talking about.

“Uh,” Isaac says, startled. “Are you feeling well, sir?”

The Alpha King frowns. “Direct me to your bathroom,” he says at once.

Isaac gives him directions and the Alpha King stands.

“Watch them,” he says to his guards and then hurries out of the room. We hear the bathroom door close and latch.

One of the guards sitting at the table looks at me. “If you did something… you won’t make it through the night.”

“All I did was serve cookies,” I say.

“Don’t make threats,” Archer growls.

“It’s not a threat,” the guard snaps. “It’s a promise. And you assholes should keep your mouths fucking shut.”

Archer narrows his eyes dangerously.

“Archer,” Neil says in warning.

“Fuck it,” Archer says. In a flash, he reaches out, grabs the offending guard by the back of the head and smashes his face into the table so hard that it shatters the guard’s plate.

“Damn it,” Neil says as he, following Archer’s lead, punches the other guard so hard it breaks his nose.

The guard at the door starts to retrieve his gun, but Beau is already leaping from his chair and straight-up tackles that guy to the ground. Beau wrangles the gun away from the guy and tosses it to Neil. Then he barrels up the stairs, presumably to help Steven.

“What are you doing?” Isaac says in panic.

No one acknowledges him, except Mom who goes to his side and says, “Please stay out of this, dear.”

Wyatt moves to stand protectively beside his father. The guard with the broken nose starts to stand, and Wyatt punches him again, making him drop.

At this point, the Alpha King returns from the bathroom.

Neil holds the gun right up into his face.

The Alpha King’s stomach continues to make terrible churning noises. But you wouldn’t notice his discomfort by looking at his father’s cold face.

“This was a lovely visit,” Neil says. “But you need to leave now.”

The Alpha King glares at Neil with open distain. “Go on, then. Kill me. See how well the kingdom will forgive patricide.”

Neil doesn’t as much as flinch at the open threat there. “It’s never been our goal to kill anyone.”

“Oh, no?” The Alpha King lifts his chin. “Just what is your goal then, Neil?”

Neil’s own gaze hardens. “We want you alive, father, as we dismantle your power and ruin your life.”