Chapter 98

After the meeting, John had taken Osborn and Owen into his office to tell them all about how glorious Daphne had been declaring war on the werewolf kingdom, swearing to take Arthur’s head for a trophy. John hadn’t even asked where all the werewolves had come from and Owen realized that he didn’t care.

They left John’s office and returned to the manor to start organizing the forces there. Osborn took him into his office. As soon as the door closed, Owen grew tense as Osborn let out a cackle of glee, maddened and a bit horrifying.

“I didn’t think she had it in her!” Osborn laughed. “To think that was all it took.”

Owen said nothing, but he’d learned several weeks ago that Osborn wasn’t speaking to him. The vampires under Osborn’s command and the few werewolves that had followed him since the war were scrambling around getting ready to go to war. When Owen had heard about Daphne announcing war on the werewolf kingdom, his stomach had twisted with guilt and concern.

The young woman who had defiantly looked him in the eye and told him off despite being too weak to defend herself would not have declared war on the werewolf kingdom, even if she didn’t have all of her memories. At her core, she was kind and loyal to Arthur.

Something else had happened.

“Soon…” Osborn said, laughing. “Soon, the sight of the battlefield will return. The fear. The fury. The blood! It will be just like then, at the height of my campaign. Vampire blood will run in rivers. Werewolf blood will turn the ground to mud, but this time… Yes, this time…”

Owen swallowed, watching his father laugh to himself and reminisce. His stomach turned with the odd feeling that there had been more to Osborn’s long years since the fall of the werewolf kingdom. As he thought about it, why hadn’t his father just compelled the people to follow him after Dean died? Why hadn’t he claimed the throne when there was no one to contest it?

Did his father even truly want the throne or was that just a front for his true agenda? He knew that he didn’t care whether or not John managed to become king.

Did he care if there were any kings?

“In your honor, my dearest Selena… I will see Dean’s son’s head on a pike as it should have been. The vampires will all die as they should have… As they would have if that murderer hadn’t betrayed me and that wench…”

Owen dared not move as Osborn paced in a stuttered, unfocused gait around the room. He turned to the window, looking up at the night to the crescent moon.

“By the next full moon, your precious king will be dead,” Osborn said through gritted teeth, glaring up at the moon. “Are you watching, brilliant goddess who brightens the night? Can you hear this wayward, forsaken wretch of yours?... Are you enjoying my Selena’s company? Are you enjoying the show?”

He cackled and his words turned nearly indecipherable, yet Owen knew better than to interrupt or try to leave. With only one eye, Osborn was still more powerful than Owen and it was clear that the man wasn’t in his right mind. He’d already ended up in his father’s near-lethal grip for attempting to leave before being formally dismissed.

The man wasn’t in his right mind, but had he ever been in his right mind? Was this the truth of what having and losing a mate could do to someone of the Royal line? Had the seeds of madness common in the Royal family been sown too deeply in him and had only been stifled by Selena?

It seemed he’d been right not to want a mate if losing a mate would drive him that far over the edge, but he wondered if this was just a part of who his father had always been. Had Dean been this sort of unstable?

“They will all die,” Osborn murmured to himself, staring out the window, shoulders relaxed and almost trance-like. “Starting with Arthur and his little circle of alphas cowering at the next attack...”

Osborn broke into a peal of giggles, then outright laughter that made Owen’s blood run cold.

“Did you see what he did to our son, Selena?” Osborn asked, “Do you think I should return the favor before sending him up there to his parents? I wonder where the little whelp Alma went. I’ll find her and send her up there as well painfully for the child you lost…. The child that took you from me.”

Owen waited as Osborn turned around to look at him. His eyes flickering red, dazed, and a little manic.

“What are you still doing here?” Osborn asked, laughing. “There are preparations to make! Get going!”

Owen nodded and left as quickly and as calmly as he could manage as Osborn started laughing again, whispering sweet nothings to his mother’s spirit or his insanity.

Owen shuddered and descended the stairs. He’d been wrong. Perhaps he had always been wrong to think that his quest for the throne was what Osborn would have wanted for him. He’d been fooled by the servant’s words before her death. He’d been enthralled with the idea of his father’s valiance and his brother’s betrayal. Was anything about what he’d heard growing up true?

Osborn hadn’t staged a rebellion against his brother, at least not completely. He’d declared war on the werewolf kingdom and every living werewolf. His end goal was to turn the war on the vampires as well.

Death was all that he’d been after. It was all he would be after, but he wasn’t sure if Osborn was after his death or the death of everyone who lived though Selena had died.

He shook his head, descending the stairs to oversee the preparations. Osborn had to be stopped. John thought he had an ally, but Osborn would kill him at first chance. He might even kill Owen at first chance, but he would certainly kill Daphne for sport. Whether he would kill her first just to watch Arthur lose his mind, Owen didn’t know.

The thought of her death made him wince as a spike of pain went through him. He didn’t want that to happen. It was a ridiculous thought since he had once planned to have her killed. He turned down the corridor, preparing himself to do something that would probably end in his death, but at the least, Daphne deserved to live through this mess.

Daphne didn’t know where she was. It was kind of like floating darkness where no sound came to her ears and there was no pain. It was nice considering the agony and the terror that had gripped her moments before. She couldn’t remember why she was so afraid or why she had been in such pain, but she was grateful not to feel it for now. It was different from the long darkness of her coma. Where that had seemed to be without an end, this seemed to drop off in the distance. She wandered for a while, watching flickering light pass her heading into the distance. Then, she felt a pull leading towards the light that went ahead of her. A child’s laughter came from ahead and she knew she had to get to it, to grab the child and bring them back. She ran forward, trying to catch the sound, but the sound and the little burst of light rushed away from her before winking out of existence with a little giggle.

Despair and guilt filled her. Her child… Her child had been in danger, she knew that. It had been the source of pain and the source of fear. She reached out, determined to catch the child, to follow him and bring him back, but with every step after it, her feet grew heavier until it felt like people were holding her back, using all of their weight to slow her down.

She heard someone’s voice from far away. It grew firmer, pulling and pulling at her. Frustrated, she turned towards the voice but there was no one there for a few moments. A little flicker of red winked at her in the darkness. Then, just in front of her, a light appeared, melting and forming into the form of a large glowing wolf. It drew closer as the voice grew more insistent. The wolf circled her, nuzzling her and nudging something in her memories. He walked into the darkness a few steps before nodding ahead of him. Daphne hesitated, curious about the light behind her and the red flickering in the darkness.

The wolf turned back to the dark and walked on. Daphne found her feet following him as the sound of a laugh, older and masculine, came to her through the dark.

A ticklish, warm feeling filled her as the voice grew clearer. It was Nicole’s voice, hard and giving orders, but she couldn’t make out what she was saying.

She realized as she was waking up that it had been a dream of when Nicole had been healing her. But what had it meant?