To ruin an Omega - Chapter 353: Red wine Problems 1

Chapter 353: Red wine Problems 1

FIA

I heard the noise first. Voices rising in waves from the courtyard below. The kind of sound that pulled people from their rooms and made them forget whatever they had been doing before. Sharp and urgent and impossible to ignore.

Thorne looked up from where he had been sitting near the window. Maren stopped mid-sentence. We all exchanged glances that said the same thing.

Something had happened.

I crossed the room quickly and pulled open the door. The hallway outside was already filling with people moving toward the stairs. Servants pressed themselves against the walls to let others pass. A guard rushed by without acknowledging anyone. The noise grew louder as I started down.

Thorne and Maren followed close behind me.

We reached the main floor and pushed through the gathering crowd. Bodies pressed in from every direction. People stood on their toes trying to see over shoulders. Others whispered questions no one seemed able to answer. I squeezed between two sentinels and finally broke through to the front.

Then I saw it.

Aldric stood in the center of the courtyard. Ronan was beside him. They were surrounded by sentinels who had formed a tight ring around both of them. You could catch the bullet proof vest under their suit as their hands rested on weapons. The air felt charged in a way that made my skin prickle.

Cian was there too.

He stood a few feet away from his uncle with his hands loose at his sides. His face was calm which told me everything that I needed to know about what was happening.

Madeline was apparently back too and was clinging to… My breath caught. It was him. The evil monster from my dreams. I looked away quickly because of how much the man unsettled me and looked back at Madeline. Her face was streaked with tears. Her shoulders shook with sobs that carried across the courtyard loud enough for everyone to hear.

The man… whose name I could now never forget; Valentine, had one arm around her. His expression was hard and he was just as angry.

I tried to piece it together. I tried to understand what the scene I was looking at was entirely about.

Then Cian spoke.

His voice was quiet, almost gentle.

“Take them.”

The sentinels moved immediately.

Hands closed around Aldric’s arms. More grabbed Ronan. Neither of them fought back. Ronan looked like he wanted to. His face had gone red and his jaw was tight. But he stayed still. Aldric just smiled.

It was the strangest thing.

He smiled like he had expected this. Like it amused him.

The crowd erupted into noise again. People shouted questions. Others demanded to know what was happening.

“Goddess, is Alpha Aldric really a traitor?”

“This doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t believe that witch. This is why they fucking burned their kind in Salem.”

“The trial will reveal all, won’t it? He was the one who brought it up too. So could he really be guilty?”

A woman near the back started crying. The sounds layered over themselves until it became impossible to pick out individual voices.

I stood frozen.

My brain was trying to catch up. Trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

Cian had done this.

Whatever this was, he had orchestrated it. The way he stood there watching his uncle get dragged away told me everything I needed to know. This had been planned. Carefully. Methodically.

And it had worked.

Aldric and Ronan were hauled toward the main hall and from there, they would be bundled to the dungeons.

The sentinels moved quickly and efficiently. Like they had been given orders ahead of time and knew exactly what to do.

I watched them disappear through the doors.

That made me remember the poison.

The one I had spent the night getting and the morning preparing. The one Morrigan was now supposed to slip into Aldric’s food or drink.

It felt pointless now.

Cian had already cornered him. Already dragged him into the open in front of everyone. If Aldric was found guilty during the trial, it would be over. They would execute him. No poison was needed. No secret plan. Just justice carried out the way it was supposed to be.

To think I didn’t have faith in this ever happening.

That was when I felt a hand on my arm.

I turned and found the grand Luna, Morrigan standing beside me. Her face was pale. Paler than it should have been. Her eyes looked glassy and unfocused. She swayed slightly on her feet.

Then she leaned in close.

Her voice was so quiet I almost missed it.

“I did it.”

My stomach dropped.

“You did what?”

Morrigan’s fingers tightened on my arm. She pulled me closer. Her breath was shallow.

“The problem now is that I ingested some of it.”

My heart stopped.

“And I need you to save me.”

I grabbed her by the shoulders. My hands shook. Everything around us seemed to blur at the edges. The noise from the crowd faded into something distant and unimportant.

“You poisoned him?”

She nodded weakly.

“When?”

“Earlier. We had wine.”

I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to shake her and demand to know what she had been thinking. But there was no time for that. Not now.

I looked over my shoulder. Thorne and Maren were still standing where I had left them. Both of them were watching the sentinels drag Aldric away. Neither had noticed what was happening yet.

“Thorne. Maren.”

They turned immediately.

“Help me get her to the infirmary.”

Thorne moved first. He crossed the distance between us in three long strides and caught Morrigan’s other arm before she could stumble. Maren followed close behind.

We half-carried her through the crowd. People stepped aside when they saw us coming. No one asked questions. They were too distracted by what had just happened in the courtyard.

The infirmary was empty when we arrived.

I pushed the door open with my shoulder and guided Morrigan inside. Thorne helped me lower her onto one of the beds. She sank into the mattress with a soft groan. Her head rolled to the side.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

My voice sounded steadier than I felt.

Morrigan blinked slowly. “I only have a light headache. But it could be in my mind.”

“It’s not.”

I crossed the room quickly and pulled open the cabinet where Thorne and Maren kept supplies. My hands moved on instinct. Reaching for the moon water. The wolfsbane root. The purple kind which worked best for cases like this. Then nettle.

“That’s a symptom,” I added.

I set everything on the counter and grabbed the mortar and pestle from the shelf above. My fingers fumbled with the wolfsbane root as I tried to break it into smaller pieces. It took longer than it should have. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“Why would you risk your life like that?”

Morrigan didn’t answer right away.

I glanced over my shoulder. She was watching me from the bed. Her eyes were clearer now. Focused.

“I didn’t want him to suspect a thing.”

I turned back to the counter. The wolfsbane root crumbled under the pestle. I added the nettle next. Ground them together until they formed a rough powder.

“It had to be as natural as I could try,” she continued. Her voice was soft. “And I had a feeling my daughter in law was capable of fixing this.”