Chapter 208: Save Daddy

EDELINA

The field behind the east wing had been Cornelius’s favorite place to be alone. I had never understood the appeal until I began walking it with my eyes half shut.

Wild grass brushed my knees, and a line of poplars stood along the far boundary, their leaves trembling in a wind I could barely feel. I had been circling the perimeter for the better part of an hour because sitting down was dangerous. The moment I stopped moving, my head began to droop. And the moment it did, the remnants of the mixture I had failed to vomit up whispered that lying in the grass and letting the world go quiet was an excellent idea.

I dug my nails into my palm and kept walking.

My thoughts had begun sliding over one another like wet plates. Twice, I had caught myself speaking aloud to no one. Once, I had stopped dead in the middle of the path, convinced that someone behind me was laughing, only to discover that the sound came from a gardener working his shears.

The anger was worse.

It came in sudden, inexplicable waves, rising hot and shapeless until I wanted to put my fist through something. The poplars... A window... The next smiling face unfortunate enough to cross my path.

"Your Majesty."

I whirled around.

An Omega stood three paces away, bent so low that I could see the pins securing her hair. I had not heard her approach through the grass, and my heart was already hammering against my ribs. I swallowed the startled breath that threatened to escape me.

"What?"

The word came out sharper than I intended.

"Luna Amaranthine has arrived, Your Majesty." The girl kept her head bowed. "She came early, as requested, and is waiting at the front."

I studied her trembling hands and the careful emptiness of her voice.

Was she the same girl who had attended me earlier?

No. This one was taller.

I examined her face anyway, searching for some detail that might prove me wrong. She endured my scrutiny without moving, with the rigid stillness of someone who had been warned what happened to the last girl who displeased me.

"Put her in the waiting room," I said. "Let her sit for a while. Give her something to look at. The wallpaper, perhaps."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Then bring her to me in the east conservatory. Not before."

"Of course, Your Majesty."

She backed away before turning and hurrying up the path.

I watched her go until the grass swallowed the sound of her footsteps, then released a breath that trembled on its way out.

I needed to get myself together.

The conservatory lay on the opposite side of the gardens, which meant I could take the long way around and give myself a few more minutes to think. I walked slowly through the kitchen garden, where the late roses were shedding their petals onto the gravel. Their scent followed me, sweet and cloying, and I found myself suddenly wishing someone would cut them all down.

The east conservatory had always been my favorite room in the house in the afternoons. Maybe it was the glass walls, the white ironwork, the trailing ferns, and sunlight spilling through the panes in warm, buttery sheets. It was a room designed to make a person feel at peace, which was precisely why I had chosen it.

A small table stood near the windows, set with a pot of tea and an assortment of little cakes. I had insisted on preparing everything myself. The tea was freshly brewed, the cups clean, and the cakes arranged on a porcelain plate. Nothing had been left to chance.

I sat down and picked at the skin beside my thumbnail until a tiny bead of blood appeared. I watched it gather, bright against my skin, and counted my breaths until the urge to scratch at it became unbearable.

In... Out... You are the Queen. You have done this a hundred times.

I repeated the words until they almost sounded convincing.

I needed a steady voice and a composed face. A woman with wild eyes and trembling hands could frighten people into obedience, but fear made them cautious. It made them guard their words, measure their answers, and look for the nearest escape.

I didn’t want Amaranthine frightened.

I wanted her receptive. I wanted her to believe she had found an ally in a place where she had expected nothing but enemies.

Most importantly, I wanted her to leave this room with something I had planted in her mind, something that would continue to grow long after I was no longer there to tend it.

By the time the door opened, my hands were folded neatly in my lap, and I had arranged my mouth into a small, sorrowful smile.

Amaranthine entered with her chin held high and her fear tucked carefully out of sight. She wore a pale lavender dress, simple in its cut but expensive in every detail, and her hair fell down her back in a glossy, uninterrupted sweep.

She had always been pretty, and she knew it. Hers was the sort of beauty that had been praised so consistently from childhood that it had become a form of currency, something she had learned to spend without appearing to notice the transaction.

Her eyes were the same blue as her father’s.

For some reason, that irritated me more than it should have.

She curtsied, deep and precise, giving me no reason to criticize her manners.

"Your Majesty."

"Amaranthine." I softened my smile. "Come in, child. Please, sit."

She crossed the room and chose the chair opposite mine rather than the one beside it. Even then, she perched on the edge, her hands clasped tightly in her lap and her back held stiffly upright.

It was a cautious and mildly sensible thing to do.

I poured her a cup of tea and set it before her. She glanced at it but made no move to drink.

"You wished to discuss my father," she said.

There was no point wasting time on pleasantries. I lowered my gaze to the steam curling from my own cup and allowed my expression to grow solemn.

"It is a vile thing," I murmured, "what is being done to him in that place."

Across the table, Amaranthine went still.

I let the silence linger, watching her from beneath my lashes. There it was, that tiny shift in her expression, the tightening around her mouth that betrayed how carefully she was holding herself together.

"Your father is an Alpha," I continued, my voice low with carefully measured indignation. "The head of a pack of nine hundred wolves. A man who has spent his life carrying the weight of his people on his shoulders, and now he is locked away like a common criminal."

I lifted my eyes to hers.

"No formal charge. No hearing. Not even the dignity of a proper bed, from what I have been told."

I paused, allowing the words to settle between us. I could almost see her trying to reconcile the man she knew with the picture I was painting, trying to decide whether I was offering her the truth or merely another version of the same old cruelty.

I reached for my teacup, though I had no desire to drink.

"Tell me, my dear," I said gently. "Have you been allowed to visit him?"

"I have not been allowed to."

"Of course not. They would never allow it." I lowered my cup to its saucer. "Your father has been beaten black and blue, my dear."

The color drained from her face.

"That isn’t what his Beta told me." Her voice caught, and she swallowed before trying again. "Our Beta said he was being held in a crowded cell. That the conditions were uncomfortable, but he was unharmed. He said..."

"Perhaps he was trying to spare you the truth."

She stared at me, her lips parting without a sound.

"How considerate of him." I let the words settle before continuing. "But consideration will not save your father, Amaranthine. Neither will ignorance. All it will do is ensure that his daughter remains blissfully unaware while he suffers behind locked doors."

Her hand flew to her mouth. Tears gathered in her eyes, and for a fleeting moment, something stirred in my chest. It might have been pity. I couldn’t be certain, and I had no intention of examining the feeling closely enough to find out.

"But you can do something about it," I said.

She lowered her hand. "What?"

"You can save him."