Chapter 481: Pawn.

Davian.

I grabbed Daniel by the collar of his fine leather coat and hauled his limp, unconscious body across the threshold into Damien’s empty bedroom. Aidan slammed the heavy oak door behind us and slid the iron bolt back into place.

The room was deathly quiet. The bed where Maria had been lying just minutes ago was stripped and bare, the blankets gone with Damien and Adrein down the hidden tunnel. The faint scent of her lavender medicine still hung in the cold air, mixed with the sharp, bitter stench of refined wolfsbane.

I dropped Daniel onto the floor near the center of the room. He hit the rug with a dull thud, his head slumping back, blood trickling down from his temple where Aidan had hit him.

Aidan didn’t waste a second. He walked over to the corner, grabbed a thick length of heavy iron chain used for securing large supply chests, and tossed it to me.

"Bind his hands," Aidan growled, his voice vibrating with suppressed rage as he kept his eyes locked on the door, listening for any sign of movement down the hallway. "Make sure it’s tight. If he wakes up with even a fraction of his strength, I want him completely pinned."

I looped the cold iron around Daniel’s wrists, pulling it taut until the metal bit deep into his skin, knotting it securely behind his back. My hands were shaking—not from fear, but from the raw, violent adrenaline still coursing through my veins. Every time I looked at Daniel’s bloody face, my stomach turned.

We had trusted him. We had listened to him while he systematically poisoned our mate and set us up for a slaughter.

"He didn’t act alone, Aidan," I said, stepping back and wiping my bloody knuckles against my trousers. "A snake like Daniel doesn’t have the stomach or the resources to pull off a move this big by himself. He had backing."

Aidan turned around, his dark eyes glowing faint gold in the dim candlelight. He looked down at Daniel with pure disgust. "Vincent," he spat flatly. "It’s been Vincent the entire time."

The name hung in the air like a curse.

Vincent. The ruthlessly calculating Lycan prince who had been playing perimeter games with our pack for months. It all made sickening sense now. The sudden pressure on our borders, the mysterious, untraceable wolfsbane supply, and Daniel’s convenient ’diplomatic channels’ offering us a fake surrender. Vincent had fed Daniel the poison, given him the script, and promised him whatever reward a traitor desires once our pack was wiped out.

"He wanted us broken," I rasped out, shoving my hands through my hair as the full scale of the plot settled in my chest. "He used Daniel to poison Maria so we’d be too distracted to see the trap. He knew we’d do anything to save her. He knew we’d march straight into his territory if Daniel promised us a cure."

"Well, his little messenger is out cold," Aidan said coldly, stepping over to Daniel’s limp frame.

He reached down, grabbed a pitcher of cold wash water from the nightstand, and dumped the entire contents straight onto Daniel’s face.

Daniel gasped violently, coughing and sputtering as the icy water hit his bloodied skin. His eyes snapped open, wide and disoriented, before narrowing in pain as he tried to lift his hands—only to realize the iron chains were locking his arms behind his back.

He looked up at us, his chest heaving, water and blood dripping down his chin onto his ruined coat collar. The calm, polished mask he had worn all evening was completely shattered.

"Davian..." Daniel choked out, coughing up a spatter of red onto the rug. "Aidan... you don’t know what you’re doing."

"Shut up," I growled, stepping forward and planting the heavy sole of my boot firmly onto his chest, pinning him against the floor. I leaned down, glaring straight into his dark, terrified eyes. "We know exactly what we’re doing, Daniel. We know about the wolfsbane. We know about the trap at the border. And we know who you’re working for."

Daniel stiffened beneath my boot, his pupils dilating as he swallowed hard. "You... you don’t understand—"

"Vincent sent you, didn’t he?" Aidan cut in, his voice terrifyingly quiet as he stepped closer, drawing his hunting knife from his belt. The steel caught the torchlight with a cold, wicked gleam. "Vincent gave you refined poison. Vincent promised you our pack territory once we walked into his ambush."

Daniel stared at the blade in Aidan’s hand, his jaw working as he tried to find a lie, a negotiation, anything to save his skin. But there was nowhere left to run. He was chained on the floor of a locked room with two furious Alphas who had nothing left to lose.

A dry, bitter laugh escaped Daniel’s lips, turning into a painful wheeze as my boot pressed harder against his sternum.

"So what if he did?" Daniel rasped, glaring up at us with a sudden, ugly defiance. "You think you’ve won because you knocked me down? You’re fools! Both of you! Vincent has two full war bands waiting at the river line! The moment you fail to bring Maria out to the border, his men are going to burn this entire pack to the ground!"

"Where is the antidote?" I demanded, pressing my boot down until the floorboards groaned beneath us. "Tell me where the pure antidote is, Daniel, or I swear to the Moon goddess I will strip your skin off inch by inch."

Daniel winced in pain, his breath coming in short, agonizing hitches, but a cruel smirk touched his bloody lips. "There is no antidote, Davian! Vincent didn’t give me one! He wanted her dead from the start! She was just the bait to bring you four out into the open!"

My heart dropped like a stone into a dark well.

No antidote.

Aidan’s jaw clenched so hard the muscles in his cheek looked like iron cables. He stepped forward, grabbing Daniel by his hair and yanking his head back, resting the sharp edge of the blade directly against his thrumming pulse point.

"You gave our mate a death sentence for a Lycan prince’s scraps?" Aidan growled into his ear, his voice trembling with a terrifying, predator rage.

"Vincent... Vincent is going to rule this whole region!" Daniel choked out, panic finally breaking through his defiance as the cold steel bit into his skin. "He offered me a seat at his table! You four were holding this pack back—drowning in your own chaos, letting everything rot over a single girl!"

"She’s our mate," I snarled, leaning down until my face was inches from his. "And you brought a monster into our house."

"He’s already inside your house!" Daniel yelled, blood spilling over his lip. "His men are surrounding the outer tree line right now! You can’t save her, Davian! You can’t save any of them!"

I looked up at Aidan. His eyes met mine, a silent, unspoken understanding passing between us. The house was compromised. The border was a killing zone. But Damien and Adrein were already out in the hidden tunnel, carrying Maria away from this house and away from Vincent’s sightline.

Daniel thought he had trapped us, but he had no idea Maria was already gone.

The realization had not reached him yet. He was still lying beneath my boot, breathing hard, his face twisted with pain and disbelief. For all his careful planning, all his confidence, he still believed he was in control. He didn’t understand that the moment Maria disappeared, his entire plan had begun to collapse around him.

"What do we do with him?" Aidan asked softly.

His voice was calm, almost unnervingly so. The blade remained pressed firmly against Daniel’s throat, its edge resting against his skin as Aidan watched him without blinking. Daniel swallowed hard, his eyes flickering nervously between us.

I slowly pulled my boot off his chest and straightened to my full height. My gaze lingered on him for only a moment before I deliberately turned my back on the traitor.

I walked toward the window and stopped there, staring through the glass at the dark, quiet courtyard below. Everything outside looked strangely peaceful, completely unaware of the chaos unfolding inside. My expression remained cold as I folded my arms across my chest.

"We keep him alive," I said, as my voice was flat and emotionless, leaving no room for argument. "Vincent is expecting Daniel to give the signal when we step out with Maria..."

I paused, letting the words settle into the silence, and then I turned slightly toward Aidan and lowered my voice.

"We’re going to use Daniel to buy Damien and Adrien every single second they need to get her across the river."

Daniel stared up at us, his eyes wide with a sudden, fresh terror as he realized he was no longer the mastermind—he was just a pawn stuck in the middle of a war.