Chapter 241 Game On

Chapter 241: Chapter 241 Game On

_Rowena’s POV_

Alaric sat beside me in the back seat of our car, his hand gripping mine so tightly my knuckles were almost white.

His eyes were fixed on the city streets outside, his chest rising and falling in slow breaths. I knew what was going through his head.

He felt trapped, backed into a corner by pack law, forced to accept a woman he despised into his house because of a strip of paper with a green seal on it.

But I wasn’t going to let that happen, even though I appeared calm, I wasn’t. My brain was working already. We had stepped out to grab food and now on our way back.

I glanced down at our joined hands, my mind spinning at a hundred miles an hour. In engineering, when an equation doesn’t add up, you don’t just throw your hands up and accept the wrong answer. You re-examine every variable, test every component, and find the point of failure.

Alaric had looked me straight in the eyes and sworn on his life that he didn’t remember touching Brielle at that resort.

I trusted Alaric, he was proud, stubborn, and completely honest to a fault, if he had made a mistake, he would have owned up to it, no matter how much it hurt.

Which meant the test was wrong. Yes, it sounded stupid to think this way, but I love to study people, and I could tell for a fact that Alaric wasn’t one to just lie about stuff like this.

It didn’t matter that the machine read green. It didn’t matter that Kyle’s digital log showed a clean chain of custody.

Something in that lab had been manipulated, and I was going to make it my personal mission to tear that medical wing apart brick by brick until I found out how it was done.

"Rowena," Alaric’s deep, raspy voice broke through my thoughts. He turned his head to look at me, his storm filled eyes looking drained. This was the first time I saw Alaric looking this way. But despite the horrible look, he was still the most handsome man I’d ever set eyes on.

"Tomorrow morning, the council is convening to discuss restoring the Logan family estate. By afternoon, the elders will demand a formal betrothal announcement."

"Let them hold their meeting," I nodded, leaning my head against his shoulder. "A betrothal isn’t a wedding, Alaric. We still have time."

"I won’t marry her," he growled, his Alpha aura flaring up for a brief second before he forced it back down. "I would burn the council hall to the ground before I let Brielle Logan take your place as Luna."

"You won’t have to burn anything," I promised him, looking up into his eyes with amusement. "Trust me. Just give me a few days, keep the elders busy with paperwork, and let me handle the rest."

He looked at me for a long moment, searching my face, before leaning down to press a peck against my lips. "I trust you with my life, Rowena."

By ten o’clock the next morning, the central hospital was filled with guards, council representatives, and media crews. Because of the elders’ strict orders regarding the "royal heir," Brielle had been moved out of the general ward and placed in a luxurious, high security private suite on the fourth floor.

I walked down the fourth floor hallway, my heels clicking against the floor. Two royal guards were standing outside Brielle’s room. When they saw me approaching, they bowed their heads respectfully and immediately stepped aside to let me pass.

I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The suite was huge, comfortable and smelled nice.

Sitting on a lounge sofa near the window, wearing a robe and sipping a glass of what seemed to be milk, was Brielle.

She didn’t look like the pale, trembling, exhausted girl who had collapsed in the lobby yesterday. Her hair was neatly styled, her skin looked healthy, and there was a bright, wicked light in her eyes.

When she heard the door close, she turned her head slowly, looking at me with a slow, smug smile that made my stomach turn.

"Hi, Rowena.” Brielle purred, setting her glass down on the side table. "It’s the Marchioness. Did you come here to bring me my morning fruit tray, Rowena? Or did you just come to cry in my room?"

I didn’t answer right away, I calmly walked across the room, stopping a few feet away from her sofa, crossing my arms over my chest. I looked down at her with a completely cold, unreadable expression.

"You look remarkably well for someone who was supposedly starving in a cabin two days ago, Brielle," I noted, my voice sounding aloof.

Brielle let out a mocking laugh, leaning back against the pillows and folding her hands over her lap. "A good night’s sleep and royal accommodations do wonders for a woman, darling. You should know, you’ve been leeching off Alaric’s luxury for months now."

"Enjoy the room while you can," I replied flatly. "Because the second I prove that test is fake, you’ll be sleeping on a concrete floor in the lowest cell of the dungeons."

Brielle’s smug grin didn’t fade for a single second. Instead, it widened, her eyes gleaming with pure, arrogant happiness.

"Fake?" Brielle scoffed, shaking her head like she was listening to a small child throw a tantrum. "Rowena, sweetie, you were standing right there in the hallway. The Alpha King’s own physician drew my blood, ran the panel in the pack’s highest security laboratory, and handed the positive result directly to the elders. Are you saying that doctor was incompetent? Or are you just so desperate that you’re losing your mind?"

"I’m saying I know Alaric," I said, stepping closer to her, "And I know he never touched you. I don’t know how you bought off the lab or what trick you used to mess with the blood sample, but I am going to figure it out. And when I do, Brielle, not even your mother will be able to save you from treason charges."

Brielle stood up slowly from the sofa, sighing as if tired of listening to me.. She took a step toward me, coming face to face with me, her fake polite act completely dropping away to reveal her true character.

"You can search all you want, Rowena," Brielle whispered, her eyes fixed on mine with intense hatred. "Run all the checks you want. Review all the logs you want. The test is positive, the elders are on my side, and by next week, Alaric will be forced to place the Luna crown on my head to protect his child’s legitimacy."

She took a step around me, leaning near my ear with a giggle.

"You lost, Rowena," Brielle whispered teasingly. "At the end of the day, pack law cares about blood, not intelligence. Pack up your bags and leave while you still have a little bit of dignity left."

I slowly turned my head to look at her. I didn’t get angry, I didn’t raise my voice. I simply gave her a small smile that made her smug expression falter for a fraction of a second.

"Game on, Brielle," I said instead.

Without waiting for her to answer, I turned on my heel and walked straight out of the room, letting the door slam shut behind me.