Chapter 180: Strange Dog 1

EDELINA

I slipped my hand through the bars and cradled his cheek, the very one I had struck. Warmth lingered under my palm. "I know," I murmured, my voice gentler. "I should not have hit you. It was all for show. I needed him to think my anger was at you, not with you."

"It did not feel like theater."

"It never does if it is done properly."

He managed a crooked, weary smile. I traced his cheekbone with my thumb, once, twice, committing every angle of him to memory.

"Do not worry," I murmured. "Five days is nothing. I will sneak food and water down when the guards change. I can buy a few of them, and scare the rest. You will be hungry, but you will not starve. Just wait. Five days, and then we will have him exactly where we want him."

Johann swallowed. His eyes dropped to the floor and then rose again, and something in them had changed. It was the look he’d had as a boy when he was about to tell me something he had been dreading.

"Mama," he said, and the word undid me a little, because he had not called me that since he was twelve. "I do not know about that. You do know... You do know when my birthday is coming up?"

The breath vanished from my chest. Damn it... Of all things, how could I have let that slip past me, the one thing that mattered most?

"Four days," he went on, his voice low. "Four days from now. And I will unfortunately be here when it hits me."

I stood very still.

Of course I had known the date. I had circled it in my mind for months, a wound that would not heal. But the urgency of five days had blurred it, hidden beneath the chaos at the dinner table, and now it crashed back into me like a door slammed in my face.

The curse would begin to turn in him. In Lycan males, it showed first as fever, then hunger, then the slow rot of strength from the inside out. A well-fed boy with clean water and a soft bed might endure better. A starved one, kept in the dark on cold stone, would burn through himself in half the time.

"Mother?" He was watching my face. "Say something."

"You are right," I said, because there was no use pretending otherwise. My fingers tightened on the bars. "You are right, and I should have counted it sooner."

"It is going to be bad. Isn’t it?"

As much as I wanted to shield him from fear... I could not dress up a lie and offer it as hope.

"Worse, if we do nothing." I forced myself to meet his eyes. "Which is why we will not do nothing. I will find a way to keep nutrients in you. Broth, bread, whatever I can smuggle. And I will move faster than I planned. Everything I intended to do in a week will be done in three days."

"Can you?"

It had to be done. Now, the question was not if I could, but that I must.

"Look at me." I leaned in until my forehead nearly touched the iron. "I promise you, Johann. It will all be fine soon. I have never broken a promise to you, and I will not start now."

It was not the whole truth. I had broken a hundred promises, quietly, over the years I raised him. Still, he nodded as if my word was sacred, and I let myself be grateful for that.

"Your Majesty." One of the sentinels cleared his throat behind me, the polite cough of a man who did not want to be the one to say it. "It is late. Visiting hours were over a while ago. We have bent the rules as far as we can."

I turned slowly.

"Visiting hours." I let the words drift from my lips like smoke. "You are in a prison, you gutless little shit. Do you even hear yourselves? I am your Queen. I will leave when I choose, not before."

The younger guard flushed. The older one just looked at the floor.

"And trust me... I will speak about your manners when my son is on that throne," I added. "I have an excellent memory. I do not forget, and I certainly do not forgive."

I pressed Johann’s hand once through the bars. His fingers were cold, and I wanted very badly to take off my shawl and wrap it around him, but a shawl would be noticed, and a display of care would be used against us. So I let go.

"I know it will be a scary time... But something will happen... It is just four days," I whispered. "Hold on."

"I will."

I turned and strode down the corridor, heels echoing against stone, head held high. The jeers from the main cage resumed, quieter now, laced with either reluctant respect or simple boredom. I refused to look their way.

I had nearly reached the stairs when a voice rose out of the dark behind a cell I had walked past without a glance.

"Edelina!"

I stopped.

"Queen Edelina! Your Majesty, please!"

Footsteps scraped, followed by the clatter of a body hurled against iron. I turned, irritation prickling, prepared to dismiss whichever wretch was begging. But then I saw the face pressed between the bars—gaunt, unshaven, streaked with grime—and laughter escaped me before I could stop it.

"Yannis Chonto."

He looked dreadful. The once sleek, silver-haired Alpha who used to glide through my receiving rooms trailing cologne and ambition was now a crumpled shadow in a torn shirt. A bruise marred his jaw, and his hands, gripping the bars, trembled.

"Your Majesty," he rasped. "Thank the goddess. I did not think anyone would come."

"I did not come for you." I stepped closer, tilting my head to take him in properly. "My, my. When did this happen?"

"I am not sure. There is no sun or true light source, and the concept of time here is wonky. I am inclined to think it has been a day or two already." He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. "It was that weirdo. The strange dog of a Regent. He had me dragged down here like a common thief. I swear... I did nothing but call him out on his bullshit and demand he keep the end of a promise that had been made and sealed on."

"Nothing," I repeated.

"Nothing!" he insisted. "I am as loyal as they come."

I laughed again, and this time it was not kind.

"Loyal." I moved closer still, until I could smell him through the stench of the cell, stale sweat and fear. "You abandoned me, Yannis. You abandoned my son the moment you thought the wind had changed. Without even saying it to my face, you practically told me that my boy, Johann, was finished, and then you took your daughter and went sniffing at Lysander’s door like a hound that has found a fresher master."

His eyes widened. "I never..."

"Do not insult me." My voice dropped.