Chapter 117
Alpha Terrell’s POV
The room was very quiet for a moment as I pondered on why Agnes would be looking at my horse.
That is, if she knew the horse was mine.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized her actions only meant one thing.
She was buying time.
"She’s not trying to accept us," I said.
"No," Merrick agreed. "She’s not."
"The condition..."
"Is real," he said. "That part’s real. The child is real and the grief is real and if you can give her that, it will matter." He leaned forward slightly. "But she’s not waiting. She’s moving, Terrell. She has been since she arrived. From the storeroom, to the stables, and now her request. She’s been gathering information and building a picture this entire time and we have been," he gestured between us, "somewhat behind."
I looked at my desk.
At the maps on the walls, thinking about how this small woman had already sized it up in forty-eight hours.
"You’re supposed to be managing this," I said.
"I am managing it..."
"You went riding with her, Merrick. You told her about the river crossings."
"I told her what she would have found herself in two days if I hadn’t." He kept his voice even. "Which she would have - alone, without me present to observe what she was actually looking at. At least this way I know what she knows and I can account for it."
I looked at him.
He looked back with the expression of a man who had a point and knew it.
"What are you actually doing with her?" I said. "And don’t tell me you’re approaching it carefully. Give me something specific."
Merrick was quiet for a moment.
"I’m watching her," he said. "The way she actually needs to be watched - not managed, not pushed, not charmed. She can see through charm in about four seconds, so that’s useless. And pushing her will produce the exact response you’re trying to avoid." He paused. "She needs someone who’s honest enough that she can’t find the deceit underneath it. That’s the only door available with that woman."
"That’s not a plan," I said. "That’s a philosophy."
"All good plans start with a philosophy."
"Merrick..."
"The plan is: don’t lie to her, don’t try to deceive her, and give her something real to work with before she decides we have nothing real to offer." He met my eyes. "Which means you need to find that child."
I looked at him.
"She said five months," he continued. "That’s a traceable transaction, Terrell. Slave trades leave records because records mean money and money means records."
"Five months old is very little. He could be anywhere."
"Which means we start tonight," Merrick said. "Not tomorrow. Not when it’s convenient. Tonight. Because that woman has a timeline that is not ours, and she is moving on it whether we are or we aren’t, and if she decides we’ve waited too long to be useful..."
He stopped.
Let the end of the sentence sit.
"If I find this child," I said slowly.
"She may still try to escape," Merrick said. "Honestly. I don’t think finding the child stops the plan. It just..." He considered. "It changes what she owes us. And it changes how Angel sees us. And that, right now, matters more than the other thing."
I looked at him.
"And if she hurts Angel while we’re busy doing this."
Merrick shook his head.
"She won’t," he said. "She’d burn this entire castle to the ground and everyone in it before she let something happen to Angel. That woman is terrifying in a lot of directions, but that direction isn’t one of them."
The fire settled, a log shifting with a small collapse of ember and ash.
***
After Merrick left, I summoned Bellick immediately. There was no time to waste.
He arrived within ten minutes, which meant he had been awake or had not been deeply asleep, and he stood in the doorway of my study. Waiting.
"The slave trader," I said. "The one Kane dealt with yesterday."
Bellick nodded.
"Find him, and bring him to me."
A pause. "Tonight, Alpha?"
I looked at him.
The look was not long, but he must’ve seen the seriousness in my face because something moved in his expression.
He turned and went.
I did not sleep well that night.
This was not unusual - there were nights where it was simply difficult to sleep, and this was one of them - but tonight was different. I lay in the dark and my hearing was doing what it did when it was trying to eavesdrop.
I was listening for footsteps.
Specifically: two sets. One of them belonging to Angel, and the other belonging to that mischievous sister’s of hers.
The castle breathed around me.
Guard rotation on the hour. The horses settling in the stable. Wind through the upper windows. The distant sound of the kitchen fire being banked.
Nothing else.
But the problem with Agnes was not that she was loud. The problem with Agnes was she couldn’t be predicted.
I was still listening at three in the morning.
Still listening at four.
Somewhere between four and the first sign of dawn I fell into a fitful sleep.
I was still snuggling deeper into the sheets when the knock came.
"Come in," I said. My voice was the voice of a man who had slept for approximately ninety minutes and didn’t want to be disturbed.
Bellick opened the door. He was, impossibly, neat - or at least as neat as a man could be who had apparently spent the night’s small hours locating a slave trader in the city.
"I have him, Alpha," Bellick said.
I looked at the ceiling for a moment.
Then I sat up. "Where was he?"
"A brothel." A pause. "The Silver Road establishment. Third floor."
"Of course he was." I pressed the heels of my hands briefly against my eyes. "Stand guard with him while I freshen up."
Bellick nodded.
"And Bellick." He stopped. "Not in here. Not in the corridor outside my rooms, not in the east wing, not anywhere near my bedchambers. I will not have that man contaminating my floors."
"The Throne room then," Bellick confirmed, and left.
I sat on the edge of the bed and took a moment to orient myself.
Somewhere in this castle, Angel was sleeping. Agnes was probably not.
I stood, washed myself and got dressed. Today, I was wearing the black Alpha regalia. I am the ruthless Alpha of the Black Wolf Pack and I needed to look it for once.
I’d been slipping lately.
I went outside to my throne room.
The man was on the floor.
Not because anyone had put him there - there was a chair, Bellick had provided a chair, the chair was available and unoccupied. The slave trader had apparently looked at the throne room and made his own assessment and arrived at the floor of his own volition. He was on all fours, in the posture of a man who looked scared and confused.
He heard me come in and his head came up and he started immediately;
"Alpha... Alpha, I want to be very clear that I have done nothing... nothing that wasn’t within the bounds of... I am a legitimate trader, I have documentation, everything I brought yesterday was properly..."
"I want one thing," I said.
He stopped.
I sat on my throne.
"One thing," I said again. "Answer it correctly and you leave. Do you understand?"
He nodded. Several times. With enthusiasm.
"The woman you brought yesterday," I said. "She had a child. A son. An Infant, approximately five to six months old at the time of acquisition." I held his gaze. "Where is the child?"
The man’s face looked like he was trying to search his memory - a furrowing, a working of the jaw, the eyes going slightly unfocused.
"A child," he said. "I... Alpha, I must be honest, I have... there were several women with me yesterday..."
"I know," I said. "Which is why I’m going to help you narrow it down."
I looked at Bellick, who stood at my right.
"Bring the woman," I said. "She’s in the Luna’s rooms."
Bellick nodded.
The trader remained on the floor and I remained on my throne, watching him. Cursing him for putting me in this dilemma. If he hadn’t arrived here with that woman yesterday, none of this would be happening.
I heard them before they arrived.
Agnes came in first. She was dressed - which told me either she had been awake already or she dressed faster than anyone I had encountered. Behind her...
Angel.
She had followed.
I was not surprised. Of course she had followed - Agnes had been in this castle for less than forty-eight hours and Angel had spent the entire time tracking her with the low anxious attention of someone who knew their sibling and knew what that sibling was capable of. She would not have let Agnes be collected by a guard without inserting herself into whatever was happening.
I looked at her.
I had not looked at her directly since this whole mess started.
She looked - extraordinarily well, was the honest answer. Whatever the morning had done, whatever the night had held, she had arrived in my throne room with her hair loose, her face clean and beautiful, her curves looking as luscious as ever.
I wanted to say something to her.
I had thirteen things I wanted to say to her, none of which were appropriate for the throne room at dawn in front of a slave trader and two sets of guards.
I looked at the trader instead.
"Look at her," I said. "The woman on the left. Take your time. Tell me what you remember about her child."
The trader looked at Agnes with the squinting focus of a man genuinely attempting recall. His eyes moved over her face, her height, her features...
"I... there were so many women, Alpha, I truly..." He shook his head slowly. "I cannot with certainty say which..."
Agnes moved.
She crossed the distance between herself and the trader with quick steps, and her hand came across his face with a crack that rang off the throne room’s high walls.
The trader’s head snapped sideways.
He stayed on the floor, one hand coming up to his face with the stunned expression of a man recalibrating his understanding of the morning.
Agnes crouched down in front of him.
When she spoke, her voice was quiet.
"The next thing that comes out of your mouth," she said, "should be about my son."
She let that sit for exactly two seconds.
"Where. Is. My boy."