Leighton

35. Who to trust ?

Leighton

Whatever Loletta had made this time was helping. I actually felt like I could bring something to the fight. She had handed me another vial. Just incase she said. She looked worried so I assumed that meant she didn’t know how long this would last for. Which meant the sooner we moved the better.

My neck still burned where my mark should lie but at least I could function. Felicity hadn’t had any more visions since, so I hoped that meant that Estelle was okay.

The King had planned to arrive at Abbadon Castle by himself. He had called ahead to warn King Adalfundis. Apparently he had been able to conceal our arrival here and was confident that King Adalfundis didn’t know we were here. His plan was to see if they would allow Estelle to return home, in preparation for the engagement party.

Once he had her safely out of the way, his plan was to retreat and find out how we could defeat him, all the while pretending that his daughter was still going to marry the Prince.

While I thought it was a stupid plan I chose to keep quiet, Jackson obviously agreed with me as he didn’t complain when I suggested that we get the witches to produce a cloaking spell so we could follow him, just in case.

As we prepared to leave I felt him place a hand on my shoulder. Muttering in my ear so quietly that Jackson wouldn’t hear.

“I know what you are doing, think very carefully, if you do anything to endanger my daughter you won’t have to worry about out Prince Alonso, I’ll kill you myself.”

Point fully noted I clenched my jaw as I gave the briefest of nods before following Jackson up the steps to our plane.

I was waiting until Jackson got of the phone with Greer but before I could tell him my plan he grimaced.

“They are up to something.” Was all he said unpon hanging up. I kind of hoped they were to be honest. If the King of Britannia was worried about how to defeat this King Adalfundis then we would need all the help we could get.

“So…” A quiet voice said. “We have been researching. If the King is working with dark witch then, I’m afraid nothing we can do will defeat them.”

I had forgotten about the witches, they had decided to come with us.

“So why did you come with us again ?” I rubbed my temples as I realised they were just more bodies to look out for, and now needlessly.

“Well, em we did find something that might help.”

“Uhuh?” This was painful. I heard Titan growl in frustration in my head.

“The King is thought to be as close to immortal as a wolf can get, full immortality would only happen if he were to possess all four powers. Well we think. But what we do know is that to do that he needs to transfer them all at the same time, and do to so he needs a sacrifice, and something to store the powers so the witch can make the transfer.”

She had lost me, and Jackson too by the confused look he gave her as well.

“Oh lord you really know nothing about this? Okay we all know that the gifted wolves contain the ability to control one gift, well the exception we know of being Estelle. Anyway the King is thought to have already worked out how to take a power from one wolf and give it to another wolf. To finish his path to immortality he needs to transfer the three other powers to himself, after he makes a sacrifice to Hectate.” She looked at me .” You know the moon goddess bad little sister.”

“Don’t tell me you believe in the old legends. Hectate doesn’t exist and even if she did she believed wolves were beneath her, she ain’t going to grant one immortality.” I almost scoffed.

“Well the witches disagree, and dark witches in particular believe deeply. It’s where they are thought to get their powers from. But you are missing the point. He probably already has some of these powers, but he has to store them somewhere. In something, probably. Find that and destroy it and he can’t complete the ritual which means you can defeat him. The prophecy you have seen was to destroy immortal Adalfundis, he isn’t here yet.”

I thought for a moment.

“But if a prophecy was made, so that means it will happen …unless we do something.”

Estelle

I could feel Raine in my head now. I could see the King watching me carefully, clearly not quite buying my apparent turn around.

“What have you done to my wolf?” I asked him directly.

Watching as he looked at his son before answering.

“We needed to make sure that you wouldn’t put up too much of a fight. Your reputation precedes you. Couple that with the fact that you had just met your mate, I’m afraid we weren’t taking any chances.”

“Why am I so important?”

“You were promised, and your parents have a history of not keeping their word.” He shrugged like that was all but I wasn’t buying it.

“You know you could break the promise if you wanted. You don’t need the alliance with my Kingdom.”

“That’s correct, I probably don’t but I need someone from your line to carry our pups. The only reason I agreed to wait for you was because of your father’s water gift. The blood of all four gifts will flow through your pups. With my help they might access them all and then we will truly rule supreme over all. Witches and wolves. We will be untouchable.”

“What if the moon goddess doesn’t like you meddling with her plans. She chooses your mate long before you meet them. What if she chooses to take back her gifts or not give my pups any?”

“Silly girl, she didn’t bless us. The sun goddess did and she doesn’t care what we do. We were the first gifted wolves. Silver wolves came later and I think the only ones left are those that escaped long ago to that his forsaken land across the water.”

The royal history wasn’t common knowledge. They didn’t want wolves knowing what they did to the wolves that possessed the power of light.

It was a dark secret that gold wolves hunted gold wolves. Silver wolves were hunted by all but the royal wolves feared those with the power of light, worried by the power of their light gift and worried that they might have the ability to also control any element.

While I thought I had been pretty well briefed it was news to me that the sun goddess was involved.

“Really princess, did you not pay attention ?”

It was so good to hear my wolves voice in my head again. I hid my smile as not to alert the King.

“Play the game, he will come for us. Just hold on.”

The Prince had appeared by my side and played his hand on my waist. I quickly stepped aside and put some space between us.

I almost growled at him but caught myself in time.

“I may have accepted what you have done, but please don’t mistake my acceptance for happiness.”

Annoyance flashed across his face.

“I’ve been patient enough princess.” With that he stormed out of the room leaving me alone with the King.

“So, why don’t you tell me why I’m really here. Now we are alone.” I tested the water with the King.

He c****d his head to the side assessing me, in flash he was beside me, sweeping us both back towards the wall. Lifting my chin with his finger he moved me head to the side to look at my mark.

“Don’t test me princess. Things can be a lot worse for you, if you don’t play ball. I would advise against antagonising my son. While you may unhappy with him for now I’m not sure you would prefer the alternative.”

He sniffed my neck causing me to freeze as I suppressed a shiver of fear or in case he mistook it for anything else. I avoided looking at him as I didn’t want to him to see the fear in my eyes that he wanted me too. Despite the hatred I felt for his son I knew that the father would be way more depraved. If I was going to be bound to one of them then the Prince probably was the lesser of the two evils.

“Your father is visiting today. Don’t get any silly ideas. It’s best for everyone if you play nice princess.”

The warning in his words wasn’t lost on me.

“When can I see Peter?” I asked, I don’t know if he had managed to escape, or was even alive and so didn’t put it past them to use him to keep me in line.

“Your loyal friend escaped. He didn’t waste any time looking for you, looks like you aren’t too clever at choosing your friends. At least that won’t be a problem now.”

It didn’t pass me by that the King has orchestrated my friendship with Peter and Izzy. Now I knew the truth about Izzy I started to doubt Peter.

If he had escaped and headed to my father I would have expected a rescue mission not a a curtesy call. Thinking clearly, it he escaped pretty quickly so maybe this had been the plan all along. Was my father even in on it?

The longer I thought about it the longer convinced myself that he must have know about Izzy’s powers.

The only thing that stopped my spiraling was that my dad had never appeared to harbour any desire to expand the Kingdom, he had never expressed any interest in the powers of other wolves, and loved my mother despite her minimal gift.

“Pull it together, he wants you to doubt everyone.”

Raine was right , I knew the King was watching me and I was playing right into his hands.