Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir

Chapter Ten

As expected, by the time Aeron walked into the court, it rang with the cacophony of humans upset about the murder. Cassandra stood beside her husband with her hands on the top of Theo’s shoulders.

She didn’t understand why the humans would be getting this upset about one murder. Murders happened from time to time, and usually, it was over some stupid unresolved dispute. It wasn’t as if this man had been a hero or legend, or royalty. He was, if anything, a bigoted coward that was better removed from the Earth in Cassandra’s opinion. Still, her opinion didn’t matter. If the humans wanted to martyr the fool, then it was up to the king to ensure that justice was provided. If that meant finding and punishing the killer, then that was what he had to do. The problem was where to start looking for him. No one knew much about the man and he had no family since he had moved there several years prior.

She caught sight of Rubius when he entered the open space and their eyes stayed fixed on each other. Cassandra was worried and nervous, and Rubius could tell. Aeron also caught sight of him when he walked in, and he noticed the way his wife didn’t seem to take her eyes off of Rubius, not even when he began talking to the crowd of people. Aeron had a handful of distressing things to choose from, not the smallest of which was his wife’s infidelity.

“It was him!” one of the humans shouted as she pointed at Rubius.

Rubius broke his gaze with Cassandra to turn and look at the woman who was wagging a finger in the air toward him and hurling accusations of murder in his direction.

“ I saw him with the young man last month. He was trying to keep the man from talking to the queen,” the woman said bitterly. “He killed him!”

Rubius looked shocked, and his mouth dropped open in astonishment.

“That isn’t true,” he protested. “That man was following the queen with intent to kidnap and kill her. He attacked her, and I merely pulled the queen to safety. I did not kill anyone.”

Aeron’s face turned a bright scarlet color as Cassandra looked up at her husband quickly. She hadn’t told him about the incident on the city streets, and the simple fact that she had failed to tell him about the event, which was now painting the picture for a murderous intent, already made her look guilty of something. This was a horrible position that she had put Aeron in, and she knew it. Aeron didn’t even look at Cassandra, but he didn’t have to. She could feel his eyes glaring at her even from his peripheral vision. What was he supposed to do now?

“Is there anyone besides this one woman who has seen Rubius engage in an altercation with the victim?” Aeron asked.

He knew that Rubius didn’t kill the man. Despite his conflicted feelings about Rubius, he knew that Rubius had a high moral code of conduct. Rubius would never kill a human unless it was absolutely necessary to protect one of their own. He also knew that if Rubius had killed the man, he would have admitted to it. He was hoping that none of the other humans would step forth to say they had witnessed something that would put Rubius under a greater shadow of doubt. But he knew that the humans flocked together in groups, not too much unlike a wolf pack, and that at least one other of them would support the woman’s claims, even if they hadn’t actually seen anything. The difference between human groups and wolf packs was that the wolf shifters stuck to a code of honesty. Humans seemed to have no such code.

“Yes,” a man standing in the crowd said. “I saw Rubius with the murdered man several times. Each time, he was more threatening than the last.”

“So did I,” another person yelled.

Soon, there were at least a dozen of the city folk that were implicating Rubius in a crime he did not commit.

“Bastards,” Cassandra said under her breath.

Theo looked up at his mother with concern. He felt bad because he knew that it was his incident in the woods that had been the catalyst for the rumors. He also felt bad because he liked Rubius and didn’t want to see anything happen to one of their own.

“Very well,” Aeron said as he waved his hand in the air to silence the increasingly agitated crowd. “I will deal with the matter and we will have a trial. In the meantime, Rubius will be kept unharmed in the castle dungeons. This man has not yet been proven guilty – therefore, he will remain unpunished until such a time as an answer can be determined.”

The crowd of humans shouted and stamped their disapproval. They wanted something equivalent to a lynching on the city streets. Cassandra wasn’t satisfied with the decision, either. She turned her head quickly to whisper in Aeron’s ear.

“You cannot lock Rubius up in the dungeons,” she said. “He isn’t guilty of anything, and you know it. Imagine the backlash from his pack when they find out that you have imprisoned their alpha.”

Aeron turned to bend toward Cassandra’s ear and calmly answered her as he kept his eyes on the crowd.

“Cassandra, the humans have already convicted Rubius in their minds. They know he didn’t kill the man either. It’s obvious by the rise of their voices and the beads of sweat on their brow that they are lying. This is nothing more than an attempt to dismantle the rule because they know something is out of their mundane understanding. Locking Rubius up right now is for his own protection. If I let him walk out of here as a free man, the humans will hunt him down. Rubius may be a powerful alpha, but even his pack won’t stand a chance when the entire city of humans infests the forests looking for him. If you don’t want to see Rubius dead by morning, then you will follow my lead on this.”

Cassandra’s eyes widened in fear and she pressed her lips together in order to keep from speaking out of panic. She looked over to Rubius, who was getting ready to fight off the palace guards that were approaching him. She subtly shook her head.

Rubius recognized the warning. She could see his anger rising as he put his hands down and allowed himself to be taken. The guards escorted him to the dungeons and the humans began to disperse from the crowd. Cassandra and Theo turned to walk back alongside Aeron as they headed back to the castle.

Two contradictory things crossed her mind while she walked. The first was what a horrible mess this was all becoming, and she was worried that it was only about to get worse. The second was that Rubius must feel something much more than lust for her if he ignored his strong impulses and let himself be captured simply because she wished it.