Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir
Chapter Twelve
“Icannot let him out yet,” Aeron said while Cassandra pleaded with him incessantly, and he paced the perimeter of their bedroom as if he were a caged animal—which, in most ways, he was.
“Why not?” she cried. “I understand that you were trying to protect him, but he can’t sit in there and rot forever.”
“It’s not going to be forever, Cassandra,” Aeron said sternly. “You need to calm down.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “Then it will be until when? Until this trial? That is even worse. You cannot put Rubius on trial in front of humans. You know that they will simply call for his death. You need to let him out.”
“I’ve already told you that I cannot let him out yet,” Aeron said as he continued to get more and more frustrated and exasperated with the discussion.
“Why?” Cassandra screamed as she lost her control entirely. “Are you jealous of Rubius?”
As soon as the question left her mouth, she wished that she could have taken it back. She knew right away that it was hurtful and inappropriate and would only serve to raise suspicion over her activities and involvement with Rubius. She didn’t want to hurt Aeron; she was simply upset and had lost control over her tongue.
“Is there reason I should be?” Aeron said calmly with a sharp and vexed stare.
He knew very well that he had every right to be jealous, and he waited to see if Cassandra would choose now as the time to tell him what had really been going on.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry, I was just getting upset.”
Aeron took a deep breath and then reached for his wife’s hand. He brought her along with him to sit down on the side of the bed.
“Cassandra,” he said gently. “You and I have some things to talk about. But for the moment, there is only one thing that I need to tell you.”
She braced herself for Aeron to say something that indicated he knew about the activities that she was engaging in with Rubius. He couldn’t possibly know how she felt about Rubius, but she was sure that he had finally started to pick up on some of the heat that lay between them. It was impossible not to notice no matter how hard she and Rubius tried to dampen it. But that wasn’t at all what Aeron needed to tell her.
“I fear there is a wolf hunter in the city,” he said.
His eyes were tinged with worry and his voice was heavy. He didn’t sound mad anymore. He sounded worried—very worried. Wolf hunters were humans who knew about the existence of shifters, but instead of running around and trying to rally humans to their cause, wolf hunters were far more devious and dangerous. The had researched the ways and attributes of shifters. They knew how to hunt them and how to kill them. They enjoyed tormenting shifters in their wolf forms, as if it somehow made them seem less than worthy to be people.
“How can that be?” Cassandra asked in a soft panic. “There hasn’t been an actual wolf hunter here in centuries.”
“That is true. But I have reason to believe there is now,” Aeron said gravely.
“Was it the man who was killed? The one who tried to attack me?” Upon saying it, Cassandra realized that she still hadn’t told Aeron about that incident, and she was filled with remorse for keeping things from him.
“No,” Aeron said. He gave his wife a pointed look. Cassandra’s stomach twisted with guilt. “Whoever the hunter is, it is the person who is causing this discord right now. They are using the man’s death as a catalyst to pit the people of the kingdom against us. They must know that the royal family ruling the kingdom is actually a pack of shifters.”
Cassandra looked deeply concerned.
“What does this have to do with needing to keep Rubius in the dungeons?” she asked. “Wouldn’t he be more good to us once released so that he could aid the packs in the forest and inform them of what is going on here?”
“The wolf hunter will try to come after those of us with the most power first. That includes you, me, and Theo, and also Rubius. Whoever this person is, they are one of the most dangerous wolf hunters I have ever seen – dangerous enough to even kill their own kind to exact a means to an end. I think the wolf hunter killed that man to frame Rubius and draw attention to how we would handle it. He wants the humans to find out that we are all shifters, and in the meantime, he is going to start picking us off one at a time.”
“Why would Rubius be as important to kill as the royal family?” Cassandra asked.
Aeron turned to look at her, still holding her hands in his.
“You know why,” he said softly.
She did know why—because Rubius was important to her. Aeron must already know about her feelings and attraction to Rubius. Just as she was about to open her mouth and ask him about it, a shattering noise came from Theo’s bedroom, and both of them leaped up off the bed and ran to see what it was.
When they arrived in Theo's room, there was no mistaking the wolf hunter – trademark pieces of their aesthetic were the same no matter what time period or location they were found in. The man’s face was covered with a black scarf, his hips were laden with weapons, and there was a crazed look in his eyes that reeked of destruction and cruelty.
Cassandra shifted instantly. There was no reason to hide shifter form here – the wolf hunter already knew what they were. She pounced onto the hunter and landed with both of her massive front paws squarely on his shoulders. will S willhe sank her teeth into his neck.
A crack reverberated through the room – gunfire. There was a smoking pistol in the man’s hand.
The bullet managed to miss both Theo and Cassandra and was nowhere near aimed at the doorway where Aeron stood. Instead, the bullet flew on its trajectory toward the corner of the room where one of Theo’s servant women had been standing in fright and horror. It hit the woman in the heart as if it had been aimed, and within a matter of moments, she was dead.
Cassandra dropped the hunter’s body from her jaw and shifted back into her human form. She used the dark green sleeve of her dress to wipe the blood from her kill off her lips. Then she ran over to the human woman and looked to see if there was any hope of saving her.
But her heart rate was gone.
Aeron went to the hunter’s lifeless form and pulled the scarf from his face to see who it was. He didn’t recognize the man, but as soon as the guards came running after hearing the commotion, they immediately knew. A crazy townsperson that had preached about werewolves and witches. Aeron knew that this would be the perfect solution to several of his problems.
He told the guards that this had been the killer they were searching for and that they were to free Rubius from the dungeon and present the dead hunter to the kingdom as the killer to appease the humans’ demands for justice and vengeance. Cassandra had covered the wolf hunters body in thick blankets that wouldn’t show blood, and she and Aeron strictly instructed the guards to keep the body covered burn it immediately. On their way out, they paused momentarily to look at the servant woman slumped against the floor in the corner.
After the guards had left, Theo launched into a frantic excuse about how none of what had happened was his fault.
“It’s okay, son,” Aeron said to him. “We know this wasn’t your fault at all. I’m just glad that we were able to get here in time and that your mother could save you yet again. I’m starting to think that she is faster and stronger than I am.”
Theo chuckled at his father’s teasing as Aeron ruffled the boy’s hair. But then he looked over at the woman and his face turned sad and sour.
“She was nice,” Theo said sadly. “I liked her. She was my favorite servant. She and I would do puzzles together, and she actually made it not quite so boring.”
Cassandra looked at the woman sympathetically.
“And she has a daughter,” Theo added.
“What?” Cassandra said as she turned around with a look of horror. “How old?”
“She’s around my age,” Theo answered. “She would sometimes bring her to play puzzles with me. Her name is Marquette.”
“Surely, there is a father that can care for her now, though, isn’t there?” Aeron asked his son.
“No,” Theo said. “The woman said her husband died a long time ago. Marquette is all alone now.”
Cassandra turned and looked at Aeron.
“No,” he said. “We can’t take in a human child.”
“I’m not suggesting that we do,” she said. “I just think that we should go get the girl and bring her to the castle. One of the women here can raise her, and she can at least grow up inside of the castle not wanting for anything. We owe the child that. We are the reason her mother is dead.”
Aeron agreed to bring Marquette to the castle. The three of them went to find her, and after delivering the sad news about her mother, they offered to bring her to live in the castle with their court.
Theo peeked out from behind his father and stared at Marquette as she listened to the heartbreaking news. He saw the tears run down the girl’s face but heard her silence as she cried without making a single sound. Then she gathered a couple of things in her hands: her favorite puzzle, a necklace that her mother had made for her, and a short, sharp knife with a curved hilt that had been sitting to a nearby table. The girl then nodded that she was ready and caught a glimpse of Theo’s eyes staring at her from between his parents.
That was the moment that Theo thought Marquette was the strongest girl he had ever seen.