Trust the King Alpha, my animal whispered to me.
As much as I wanted to buck what was happening, take my mate and run, or at the very least, make some people bleed before they carted us to the dungeon… there was no denying that the king—and his court—were hiding something. These were men I had trusted wholeheartedly in battle. I had to believe that this was for a reason, that they wouldn’t let me down now.
Either that or I was the world’s biggest fool.
Tipping my chin back, I stared into my king’s eyes and said, “I have no defense to offer.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I could have sworn I saw relief pass over Adalai’s face.
“Very well.” He stood once more, pulling Zelene up with him this time. She looked worried. Whatever was happening, she wasn’t privy to it. “I find you both guilty of crimes against Luxoria. Take them to the dungeons.”
The room exploded into a raucous of shock as the king and queen left out the back door with Dagger as their guard. Cassian and Evander and three other guards swarmed me as I tried not to lose sight of my mate.
Ashla
Chapter Fourteen
“No. No!” My pleas started quietly, like I was waking from a nightmare. But as the guards stalked toward me, pushing past Tavia, Charolet, and Rielle, fear filled my body like cement. I should’ve run. I probably knew the back passageways of this castle better than most alphas. I’d been trusted to help keep the king safe. The city safe. I’d taken pride in that responsibility, and these charges were total bullshit.
“No!”
The girls weren’t coming to my rescue, but not because they didn’t want to. Their mates stood beside them, pleading with them. Who was standing with Solen?
All it took was a second to lose my freedom. Shifting my focus away from the guards to find my mate had given them the advantage. They slipped their arms around mine—I liked that they thought it would take more than one of them to contain me—pinning my arms behind my back. Wriggling only made their grip tighter. They had me off the ground and I kicked as hard as I could, but in these slippers, it was surely hurting me more than it hurt them.
“She’s in heat,” one of them said with a laugh. The other eyed me longingly.
Oh, hell no.
“Solen!” I cried, but I couldn’t see him anymore. The guards headed toward the hallway as screams erupted in the room. I couldn’t see my mate, but I knew by scent he was no longer human.
My mate was a warrior, no matter what form he was in. I willed myself to shift, but my animal was too exhausted to come.
In his wolf form, Solen pushed past us, snarling and baring his teeth at the guards. He lunged for one of them, and I kicked the other.
An omega always fights for their mate.
A shot rang through the hallway, and the crowd erupted in a new round of screams. Everything happened in slow motion as Solen’s body jerked back, his eyes slackening before his body dropped to the floor.
“NO!” I fought harder than I ever had for anything in my life, but I couldn’t break free of these guards. And if I wasn’t careful, the next bullet could be aimed at me.
“It’s just a tranquilizer dart, omega,” one of the guards grunted. “Look, there’s no blood.”
He was right, but it was still unsettling. I stared at Solen’s body, relief crashing over me when his fur rose slightly with breath.
“Dagger. Cassian. What is happening?” I asked as they came to collect their fellow soldier’s body. But they didn’t acknowledge me.
Did I ruin all the progress Zelene, Tavia, Charolet, and Rielle had made for the omegas? I was innocent. I wracked my brain as the guards brought me down to the dungeon, trying to figure out some way I could’ve given such important secrets away to a beta.
But as far as I knew, I’d never come in contact with a beta. They didn’t have much access to the castle, especially not the armory. Any betas that came in had business with the king’s court, or those who were kept in charge of keeping the daily operation of the castle running on all cylinders.
Unless, like Solen, someone wasn’t who he said he was.
But who could it be? The thoughts would consume me in the darkness. Howls rose as the chains clanked against the bars of the door.
“Won’t be able to get out of here, will you, omega?” one of the guards chuckled.
I grunted. My arms ached, and I was moving in slow motion. I didn’t have enough power to call my wolf after so many shifts in a short amount of time. And Solen had drawn almost every drop of my heat out of me. But not enough to keep me safe.
But the truth was, I could get out of here. I’d been given access to all the codes in the castle. Unless my retinal scan privileges had been revoked, I could override changes and set them back to an earlier version of the code. I’d always taken great pride in having access to such data, although I never understood why.
The more I put all these things together, the more it felt like we’d been set up.
But as the door of my cell clanged shut behind me, I was glad for those locks. The omegas in the neighboring cells reached through the slats of their doors, their only connection to any other lifeform. Their eyes were more terrifying than anything else I’d seen in all my days in the Badlands. Not human, not wolf. Stuck somewhere in between, like a botched experiment from the Human Keep.
A wave of ice coursed through my veins
