Unknown
The king came careening around the corner, looking every inch like the madman he was rumored to be. His long hair was matted and unkept, his beard long and shaggy. His body was thin and boney, a bare shadow of the great, handsome man he once was. His sage green eyes were bright and feverish as he ran to the table, and toppled over a chair in his excitement. “She’s alive!”
Avery froze, his cup of coffee halfway to his mouth, “Pardon?”
“My daughter! She is still alive! I felt her! I felt her wolf! My baby is alive!”
Avery carefully placed his cup on the saucer and folded his napkin. “My king, I’m afraid you are mistaken. You know that our dear little Bella perished in the crash with our Luna.” He shot a nervous glance across the table to his wife. Her mouth was pressed into a grim line, her face pale.
“We never found her! We never found her body, or a bone, or even a tooth!” the king righted the chair and sat his long body on it. He grabbed a cup and poured himself a cup while his brother, Avery, watched in horror. The king had not fed himself in a decade. He had been catatonic in his bed, except for those rare times when he flew into a mad frenzy. The nurses had been spoon-feeding him thin soups, gruel, and milk for years. Now his shaking hand dumped the cream and scooped in a heaping spoon of sugar, and stirred it excitedly. “I felt her. It began the other day, and I thought it was only my imagination, the madness playing with my mind and torturing me, but no, as from last night, I’m certain. My daughter is alive.”
“Louis,” Avery said carefully, “Have you taken your medication today?”
A bony fist came down on the table. “Do not patronize me, Avery.” Louis sat up straighter, “My daughter is alive, and I have hope again. I will find her.”
“Of course, Brother, you have my full support. We will help you in whatever way we can.” Avery shot a meaningful look across to his wife, who hid her distraught face and smiled thinly, and nodded in agreement.
----------
Avery put on his disguise, covering his greasy blond hair with a hat, and wearing a large pair of sunglasses. He slid on a pair of leather gloves, not because of the chill in the air, but so that he would leave no fingerprints behind. He drove for an hour in the wrong direction, just to make sure no one was following him before he doubled back and headed in the direction of White Pines.
His hands gripped the steering wheel as he ground his teeth in frustration. Fifteen years ago, the queen luna had driven off a cliff with her preschool daughter safely buckled into the back seat. The luna had died on impact. Sure, no one should have survived that crash.
But somehow the child had lived. Although she was broken and bloodied, she had shimmied out of the back window and was found some meters from the wreckage, dazed and crying for her mother. The car exploded moments later, creating an impromptu funeral pyre for the luna. Avery had watched it burn with great satisfaction.
But what to do about the child? He couldn’t leave the king's heir here, wandering around safe and sound. But he also didn’t want her blood on his hands, directly. He dared not do anything that might be traced back to him. He took the child fifty miles from the crash site, and set her loose again in the woods, right on the boundary of the White Pines pack. He watched from a distance for a few hours until the scouts picked up the child, and carried her back to the pack house.
He waited a few weeks for the commotion to die down. There was mourning for the death of the queen and the princess. The king went slowly mad without his mate and his child. When the tragedy was nearly forgotten, he went back to find the child. She’d been taken in as a slave in the White Pine’s pack. Avery grinned in satisfaction as he saw the small child, dressed in rags, struggling to carry firewood, one log at a time. Perfect, he thought. Just perfect. He brought with him a syringe, which contained a wolfbane concoction that the mage said would kill the child’s wolf before she came of age. He approached the luna with a large sum of money, and the greedy woman injected the child and happily stuffed the money into her bag. “Keep her out of sight,” Avery had commanded, “but keep her alive.”
Why had he ordered her life to be preserved? At the time he had thought that she might prove useful one day, a bit of leverage he could use in an emergency. But now he regretted it. She was nothing more than evidence of his betrayal. And somehow, the king knew she was alive. It was a disaster. The king would recover, and Avery and his wife would lose everything, everything they had accomplished over the last fifteen years.
He pulled up to White Pines, but the wolves saw the royal insignia on the car and let him pass without question. Their security was lax, stupid, and careless, but he didn’t care. He jumped out of the car and headed straight for the door, slamming it open with no knock, no announcement.
He saw the white-faced Luna scamper into the room. “My Lord?”
“Where is she?” Avery roared.
“Wh-who?”
“The girl, the stupid girl I left here fifteen years ago.”
If it were possible, Luna Amber’s face paled even more. “She’s not here. She’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone??” Avery ripped his sunglasses off and stomped up to the woman, leaning over her aggressively.
“Y-yes, but it's not my fault!” She gripped Avery’s jacket, “They came, and they stole her away in the night.”
“Who? Who came?”
“Those Redhawk brothers.” She sniffled. “We tried to get her back, but the Councilman said that she is their mate.”
Avery swore, “She found her mate?”
The luna held up two fingers. “Mates.”
“Both of them? That’s..!” He balled his hands into fists. If the girl had found her mates, and her wolf had survived, it was no wonder the king could feel her life essence again. And of all the possible men the girl could be bound to, it had to be the Redhawk brothers!
“Tell no one about the girl,” Avery snarled. “If anyone comes asking, you never saw her, she was never here, the child did not exist.”
Luna bowed her head submissively, “Yes, my lord. But…”
Avery knew what the “but” was for. “Greedy bitch,” he grumbled, pulling out his wallet and emptying it of bills. He slapped the money against her chest and turned on his heel. Bella should have died in the crash. It was going to be a hell of a lot harder to get rid of her now.