Chapter 99

Chapter99

-Vera-

"STOP!"

Violetes rushing down, pushing the crowd aside as she makes her way to her mother.

"Please! Please have mercy!"

She kneels down in front of me, covering Cecil.

"No! Do not get in the way! I lost in battle to this mutt, I deserve death!" Cecil says, trying to shove her daughter aside but wincing in pain. "Mother, you can''t! We need you!"

Violet motions to help her mother up, but Cecil ps her hands away.

My hand goes to my forehead, rubbing it; these people are giving me a headache. Goddess, they''re extremists.

I turn to Noah and shrug my shoulders, lowering the spear to my side; this is not my ce to make decisions.

Noah moves closer to us; the people moving away to give him space.

"Do you submit?" He asks Cecil when he is beside me.

**Never" she says.

"For fuck''s sake, woman. William, is she capable of continuing the fight?"

It takes a minute for William to answer. All this time, he''s been relegated to a corner, watching everything unfold right in front of him, much to his horror.

"She- she most definitely isn''t," he says.

"And did she not break the rules by entering to fight my mate instead of her daughter?"

"Ye-yes," William stutters.

"And what is the punishment for such actions?"

"De-death, Your Highness,"

"Precisely. But since I am The King, I can decide if she is indeed put to death, is that correct?"

"Yes, My King."

"Excellent," he turns to Cecil, crouching down to be at eye level with her, "So now, I am giving you and your entire family an easy way out. You get to keep your head, your daughter gets to keep hers, and this entirely family continues on existing, if and only if you submit right now."

"Ne-" she begins, but William stops her.

"Cousin," he''s stern, "I suggest you consider His Highness, our King''s, gracious offer carefully. Think of the future of this House."

Cecil is grinding her teeth and breathing heavily through her nose; pure rage in her expression.

"I submit." she whispers finally.

Noah tilts his head to a side,

"What was that?"

"I submit." she whispers again.

"Hmm no, I didn''t catch that, again please."

"I submit!" she yells angrily.Content ? provided by N?velDrama.Org.

"Ah, there it is. Thank you."

He gestures at the maids toe tend to Cecil''s wounds and they flock to her with rags, a nket to cover her, and bandages. She''ll need a little more than that for her shoulder wound, but I''m not about to volunteer that information. If I liked her, I''d even offer her some great painkillers I brought from the Castle for the next few days.

Noah turns his full attention to me now,ing to stand in front of me and lightly brushing through my face with his fingertips.

"How bad is it?" I ask.

It''s not as painful as it probably looks since the adrenaline is still coursing through my body.

He smiles at me,

"You''re already beginning to heal," he notes, kneeling and taking a closer look at my legs.

When he stands back up, he takes a rag from one of the maids and begins dabbing it on my face; I wince. This is really going to hurt when my adrenalinees back down.

The crowd has now begun to disperse as quickly as it gathered and only William, Noah, Caleb, Violet, Cecil, the maids, and myself are left in the courtyard.

Elies through the doors, holding the maid I pointed out earlier by her wrists.

"What should we do with this one, doc?" He asks.

Ie closer to her, leaving Noah at the center of the courtyard. She looks like she''s about to throw up. When I''m right in front of her, I touch her face with my fingertips, an undeniable current flowing through them.

I have no doubt in my mind.

This girl is a witch.

"Her and I need to have a talk," I gesture at Eli to hand her over to me, but before he can, Violetes running towards us.

"No, no please, my Queen, I beg of you, spare her! This was all our idea, she had nothing to do with this!"

Violet''s eyes are pooling with tears as she pleads for this maid.

I frown. What was who''s idea?

"Shut up, you fool!" Cecil yells.

I sigh, regretting that I didn''t get to kill her.

"If you tell me the truth, Violet, I will spare her," I say, intrigued by Cecil''s sudden outburst.

"She, she..." she looks at her friend who noticeable gulps, "she has some training, you see, in the art of witchcraft, but she''s not a witch! I swear!"

Ie closer to Violet, cing my face right in front of hers.

"Aren''t you a lying little princess." I whisper, and she nches. "I-I..." Violet stutters.

I sigh again, this time closing my eyes and massaging my temple.

"I''m not going to kill her, Violet, I know she''s a witch, I just need the rest of the story. What was that thing that Cecil threw at me? It gave me allergies," just in cue, I sneeze, "and quite frankly all this bullshit is giving me a headache." Violet is gaping, her friend is close to passing out, and apparently Cecil has run out of snarky

"It wasn''t their idea; I offered my help!" The friend finally says, "when we found out that His Highness wasing and that Violet would have a real shot at bing Queen, we knew we had to try everything!"

"Ok, now we''re getting somewhere, what exactly *did* you try?"

She gulps as now my attention ispletely on her.

"We - I - I gave Violet a special perfume meant to attract His Highness, it was concocted from special herbs, pheromones, and The King''s hair to make it specific to him."

I raise an eyebrow at this and turn to Noah who simply shrugs, not knowing how they acquired. his hair either.

"My my mom took some from him when she gave him the tour of the manor," Violet says shyly.

Noah takes a quick moment to narrow his eyes at Cecil who has decided topletely ignore everything that''s happening in front of her.

"And then what?" I ask the maid.

"And that didn''t work. We didn''t know he had a mate and that''s probably why the pheromones didn''t work."

She''s not wrong, but she also doesn''t know that Noah has a natural, and acquired, level of immunity to magic, even concoctions such as hers.

"And then we we wanted to try again, but without having you around..."

"That''s why you tried going into his room at night."

"Yes," she admits, embarrassed, "we thought I could seduce him and if we... if we did it then he''d have to take me as his wife."

"And the powder?" I ask, ignoring the fact that she just admitted to having plotted to sleep with my mate.*

"That was wolf''s bane, and it was meant to poison you," she says, her head down, "but it didn''t work, I - I don''t know why."

"Girl, that thing was not wolf''s bane, I can guarantee you that," I say.

Back at the Pack House, we are all taught to detect wolf''s bane from miles away to avoid it. If exposed to it for prolonged periods of time, or ingested inrge doses, it can be fatal to any wolf. Back home, if you''re a trained warrior, you are given small quantities over time to create certain immunity to it, at least enough so that it doesn''t kill you right away; this is how I was trained. It makes sense that they wanted me to turn, too, since wolf''s bane is more effective on our beast forms than our human forms. This thing, however, whatever it was, did not smell, taste, or feel like wolf''s bane.

"Oh." she simply says, genuinely surprised.

"So, what do we do with her?" Eli asks, still holding on to the girl.

I think for a while, and on instinct, perhaps guided by my wolf, I say,

"Let her go."

He cocks an eyebrow at me.

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, let her go. She''s harmless. She can''t even tell what''s wolf''s bane and what isn''t."

Her head sags, embarrassed at myment.

"Fine," Eli says, letting her go and she falls to the ground.

Violet and her immediately hug tightly, crying into each other.

Grateful that all of this is over, for now, I begin to turn to go back to Noah but suddenly, Violet''

s head snaps to the left, as if moved by some invisible force.

"What happened?" I hear Lucas ask as he enters the courtyard.