by P. Jameson
Solen
Chapter Thirteen
I stood beside the king like I always did, with the same regal stance, the same alpha certainty. It didn’t matter that he wanted to dress me like an omega. Like Ashla said, we were innocent, so I would fucking act innocent.
Adalai hadn’t allowed me time to plead my case as I hoped he would. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to punch him in his smug face when he looked me up and down like I was a specimen instead of a faithful guard and general of the eastern borders.
I’d never betrayed him. Others, as some would say, but not him.
If he thought dressing me in omega garb was an insult, well then perhaps our queen needed to remind him why he’d abolished The Division in the first place.
What did he think this show of power was going to accomplish? Maybe he meant to appease the beta resistance rather than fight them, but that wasn’t the Adalai I knew. The king I served ruled with brute strength.
Offering scapegoats wouldn’t stop the resistance and win the war, but he didn’t ask my opinion. He just tossed me a set of thin clothes to replace my uniform and armor.
A commotion in the crowd made me focus on all the faces I’d let blur before me. The one face I’d been waiting to see, stood in the center of the room.
“What is she doing here?” Adalai boomed. “I didn’t call for her.”
I stiffened, hating the way he glared at Ashla. Like she was the enemy. Did he really believe she’d helped the resistance? Did the queen?
My mate straightened her shoulders as she faced him. “I came to hear the charges against me.”
Her eyes clashed with mine and her expression softened before turning grim. I lifted my chin and widened my stance to remind her who we were. Innocent. And even if they found us guilty today, it wouldn’t change that fact.
If they found us guilty… shit, how would I protect my mate if I lost my place in the guard?
The crowd became more riled as someone shoved Ashla, sending her tumbling forward and some of the queen’s court rushed in behind her. Tavia, Charolet, and Rielle pushed people back as much as they could but in the melee, Ashla was getting trampled.
Fuck.
I charged forward but an arm came around my neck from behind, jerking me back in place. “Don’t.” Cassian’s voice was hard and urgent. “You’ll make it worse. Stand your ground. Our females have this.”
“She’ll be hurt,” I snarled, clawing at his arm, but he didn’t budge.
“She’ll be hurt worse if you don’t fucking stop.”
I was going to shift. My wolf would fight for her, and I dared any of these males to challenge it.
“Order!” Adalai roared, standing to his full height. “I will have order in this room!”
Everything went quiet and Tavia bent to help Ashla to her feet.
“Where is my queen?” Adalai growled.
“Right here, my king.” Zelene appeared near the throne, her schooled face barely hiding her troubled expression.
Adalai stalked to her, gently placing his palm over her bulging belly before bending to kiss her forehead. The tender move was in stark contrast to his vicious tone. There was no doubting the king adored his mate as he led her to sit beside him, but clearly it wouldn’t stop him from hurting her friend.
Ashla was brought to the front, guarded by the other three omega mates. When she stood beside me, Cassian let go and I broke my stoic silence.
“Are you hurt?” I growled low.
“Not really. Just a bump or two. It’s fine,” she answered quickly.
“Let us begin,” the king called out as he settled next to Zelene. His dark eyes landed on Ashla first. “Ashla of the Badlands, you have been accused of treason against the Kingdom of Luxoria, against your king and queen, and against your people by conspiring with the enemy to allow entrance into the royal armory. How do you plead, omega?”
Ashla faced the king to look him dead in the eyes as she spoke. “I would never betray her majesty, Queen Zelene, nor the kingdom which I have bled in battle for. I have served loyally. I am innocent.”
Zelene nodded slightly as if she approved, but the king just turned his gaze to me.
“Solen, General of the Eastern Borders and personal guard to the king, you are charged with treason against the Kingdom of Luxoria, against your king and queen, and against your people by aiding and abetting the accused omega, and furthering the beta resistance. How do you plead?”
I stared in disbelief, hearing the charges against me. I assumed he was outing me as an omega or accusing me of disobedience. But treason? Never. Aiding Ashla when he was the one who told me to keep her safe? Ridiculous. And no one was more against the beta uprising than me. I wanted peace for our pack. The despair and fighting was getting fucking old.
Narrowing my eyes at my cousin, I tried to read him. He knew I was too alpha to sit by and let this go unchallenged. And he also knew I was too omega to let innocent Ashla be disgraced for his cause… whatever it was.
What game was the king playing?
“How do you plead?” he repeated, sharper this time.
“Not fucking guilty, Your Majesty.” Nothing else needed to be said.
Adalai looked satisfied. “Bring the evidence,” he commanded, and Dagger strolled forward, carrying a case with computer equipment. He set the items on a long table and briefly made eye contact with me.
What was happening? If Dagger truly believed I’d betrayed the king he would be furious. I’d be able to see it in his walk, in the way he moved.
I looked at the others, Evander and Cassian. They couldn’t hold my gaze more than a second or two, but there was no scorn there either.
They didn’t believe the king’s accusations any more than I did.
Dagger set up a portable digital screen and inserted a disk containing whatever so-called evidence for the entire gathering to see.
“This was sent anonymously to the king,” he announced, as the screen lit up with the tell-tale lines and grooves of a retinal scan. “This is the scan that accessed the armory just before the break-in, and as you can see by looking at this side-by-side comparison…” Dagger turned to the audience. “It belongs to the omega, Ashla.”
Gasps rose from the crowd and Ashla twisted her gaze to me, her eyes filling with tears. “Guilty!” someone shouted.
“When we checked the scans ourselves, just after the break-in, the scan that unlocked the building was unidentifiable, leaving us with no clue to the identity of the traitor until this evidence was brought forward. We believe that General Solen, upon mating with the omega, helped destroy the evidence of her betrayal before taking her into hiding.”
“Bullshit,” I spat.
Ashla shook her head. “No, it isn’t true. None of it.”
Adalai raised an eyebrow. “Solen, I am told you arrived here as a wolf. Is that not true?”
“Yes, it’s true—”
“And everyone knows only mated alphas can shift.”
Yes, only mated alphas. But he knew I was omega.
“So the question is…” Adalai stood and came to stand before us. “Did you mate with the omega?”
I couldn’t lie. He knew I was damned either way, but lying about mating Ashla would hurt my soul. I wouldn’t do it.
“Yes,” I answered, and the crowd rumbled with sudden dismay. As if their king wasn’t mated to an omega himself. As if mixed matings were still against the law.
Adalai returned swiftly to his throne. “I will hear your defenses now. The omega first.”
Which one, I wanted to shout.
“Your Majesties, I am innocent. I didn’t do this. I implore you to question the source of this evidence. It was sent anonymously. Perhaps—”
“Dagger,” the king interrupted. “Is it possible for retinal scans to be forged?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir.”
“So there is no doubt, this is Ashla’s?”
“Yes, sir,” Dagger confirmed.
“And it was time stamped minutes before we were alerted to the break-in?”
Again, Dagger nodded.
The king turned his haughty stare to me. “Your defense, general?”
I stared at him, grappling with what to do. It didn’t matter what I said, the verdict would be the same. For some reason, me and my mate were being framed. And with the king’s knowledge.
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 at that thought. Was that the fate that waited for me? The King knew what had gone on there. And these charges were total bullshit. Nothing was adding up.
“Solen,” I cried. There was no telling what was happening to him, in his wolf form. My stomach roiled at the thought of his most trusted confidants turning on him.
I got a few offers for help, but none of them came from my mate.
One more tug on the door to make sure the lock was secure before I crashed onto the bed. Calling it that was generous. It was a cold, hard piece of metal sticking out of the wall.
I curled up into a ball, my wary eyes on the door, while I tried to piece it all together. And plan our escape. This wasn’t the only place in the castle where prisoners could be held. It was, however, the worst. Which made sense that I was here and Solen was not. Even if the king had practically outed him as an omega, I was willing to bet he didn’t have the stomach to subject his kin to the worst his title had to offer.
I wouldn’t be able to do this alone. Even if I escaped, I’d need access to the entire castle. I’d have to disguise myself, at least enough to confuse the guards who wouldn’t know the difference between the royal omegas…
My eyelids grew heavy, and as much as I resisted sleep, I knew I needed it.
***
“Solen?”
The clanging of the chain that locked me into my cell woke me. It was slightly less terrifying than the image of Solen being shot that had roused me over and over again. This woke me completely, while the nightmare played with me, making me think I could change the way things happened. Once, I broke away from the guard to take the poisonous blow, but the dart sailed through my body and hit Solen anyway. Another time, I was actually able to get Dagger and Cassian’s attention, but their eyes were hollow, and the King’s face was reflected in them.
Howls erupted in response to whoever came to visit me. I crawled off the bed, ignoring the protest of my aching muscles as I stood tall.
Floral perfume wafted into my cell.
“Zelene?” Since she’d taken the crown, she wore rose oil. She called it her signature scent, and told us how it drove the King wild. I could only hope his mate had the power to talk some sense into him. “It’s n
ot safe for you to be down here.”
Her silhouette was small and strong, except for her round belly. That baby was coming soon.
“This is my castle. It’s my job to guarantee everyone’s safety. Being down here reminds me how much work I have to do,” she said. “And besides, I brought the best backup a queen could ask for.”
Stumbling over to the door on jellied legs, my heart swelled when I saw Tavia, Charolet, and Rielle guarding their queen in military leathers. But that wasn’t all they had to protect them. Their weapons shined like beacons of hope in the low light.
Nobody in this dungeon would mess with these omegas unless they wanted a couple of scars as souvenirs. But that was exactly what Zelene wanted to fix. There shouldn’t even be a dungeon in the castle.
“Where’s Solen?”
“He’s okay,” Zelene said.
“That doesn’t answer my question.” I had so many. Had he shifted, and were his friends coming to his aid like mine were?
“You’ll be able to see him soon,” she added with a smile that looked more like a grimace. I could be delusional and blame that on the baby.
But I needed to know what was going on, so I could get a feel for what happened next. The ladies might have a plan, but those didn’t always work out in Luxoria. “What’s happening with the uprising?”
“It’s not safe to talk here. We don’t know who’s listening,” Tavia said. As far as I could see, hands protruded from bars, trying to grab us. If they got a hold of us, there was no telling what could happen.
“I have ideas how we can escape. There are other places they keep prisoners.”
Tavia shot me a warning glare. I was already delusional, and I was saying way too much.
“You’ll be sentenced soon.” Rielle clutched my arm, steering me clear of the other prisoners. “And we’ve come to get you ready. Do exactly what we say, Ash. We know everything we need to know now.”
“What about Solen?” I asked. Adalai wouldn’t cast away a trusted general and his kin without giving him a chance to explain.
It was nighttime, and the castle had fallen still. In the distance, gunshots and screams rang out. The uprising wasn’t done.
