Chapter 176

NOLAN

The prince’s footsteps echoed down the stone chamber as he descended the stairs of the underground prison where his brother was being held.

Nolan made his way down, down, down three flights of stairs, passing through caged security checkpoints at every floor. Each one was attended by at least two prison guards who shuffled Nolan in through one door, locked it behind him, then unlocked the second door to let him out the other side.

Down he went, finally, down one more flight of spiral stairs. And there at the bottom landing, Nolan looked down a long corridor and saw Adan for the first time since their fight on the mountain.

He was leaning against the back wall of his cell with his arms crossed over his chest.

“You come here to gloat?” Adan called out. His deep, familiar voice carried, bouncing off the stone walls and vibrating into the cold, damp air.

“Not really my style.” Nolan slipped his hands into his pockets and slowed his pace as he neared the tightly crosshatched silver bars of the solitary prison cell.

“Oh, yeah? Since when?”

Adan was leashed to the wall with a heavy iron chain that was bound to one of his ankles. There was just enough length on the chain for the prisoner to reach the cot at one side of the small, square cell and the metal toilet and sink on the other. But it was too short to allow him to get close enough to the bars that he could try to reach through them.

His injuries had been dressed and treated but they still looked gruesome, Nolan noted with some regret.

He had spoken to the doctor that treated Adan. It turned out the worst of his injuries were all bite marks and lacerations. Things that, for the most part, heal with time. The impact of that final hit, when Nolan threw Adan’s wolf hard against that packed earth wall – fortunately, that had not resulted in any sort of permanent internal damage.

But though Adan’s injuries were not life-threatening, they were still a quite unpleasant sight. The gash on his neck was deep and jagged, the swollen flesh around it red and purple and hot-looking. It had been stitched closed with thick black thread that was working hard to stretch and pull torn and misplaced bits of skin back into their proper places.

Nolan’s wolf had latched onto Adan’s neck like a beartrap. It had been necessary; getting his opponent bleeding like that was essential to the prince’s victory. It weakened Adan early, stacking the deck in the younger brother’s favor despite the rivals’ equally matched stature, strength and fighting skill.

Once that wound finally healed, Nolan mused, it was going to make for quite a striking scar.

“So? What then?” Adan asked. “You just stopped by for a nice brotherly chat? A little quality family time?”

Nolan shook his head. “Actually, Yena asked me to come. She had something that she wanted me to give you.”

Adan’s eyes went round with true surprise.

“You know,” Nolan continued, “I don’t hold it against you. That you tried to kill me. I have no resentment toward you for that.”

“That so?” Adan asked sarcastically.

“It’s what you did to the others that I’ll never understand. That I could never forgive you for.”

“And who asked for your forgiveness, huh?” Adan shook his head at Nolan disparagingly. “These are weak notions you fill your mind with, little brother. Forgiveness. Ha.”

Nolan didn’t let his brother’s taunting distract him from what he wanted to say. “What you did to those humans, it’s unfathomable. Absolutely depraved. And what you did to the girls… Yena and Lucy… that was sick, Adan.”

Adan chuckled. “Oh, sweet little Lucy,” he whispered. “She is fucking annoying, isn’t she?”

Nolan sipped a slow breath in and out of his nose, focusing on slowing down his heartrate.

Adan would love nothing more than to see him lose his cool. To know that he was getting under his little brother’s skin. Nolan did not give him the satisfaction of any reaction.

It did make his stomach turn, though. Hearing Adan talk about Yena’s friend like that.

He was fleetingly tempted to tell Adan that it had been Lucy who ultimately brought him down. Who found out where he was hiding and set him up to be captured.

But that was not a good idea. Yes, it was unlikely that Adan could ever escape this place. Very, very unlikely. Almost impossible. But just in case the evil genius somehow found a way to make that happen… Nolan didn’t need to give Adan a reason to target Lucy if he ever did get free.

“Anyway,” Nolan continued, “I guess Yena is more forgiving than I am. She wanted me to bring you some reading material. Guess she must have been concerned you would be bored in here.”

He opened his jacket and pulled a small book out of the interior pocket.

The gap at the bottom of the silver bars was just wide enough for the book to fit underneath. Nolan crouched and shoved it under, sending the book sliding straight across the slick, well-worn, centuries-old stone floor.

Adan stopped the book under his foot. He stared down at it. But he did not bend to pick it up.

It was the book he had written many years ago, back when he lived in the human world. The book he had given to Yena when they first met, when he was only just beginning to ingratiate himself into her life.

“See you around, Adan.” Nolan turned and started back up the dim corridor.

He reached the very end, planted one foot on the bottom step, and was about to start climbing when Adan called out a final question.

“How’d you survive?”

Nolan paused. Stepped back down.

“The wolfsbane,” Adan continued. “It should have killed you in minutes.”

Nolan crossed about halfway back down the hall before he answered. He didn’t feel like shouting.

“Yena,” he said. He could not help the smile that parted his lips. “That’s the answer to your question.”

Adan grimaced. “Whatever. Don’t tell me.”

“I told you,” Nolan said. “Yena saved me.”

“Yena wasn’t there when you were shot. How could she have saved you?”

Nolan narrowed his eyes at his brother. He started thinking about Adan’s penchant for having people followed. All the private surveillance photos he liked to mail to his stalking subjects to try to frighten and intimidate them.

“You were watching, weren’t you?”

Adan blinked, not following. He was fixated on his curiosity about the poisoning.

“You were watching,” Nolan said again. “In the orphanage. You had a camera feed and you watched as your assassin shot me. Didn’t you?”

Adan only grinned wickedly in reply.

“I bet you cheered,” Nolan said. “Like you did when we were kids, when we went hunting. You always loved that moment. When you got to watch something die.”

Adan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m a monster. But so are you, little brother. You and me? We’re the same.”

Nolan only shook his head half-heartedly in reply. Adan had no more control over his little brother’s emotions; the bait simply did not work anymore. Not when the elder brother had been so thoroughly and completely stripped of his power.

“Bye, Adan.” Nolan turned again, walked again to the end of the hall.

Again, Adan waited until the last second to cry out. Nolan didn’t stop this time.

“I’ll see you soon, little brother,” he shouted. “Sooner than you think.”