Chapter 52
“He was ill, and very poor. He had one son, but he did not want to ask the son to give up everything to take care of him.”
“Wow.” Yena looked down at the letter in her hand. “And you’ve stayed in touch with him all these years since then?”
Nolan nodded. “Yes. He has become… my oldest friend.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me about this?” Yena asked.
“I never wanted him to know who I am,” Nolan said. “I never wanted anyone to know about any of this. I just wanted to be… a regular person to them.”
Yena gave him a sad look.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but that was not going to last forever. And if these people who care about you will speak up for you right now, it can help us get you out of this cage. And I am going to do that, Nolan, no matter what it takes.”
Nolan looked his princess in the eye.
He gave a very tiny nod and said, “I believe you. And I trust you.”
YENA
“As you’ll remember,” the TV news announcer was saying, “not long ago, photos were circulating of an earlier encounter between Princess Yena and the former Lycan heir, Adan.”
They split the screen, so half showed the reporter as she kept talking, and half was that stupid picture of Adan and me in the rain, under his umbrella with his arm around me.
“What was mere speculation at that point,” the news lady continued, “now seems to be confirmed by this new footage, in which we see Prince Nolan nearly come to blows with Adan after catching him with the princess.”
I groaned.
They were doing this on every news channel. Talking about me and Nolan nonstop.
Or rather, talking about me and Adan. Like we were having an affair.
And they were showing clips of the video that guy took from behind the trees, when Nolan stormed over and raised his fist at his brother, after Adan tried to kiss me.
They were accusing Nolan of being some sort of crazy jealous person.
The implication there, of course, was that Nolan was jealous because I was being unfaithful. I guess that was what Adan wanted everyone to believe.
Watching the video sent me right back to the scene.
I flashed back to the look on Adan’s face, the moment he stopped pretending. The moment when he made his move and let me finally see who he was.
In that moment, I was truly terrified.
It was like someone flipped a switch, turned on a light, and finally I could see what was right in front of me.
I understood everything in that moment. All at once.
That slow, careful way Nolan had said, He is not who you think he is…
I understood it now.
Nolan was afraid of his brother.
Not that Nolan would ever admit to such a thing. But I could see it now. Adan was a scary guy.
And Nolan knew something about him that other people just didn’t.
Maybe Nolan had seen Adan do something. Maybe Adan had done something to Nolan when they were kids.
Or maybe Nolan knew something about what Adan had been up to in the human world for the past decade.
I changed the channel. Should have just turned off the TV, but it was hard to look away from, now that I’d gotten started.
“Up until now, Prince Nolan has had such a well-controlled public image,” another reporter was saying. “It’s a little shocking to see him lose his temper like this. It’s shaken up the nation, really, to see our future king behaving like this.”
His co-anchor, a graying man with a beard, chuckled.
“Well, remember,” he said, “Nolan is still only twenty-one years old, and a newlywed. I guess even royalty is not above feeling the sting of betrayal.”
“Oh, young love,” the other anchor replied, laughing along.
Hearing them talk about Nolan like that made me feel sick.
Across the bottom of the TV screen, a yellow banner was scrolling with storm updates and warnings.
SEVERE WEATHER WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE…
TEMPS WILL DROP BELOW FREEZING BY NOON…
SLEET EXPECTED AFTER SUNSET…
I went to the window and pulled back the heavy black drapes. A chill seeped in through the glass, dropping the temperature in the room. I shivered.
The the rain was coming down steadily. But it wasn’t too bad yet.
It would be worse after the sun set. And that meant I had to get moving if I was going to get anything done today.
Nolan told me how to find the old man, whose name was Alaster.
He was in an elder care facility in a small town a few minutes’ drive outside of the capitol. And the werewolf orphanage, I already knew, was in that same little town.
I pulled my hair back and got dressed quickly, bundling up for the cold, and called to have a driver meet me out in front of the palace.
The orphanage was a long, gray, single-story building located just outside the capitol. We stopped there first.
I jogged the short distance from the curb to the front entrance and hurried inside. I saw that they had sandbags stacked about four feet high, all along the front of the building.
There was a mild commotion inside.
Not many kids in the front lobby area, but there was that consistent background noise of squeals and shouts and laughter and chatter coming from all sides, like you’d hear from inside a quiet classroom when the kids were outside at recess.
Adults were rushing around, getting ready for the storm. A tall, bossy lady with a ponytail was giving a maintenance crew some instructions, pointing at the windows on the front of the building. They were about to go outside and cover the glass with wooden boards, to prevent them from breaking it if hailed.
The ponytail lady noticed me. She thanked the maintenance staff and strode over to me.
“How can I help you, miss?” She gave me a big, sincere smile.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, “I can see you’ve got a lot going on. I actually came here…”
I looked around at all the activity. This was not the right time to ask these nice people to do me a favor.
“I came to see if you needed any volunteers,” I finished. “Is there anything that I could do to help you today?”
The lady looked very pleased. She smiled but shook her head.
“Usually, we will always welcome volunteers,” she said, “but we’re just about to bunker down here for the storm. You should get yourself home safely, before it gets any worse out there. Come back later this week when the roads are safer, and we can find a way for you to help out.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll do that.”
“Let me give you something, though.”
She motioned for me to follow her and hurried over to a long counter that was covered in clipboards, notebooks, and sign-in sheets. She fished a brochure out from a clear plastic bin and handed it to me.
