Chapter 201

For hours, I sit in an interrogation room. The fluorescent light overhead buzzes gently. The one in the corner is flickering. The room is otherwise quiet.

Sterile, the concrete walls are painted white, with the tiles on the floor are dark blue. Unnervingly, there is a drain in the floor at the center of the room.

There’s a two way mirror along one wall of the room. A metal door has been locked since I was left in here hours ago. At least, I assume it’s been hours. There’s no clock, and with no windows, I can’t presume to tell time other than with my own gut feeling. I have no idea how accurate that is.

I’m sitting on a hard metal chair with my wrists and ankles bound in handcuffs. I’m achy and uncomfortable.

Still wearing my servant’s disguise, I imagine I haven’t yet been recognized as the King’s favored, or surely someone would have been in to talk to me by now.

I wonder if Caleb even knows where I am.

No one has been in to see me, not a guard or an interrogator or anyone else.

Maybe I’ll be left to rot in this room.

Maybe Caleb does know where I am, and this is exactly where he wants me to be.

It certainly was not my intention to kill his mother, but she had been crazed, attacking me for simply existing. I’d meant to only tear the knife away, but with a wolf, even an aging one, she was still much stronger than me.

If Jason didn’t come to my rescue, I could be the one in the morgue right now. Much of the nobility would probably prefer that. What would Caleb think?

Is he mad at me for what happened? Will he even believe me when I try to explain? Or maybe he’s made presumptions all on his own. Maybe he’s decided that I’m not the person he wants me to be.

Maybe he’s finally done with me.

Maybe I’ve been in this room too long, alone with only the buzz of the light and the echo of my thoughts. I’m spiraling. I can feel it myself.

Closing my eyes, I try to think of something else. If I could imagine myself anywhere else…

I’d be in a farmhouse in the country, watching from the window as Caleb returns from the river with today’s catch.

A lock turns on the metal door, breaking my fantasy. I open my eyes just in time to see Caleb walk through the door.

His gaze passes over me, expression guarded.

Is he truly mad?

He closes the door behind him and then stands there for a moment, letting his gaze drag over me. When he sees the chains confining me to the chair, he seems to wake from his stupor and walks toward me.

As he comes to stand in front of me, I brace myself for anything. But then, he drops down to his knees in front of me. Reaching around me, he grips the chains binding my hands and breaks them in his tight grip. Then he does the same for the ones at my feet.

Still kneeling, he grips my hands and brings them closer to him. My wrists are slightly raw from the shackles, which he inspects with a frown. Then, he lowers his head down to my lap.

“Tell me what happened,” he says.

From this vantage point, I can see the tense line of his shoulders. Though his eyes are clear, his body reveals the tension he’s been harboring. Truly, he’s barely holding himself together.

Reaching out, I gently comb my fingers through his hair and start massaging lightly at his scalp. Under my ministrations, he stars to relax somewhat.

“I was coming back from the bathroom, when Kira asked to speak with me privately…”

I gently massaged his scalp as I gave him the play by play of what happened. I mentioned Jason was there, and then the things Kira said when we were alone, and about her attacking me. I end with Jason breaking down the door to split us up, and how Kira fell on her own blade.

Caleb stays silent for a long time, even after I’ve finished speaking. Massage complete, I continue to comb my fingers through his hair, hoping to offer some comfort.

“Do you think she knew about the plot to kill Evan?” Caleb asks me.

I consider the things that she said to me in those final moments. “I do.”

He hums. “I’d wondered… She denied any knowledge, but it seemed unlikely. Her reaction, even then, was not one of a grieving mother. She almost seemed proud of his death, just like my father had. To them, I guess, I eliminated a problem.”

“They were cruel,” I say.

“My father still is. Don’t forget he escaped.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“He won’t care about this,” Caleb says. “My parents never truly cared for each other.”

I also wondered if they cared at all about Caleb either. Kira might have said she loved her sons and would become the villain to protect them, but a mother who truly loved her son wouldn’t want him dead. Nor would she want her only living son to be condemned to a life of unhappiness.

If Kira loved her sons, her view of love was skewed in the worst possible way.

This explains a few things to me about Caleb and his inability to understand love and affection. With Hector and Kira as his examples, it’s a miracle he could accept my love for him at all, even if he has no idea how to return it.

“I’m sorry, Caleb,” I say, and I do mean it. Kira, for everything else she was, was still Caleb’s mother. I had no intention of seeing her dead when I agreed to that meeting. I thought she meant to lecture me more. Maybe, secretly, I’d been hoping I could finally convince her to accept me.

I should have known that would never happen. I should have known she might turn to violence against me. Perhaps everything has been leading to this moment for some time.

“She’s the one who has been leaving you the threatening messages,” Caleb says. Perhaps he is just now realizing, or perhaps he has known all along. There’s no infliction in his voice to give away his meaning or intent.

“She is your mother,” I say.

“That’s no excuse,” Caleb says. He finally lifts his head up from my lap and looks me in the eye. “If I had known what she was planning…”

“There’s no way you could have known,” I say.

He shakes his head. “I had doubts. But I discarded them, thinking it the paranoia. I should have listened to my head. Frustrating as it can be, I’d rather think everyone against me, than to be wrong even once.”

“You don’t mean that,” I say.

“I do if the one time I’m wrong nearly costs me you,” he says. His gaze focuses so intently on me that I feel the breath punched from my lungs. His eyes are intense.

Caleb might not understand love, but there’s something a lot like it burning in his eyes, even if it is twisted and vicious.

“I don’t care if she was my mother. If I had seen her attacking you, I would have killed her myself.”