Chapter 214

Looking out the window, I watch as the car follows the winding tunnel road up and out of the underground.

Caleb and I sit in the back seat while a driver sits up front, hidden from us, and us from him behind a partition.

The view sends me back to the last time Caleb and I left the capital behind, when we had hidden in the backseat of a car while Tristan had rushed us away from all danger.

We owe Tristan so much. For too long he’s been trapped away from us. At least now we were finally doing something to help rescue him from sad fate.

“You are thinking about the last time,” Caleb says. Glancing at him, I find him staring back at me. He reads me so well. It’s like he’s attuned to my, body and soul.

If only I was his fated mate…

No sense thinking about that now.

“I was,” I say. “Our time at the farm might have been borne of unfortunate circumstances, but the memories we made there… They are some of my favorite.”

Caleb hums. Then, he reaches over and takes my hand in his. They sit on the seat in the space between us, our fingers curled around each other. Caleb brushes his thumb over mine.

“When the war is over,” Caleb says, “I’d like to buy you a farmhouse. Maybe, during peacetime, we can vacation there, just the two of us.”

I doubt anything would be truly just the two of us, but if the guards protecting us stay outside of the main house, I will be happy enough. I would still be able to pretend, and for those few short days, I’d have Caleb mostly to myself.

This pleases me to no end, yet what gives me even more pleasure is the realization that Caleb can see a future for us, one that is so strong that he is making plans for our vacations.

I can’t hope for marriage. There’s no way it can be truly possible between a King and his consort. But, even without marriage, so long as we are together, I will be happy. Our future can still be happy without marriage. Even unmarried, we’d be no-less committed as a couple.

Caleb’s recent disbandment of his harem proves that.

Things would be so nice, I would be so happy. But first we must survive the war.

I decide not to tell Caleb any of these things. I have no idea what he’s ready for, and I’m not willing to press my luck, not even for this.

Caleb and I keep holding hands as the car ascends the tunnel, and then as it drives across the country. The trip takes hours, but I just keep staring out the window, with Caleb stoic and supportive beside me.

Eventually, we reach the border to Gladys’s pack lands, where a line of armed men block the road.

I tense up, worried about what’s about to happen. Is a fight about to break out? Seeing the size of the guns the soldiers have, I’m immediately grateful that Caleb made me wear the body armor. Though, if the bullets are a bit high, the vest would no good.

Caleb squeezes my hand as if he can sense my distress.

“No harm will come to you,” he says to me. “Not will I breathe.”

Such a simple promise, yet it does its job nicely. Immediately, I start to calm down, relaxing with my trust in him.

The lead car must clear the checkpoint, because all of the following cars, including ours, are waved through the line of armed guards without issues.

The guards glare at the dark-tinted windows. I know they cannot see through them, so they can’t see me sitting inside of this car. Yet still I feel like I lock eyes with one of them, like they can still see me sitting here in this car.

Jason’s warnings come back to me. Samuel is obsessed with you.

Given how he’s treated me in the past, that could be true. Samuel took my rejection hard, and even abandoned Leah, never to try to retrieve her again.

So, if the rebellion he is controlling is working closely with Gladys and probably Hector, then I really am in danger every step I take in this pack land. Gladys likely only requested me to be here specifically for this purpose. Caleb probably already knew that, which was why he was twitchy about this from the start.

However, for whatever the reason, I didn’t think about it until just this moment. And right now, it’s shaking me to my car.

When we finally reach the estate, the car pulls up and around a long driveway before stopping in front of a mansion as big as the palace. At least, the parts of the palace that could be seen above ground. Underground, the palace dug deep into the earth.

Though, without taking the stairs down in this mansion, I couldn’t have any idea where the bottom is.

“Stay near me,” Caleb says. He opens his door and slides out of his seat first. He keeps holding my hand, bringing me with him. When he exits the car, I quickly following him, not wanting to strain our hold on each other.

Outside of the car, I immediately feel the weight of many eyes pushing down on me, watching me from all directions.

A stairwell leads up to the main entrance of the estate. A butler in a tuxedo waits for us at the top of the stair. He’s a man in his thirties, with wide shoulders and thick muscle. He looks more like he trained for the military than dedicated his life to service.

From the feel of how Caleb tenses, I imagine I’m closer to the mark there than I want to be.

“I will lead you to the sitting room where Lady Gladys is waiting,” the butler says, without introduction or welcome. As a servant, I had been trained on the basics of servitude, and introductions and welcomes are a big part of that.

This man is no butler.

Still, we, as well with the six guards Caleb brought with us, enter into the mansion. We follow the butler to a large sitting room, where an older woman sits on a high-back gray chair. She is smartly dressed in a formal black gown. Her shock of gray hair is stylish and short. Her face is severe, her eyes glaring through her cat-eye glasses.

She waits for us to enter before standing. She’s thin, but not frail. She stands with the kind of pride that usually only members of the royal family can display. Though, because she is married to Hector, maybe she learned it in time.

She looks us both over.

“Welcome to my home, Alpha King Caleb,” she says.

Caleb makes no response, has no outward reaction.

Then Gladys looks over to me. Her gaze slides down the full length of me, and she doesn’t seem at all pleased with what she sees.

“And you must be Harper,” she says.

“That’s right,” I reply, standing up straighter, not wanting her to know how much she unnerves me.

She hums in a way I cannot discern the meaning of.

“Welcome to you both,” she says with a tight-lipped smile.

I can’t tell if she means it.