Chapter 6

Ronan's Point of View

While Lucian kept Cassandra talking, I concentrated on the room around us. I had already counted three entrances into the dining room. The main doors behind Father were the obvious route, while the servants used the smaller entrance leading towards the kitchen. A third door near the far wall opened into a hallway that eventually connected with the front hall.

Six Royal Guards were positioned throughout this part of the packhouse. Two outside the dining room, two near the main entrance and another pair covering the rear of the building. There were another six, supposedly resting, preparing to take over at shift change. Alpha Geoff's own warriors remained outside, although I had seen several moving through the grounds during dinner. I knew where every one of them was supposed to be.

I also knew how quickly I could get Mother and Father out of the room if something went wrong. The windows presented the weakest point. Too many of them, all facing the grounds, with enough trees beyond the courtyard to provide cover. I had already decided I wanted another guard outside before breakfast tomorrow. I'll rearrange schedules so the guards get enough rest.

Lucian could deal with Alpha Geoff and his family. He was good at that, and it allowed his statesmanship to show through. Kieran could watch the servants and listen to whatever they said when their Alpha wasn't paying attention. Gossip, as I called it, was how he got information on what was truly going on. I watched everything that could get someone killed. So far, nothing has happened.

My wolf was far less interested in any of it. For most of dinner, he had been pushing my attention towards the servants' side of the house. Each time I checked the doors, hallways and movement around us, he dragged my focus back in the same direction, always towards the kitchen, and somewhere beyond it.

Cassandra was still talking to Lucian when I pushed my chair back.

She stopped immediately. "Where are you going?"

"Washroom."

"I can show you where it is," she gushed.

She could. I had found it amusing when she went after Lucian, even though she had little chance of getting anywhere with him. She seemed willing to change targets because she was making a play for me right in front of him.

 By this point, her interest was clear. Any of us would do if it gave her a place within the Royal Family.

"I think I can manage." I walked away before she could offer to escort me personally.

The moment I entered the hallway, my wolf pushed harder. He had been restless since we entered the packhouse, but dinner had made him worse. Every few minutes, his attention had shifted towards the servants' side of the house. Lucian and Kieran had felt it as well.

I passed the washroom. The sounds of dinner faded as I continued towards the kitchen. Servants moved through the passage carrying trays, dishes and empty wine bottles. Several glanced at me before lowering their heads and continuing with their work.

I knew where each door led because I had studied the layout when we arrived. It was a habit of mine. I looked at the layout, the rooms, the entrances and exits. All of it was aimed at how secure our position was. After all, I commanded half of the Royal Guard. Entering an unfamiliar building without knowing the exits was something I had trained out of myself years ago.

The kitchen entrance stood ahead, but my wolf urged me past it. I continued and came to a set of stairs descending at the end of the hallway. This was most likely the cellar. Right here was where the pull strengthened.

I stopped. My wolf wanted me down there. As I took three steps towards the stairs, Beta Marcus appeared.

"Prince Ronan," he greeted, wearing a smile that never reached his eyes.

Interesting timing. I stopped several feet away and returned the same kind of smile. Marcus asked whether he could help me, so I told him I was looking for the washroom.

His gaze shifted towards the hallway behind me. "You passed it."

I turned to look behind momentarily. "Oh, so I did."

Marcus stayed where he was, and so did I.

The passage was wide enough for two men to pass each other easily. Beta Marcus had positioned himself in the centre of it, leaving me little room to reach the stairs without making him move. A Beta should have known better than to block a Royal Prince, especially one who commanded Royal Guards.

My wolf pushed again, wanting me to go down those stairs. Whatever had his attention was beneath us.

Marcus shifted his feet when I looked towards the stairs.

"What is down there?" I asked.

Marcus claimed the cellar was used for storage, mostly wine, food and household supplies. Nothing that explained why the pack Beta had appeared the moment my wolf pulled me towards the stairs.

I breathed in and caught the unease threaded through his scent. When I shifted slightly to look past him, Marcus moved half a step with me.

"How much wine does Alpha Geoff own?"

Marcus blinked. "A considerable amount."

"Enough to require his Beta to guard it?"

Something changed in his expression, gone quickly enough that I might have missed it if I hadn't been watching for exactly that.

"I wasn't aware I was guarding anything, Your Highness."

"Of course."

I smiled. Marcus didn't. He could call it storage and pretend his position in front of the stairs was accidental, but every time I moved, he blocked my path again. I had learned more from his feet than I had from anything he said.

My wolf wanted me to push past him, and I considered it. I could have ordered Marcus aside, and as a Royal Prince, I outranked him. As commander of half the Royal Guard, I could have put six of my wolves in this hallway within seconds. Unfortunately, that would tell Alpha Geoff exactly where our attention had landed. Father wanted the Raths comfortable enough to keep making mistakes. At least Beta Marcus was already making one.

"Thank you, Beta. I'll find the washroom."

His shoulders loosened as I turned away. I had taken several steps when my wolf fought me hard enough to make me stop. It wanted me to go back, and down those stairs.

I looked back. Marcus remained beside the cellar stairs, watching me. Someone was down there. Someone important. I couldn't prove it yet, but wine bottles didn't make my wolf behave like this.

I returned to the dining room. Cassandra had already resumed talking to Lucian about the gardens. Lucian looked ready to throw himself through the nearest window. As amusing as it was, I did feel sorry for him. She was truly repulsive.

I sat down, and Kieran looked at me.

"Well?" he asked through our link.

"Beta Marcus blocked the cellar stairs."

Lucian's attention shifted to me.

"Blocked?"

"Positioned himself directly between them and me."

"Your wolf?" Kieran asked.

"He wanted me downstairs."

Lucian's jaw hardened. "Mine does, too."

"So does mine," Kieran added.

I looked towards Mother. She was staring at the servants' doorway again. I was sure we had enough pieces of the puzzle to justify investigating harder. Alpha Geoff had lied about finding a dead infant near his boundary. Cassandra wore Sierra's necklace, as if she owned it. The Rath family had also found an abandoned infant and raised her inside this house. She was a wolfless girl, almost eighteen.

I found it interesting that she was wolfless. They hadn't said human. No, they said wolfless. She must have smelled like a shifter, but her wolf was dormant. All shifters had wolves, but on the rare occasion, their wolf would be dormant, unable to surface and shift. This was usually from some form of trauma, or in exceptionally rare cases, their wolves were sealed. That was extremely rare and sometimes involved dark magic. Either way, it was something that could be fixed with the help of healers and Moon Priests. I wondered why they hadn't helped her shift. Surely a functioning she-wolf was better than a wolfless pack member.

Stephanie was what they named her. Luna Mirella had interrupted before Cassandra could tell us where Stephanie had been found. That was another interesting fact. Added to the fact that a servant had entered the dining room looking for her because the kitchen needed her, and Marcus had positioned himself between me and the cellar. They were certainly trying to hide something. 

Our wolves wanted us downstairs, and mine was harassing me no end. Instead, I picked up my wineglass. We still hadn't seen Stephanie, and for all I knew, she could have nothing to do with Sierra. But I wanted to know why the Rath family seemed determined to keep us away from her.

Cassandra reached across Lucian and touched his arm again, and Kieran glanced down.

Lucian caught him. "Don't," he warned through our link.

Kieran's mouth twitched. "Fourteen."

Lucian swore at him, and I took a drink to hide my smile. Dinner continued for another hour. Father gave nothing away. Mother did almost as well, although her attention kept returning to the servants' doorway.

I spent the rest of dinner watching the Rath family and planning what would happen once we left the table. When we finally reached the Royal rooms, two of my guards were stationed outside.

Before anyone spoke, I removed a small black disc from the inside pocket of my jacket and placed it on the table beside the door. It was barely wider than two of my fingers and looked like polished metal.

I pressed my thumb against its centre. A faint vibration travelled through the floor beneath my boots as the runes around its edge lit one after another. Magic spread through the walls, ceiling and floor before the device gave a soft click. The room was now secure.

The disc was one of six made exclusively for the Royal Family. Each had cost more than most packhouses, combining spellwork from Royal Witches with technology developed by the Crown's engineers. Nothing spoken within its range could travel beyond the barrier–listening spells failed, and recording devices captured silence. Even someone standing with an ear against the other side of the door would hear nothing beyond the ordinary sounds the device created to replace our voices.

As far as the Kingdom knew, the devices didn't exist, and Father preferred it that way. People behaved very differently when they believed the Royal Family could still be overheard.

I glanced at the small green rune in the centre. It was active.

I turned to the senior one. "Every exit from this property stays watched. Front gates, service entrances, stables and every road leading off Rath land. Record everyone who leaves."

"Yes, Your Highness."

I added the rear service route to their coverage, with instructions to stay far enough back that the household wouldn't realise we had increased the number of guards watching the property. Anyone attempting to move a person off Rath territory was to be reported to me immediately, especially if that person was a young woman around eighteen who was supposedly wolfless. We didn't have a hair colour, height or even a reliable description of her build. For all the information Cassandra had given us, Stephanie was still little more than a name attached to a locked cellar.

The guards understood. They left, and Father waited for me to sit down again before linking. "What did you learn?"

Kieran dropped into one of the chairs. "Cassandra touched Lucian thirteen times."

"Fourteen," I corrected.

Lucian stared at me. Mother's mouth twitched.

"Can we concentrate?" Lucian asked.

Kieran assured him that we absolutely could, although the grin on his face suggested otherwise. Lucian ignored him and moved on to the useful part of Cassandra's conversation. Another young woman was living in the packhouse, a wolfless orphan the Raths claimed to have taken in as a baby.

Father went still at the head of the table, and immediately, Mother's expression became more serious. "What's her name?"

"Stephanie."

Mother looked at Father. The name meant nothing to either of them, which didn't surprise me. If the girl downstairs were Sierra, whoever had taken her would have been an idiot for continuing to use her real name.

Lucian had tried to find out where Stephanie had been found, but a servant had interrupted before Cassandra answered. The interruption had been interesting in itself. Something had gone wrong in the kitchen, and the servants needed Stephanie. Luna Mirella immediately stopped the conversation and made sure no one called for the girl again. That fitted with what I had seen afterwards.

"I followed my wolf towards the servants' hallway. He led me past the kitchen to the cellar stairs."

Father's attention shifted to me. I explained that I hadn't made it downstairs. Beta Marcus had appeared before I reached the stairs and planted himself directly in my path. Every time I changed position, he adjusted his, pretending we were having an ordinary conversation about where the washroom was. According to Marcus, the cellar contained wine and household supplies.

"His scent?" Father asked.

"Uneasy. There was fear underneath it."

Mother leaned forward slightly. "Your wolf wanted you down there?"

"Very much. He's been harassing me ever since. If he had his way, the Beta would be missing a throat, and we'd already know what's in that cellar."

My wolf gave a surge of satisfaction at the idea. He seemed to consider that an excellent plan.

Lucian and Kieran had felt their wolves react to Stephanie as well. That wiped away what remained of Mother's amusement. Father crossed to her and took her hand, and I understood what neither of them needed to explain. Their tether had brought them to Rath territory. Our wolves were pulling us towards the same part of the packhouse, and the Raths had an abandoned girl they seemed determined to keep away from the Royal Family.

Mother looked at Lucian. "How old is she?"

His expression changed. "Almost eighteen."