“Vote for what? The person they believe is the most innocent! You’re going to let people at home who have never met Ryan decide his fate!”
“No,”
“Then what the hell are they voting for!”
“Who they want to be their leader,”
“What?!” I shouted.
“Yes, Lucas and Orion will discuss the kidnapping event that took place and for the second portion Lucas and Ryan will explain their ideas as leaders. We can’t tell who is lying at this point so now the werewolf community is simply going to have to choose their new leader. Even if you hadn’t been kidnapped, we would’ve resorted to this. We can’t force a rogue king upon a world of pack-based wolves. So now, they get to choose who they wish to have as their leader. We may have a monarchy, but we are always at the will of the people, Adeline,”
“No! It’s never been that way!” I argued. “This is anarchy! Ryan and I are the rightful heirs to the throne and everyone knows that.”
“Adeline,” Ryan whispered into my ear, “They aren’t going to listen to you; you have to let me try. Either way we will be okay.”
He sounded solid and certain but I wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 53
I was in between my parents as the event began and I was furious about it. They had repeatedly explained to me that I was not to partake in the trial as this was not about me, this was about the werewolf community choosing who they deemed fit to run the governmental system. This wasn’t about what happened in the forest, or who tried to kill the princess- which was a pretty big deal in my mind.
This was my parents’ way of throwing in the white flag and standing back, letting the people be responsible for their own demise. They knew that the werewolves didn’t want a rogue as a king, but they also knew that having an alpha as a king was not what the moon goddess intended and it could also end badly. The king and queen just didn’t want to be burdened with the choice in front of them and the consequences that would come with it.
I looked at my mother on my right. She didn’t look as beautiful as she once had. Now she looked tired and frustrated. It was a harsh change from the woman who always presented herself as in control and collected. But now, in front of every werewolf in the country, she looked like she could fall apart at any given moment.
My father didn’t look much better. He was always smiling and laughing, but in this moment he too looked exhausted. Having a daughter mated to a rogue was taking a massive toll on him. His eyes were dull and I even noticed a few grey hairs peeking through this dark brown locks. He had aged so much in such a short time and seeing him like that would’ve broken my heart if I wasn’t so furious with these people.
I had nearly been murdered and rather than trying to protect me like good parents would, they simply sat back for the time being. What if Lucas was guilty of attempted murder, but elected king anyway? What would happen then? Would he even face any consequences?
And my outrage was only furthered when Lucas was the first one to speak out to the public while my mate was locked away in waiting.
“You can force him to tell the truth,” I hissed at my mother.
“We forced all three men to tell the truth and not one of the stories changed. We wouldn’t be doing it this way if we had other options, Adeline,” my mother replied quietly.
Lucas walked into the courtroom with three armed guards surrounding him tightly. Everyone knew he was a prisoner, or as close as he could be to one, but he still walked with his head held high, straightened his tie and looked to be nothing less than mildly displeased with the situation. He wasn’t squirming or sweating and one of the guards even bowed to him slightly when he showed him the chair he would be testifying from. I let out a feral snarl at this until my dad gave me a light jab in the ribs with his elbow and I regained what little composure I had left.
And then Lucas began telling his side of the story. But he didn’t start with the morning I went missing. He started on the night that Ares had attacked his pack.
I wanted to leap to my feet and defend my mate, but I decided to keep my mouth shut and listen instead. I was not to be talking, I was here only to be a figurehead and I understood that now. In addition to this I was not completely heartless and I felt my heart drop in my chest when he spoke about the night when he lost his mate. The whole night had been one terrible and gruesome act. He talked about everything that his pack had lost and I watched the werewolves in the room soften with compassion and heartache. One of the biggest fears for any werewolf was losing a mate and Lucas had lived it.
Eventually, he finished with his sob story and moved on to the correct day. He basically said that he had been with his father, searching the woods to try and help find me after they heard of my disappearance and Ryan’s escape and they had come across my limp body tied to a tree and my mate aggressively groping my body, nearly sexually assaulting me.
“That’s false,” I said firmly, causing the whole room to turn towards me in shock.
Lucas looked annoyed, but otherwise tried to continue telling his version of the story.
“I was conscious when Ryan arrived. I can’t testify against anything else really, but I was awake for that part and I can honestly say he looked relieved to even see me alive. Now please continue, with the truth,” I snarled.
Lucas glared at me, much like Preston had always done, then turned to my mother liked a kicked puppy. I waited for my mother to scold me in front of all these people and on live television, but she didn’t. Instead she just nodded her head to Lucas and put a comforting hand on my arm.
Lucas disregarded my comment though and proceeded to lie through his teeth as he carried on. He claimed that I had been screaming at Ryan to leave me alone, that I wanted nothing to do with him. He even said that Ryan had injected me with some drug, silver he thought, to force me to forget the whole encounter and blame the incident on himself and his entirely innocent father.
I felt my blood boil within me, but didn’t say a word. I just clenched my fists tightly by my sides.
Finally, after what felt like a century and a half, Lucas was dismissed. The three guards surrounded him again and carefully led him out of the room.
I expected that Ryan would be brought in immediately after, but my mother stood up, causing all eyes to drift to her.
“Now, before Orion can come in and defend himself against the accusations, we will hear from the princess as she will be cross examined by our investigator,”
My hands instantly got clammy at the idea. I knew Ryan would be testifying for himself soon. But I didn’t want to be held responsible for saying something wrong. This was all a very delicate situation and if I got one fact wrong it could jeopardize our entire case. The masses would think we were nothing but liars trying to protect ourselves and Lucas would be voted in as the king. I would no longer be a princess and certainly not a queen. Ryan and I would be exiled, and who knows what would happen to us after that.
“Do you admit that you were unconscious throughout the majority of the event?” the investigator asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“So you don’t know who was responsible for removing you from royal grounds?”
“That is correct,”
“So what makes you believe that it wasn’t Orion or someone working for him?”
“If he were ever wanted to drug me I highly doubt he would end up tying me to tree in the middle of the forest. Realistically, he would take me back to his packlands or a human city where werewolves wouldn’t find us. Tying me to a tree was simply a bait and catch tactic,” I explained.
“And you feel that Orion wasn’t trying to use you as ‘bait’,” he pressed.
“Bait for who?” I challenged back, “All the people he wanted to avoid in the first place like my parents and the guards?”
“Orion has kidnapped you before,”
“False, if anything I kidnapped him. I think that everyone in this room who knows me would understand that if I don’t
want something, I won’t do it,”
I saw my dad in the corner of my eye cover his mouth to hide a laugh. At least someone in the room believed me.
“So what reason would Lucas have for using you as bait?”
“Killing my mate and becoming a hero.” I spat.
Chapter 54
Lucas was ushered out of the courtroom almost immediately after my comment. I was thrilled by the fact that no one in the room gave him an opportunity to defend himself. I was even more delighted that my parents hadn’t sighed and tried to scold me for having such a brash accusation. Perhaps it didn’t mean that Ryan and I were going to win this trial, but it certainly was a good sign as far as I was concerned. A little victory could always lead onward to more triumphs.
At least that’s what I told myself until Ryan was led in by a guard.
His head hung low as he slugged across the floor and the room was completely silent. I didn’t see pity or concern in anyone’s eyes. People weren’t looking at him like he was a man who had nearly been killed in an effort to save their future queen.
They looked at him like he was already a convicted criminal. And I suppose, in their heads, he already was. They didn’t know the truth about him, and after he had murdered Ares he hadn’t bothered to come forward with the truth because if people no longer feared his pack they might’ve attacked it. Now it was too late and there was a heavy chance that no one would believe the confession now.
Ryan sat down and met my eyes from across the room which made my heart pound in desperation. I had grown up around crowds of people who just wanted to gawk, stare, and judge. He had grown up in nearly isolation. And now, in front of all these people he had never met, he had to prove his innocence. And if he failed both of our lives would change.
But once he started talking he seemed to relax slightly.
He explained the whole event. He told everyone in the room that someone had rushed around the ground above and exclaimed that the princess had disappeared. Of course, there had been no one in the prison to confirm his story, but Ryan continued on without missing a beat.
He admitted that he had broken out of the cell, and that he knew it had been a risky thing to do, that there would be consequences for that. He also told everyone that he had to find me, he worried that someone had kidnapped me to harm me and he even confessed that he was concerned his pack had somehow lured me to their lands and was holding me hostage until their alpha was returned.
He explained that he had run for hours, following my scent as best as he could. He was nearly certain that if we hadn’t been mates not even the best trackers would’ve been able to find me as my scent had been masked somehow. That made everyone raise an eyebrow, but I wasn’t sure if it was disbelief or concern.
The trial paused when I noticed my mother beside me swoon slightly. At first I thought she was just so upset her body was beginning to faint, but then I saw a slightly different colour to her complexion.
“I’m fine,” she whispered to me.
“You are not,” my father piped up, then waved to a guard, “Take her to our bedroom and have a doctor look at her as well. We will continue the trial without you,”
“I need to be here,” my mom snapped when a guard delicately grabbed her elbow. “This is my kingdom,”
“You need rest,” my father ordered, then nodded at the hesitant guard.
The trial quickly resumed after my mother had been escorted out. Ryan went on perfectly, telling everyone how I looked when he had first spotted me, and he did admit to being thrilled to see me alive and had peppered me with kisses and tried to hold me tight, but claimed it had been nowhere near sexual assault.
No one seemed to believe him, I could see it all on their faces, but I still nodded in agreement at every comment. And I didn’t do it just because he was my mate; I did it because every word he said matched with the memories that had been locked in my mind. But when he continued about Preston showing up with his dear son and their failed attempt to kill me, I saw clear doubt in everyone’s face. The only part that people seemed to believe was when Ryan told everyone that the queen had shown up, then my father. And I’m certain they only believed that because my father was nodding along with me.
I realized then that in the eyes of the werewolves in the room, it was a violent rogue’s word against someone who was a very public face of the royal guard. Everyone trusted Preston which now meant that they trusted Lucas and all of his false claims.
Unfortunately, I had already spoken more than I had been allowed to at this trial so I simply let out a heavy sigh when the first part of the trial ended and the group of werewolves escaped into a room to discuss what had just happened. I knew it was too optimistic to hope that they would ever be able to see my mate in a positive light and I felt like I had somehow let down my mate.
Chapter 55
There was a long intermission as the werewolves in the room all moved to another location, the cameras following them as they did so. I watched all of them move around, most of them looking quite confused and others looking almost bored with the situation.
I had to bite my tongue yet again, but I didn’t understand how they could be so apathetic about the situation in front of them. Even if they didn’t care about me and my mate at all, they should at least be mildly concerned with who would be their leader at the end of the day. Or maybe they looked bored because they had already decided that my mate was just a useless rogue and I was hardly any better since I was defending him.
My father sat quietly beside me, not saying a word throughout the entire time and I didn’t bother to start a conversation either. I was too upset. He was part of the reason this was happening. All he had to do was say that he believed me, that he thought my story lined up with Ryan’s and he wasn’t prepared to have a man who might’ve been a horrendous murderer as the werewolves’ new leader. But he didn’t do that and neither had my mother. Now it was up to the people who had no idea who my mate actually was.
Eventually the trial resumed and I let out a small sigh of relief, no longer having to sit in an awkward silence with my father. But I was surprised when I saw Ryan being led back into the room. I had assumed Lucas would go first, but then I began to worry that Lucas would somehow be able to counteract every word Ryan said. And when I looked at the werewolves who had re-entered the room I could tell that there was very little compassion in their hearts for the man in front of them.
Ryan looked ten times more confident than I felt when he sat down, his eyes locked on the crowd.
“Welcome back,” a man announced
He was normally one of our higher ranking guards, but I understood that he would be the person asking all the tough questions that the rest of us were too involved to utter.
“Thank you,” Ryan replied quickly.
“Were you or were you not the alpha of a rogue pack?”
“I was and still am an alpha, though I would hardly deem my pack to be rogues,” Ryan answered, hardly batting an eye.
I watched some members of the audience roll their eyes at his response. I wanted to snarl at them for being so disrespectful, but I merely ended up clenching the arm rests of my seat. This was not my place to make a scene, Ryan could handle himself.
“Why did the king and queen have you imprisoned, not once, but twice?”
Ryan chuckled to himself softly. “Well, the first time I had been put in the prison was because I essentially stormed the castle. Adeline and I had met previously, but she was unable to tell her parents about us. So she and her parents planned a gala to find her a suitable alpha that could also become a king in the future. Obviously, I was not pleased as we both knew she was my mate, so I put on my best clothes and attempted to get into the gala. Guards intercepted my beta and I as soon as I stepped foot into their territory. There was a small scuffle, nothing awful, but I did end up in the jail,”
“And you decided it would be wise to break out of the prison?”
“It was Adeline’s idea, a
nd I was not going to forfeit an opportunity to be with my mate after I found out she was considering other men.”
“And you ended up back in prison how?”
“We were found,” Ryan explained. “If I’m being honest I think the king and queen knew where we were for quite a while, but they wanted us to make the first move, to slip up, or to admit that we weren’t actually mates and come crawling back, but we were happy so they eventually came to us and once they found us, I was put in handcuffs and into a lower security cell,”
“Which you thought you should break out of?” the guard challenged.
Ryan suddenly became very serious, his light expression falling away quickly. “Of course I broke out. My mate was in trouble, no one knew where she was or what had happened to her. And god bless I had managed to get out because nobody knows what would’ve happened to her if I hadn’t been able to damage the hinges enough to dismantle the door,” Ryan claimed.
“Anyone in this room that has a mate and a heart knows that they would do the same thing for them, without a doubt, regardless of the consequences,”
The guard nodded, but his expression didn’t change so I couldn’t tell if he was actually approving of what my mate was saying or if he was just trying to be polite.
When I glanced around the room at the audience I could see that the majority of them looked just as blank. Not bored, exactly, just confused, not sure if they should give their sympathy or raise their pitch forks, but I suppose uncertainty was a step in the right direction.
“The king sent guards to contain you and bring you back to the palace for questioning. None of my men returned. What happened to them?”
I nearly objected, claiming that the question came from personal issues. But when I saw my father leaning forward and many werewolves in the audience doing the same, I decided it was best to keep my mouth shut.
The Princess and the Alpha: A Shifter Romance Page 21