Chapter 101
Gideon’s POV
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If Justin wanted to take Darius out of prison and give him a cushy life in his pack, he was going to have to do it over my dead body. Both Daphne and Darius had been responsible for so much heartbreak in my family. Daphne might have escaped my judgment by being Justin’s fated mate, but I’d be damned before allow Darius to also sneak away.
Claire was dead. Leo had been nearly poisoned, and Raven had actually been poisoned. In addition to how Daphne had been treating Leo, and the plans she and her father had for me, was not feeling particularly generous toward he entire family.
“Darius isn’t going anywhere,” I said firmly. “Daphne has already been exempt from justice. You cannot ask me to also pardon her father, who has also done my family and me wrong?
“I am not asking for his pardon, merely for his transfer to my pack and my judgement,” Justin said, narrowing his eyes.
“And you will give him just punishment?” I asked, doubt creeping into my voice and surely on my face as well. “You will ensure he faces justice for what he has done?”
“I will consider the facts,” Justin said.
“Whose facts? The facts of reality or the lies that Daphne tells you?”
Justin growled low. “Do not insult my mate.”
His reaction made his position clear. If I turned Darius over to him, the man would be walking free in an hour.
“She’s already told you lies,” I said. “She was never mistreated in my jail, and neither is her father.”
“I will believe the word of my fated mate over yours,” he replied.
“Then maybe you’d like to see for yourself.” I couldn’t win against his blind, misguided loyalty toward his fated mate, but I could show him the truth and hope he would believe his own two eyes over the lies whispered sweetly in his ear.
“You’ll take me to him?” Justin asked.
“I’d be happy to show you. Then you can make your own judgements.”
Justin glanced at Daphne.
“What say you, my love?” he asked her. “I suspect this will be a waste of time…”
“I’d like to see my father, darling,” Daphne said back. She touched her hand to his chest, toying lightly with one of the ties of his tunic. “May I? Please?”
Justin folded immediately. “Of course, my love.”
I didn’t know whether to be impressed by Daphne’s manipulative hold over Justin, or deeply disturbed by it.
I settled on both.
But it was also a bad omen for any relations between our packs come. Our alliance was holding on by a thread. Whatever was happening here today wasn’t going to help things. I suspected if Justin was forced to leave here without his father–in–law that our precarious alliance was going to break entirely.
Yet, even knowing that, I still wasn’t willing to turn Darius over.
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Chapter 101
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“I will show you the way,” I said, and gestured toward the door. A they moved there, I looked to Raven, who had been standing quietly and sternly at my side. “You may stay behind, Raven.”
Raven’s gaze snapped sharply to me. Typically, in front of guests she obeyed without question. Privately, she might speak her mind, but publically, she was usually poised and composed.
Today, however, she spoke with defiance, “Forgive me, Alpha, but I will not leave you unguarded with that woman.”
I had plenty of other guards, but perhaps she meant guards I could trust. Yes, those were few and far between. But what did she think would happen? That Justin and Daphne would murder me in cold blood to steal her father away?
That didn’t seem likely.
“Raven…”
“I must insist, Alpha. For your own good.”
I looked towards our guests at the door, to see Daphne glancing back at us. She was smirking self–satisfyingly, in a way that was incredibly frustrating. Knowing she unnerved us must have been so gratifying for her.
To Raven, I said, “Fine.”
I led the group to the prison and then through the corridors to the cell that Darius kept by himself. His conditions were fine. His cell was clean. He even had some books to keep him occupied. He must have just been fed, because there was a tray and empty dishes near the barred door.
“Alpha,” Darius said, spotting me first. “To what do I owe this – Daphne.”
He had been resting on his bed, reading, but the moment he saw his daughter, he placed his book to the side, stood, and walked toward the bars of his cell.
“You look well, Daphne,” he said. “Is this your paramour?”
“This is Justin, my fated mate,” Daphne said.
Justin reached between the bars to shake Darius’s hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir. We’ve been trying to negotiate your transfer to my pack and my judgment, but I’m afraid your Alpha is stubborn.”
“You can see him there,” I said. Raven loomed at my side, watchful. “You can see that he is unharmed and that his cell is adequate. No one is being mistreated here.”
“I told Justin everything, Father,” Daphne said quickly. “How your typical conditions are so much worse than this.”
Darius looked around. “Yes, they moved me here just now. I thought they were finally showing mercy, but I can see now it was just a ruse to fool you into thinking this is how I’m always treated.”
“That’s a lie!” Raven snapped.
More calmly, though with growing agitation, I said, “Darius has been kept in this cell, like this, from the start of his. imprisonment. He was never kept anywhere else or in any other conditions.”
“They’ll say anything to convince you,” Darius said, adding an annoying layer of desperation to his voice. “But once you are gone, they will throw me back into a hole. A room with no windows, where I am tortured, starved, and beaten.”
“Show them your bruises if you are beaten,” Raven said.
“He has none,” I agreed. “What he is telling you are lies.”
I wanted to reason with Justin. He was here. He should be able to see for himself that this room was well lived–in. Darius had
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Chapter 101
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been here for a while, not just an hour. His personal effects were everywhere. The bed had been slept in. The empty dishes were still by the door of the cell.
Justin must have seen all that, his eyes scanning the room.
Yet…
“Don’t listen to them, darling.” Daphne said. She grabbed onto fustin’s arm with both of hers, and curled her body against him. Looking up at him through her eyelashes, she whispered, “Who are you going to believe? Me and my poor abused father? Or the people who hate us so much they would do anything to hurt us?”
“I am an honorable Alpha,” I said. “I do not dole out punishments for personal vendettas. Daphne and her father have betrayed their own pack. They are traitors and-”
“Even if that is true, which I doubt, that is still no reason to treat them like animals,” Justin said, glaring at me. “I had always thought you the honorable Alpha you claim to be, Gideon. But more and more, I am presented with evidence to the contrary.”
I grimaced. This was not going as I’d hoped, but rather as I’d feared.
This could be the end of our alliance.
