Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
My father’s blood seeps across the dark stone, pooling near the tip of Dane’s boots, and all I can do is stare.
“Rem!” Weston’s cry sounds distant beneath the ringing in my ears. In the corner of my eye, I see him lunge forward toward the dais, only to be hauled backward by a slew of guards as he fights to reach his king.
Dane lowers himself, crouching down until he can reach my father. Roughly grasping his cheeks, he jerks my father’s pained face upward and sneers down at him.
“You took her away from me. All these years, I’ve suffered, waiting and wanting her back. But now, I am happy knowing that in your last moments, you’ll die knowing she’s finally mine, and there isn’t a thing you can do about it.”
My father’s eyes fall closed, and the breath leaves my chest.
“Hold him back!” Brynne barks, and I tear my eyes away from my dying father to find Weston. I watch in horror as he thrashes against the guards with pure anguish engulfing his face, as they land blow after blow.
But I can’t move. I can’t do anything.
My body is numb.
My mind is blank.
My father is gone.
The moment that I’ve simultaneously dreaded and waited for has finally arrived.
I am the queen.
This is my kingdom.
But only if we survive.
Dane rises and turns slowly, his attention no longer on the fallen king. I push through the horror that I feel seeping into my bones, and find my voice, no matter how shaky it is. Filled with rage, filled with fear, I don’t know. But I can’t stay silent any longer.
“So you mean to kill me too?” I ask, hardening my gaze at Dane through the tears pooling in my eyes.
He scoffs. “Did you finally just figure it out? Took you long enough.”
“Why? If all you want is my mother, why kill him? Why kill me?”
He gestures to the ceiling, and his obsessive expression returns instantly. “It’s not as if she can just walk out of here with me.”
Pain erupts in my tongue as I bite down on it.
He knows where she’s kept.
But does he know just because Brynne passed that information to him? Or is she actually still alive? Still holding on?
“If I’m going to have her,” he continues, “I have to have it all. This castle will be mine. This kingdom will be mine, all because she will be.”
“It won’t be yours. No one will believe you just took over the kingdom. No one will trust you!” I spit at him, but his lips just turn up into a slow smirk, and he shakes his head.
“Oh, Lennox. Sometimes I forget how na?ve you were. You still are. You think you can see beneath the surface. Plans, motivations, the person hiding in plain sight, but you don’t. You only see what you want to see, you stupid, selfish, useless girl.”
“Don’t listen to him, Lennox,” Weston yells before there’s a thud, followed by Weston’s deep grunt.
“You’re wrong,” I say, trying to keep my voice firm, trying to block out the spite and cruelty in Dane’s words, as well as the sound of Weston being beaten next to me.
But it’s too much. The feelings all of it evokes are too much to squash, and I can’t stop the quivering from the lump forming in my throat.
“I am not wrong. All that time spent in the library, you were too focused on the useless information in front of you, and distracted by your little crush on the first man that paid you any attention. You never once looked at what I was reading.”
My face burns as he descends from the dais, taking each step one at a time, his vile grin widening as he speaks.
“While you were searching for an answer in the books that I had already poured through and found nothing, I was reading other things. The laws of Blackwood, for instance. Did you know that if the king dies, and there is no heir, the throne passes to the closest living relative?”
I set my jaw, glaring at him as he takes another step, but don’t answer.
Of course I know the law. Edmond made sure I knew every law in my kingdom.
How else am I to be queen and know how to govern the people?
But I never gave this one a second thought.
I exist. I’m living and breathing and standing in the throne room, my throne room, so the crown would go to me.
There would be no need to enact the law.
Unless I didn’t exist any longer.
Dane has made it clear since the moment the doors to this room were chained shut that this is his ultimate goal.
Eliminate anything or anyone standing in his way.
“So you want the throne?”
He ignores my question and continues his rant. “I tried to take the easy way, trapping you there, removing one of the two people standing in my way. But you had to come back. That stupid place had to give you a way, didn’t it? Well, there’s no magic here, and it can’t help you any longer.”
“Even if you kill me,” I grind out, “you still don’t get what you want. You can’t just take the kingdom because you want it.”
He chuckles softly. “Oh, but I do. I get everything. Even though she doesn’t wake, she’s still alive. The last living relative.”
I suck in a gasp.
This kingdom will be mine, all because she will be.
“When you die, Lyla becomes the queen, and has no one left but me. Now, in her state, she obviously cannot be acting queen, so the role would fall to me. As king.”
Chaos whirls in my chest as I try to fight my way through Dane’s plan. There has to be something he hasn’t thought of, some logic that would stop him from getting what he wants, and subsequently would keep me alive. If I can just keep him talking, I’ll have more time to figure something out.
“You aren’t together. You never were. The kingdom will never accept you as king!” I yell.
His face turns feral as he all but snarls at me.
“If we weren’t together, then why would I have this?
” Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a fist before extending it toward me, opening his hand so I can see what sits in the middle of his palm.
A golden ring, fit with a deep red stone, glitters in the flickering light, and my eyes snap to his when I realize what it is.
My mother’s missing wedding ring.
The one that disappeared the night I was born, the ring that was never seen again, after Dane tried to take her away from her home.
He has had it the entire time.
“Where did you get that?” I say as fury bubbles within me, seeping into my voice.
“As far as the kingdom needs to know, Lyla gave it to me. Trapped in a forced and loveless marriage, she gave me what was supposed to be a symbol of devotion, promising herself to me. I’ll tell them all about her dreams for a life she wished we had together.
They’ll hear about how she was a hostage to the king, burdened with a child he forced her to bear. ”
My chest heaves with shortened breaths as every word Dane speaks makes my blood boil. I read my mother’s words. I know she and my father were overjoyed with the opportunity to have a child. He is spewing lies, and I have evidence that would refute every claim.
“I’ll tell them of the vows she spoke to me,” he says, his face turning down in a mock frown, “and I to her, pledging our love and devotion in sickness and in health. It’s why I waited all these years, despite her condition, for Remington to finally be gone and fulfill my promise to her.
With this ring, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind she is mine, and I am hers, the one she truly chose before her fateful accident.
And when both of you are gone, and the title falls to her, it thus falls to me.
” He steps off the final stair, stopping so close that I can reach out and touch him with my manacled wrists, before bending down, and lowering his face to mine until we share a breath.
“I will spend the rest of my days at her side, never giving up. I will find a way to heal her.” He points behind him at my father’s lifeless body, and grits his teeth, grinding out his words. “I won’t ever let her go, not like he was going to. Never!”
“No one will believe you! A piece of jewelry proves nothing!”
His responding chuckle sends chills down my spine. “Oh, I know they will, because there won’t be anyone around to tell them any different. No heir, no First Guard, no king. And every single person in this castle and this kingdom will follow my orders.”
“But Dane, I thought—” Brynne staggers forward, her voice shaky as she stammers.
Our heads pivot toward her, and I take in the hardened guard, the commander of Blackwood who betrayed me this morning.
The fallen look on her face says she is finally realizing that I am not the only one who has been betrayed.
Dane laughs a cold, soulless laugh. “Did you really think I was going to let you be queen, Briony? I just needed you. You would never sit on that throne. There is only one woman for me, and if you couldn’t grasp that, you are just as na?ve as she is.”
Her mouth falls open as her eyes turn glassy, the realization striking her that everything she thought she would get from betraying me, from betraying my father, was all a lie.
Dane gestures to Storm, who moves across the room to stand next to Brynne, his hand on a sword in his belt in an obvious threat.
“Now, where were we?” Dane says, turning back to me before his gaze slides over to Weston, who is still behind me, held down by at least six guards. My stomach falls as Dane saunters in front of him, towering over Weston as the guards force him to his knees.
“I thought I got rid of you once, but it turns out you aren’t easy to kill.
I won’t make the same mistake this time.
” Dane reaches for the hilt of the knife covered in my father’s blood that is secured at his side, the same one that almost killed Weston before, that he threw into the fire when I tried to pry it from his hands.
The rage I felt moments ago instantly turns into debilitating terror, knowing that this monster has no qualms about brutality and no care for a life other than his own. I don’t think, I just act, doing anything I can to stop him from taking Weston away from me.
“Dane! No! Please!” I scream, my voice cracking as I throw myself toward Weston, only to be stopped by a guard’s arm wrapping firmly around my waist. Sobs wrench my chest as now I’m the one thrashing against his hold, kicking and throwing my bound hands anywhere I can harm them, trying to get loose.
To get to Weston. “Please let him go! I’ll do whatever you want!
I’ll sign anything, I’ll give you everything! Just please don’t kill him!”
“Lennox, no!” Weston commands, his jaw tight and his brows drawn as he stares Dane down above him. Dane’s hand halts, the tip of the knife hovering over Weston’s chest as it heaves up and down with ragged breaths.
I don’t stop, don’t listen to him telling me not to try anything to save his life. I can’t live anymore without him, can’t watch Dane kill him like I watched him kill my father. I throw myself to the ground, trying to use my weight to break the guard’s grip, but it is no use.
So instead, I beg.
“Please Dane! I’ll do anything! Anything! Just let him go!”
“Lennox!” Weston yells again, in warning, before his voice lowers to a deadly grumble. “Listen to me. She will disappear. I will make sure of it. You can have it all, and you’ll never hear from us again. Just let her go. Please, Dane. Lyla wouldn’t want it.”
“You know nothing about what Lyla wants,” Dane snaps, and Weston shakes his head, unwavering.
“That’s not true. Lyla wanted her.”
Dane doesn’t move, as if he’s actually considering Weston’s offer. I can barely breathe as time stills, and it feels like an eternity before Dane’s head swivels between the two of us.
His face twists into a terrifying smile. “You know what? I actually like this idea better.”
Weston’s shoulders sink almost imperceptibly, and I know exactly what he is feeling, but he doesn’t want to show it.
Relief.
He doesn’t want Dane to see how his change of heart has affected us both, because it would only prove to him how much control he has over us. Weston doesn’t want to give him that power.
“Where are the keys?” Dane asks, glancing between the faces of the surrounding guards.
Park steps forward and produces the keyring, placing it over Dane’s outstretched fingers.
Turning his back on Weston, Dane steps in front of me, reaching down to grab my manacles and proceeds to shove the key in the small hole.
The iron clanks as it falls open, and Dane tosses it to the ground at my feet.
“Yes, this will definitely be better.” Dane grabs my arm, his grip crushing as he jerks me forward and leads me up the steps to the dais until we are standing just before my throne.
Dane’s voice softens to a dangerous coo. “He never got any punishment for the role he played in all of this. I accept your offer, Lennox. I’ll let him live.”
My knees threaten to give out beneath me as his words sink in.
Gratitude isn’t a feeling I ever thought I would feel toward this man, not after everything he’s done.
But at this moment, I do. He’s agreed to spare Weston’s life, and the cost means nothing to me.
I would gladly give up my title and my throne if it means he can live.
We will do exactly as Weston said, and disappear forever, and I can only hope that the gods will give this evil man everything he deserves for as many people that he has harmed.
Maybe our actions, giving him exactly what he wants, will put an end to his immoral behavior.
Even if I can never see my mother again, I know after reading her words and hearing Weston’s stories, she would never want me to succumb to Dane’s wrath.
“I think it’s a perfect punishment,” Dane continues, his voice louder this time so not only I can hear it.
“Fitting, for all the havoc he’s caused for me and all the opportunities he took away.
” He reaches up and gently swipes a lock of hair off my face, and I try not to cringe beneath his touch.
His head tilts to the side as his face breaks into a joyous grin.
“The only punishment worse than dying is to watch you die.”
“No!” Weston roars from somewhere behind me in the same moment that Dane’s hands wrap around my throat.