“Let’s wrap this up. Helena Carter—or whoever you are—you’re under arrest for several breaches of the conduct reform. Jamison will be coming with us; do you have anyone you could leave the little one with?”
Distraught as she was, the woman could barely manage to shake her head. “There’s…there’s no one.”
“She’ll come with us then. We might be able to find somewhere to house her while we get this sorted.”
“No—Demetrius!” Jamie cried.
The boy was already reaching for the papers in his back pocket. His hands shook, making the feat that much more difficult than it needed to be but eventually he steadied them enough to lay the papers on the counter. “You can’t,” he said. “You can’t yet. There’s still too much that we don’t know—extenuating circumstances that still haven’t been investigated before any judgem
No sooner had his mother led the mother-daughter pair away, Demetrius saw Cassidy nodding him up the stairs. The gesture put a pit in his stomach that made him want to turn and head back through the door. The morning had barely started, but the boy wanted nothing more than to take himself away. He would’ve loved even one quiet moment to clear his head and shake off the heaviness that settled on him, but he was starting to see he wouldn’t have that luxury.Demetrius would have to wait a while longer for that moment. He took Jamie by the hand, leading her up the stairs behind his sister.Cassidy led them back to her room, being careful to close the door behind her. It earned her a raise of his brow.“What?” he asked, not in the mood for more surprises.“She’s on edge.”“Carlton?” he asked, assuming the man had gone ahead to give their mother an earful on his most recent act of wilful defiance. The
Two men dressed in the garb of the palace’s guards approached the house. Demetrius crooned his neck to get a better look at him, all but forgetting Jamie’s request to know more about Scarlet. The men had become the more pressing matter for the morning, all the more so because he didn’t see his sister walking with them.“Stay here,” he said, rising to his feet. The boy waited for them to pass the veranda’s threshold before jumping from the roof and entering the house behind them. He felt a rush of wind at his back as Jamie descended the roof, but his attention remained on the newcomers.From the opposite, direction Cassidy descended the stairs. She froze at the sight of the uniformed men, but only long enough to orient herself to their arrival.“Mom!” she called, not wanting to find out for herself what they wanted. While they’d both been forced back to their duties as guardians, Cassidy had been unrelenting i
The calm his mother had managed to project throughout the morning disintegrated in a matter of seconds. The woman’s face crumpled in on itself, her eyes flooding with unrestrained tears faster than anyone could process the prince’s words. Her hands moved to cover her face, muffling her sobs but the pain embedded in them was difficult to ignore.Demetrius had seen his mother sad on a few occasions, but never had the grief been so severe.His father looked helplessly from his wife to the prince. “I…I beg your pardon, My Prince. Perhaps my wife and I have misunderstood…”“I don’t see how,” Alexiel said, his mother’s tears not moving the man in any particular direction. He remained the picture of contentment. “Rejoice! You’ll soon be the family of royalty—there’s no higher elevation. You’ll be the guests of honour at the feast. Now, we don’t have much time to wast
“Demetrius, stop!”He wouldn’t listen. The boy grabbed the nightstand that sat by his bed, tossing it with enough force to have it splinter as it collided with the concrete wall. He reached next for the headboard of his bed, yanking it viciously from the base. Slamming it to the ground, the boy shoved his foot in its middle before tugging on one end until it snapped in two.It wasn’t enough.None of it would be enough.The rage he felt had no outlet but the inanimate features of his bedroom. When he was done breaking them, his sister would still be held captive, and the wedding would go on. The futility of his violence only served to further stroke the flames of his ire, provoking him to the very edges of his sanity.Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear Jamie yelling for him to be done with the destruction, but he couldn’t stop. If not the furniture, he would have nowhere to discharge the excess of ill feel
Demetrius grimaced as images of that night danced their way to the fore. “Scar’s only offense was politely refusing his advances. No one says no to the prince, after all.” The grimace deepened. “Dad told me I had to make sure I kept them both in my sights. The banquets had a way of getting…out of hand when the wine and blood began to flow. When Cassidy hadn’t come back from the bathroom, I left Scar to find her and when I got back…she was gone. I shouldn’t have left her alone.”Demetrius shook his head, trying to dislodge the images that etched themselves into the back of his eyes. “I…I wasn’t there.”“You can’t blame yourself for that—”“I should’ve known.”“Demetrius…you were a kid…you couldn’t have known. Your dad should’ve been the one watching her…watching all of you, just like he s
Demetrius pulled for a patio chair, placing it by the table so they could have a look at the picture together. There was…a certain sense of relief, an undeniable jolt at the thought that something—if only very little—was going right.“I need you to tell me more. It might be the leverage we need for your case.” He could have it presented to the head guardian and with the right argument, they may even escape punishment. “Who were the people who attacked your family? What were they after? It doesn’t seem like you were entangled in anything massive enough to warrant such destruction.”“There was a secret that needed protecting and too many people who already knew it.”“Save the cryptic talk for after the hearing with the head guardian. What exactly were they after?” It was hardly the time to cling to those secrets and put him through riddles. Carlton would seek to have her punished to
The door to conference room 5 opened with a soft whoosh, granting the four access in a place they had no business. Wynona Hawthorne stood at the front of the room, giving what looked to be a presentation on increasing security measures. The woman caught the movement at the door immediately, her lips setting into a deep scowl.Noting the soured look the head guardian wore, those gathered in attendance shifted in their seats to take a look at the ones who’d garnered her attention.For her part, Hawthorne did little to hide her exasperation at their appearance. The woman sucked in a deep breath, willing herself to remain composed despite the sudden intrusion. “I assume this is of the gravest importance, Finley—so important that the safety of the realm with have to wait. So important, in fact, that you would throw protocol and decorum to the wind and simply let yourselves in.”Demetrius flushed at the woman’s rebuke but his mot
Carlton walked into the room looking about as pleased as Demetrius had imagined. The man’s grimace could be seen as he walked in. While his gaze was for the woman who summoned him, there was the briefest moment when his eyes met the boy’s and they conveyed all that needed to be said.It brought Demetrius back to the threat the prince’s guard had made at Jamie’s house, but there was nothing to be done. The boy needed to ensure he was the one who passed along the news to the head guardian—not for the praise he used to crave but to ensure no one could remove details that were less convenient or begin their own kind of coverup for the sake of preserving connections.It was well known that Carlton’s loyalty was first and foremost to the prince, but along the way he’d managed to form other little advantageous alliances that might prove themselves a conflict of interest.“I believe you’re looking for these,” h