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Noemi.
My heart sinks, and I feel like a fucking asshole. Hiding out here in the corner with Zade, rather than being by her side. I assumed she’d found somewhere to hide, but she’s probably been out there, dealing with our guests with as much difficulty as I was.
“Noemi—” I start, but then I’m fully twisted in my seat and can get a good look at her.
She’s crying.
Not my mate, not even a woman I’m romantically interested in—but the people in this ballroom don’t know that. Would someone in here really be bold enough to hurt the alpha king’s betrothed? Standing, chest already puffing out, I ask her, “What happened? Who did this?”
Noemi stares at me for a moment, and I get the feeling her expression is saying, you did, Augustus.
But instead, she takes a shaky breath, daintily wipes at her tears with a monogrammed handkerchief, and leans in, her scent washing over me as she whispers in my ear.
“I’ve been trying to find you.” She sucks in a breath, and I feel it against my hair. “Mylah is—Mylah is going to try and help Aurora escape. I don’t want—”
Maybe she was going to say I don’t want them to get hurt, or maybe I don’t want you going after her—but I have no idea what she was going to say, because I’m already pulling back, heart thudding, adrenaline racing through my veins, my wolf done with pacing and now clawing at the enclosure, desperate to get out.
Mylah has tried to escape before.
But I get a feeling—a terrible, horrible, sinking feeling—that this time is going to be much, much different.
Chapter 33 - Mylah
Turns out lock-picking is going to come in handy more than once.
I find Aurora’s room similarly unguarded and quickly pull a bobby pin from my pocket, hands still and calm as I work the lock. No longer the scared, panicky girl—now, I’m a steadier woman. Doing what needs to be done.
The fairy tale is over. Augustus might have come running to save me, but my happily ever after is being locked up in a tower.
I won’t do it, and I’m not going to leave Aurora here to suffer the same fate, either.
For some reason, the lock on her door is a little tougher than mine was, all that time ago when I managed to pick it. Maybe the guest quarters are a newer part of the castle. Maybe what’s on Aurora’s door is all the original hardware.
Either way, she has plenty of time to hear me breaking in before I finally get her door open, and she’s standing there with a fire poker in her hand, glaring at me, ready to strike.
“Oh,” she says, letting out a breath, her entire face and body softening when she sees me. “I—I thought you were someone else.”
My gaze darts to the fire poker, relief flushing through me that she didn’t just swing without checking first. “Well, I’m glad I’m not.”
“What are you doing?” she asks, watching as I turn and close the door behind me, looking around her room.
“Get your things,” I say, crossing over to the window and looking out. “I thought you were mad at me. I didn’t realize you were under lock and key, too. And I—”
I cut myself off—Aurora doesn’t just have a window.
She has a balcony.
“Oh, this is perfect!” I turn and start to yank the pristinely made blankets and sheets from her bed, ruining the hospital corners and sending throw pillows tumbling to the ground.
“Mylah, goddesses’ sake, what the hells are you doing?” Aurora asks, grabbing the blankets from the other side of the bed, stopping me from pulling them all the way off. I drop the duvet, grab just the sheets, and yank them from her hands.
“Don’t worry—I practiced sailing knots all one summer. I know exactly what I’m doing. I don’t think it will come undone.”
What I don’t say is that, if it does and we fall to our deaths, that might actually be better than being locked up here forever.
“Stop!”
More startled by the volume than hearing the word itself, I drop the sheet, glancing between Aurora and the door, waiting to discover the reason she would shout at me like that.
