Chapter 128: Golden Prison
[SOREN POV]
"Ugh..." I groaned, pinching the skin between my eyebrows. "I am related to idiots."
"How was I to know she had a highly dangerous substance with her?!" Cassian practically shrieked. "It could’ve been a piece of parsley for all I know!"
"Wolfsbane is purple," Samuel casually said without missing a beat. "Are you colourblind too?"
I raised my eyebrow at Cassian. I also wanted to know if my brother was indeed foolish enough to eat a suspiciously purple plant. That was literally one of the first things we were taught not to do as young wolf pups once we gained sentience.
"What if it had been the leaf?" Cassian retorted, but his voice was too weak to be convincing. "Many leaves are green."
"And was it green?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
The dodgy look in his eyes told me everything I needed to know.
"Goddess help me," I said, turning around, unable to look at this royal dumbass. Suddenly, I could no longer fault Samuel for making such a crude comment about his Alpha― Cassian was indeed an idiot. I couldn’t believe I shared a womb with him.
Did Rowan and I take too many nutrients from him back then, resulting in his poor brain development?
No. It must have been Lucien. He stole the brains from Cassian. I didn’t like him, but at least my wayward brother had two brain cells to rub together, as seen from his attempts to steal Briar away. That was at least two brain cells more than Cassian.
"Were you dropped on the head as a baby?" I demanded. "Maybe the nanny didn’t hold you properly then, and now you’re like this."
"How would I know? I was a baby! You see if you can remember anything from back then!" Cassian retorted indignantly. "And I’m not the problem here, Briar is! I wouldn’t have eaten wolfsbane if Briar didn’t have wolfsbane with her to begin with! Where did she even get it from!"
Cassian yelled — as loudly as he could, which wasn’t very — from the infirmary bed. "That’s the real problem here, not me eating it! You should be investigating her! She nearly killed me with that damned plant!"
So Briar had entered the infirmary while already possessing the wolfsbane plant. She probably did not intend to poison Cassian, since she probably would not have guessed that Cassian would find her in the dead of the night.
On top of that, no normal person would eat an unknown substance just to test what it was. It was safe to assume that Briar wouldn’t have calculated Cassian’s stupidity to this extent.
I wanted to smack the back of Cassian’s head, but I feared that would make his idiocy worse. Then again, his intelligence was already in the gutter. How deep could it go?
I reached out and cuffed the back of his head, the same way my father used to do to us when we were misbehaving children.
Cassian protested loudly. "Hey! What’s your problem?!"
"You and your lack of brains," I said with a heavy sigh. "Do you honestly believe Briar would poison you like this? You were the one who showed up without warning and snatched the wolfsbane from her hand and ate it. You nearly killed yourself!"
"Miss Briar saved your life," Samuel added flatly, his tone almost bored. "You ought to be grateful. If you wish to learn about where she might have gotten the wolfsbane from, you could spend more time with her to get the information. Assuming you do not make her angry enough to poison you on purpose this time."
Cassian’s face seemed to steam up at Healer Samuel’s words. "I― Fine! I will! But I’m not doing this for my own recovery. I’m doing this so that no one else gets poisoned by wolfsbane!"
"And the pack thanks you for your service," I replied dryly, yet a small furrow formed between my eyebrows.
No matter what, Briar shouldn’t have been able to get her hands on wolfsbane when she was in our pack. It was a banned substance, and usually, wolves that were caught harboring it were punished. Anyone who was caught using it against another pack member would be exiled at best, executed at worst.
My gut twisted heavily at the thought.
I didn’t want to punish Briar anymore. I didn’t want her exiled or executed. She had suffered enough.
More importantly, I believed she didn’t poison Cassian on purpose. She might not even have known what she was holding on to. That was probably why she had the book open in the first place.
"Let’s keep this a secret for now from the pack," I decided, knowing that Rowan would also support my decision. "If news gets out that you were poisoned, it would cause panic."
Cassian narrowed his eyes. "You just don’t want Briar to be punished."
"That too," I said easily. "She shouldn’t be punished for your actions. Besides..." My hands went to reach out for the fallen encyclopedia, putting it back on the shelf where it belonged. "I think she was trying to identify the plant when you stumbled upon her. You did say you found her with a book open and the wolfsbane in her hand. If she knew what it was all along, why would she even bother?"
Cassian’s mouth opened wordlessly, but in the end, he could only let out a sulky grumble of acquiescence.
"Not to mention she wouldn’t have bothered to save you," Samuel added heartlessly. "I have it on good authority that you have treated her abhorrently in the past. I dare say if I were in her shoes, I would have simply run while you asphyxiated."
Cassian and I stared at him with matching expressions of horror.
"Sam!"
Samuel merely shrugged. "She isn’t a healer like I am. Unlike me, she isn’t honor-bound to save you. I urge you to remember that."
With that final statement, he left us alone.
"Where are you going?" Cassian demanded.
"Your brother has summoned me," Samuel said. "He wants me to check on Briar."
***
[BRIAR POV]
We walked back to my room in silence. Rowan kept a firm grip on my wrist the entire time, as though he was afraid that I would turn on my heel and run off in the event he loosened his grip for more than a second.
As a result, by the time we returned to my room, my wrist had a faint red line decorating my skin like a bracelet. He let go only when the door was closed, and I quickly shrugged his fingers off of me, rubbing the sore spot while I glared hard at him.
"What?" I asked, feeling a little sour. "No prison this time?"
Rowan made a pointed look around the room. "I can arrange that, if that’s what you prefer," he said.
In the dark of the night, his eyes had a slight glow to them that was even more obvious than during the day. I could tell that he wasn’t happy that I had managed to escape, even if I hadn’t actually tried to leave the pack house this time.
He continued, "I was under the impression that you already viewed this room as a prison cell, considering your insistence on leaving it."
He made his way over to the couch, casually sitting down in the same spot he had been in when Samuel was around to examine me previously. Rowan placed one leg over the other and rested his arm against the backrest.
"It is," I said through gritted teeth.
This was a beautiful room, but it was still a golden cage nonetheless. No matter how comfortable the bed was, no matter how great the service could be, I was still a prisoner in this room until they allowed me to leave as and when I wished.
And with Cassian poisoned as a result of his own stupidity, they might pin me with yet another crime to make me stay here.
I made my way closer to Rowan, folding my arms across my chest.
"So why are you still here?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows. "Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Checking on your brother, perhaps?"
Rowan’s expression seemingly darkened even further, if that was even remotely possible.
"You’re just so worried about him, aren’t you?" he said.
I scoffed. "And you’re not?" I shot back. "Aren’t you just here to make sure I didn’t run away again? After all, considering I succeeded once, maybe the next time I find Cassian, I’ll―"
I didn’t have the chance to properly finish my sentence. Suddenly, Rowan reached out. His fingers wrapped around my wrist once more, tugging me firmly over to him.
My eyes widened with surprise as a yelp left my lips. Just like that, I landed on the plush sofa, wincing slightly.
When I opened my eyes once more, I realized that Rowan had caged me in. I was sitting where he originally sat, and he was already on his feet, with one knee resting on the couch to support his weight. His large, muscular arms kept me caged in on both sides, gripping the backrest so tightly that his veins were starting to pop out against his skin.
Rowan’s face was dangerously close to mine. The tips of our noses were just a hair’s breadth away. Up close, I could see the fury in his eyes. However, what shone brighter than that was the streak of jealousy I found myself face-to-face with.
"You’re already thinking of running back to him?"