Chapter 230: All Of These Pillows Are Kind Of Nice
Kael opened his eyes, blinking a few times as a face swam into focus.
He was expecting the woman he had mistaken for a pillow.
Instead, he got his brother’s face six inches from his, radiating enough fury to heat a small village.
"You look terrible," Maddox said flatly.
"Where is-"
Kael coughed.
"Don’t talk," the Luminari healer said to Kael.
Kael looked at the man with an expression that said who the fuck are you. The man looked back at Kael with an expression that said, I am a pissed off healer that has been stuck in a circus trying to heal you.
Kael lifted his head, only to see Renwick Lunaris, the Pee-Pee crybaby prince, the Beta, and the old healer in a standoff.
Cassian was on his knees bleeding, face still burned.
The healer shoved a pillow behind Kael so he would stop using his muscles to watch. Kael had a brief Eureka moment: all these pillows are kind of nice.
Kael watched the scene unfold the way a pyro watches a building burn after lighting the match.
DOMINO 28: CHECKMATE
LUNARIS KEEP - PRINCESS’S TOWER - 7:53 PM
"You knew longer than today, Renwick," Draven said, voice calm. "You’re saying that so she blames herself and we both know it."
Renwick lowered his blade back to Cassian’s throat.
"I watched you look at her the way you used to look at your wife. Same expression. Same stupid, obvious, incurable softness that you tried to bury under twenty years of service and couldn’t. I watched my son start covering for you, badly. A loyal Beta for decades. You made one mistake and this was it."
He turned his head just enough to catch Maria’s eyes.
"You were all more useful compromised than loyal. Loyal men have opinions. Guilty men have compliance. For months, I had the three most important people in my kingdom operating at peak performance because each of you was terrified I would find out. I didn’t need to hold the leash. You held it yourselves."
Maria’s blade fell. It clattered against the stone and the sound was the sound of surrender.
Cassian’s chest was heaving. His eyes were wet again but the tears were different now.
"Please don’t, Father." His voice was cracking.
Renwick ignored him.
Draven looked at his Alpha. His king. His friend of many years.
"You could run," Renwick said quietly.
"I could." Draven didn’t move. "I won’t."
Renwick’s jaw moved once. "I’m sorry, old friend."
"I know that too."
Stab.
The blade moved from Cassian’s throat into Draven and Draven didn’t flinch.
"NO!" Cassian sobbed. He moved to Draven’s side. "No, no, no."
Renwick looked at Maria.
"Tyler Draven is now Beta of Lunaris. Convince him to take you as his wife and the child lives as a Draven. Beta’s blood. Legitimate. I’ll let you live long enough to deliver it."
Maria stared at him. Incomprehension. Horror. The slow, dawning understanding that the man who had just murdered her lover was offering her a lifeboat for her child that did not include her.
He sheathed the blade.
"You have until I return. Consider it a head start."
Maria’s mouth opened and nothing came out because there were no words for what had just been offered.
Renwick turned to Cassian. The prince was still bleeding, tears running down his face, holding Draven’s hand.
Renwick spit on him.
The saliva landed on the burned side of Cassian’s face. On the handprint Kael had seared into his skull. On the ruin his father had already told him was a billboard for his failures.
"You disgust me."
Three words. Delivered coldly. Point-blank range over the body of the man Cassian loved most.
Renwick turned to Maddox and Kael.
"You have my permission to kill him. He’s the one who ordered it. Consider it a gesture of goodwill between our kingdoms."
No explanation needed. He said it the way men say ’the bill is on me.’ Casual. Generous.
Then he walked towards the door, past Ryker, Sterling, Lux, and Jaxon.
Nobody stopped him.
Nobody could.
The Alpha King of Lunaris walked out of the room and his footsteps faded down the stairwell with the measured pace of a man heading to his study to pour a whiskey.
DOMINO 29: YOU KNEW HE WAS GOING TO DO THAT
LUNARIS KEEP - PRINCESS’S TOWER - 7:55 PM
The room held its breath for three seconds.
Maddox, Ryker, and Sterling were all frozen. Three men who swore they would kill the bastard who ordered Guinevere’s lashes couldn’t move.
Kael’s face was doing something complicated.
He looked at the Luminari healer who was still pushing white magic into his chest, then at Beta Draven who maybe had ten seconds left.
"Can you—"
Then Cassian moved.
He let go of Draven’s hand. He picked up his blade and was on his feet and through the doorway.
"CASSIAN!" Maria screamed.
The bleeding prince was already on the stairs, taking them two at a time on legs that should have stopped working ten minutes ago, driven by something that outran blood loss and outran pain and outran every rational thought left in his head.
Renwick heard him coming.
He turned on the landing between the second and first flight. Calm. Waiting. Cold as ice.
Cassian swung.
Renwick stepped inside the arc, caught his son’s wrist, and redirected the blade with the economy of a man who had taught this boy how to hold a sword and knew every flaw in his grip.
The blade went into Cassian’s side. Same side as the first wound. Two inches lower. Deeper.
Cassian’s legs buckled on the third step. He sat down on the stairs the way a man sits down when sitting is the last voluntary action his body will perform.
His back found the wall. His hand found the wound. His eyes found his father, standing three steps below him, looking up.
"Predictable," Renwick said.
"Two for two. You’d think I’d learn," Cassian replied, blood on his teeth. There was a smile on his face that had no business being there and was the most Cassian thing he’d ever produced.
His head tilted back against the wall. His eyes were losing focus.
His hand slid off the wound. His head dropped forward. The smile was still on his face when his eyes closed.
Cassian Lunaris died on the stairs of his sister’s tower, three flights from his true father figure and five steps from the man who sired him.