Chapter 174
HANNAH
Watching Cade tease his brothers made me smile. It felt good to smile. It felt good to eat together at the breakfast table, something which was happening very often these days.
I had the cold war to thank for that. Since the war had been declared we now all had more time to spend with each other. So at least one good thing had come of it.
Jace turned slightly in his chair to face Cade.
"Is Sophie done packing her stuff? Do you know?" he asked.
"Don't know," Cade said, suddenly frowning. "Haven't gone near her since, but she must have finished by now. I can't wait for her to get out of here."
"You can't?" Jace's grin turned sly. "A few days ago, you couldn't get enough of her."
Cade glared at his brother, then relaxed when he looked up and saw the teasing light in his eyes.
"That's not true and you know it," Cade said. "We were just hanging out as friends. Didn't know she was up to something else."
"Well, friends or not, it's a fact you almost went over to the dark side because of her." Jace leaned back in his chair to stare at his brothers. "You know, I've been thinking... if you and Chase fuck up, I'll have Hannah all to myself."
"That is never ever going to happen," Chase said and we laughed.
Jace winked. "Never say never, brother. I mean, who would have thought that Cade would behave like an ass over Sophie?"
Cade sighed and rolled his eyes. "Maybe I'll order you too to pack your things and go with Sophie if you continue being a pain in my ass."
Jace grinned and said, "You wish, brother. Ah. Here's breakfast at last. Damn! I'm starving."
The maids had come in with trays of food and tea for all of us. As they started to set out the food, Willa came in.
"What took you so long?" I said. "I thought you weren't joining us."
"I slept in, woke up a little late," she said, nudging me playfully as she passed on her way to take her seat.
"What were you doing up all night?" Jace asked. "Reading one of your girly magazines?"
"Ignore him," Cade said. "He's been like this all morning, teasing everyone."
Willa said something I didn't really listen to. I watched the maids serve the tea. It was a pretty cold morning and I was looking forward to having my hands wrapped around the hot steaming cup.
As a maid poured mine, I suddenly froze. There was a smell in the air, coming directly from the teapot- a sharp unpleasant smell that I instinctively knew would not be detectable to other senses but mine. I knew what the smell was- poison.
I watched Chase stir his tea.
"Stop," I said, only the words were less audible than a whisper.
In my head, I went back to kneeling beside an unconscious Willa after she had eaten the poisoned chocolates.
Chase was raising a spoonful of the tea to his lips as he talked. In another second, he would drink it.
"STOP!" I yelled.
Everyone froze. Everyone stared at me in surprise.
"The tea," I shouted. "It's poisoned!"
Willa shrieked and got off her seat. She backed away from the table.
"Poisoned?" Cade said.
"Yes. Yes, it is. I'm sure of it. I smelled it like I smelled the poison in those chocolates."
The spoon in Chase's hand fell to the floor. Cade and Jace pushed their tea cups away from them. The maids were wide eyed with surprise.
"How did the poison get into our tea?" I asked them.
The three maids went white.
"We don't know," the first one said. "I swear we don't."
"We didn't put anything in the tea," another said. "We would never dream of poisoning any of you."
Cade rose slowly to his feet. He was red with anger.
"And yet the tea you served was poisoned," he said slowly.
The maid fell on her knees before him. The others followed, looking up at him with tears in their eyes.
"We swear, Master. We would never think of doing such. We would never betray the Alpha."
"There may be another explanation for this," I told Cade. "Tell me. Did anyone apart from the three of you enter the kitchen during and after our breakfast was prepared?"
The first maid started to shake her head but the second maid stopped her with a gesture.
"Wait," she said. "Don't you remember? The Alpha's daughter from one of the visiting packs came to the kitchen this morning to take her breakfast even though we always brought it to her room every morning. I- I can't remember her name right now."
"Sophie," the third maid supplied. "Her name is Sophie."
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