Chapter 60 - I’m perfectly fine

EMMA

My arms have Hadrian’s neck in a vise when he runs. My legs are locked around his waist. I have my head pressed against his collarbone and tears fall in buckets down my cheeks.

Through the tunnel of darkness, I can hear the shouts of guards and I can see their outline as they run toward us. Hadrian is faster even with carrying me around his frame.

I’m pretty sure that we came from the other side, but he keeps diligently running in the opposite direction. Hadrian turns into a dark corner that is completely hidden from the light. My back is pressed against a cold brick wall and Hadrian comes flush against me. His chest pushes the air out of my lungs as his warm weight presses against my body.

Hadrian stays very still and I hold my breath when the footsteps of the guards come closer. I can feel his heartbeat throb against my chest. My heart rate picks up as I wait for the guards to find us here.

The drum of footsteps gets louder, but the guards don’t stop to look in the corner where we’re hiding. The guards run past the clove, where Hadrian stays still and doesn’t move. We stay there for another minute until the footsteps disappear in the distance.

Hadrian reaches up above my head and I hear the sound of bricks sliding past each other. The wall behind my back moves away and Hadrian guides me into one of the tunnels.

I wait for the tunnel to be engulfed in darkness and the only thing I hear is his steady breath and feel his solid heartbeat. “Won’t they be able to find us?” My voice is barely audible and laced with sadness.

“No, the scent of silver is too strong to distinguish anything else.”

The adrenaline leaves my limbs and is replaced by a strong tremble. My mind is catching up on the events of the past hour and reality sets in my bones.

“Shh my mate, don’t cry.” Hadrian runs a soothing hand over my spine and he doesn’t let go of me as he starts to walk through the tunnel. Not that even he could put me down. I have him in a death grip as if holding on to him is the only thing in this world that is keeping me from falling.

Falling into this endless abyss where the world is so different from what I always perceived it to be.

“She’s alive,” I say between sobs in his chest. The words break me. They ruin the structure of truths in my soul. *The earth is round, I am human, my mother is dead.*

Is none of it true? Did I dream all of it? Was the fact that my mother is currently trapped in a dungeon just a fragment of my mind?

“We have to go back,” I whisper.

Hadrian places a hand behind the back of my head and exhales slowly. “We can’t.”

I pull back to look at Hadrian, but I don’t see anything in the dark. “We cannot let her stay there,” I beg.

Hadrian stays quiet and his muscles are getting tense beneath my hands. “They won’t, they will move her to a highly secured location.”

*A highly secured location.* I cannot even go back to her. It might as well all have been my imagination.

“I’m sorry Emma.” Pain is engraved in his voice.

Pain for me? His apology brings me back to the here and now. It puts the facts in a neat row. Hadrian is here. He has been here for me for the last couple of weeks. My mother was alive and she was not.

“She has been alive all this time,” I whisper out loud. The words feel like treason on my tongue. “She never came to find us.”

“What mother does that?” My voice breaks with the last words.

“I’m sure that she had her reasons too. She doesn’t seem like someone who would just disappear without reason.” Hadrian mumbles.

“You don’t like her.” The hostility between them was evident.

“I don’t like that she’s questioning me as your mate, but I can hardly blame her.”

Another truth presents itself in the row. “You’re fated to someone else. You could leave me.” The words sit sour in my mouth.

The thought hurts me more than I think it ever would. I expected my life in the palace to look a lot different when I first came here. Instead, I have friends and am falling for a giant werewolf.

“My fated mate died seven years ago during the blood moon. I will never leave you.”

“How do you know?”

“It broke me. I felt my heart stop for a few seconds. I’ve never been quite the same after that.” He leans forward and his lips run over my cheek. “Until I found you.”

We walk further and the sound of running water reaches my ear. I stretch my hand towards the direction where the sound is coming from, but my hand meets a brick wall. Water seeps through the cracks and coats my fingers in the frigid liquid.

I shiver and pull my hand back. “What is that?”

“The river. It runs around the palace.”

I try to comprehend how that even works, a river behind a wall. “Is that where all the water comes from?”

Hadrian takes my hand and dries it against his shirt. "Yeah, if this wall breaks then all the tunnels will flood.” His hand is warm and dispels the cold.

*Great.*

Hadrian walks up two stairs. “We have to be really quiet. This tunnel runs along the throne room.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

Hadrian’s footsteps become soundless. The only thing that makes me believe that we’re walking are the movements of his body. The sway of his big shoulders as he trails along the distance. Hadrian freezes and I want to ask him what’s wrong, but he covers his hand over my mouth.

“You requested for me, father?” The muddled voice of Princess Morana comes through the wall and my eyes widen.

“Yes, sit down Morana.” The drawling voice of the King comes next through the wall.

My heart pounds in my chest and I sincerely hope that nobody is able to hear it.

“But my seat is next to yours, this is unfair.” There is a shrill tone to the princess that I’ve never heard before. It makes me almost think that the princess is on the verge of a breakdown.

“Quiet.” The Alpha King growls. “I’m very disappointed in you.”

I think Hadrian has stopped breathing at all and his heart rate is picking up. I can feel it throbbing against my chest.

“Hadrian is still alive and he’s getting stronger every day. Your theory failed.” The Alpha King snaps.

I smother a gasp and I can feel the tears rebuild in my eyes. The King is trying to kill Hadrian? His own son?

“But father, she’s not his true mate.” The princess calls.

“I said quiet!” The weight of his command booms even through the walls and I tremble under the weight of it.

“General Zeno will take over your position.” The Alpha King grumbles.

Princess Morana growls. “That place is mine, you cannot do this.”

“You will take the position of Gamma Silvius at the Midnight Moon pack until you prove yourself worthy again.” The Alpha King commands.

The Alpha King just demoted his own daughter and sent her away. I swallow away the blooming feeling of sympathy for the princess. No, I should not feel sympathetic towards Princess Morana.

For a minute it’s quiet and the only thing audible is the flow of water in the distance. I wonder why Hadrian is still rooted to the ground. We should leave before they find us here.

“I think this is the best action, Your Highness.” The familiar grating voice of General Zeno seeps through the bricks and scratches deep into my skin.

“How are things progressing?” The Alpha King asks.

“Very well, sir, very well.” General Zeno says and his voice alone makes me tremble in fear.

———————

Hadrian sets me down on the floor when he steps into his office. My feet hit the wooden floorboards and my knees nearly give out under my weight.

“Your father wants to kill you,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“You know?” The oxygen in the room is gone and the need for air is imperative. Everything that happened comes over me in a flood twice as big as when it all happened just now. I think my body is finally catching up.

“He’s been trying for a long time,” Hadrian explains as he closes the door to the tunnels. He turns to face me. “Emma, are you okay?”

I take a few wobbly steps into his office. “I’m fine.”

*My mother is alive. My mother is a werewolf. That means I’m half a werewolf. General Zeno is in the palace and the Alpha King is trying to kill Hadrian. I’m perfectly fine.*

My vision turns black and the last thing I hear is a string of curses coming from Hadrian’s mouth.