#Chapter 37 A Simple Error

Gabriel has decided to carry me in his strong arms, all the way upstairs into our bedroom. He is careful to tuck me under the covers, barking for the maids to bring water, warm towels, anything that might heal me. His flustered behavior has me feeling ill.
I tuck myself under the covers, still naked from shifting, and watch as Eugene is dragged into the room shortly after, Gabriel speaking in fast and hushed tones at the foot of the bed.
My husband is irate and frantic, “you saw that, right? It has to be something serious, Eugene, please look into it. Maybe we made her too upset and—oh moon goddess, please, protect my wife.”
I snicker in my head. The moon goddess has done a lot of looking out for me already.
Eugene rolls his eyes when he comes to the bedside but he pretends to check me out all the same, just appease the King Alpha. “Open you mouth,” Eugene says, and I do, mimicking his every, needless command. “Okay now follow my finger as it moves.”
After a few frivolous tests, Gabriel grabs at Eugene’s arm. “Did you find anything?”
“She’s exhausted,” Eugene says, shrugging. “After this long night, and the long week she has had, it’s clear she just needs some rest.”
“There’s no way that’s correct,” The King Alpha growls. “I’m constantly stressed and my eyes have never changed color like that. What if it’s a blood disease? Like Reese and Mara?”
“Their symptoms are much more complex and hardly physical in nature,” Eugene replies. “If I didn’t think the Queen Luna was okay, I would tell you that, King Alpha, but she is absolutely perfect in health.”
Gabriel hardly seems convinced but I know he can’t argue with a doctor who is well-versed in his work. “Okay,” he huffs, waving Eugene to leave at last. “I guess you’re right. Maybe it’s just—” he shakes his head, eyeing me carefully like a stranger is in his bed. “Just stress, my dear. That’s all.”
I nod, yawning. “I feel find, Gabriel. I promise.”
“Yes, yes, just go ahead and sleep. I will clean up the mess downstairs.”
I settle into the bed, comfortable and warm, but Gabriel doesn’t leave the room completely. He stops in the doorway, eyeing me over his shoulder.
“How do you know who killed Olivia Opal?”
My heart drops with that question. “What? She died in jail, everyone knows that.”
He shakes his head, unconvinced. “No, my dear, not that. You had said Alicia may not have used the knife but that she gave it to someone in jail who did. How do you know if Alicia really killed Alpha Herold’s mate?”
I blink slow, as if trying to appear sleepy, even if my rapid pulse proves otherwise. “I don’t—Gabriel, please, I am so exhausted. Eugene said I need to rest and—”
“Yes, of course, my dear. I apologize.”
Gabriel leaves with a crooked smile and unsure nod. He’s upset and confused, I can tell, but something else is hazy in his eyes. His questions are becoming more specific, and harder to dodge, and even if I am confident in my ability to convince him of my ramblings, I can’t exactly take back specific details about my death that the Queen Luna would know nothing about.
I sleep alone for most of the night. Gabriel only comes to bed in the morning.
His hands brush my sides, yanking me back into his chest and stomach. I reach for the blankets, needing them all, and not willing to let go of a single one. This makes the King Alpha laugh, his chuckling huffs of warm breath marking against my neck and shoulder.
“Good morning, my dear,” Gabriel hums. “I had the chef make an extra lavish breakfast for us and our company.”
“Company?” I groan, half asleep.
“Yeah, I put Alpha Herold in a spare room last night,” Gabriel says. “He seemed too distraught to make it home safely so Eugene had given him something to relax, I don’t think it worked, though.”
I turn over in his caging arms, my hands pressed against his warm chest. “What do you mean? Why didn’t it work?”
“I could hear him in there this morning, crying obnoxiously.”
Something about that claim makes me uneasy. Gabriel gets ready and heads to the dining room alone while I get dressed for the day. I poke my head into the hall, Alpha Herold’s familiar scent lingering through the halls and beckoning for me.
I’m too curious to let it go. I march down the hall and press against the door that is drenched in his scent. When I peek inside the room, I can only make sense of Alpha Herold in the middle of the floor, shirtless, while the wall paper, the linens, and anything else breakable has been ripped, broken and scattered all over the floor.
The feathers from the mattress are still lingering through the air like snow on a calm, winter morning, melting slowly from the sky and settling around the distraught, weeping Alpha in the middle of the floor.
“Alpha Herold,” I breathe, speaking lightly.
He flinches at my voice but doesn’t acknowledge it.
“Alpha Herold, I’m coming in.”
I walk forward, carefully stepping over the broken glass and the torn sheets as they cover the many hazards in this once, pretty room. I stop when I am facing Alpha Herold, his eyes so red that they look bloody, his fists and his arms cut with small scrapes from fighting every piece of furniture in here.
He bleeds without a care, looking off into the sunrise outside his cracked window.
“Herold, what have you done in here?”
He shakes his head, his entire exterior numb to my question. “So, I was wrong about everything, huh?” His voice is so far away, so ominous, it’s like he caught a cold overnight. “I am just a failure at everything, even at knowing the truth about my wife.”
I straighten up, my heart beating like punches against my chest over and over again. The breath is knocked out of me but I manage to stay firm in this moment. “You just didn’t care to know the truth, Herold.”
“Of course I did,” he snaps. “She was my wife, my mate, and I wanted to know everything that led up to her leaving me. If I knew what had happened earlier, maybe I could have saved her.”
“Why, so you could divorce her sooner?”
He stands so quick, his hands on my waist at once and centering me before him. “You think I would divorce Olivia now, if I had it all over to do again—to do it better?”
“I think you’re stupid enough to do whatever anyone else tells you to do.”
“No one told me to do this,” he says, firm.
He shoots forward and I don’t feel the impact until I realize his lips are plowed over mine. I am too stunned to move, to speak, or to even pull away. He presses into me passionately, like the day we got married, but even then, I was just a fill-in for his real lover.
That is the woman he deserves to kiss, not me.
I break us apart at once, wordless, and escape downstairs to my new husband.