Chapter 94
Gradel
My eyes flew open and immediately I knew that I was no longer alone. I turned around to the other side and found a pair of brown eyes peering down at me intensely.
I sat up abruptly, my heart racing faster in surprise and at the same time because of my quick movement.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, not knowing whether to be happy or angry that she was here by this time of the night when everyone else was sleeping. “How were you even able to get in?”
My voice did nothing to conceal my worries and I didn’t like it. After how we ended the last time, my heart wasn’t supposed be bursting with concern for her, but here I was, still wanting to protect her.
Damn this mating bond!
She traipsed toward me, slowly but gracefully, crouching and dangling the door’s keys before my eyes. “I did what I had to do and fortunately, it wasn’t hard convincing the guard to take a harmless herbal tea,” She chuckled and dropped the bottle in her hands.
“You have answered the second question but what about the first? You’re supposed to be sleeping right now,” I said curtly.
She nodded and pursed her lips then took off her scarf, unveiling her brown hair that I used to enjoy running my fingers through. How I wished that I could do that again.
As if she knew what I was thinking, she drew closer to me and placed her head on the crook of my neck. “I miss you,” She confessed quietly.
My heart melted at her words and I could hear the sincerity behind them but what if this was a trap?
“Please, leave, Iris. I don’t want you to make my life more complicated than it already is,” My tone was low but cold.
She raised her head and shook her head, her eyes blazing with obstinance. “I’m sorry but I’ve taken so much risk to be here and I won’t leave without finishing what I came here for.” She disagreed. “By the way, how’s your health? Are you getting better?”
I snorted and gently pushed her away from me. “What do you think this is? You betray your mate and then you come back and pretend that everything is alright? I don’t even know what you’re doing here because I don’t want to see you,” My voice rose, resonating in the air but I couldn’t find the will to put a lid on my temper.
My mind was jumbled and I was still befuddled by everything that had been happening. The last thing I wanted was for her to make things worse.
“You won’t understand, Gradel, but I want you to trust me, please. Just do as I say and we’ll all be fine,” She sighed.
“Trust?” I burst into a brief laughter. “Trusting you is equivalent to killing myself, Iris. The last thing I’d do right now is to have confidence in you after what you’ve done. Do you even have any iota of shame?” I barked and she flinched in fear.
She lowered her face and sniffed. “I never betrayed you. Everything that has been going on is a well-thought-out plan that has been set in motion to destroy Elda,” She confessed and blinked hard to keep the tears at bay.
“Tell me more,” I encouraged her.
“A lot has been going on since you got locked up in here and my only desire is to see you out of here and ruling over your people again, but I couldn’t do that if the both of us were arrested. That’s why I pretended to accept Elda’s proposal,” She explained, softly.
My chest burned with hope and all the angst and bitterness that were building up within me suddenly vanished.
“Does it mean that you didn’t sleep with him?”
I knew that my question was out of the line but the fact that she might have surrendered her body to him to ensure my safety scared me.
She wiggled her brows and shrugged with a mischievous smirk. “I might have been lost in the moment and Elda isn’t a saint,” She replied casually.
My wolf snarled urging me to shift so that we could fight against our rival; the man that dared to touch what belonged to us.
“I’m going to kill him, I swear,”
“Sure, you will and I can’t wait for that day to come, but right now, you’ll have to hold your horses because Elda isn’t an easy man to go against. And if we want to win this battle, we would have to be sleek about it.”
I reached for her hand and brought it to my lips. Luckily she didn’t withdraw from me. “Why didn’t you tell me all this earlier? Do you know how downcast I’ve been because I thought that you were no longer on my side?”
She leaned on my shoulder, playing with my rough beard. “To be honest, I wanted to punish you for how you treated me that’s why I kept it to myself, but then I love you too much to watch you wallow in pain and that’s why I came here tonight.”
“The pack is going through a lot in Elda’s rule. In a space of one week, he has raped a girl already and increased the taxes that every pack member is to submit to him. And if I’m not careful, he’ll find out about my secrets and I don’t even want to imagine how that will turn out so please make up your mind, are you ready to fight for your people or not?” She questioned.
I gulped, weighing my options. Most of my council members had turned their backs on me and I wasn’t certain the people wanted me back as their Alpha, but hearing the atrocities that Elda had committed, I couldn’t just stand back and do nothing.
“Do they still want me back as their Alpha? I don’t even know what to do,” I sounded vulnerable, but I wasn’t scared that she had to see that side of me.
“Gradel,” She gazed at me with those adorable brown eyes, “You are a true leader and there’s no one in his or her right mind that wouldn’t want you back. I’m here for you, Hegar and Silas too. All you have to do is to agree and we’ll begin to make plans,”
I nodded and I felt a burden being lifted from my shoulders. “There’s nothing else I want than being an Alpha,”
She pushed the bottle close to me and got up.
“That’s good to hear. The antidote to the poison you took is in that drink. Please, take it regularly for the next ten days and you’ll be back on your feet. I have to go now,” She flashed a terse smile at me and turned around.
I wasn’t sure I’d used my legs ever since I was thrown into this cell but I couldn’t allow her to walk away just like that.
Before she got to the gate, I grabbed her hand and gently pulled her back to me, causing our bodies to collide. “Don’t you think you’re forgetting something?” I drawled.
She drew in a deep breath and moistened her lips, her eyes glistening with anticipation and her body tensed. “What could that be?” She murmured in confusion.
But I didn’t answer, instead, I snaked my hand around her waist and covered her lips with mine.