Chapter 140
CAMILLA’S P.O.V
We led Christine into the council room so that we could talk privately. I locked the door behind us and took in Christine. There was something different about her that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. When she noticed me staring at her, she flushed pink and looked away. I took a step closer to her and that was when I got a whiff of her scent. It was hers but mixed with someone else’s.
“You met a guy, didn’t you?” I asked and although she didn’t respond, her cheeks heated. “Will you tell me about him?’
“It wasn’t anything serious. He was the only person who knew of Alara personally so I stayed with him. It isn’t what you’re thinking. We just talked.”
“Talked,” I repeated and she nodded. “Is that why your cheeks are red and your mind is racing?” she smacked my shoulder playfully. “I am just saying, if he seems like a fun guy then you should pursue something with him.”
“I think I am done with men for the time being,” she waved me off. “Now onto the issue at hand, Alara was from that pack but she doesn’t have an uncle there. She was an omega sl*ave. She worked with a rich family and from what I heard, she had a nasty streak.”
“What do you mean?” Ryker asked and Christine smiled.
She gestured for us to take a seat and once we did, she continued speaking.
“She slept with two of her masters and their sons,” my brows disappeared into my hairline. “She was thrown out of work and had nowhere to go when another man gracefully took her in. It was never confirmed but it was said that she was sleeping with him. No one really cared until one day, the man was found dead and all his property had been transferred into her name.”
“She killed him,” I deduced and Christine shook her head.
“Not quite, there wasn’t any poison in his system and there were no obvious injuries so everyone let it slide. They forget about it within a year and she found another victim. The same thing happened to him and that was when the physician realized that the men were being drained of their blood,” my mouth fell open and Christine nodded. “Somehow, Alara had managed to get a hold of the vampires and she made a deal with them.”
“Wait a minute,” I waved her to a pause. “How do we know that she made an alliance with the vampires? If we are going to accuse her of something this big, then we need proof.”
Christine nodded in understanding then reached into the satchel by her side. She took out what looked like stacks of empty parchment and I raised a brow at her. She sensed my confusion but didn’t say anything and walked over to the light. She held the paper up so that sunlight streamed directly onto it and I saw words appear on it. I gasped in shocked as I tried to quickly read the words before they disappeared.
He will be alone by eleven. I will keep the doors unlocked. Make it quick and make sure it isn’t messy.
“How did they manage to preserve this?” I asked not wanting to touch the paper for risk of contaminating it.
“This one was written a little under three months ago. Her last victim died just a week before the attacks started here. They suspect that she moved immediately she was done there and she knew the people wanted her dead. She found a much larger target,” she jerked her head towards Ryker.
“Is this enough proof?”
“More than enough,” it was Ryker who responded. He squeezed her shoulder affectionately. “Thank you, Christine. You have been an amazing help. Words can’t even describe how thankful I am right now.”
“I’m just glad I could help.”
“Can you rally the elders here?” I asked Christine and she nodded. “Get all of them here while Ryker and I bring Alara. If it comes down to it, will you be able to get him here?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know if he would want that. You have to find proof in her room. This is the best I can do.”
I nodded in understanding. I wouldn’t want to drag another person into it anyway. We split from there and while she went looking for the elders, we went to Alara. She was lying on the bed with a bowl of fruits in her arms and a sly smile on her face. When she saw us, her smile grew even wider and she sat up slowly.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked in a seductive tone. “I heard about the disturbance at the gates. It must be so terrible to have your subjects at war with you. could never imagine being in your shoes.”
Ryker ignored her and called out for Steven and Kevin who wasted no time in dragging her up by her arms. She let out a screech that could have given a banshee a run for its money and glared at them,
“What is this?” she spat. “How dare you manhandle á pregnant woman this way? I am carrying the prince’s child. I deserve some form of respect.”
“The only thing you deserve is an execution,” I deadpanned before turning to the guards. “Take her to the council chambers and make sure that she is bound. Christine will tell you what to do. Until then, we need an hour.”
They didn’t ask any questions, just nodded and walked off. Once they were gone, I turned to Ryker. “Do you think we can find something within an hour?”
“For both our sakes, I hope so.”
We turned the entire room upside down searching for anything that remotely looked like a piece of parchment but there was nothing. It was almost as if she had anticipated our arrival and either hid or gotten rid of them. Forty minutes had passed and we still had nothing to show for it. Neither of us said a word but I knew that we were losing hope. I ransacked the bed that she was lying on but it was empty and I let out a groan of frustration.
“The sly witch hid it,” i exclaimed and Ryker nodded. “What do we do?”
“We go to the elders and hope that what we have is enough,” Ryker said simply and I prayed to the goddess for a miracle because that was exactly what we needed.
As we got to the council chambers, we saw the elders already seated. Christine was explaining everything she found out during the trip and even showed them the note they had found but from the looks on their faces, I could tell that they weren’t being convinced very well.
“Your majesties,” one of them exclaimed as soon as he saw us. “I was beginning to think you were not going to show up. Please tell me that you did not drag us out of bed for this.”
“This is proof that she is a liar,” I pointed at Alara who discreetly rolled her eyes. “She was responsible for the deaths of two different men at the hands of the vampires and she swindled them out of all their worth.”
“That might be true but it has nothing to do with the matter at hand. There is no reason to believe that she is doing the same to you and it doesn’t prove that she isn’t pregnant with the prince’s child.”
I stared in shock. “You have got to be joking, right? Are you trying to downplay everything that is happening?”
“I am just telling you how this looks, your majesty. She might be guilty of that but it didn’t happen under our watch. If that is all then I am sorry to say but there is no case.”
I stared in shock. They had a point but that didn’t mean I had to like it. Alara was smirking as if she had just won the lottery and I wanted nothing more than to bash her face in. Her hands were tied in front of her and she sat there looking high and mighty. I didn’t know what else to say so I just nodded to Kevin to lead her to her feet,
As they walked past me, she spoke. “This is why you don’t show your cards too early, always keep your cards close to your chest.”
She started to walk away but something about her words stuck out to me. “Wait! I need everyone to just sit still for five minutes.”
I walked up to Alara and took a deep breath before I started to pay her down. Her eyes widened in alarm.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed but I ignored her. She tried to swat my hands away but I kept at it until I felt something embedded into her inner skirt. She knew the exact moment I found it because her face paled.
“I found evidence,” I announced. “Do you want me to take you into a private room to get it out or should I do it here.”
She swallowed but didn’t respond. I reached into Ryker’s waistband where a knife lay and I split her dress open. Right there tucked into her waistband were stacks of paper. It was big enough to be noticeable now but small enough that she hid it without a problem. I pulled it out and held it up to the light just as Christine did with the others.
One by one, the notes began to appear. Some were dating as far back as the first attack. The more recent ones started after we brought her in. it didn’t take long before we realized that she had burned her house down on purpose. It was a plan between her and Alastair to get her into the palace so that she could feed him information.
The last one was a letter from someone I didn’t know. He was talking about a mixture he had given her and he apologized for her bad experience stating that it wasn’t supposed to induce arousal and her inability to have sex with the person in question was not his fault. I felt the relief in the air as soon as I read those words. It was clear that
she didn’t have sex with Ryker.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” I asked but she kept her mouth clamped shut. “You really shouldn’t talk so much.”
“I am carrying his child. You cannot kill me while I am-”
“Save it,” I cut her off. “You will have enough time to speak when you are getting executed.”