Page 155 of Chased By My Grumpy Alpha
I signal to the guards waiting at the top of the stairs. Two of them descend quickly, their armor clanking against the stone steps.
“No!” Harper screams as they unlock the door and reach for her. “No, please! Lucian, please!”
She tries to fight them, clawing and kicking as they pull her out of the cell. Her nails leave scratches on the iron bars as they drag her away, her desperate cries echoing through the dungeon.
“Arrange for a portal,” I tell one of the guards. “Have a witch send her back to Silver Stone territory. Whatever’s left of it.”
“Lucian!” Harper’s voice is raw with anguish. “Please! I can be useful to you! I can—”
But the guards are already carrying her up the stairs, her pleas growing fainter with each step until finally, mercifully, they fade to nothing.
Silence settles over the dungeon like a shroud. Gareth slumps back onto his bench, suddenly looking every one of his years. The bravado is gone now, leaving behind a broken and hollow shell of a man.
“Satisfied?” he asks bitterly.
“That depends on your answers.” I move closer to the bars so he can see every line of hatred etched into my features. “Tell me about Astra’s father.”
Gareth’s laugh is indignant. “Her father? He was nobody. Just some rogue bastard that her mother spread her legs for when she was feeling rebellious.”
Rage flares hot and bright in my chest, but I keep my voice level. “Details.”
“What details? He was a drifter, a nobody with no pack, no status, no worth. Elena thought she was so clever, running off with him to spite me. To avoid marrying me like her father had arranged.” His voice grows more venomous with each word. “She always thought she was too good for reality.”
“Did Astra’s father abandon them?”
Gareth shrugs. “Probably got bored. Or maybe he realized what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into when Elena’s father came looking for them. Either way, he wasn’t around when we brought her back.”
The careful casualness of his tone makes me press harder. “What happened to him?”
“How should I know? Rogues die all the time. Could have been anything.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Gareth meets my gaze, and there’s a cold look in his eyes. “It’s the only answer you’re getting about him.”
I file that away for later investigation. “How did Astra’s mother die?”
Now Gareth smirks, and the expression is so full of malicious satisfaction that it takes every ounce of my control not to crash through the bars and strangle him where he sits.
“Illness,” he says simply. “Very sad. Very tragic.”
“Bullshit.”
His smirk widens. “That’s what the records say. Poor Elena, wasting away from grief and sickness. Such a shame.”
“Tell me the truth.”
For a moment, we stare at each other in tense silence. Then, Gareth throws back his head and laughs—a sound so full of cruel pleasure that it makes my blood run cold.
“You want the truth?” he asks, his eyes bright with malicious glee. “Fine. Here’s your truth, Your Highness.”
He leans forward, his voice dropping to an almost conversational level, like he’s sharing gossip over dinner.
“Elena tried to run away. Can you believe that? After years of learning her place, after understanding what happened to people who defied me, she actually tried to run away with her little bastard daughter.”
My hands clench into fists at my sides. “What did you do?”
“What I had to do.” He shrugs. “She was my property, after all. My personal whore who’d forgotten her place. When she tried to run, I had to remind the entire pack what happens to people who disobey their alpha.”
