Chapter 16

  Why do I feel like I had just let my mate down? I let her go with that idiot Than. Worse off though is the fact she had loved him once. What if deep down inside she still did? What if being captured by Than resurfaces those feelings? What would happen to me?

    , I screamed to myself while I punched an oak tree so hard that it fell down, roots out and everything.   

But stalking around a clearing in the middle of a forest is not going to make up for everything I had done to my mate.  I need to fix what I’ve done, the pain I’ve caused. Now it’s my turn to make everything better.

     I told myself as I started to run back to where the castle was. The trek back although only maybe a five-minute werewolf run away, seemed to take forever to get to. Maybe it was because I had a purpose, I needed to save my dear Callie.    

  I was winded in and out of the trees to avoid running into them and jumping over fallen branches and rocks. Once I got back to the castle walls, where the fight was taking place between the rogues and royals, I was surprised to see that there were hardly any people around and they certainty weren’t in a fight.    

I found a warrior from my pack that was wandering around and ran up to him. “What happened? Where is everybody?”    

He looked up startled, he must have been deep in thought as to have not heard me coming, and I wasn’t being very silent. “S-Sorry sir, I’m just a bit perplexed that’s all.”

    “Hmm, and why is that?” I asked him as I continued to follow his eye sight over to a tree that was covered in claw marks, obviously done by a werewolf.    

“We – we were in the middle of the fight – between the rogues and us obviously – and – and . . . all of a sudden the rogues just stopped. T-they just stopped and then retreated back into the woods in the blink of an eye. It makes no sense, it-it . . . they’re rogues I mean, they don’t have a leader or Alpha that orders them to obey. They are .” He was obviously flustered, he wasn’t making complete sense.

    It took me a few minutes to piece everything together but once I did, I felt a bit of relief. Than kept his words and got the rogues to leave. Callie didn’t leave for a lie, she just saved many people’s lives by doing what she did and for that I felt proud that she was my mate.     “Where is Queen Emmaline?” I asked him.

    “In the armory room,” he answered then continued to walk around aimlessly around the fielded area.

    I ran off quickly in search of the Queen. I need to fill her in on the situation. Even though Callie left her a note, I know Callie at least to some extent and she likes to sugar coat things so that whatever the situation may be, she doesn’t make it sound like a big deal, especially situations where she has a major role in. I need to fully fill the Queen in on the situation because she may be able to help.     I ran into the armory room and scouted for Queen Emmaline. I found her in the far left corner of the gray bricked room near a bucket of swords.    

“Emmaline,” I called out to her, forgetting to address her by her proper status. I felt the eyes of almost every person in the room on me, it must not be every day that a man forgets to address the with her respective name. I cower down slightly in the smallest amount of shame. I probably should have apologized or corrected my behavior but my mind was elsewhere.    

“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I need to talk to you immediately . . . in private,” I added, glancing at the others in the room that still watched me with a cautious gaze.    

“Very well, Leo,” She said and started walking towards the exit. I followed in tow, silently letting her lead me to wherever it was she wanted to have our talk.    

We walked down the winded hallways for maybe five minutes before Queen Emmaline turned a corner leading to what seemed like a dead end minus a small, almost unnoticeable brick doorway.

    Queen Emmaline opened the doorway and started to enter. “Come,” She said and started walking further in the dark hallway that lay within the door.  

  I shook my head slightly but followed her in. The door closed behind me with a big slam leaving us in a cloud of somber darkness. I heard something that sounded awfully close to metal rubbing against metal from up ahead and soon enough there was a torch, lit up by the Queen.  

  I quietly followed her down the still dark hallway until we reached another doorway, this time wooden and more visible. We entered to door and found ourselves in a room lit up by an array of torches hung up on the walls. In the middle of the room there was an old table and two wooden chairs. Against the wall that was the farthest away from the door, there were a set of chains and on the other side of the room there was a glass compartment filled with what seemed to be weapons or potential weapons. Beside the glass compartment though there was a heavy-duty security system with a voice pad, finger scanner and keypad along with a camera. There was no way any unwanted human being could breach that system.    

The Queen chuckled, “Excuse the room, this is where we take rogues and prisoners for questioning, it’s a little dark but necessary.”    

“Why did you bring me here?” I asked.

    “You said we needed to talk and I have a feeling that this talk is important. Here is the most private place in the whole castle believe it or not.”

    “You’re not going to chain me up or anything are you?” I knew she probably wouldn’t but I needed confirmation just for my own sake.    

“No, of course not.”    

I nodded, “Where do I begin?”

    “How about the beginning?”    

“The beginning it is,” I said and then proceeded to fill Queen Emmaline in on everything.