The Lycan King's Defiant Surrogate

NOV

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With no time to waste, as soon as I'm dressed. I rush out of the warehouse and head down the streets toward the palace.

My plan is flimsy at best, but someone has to take the risk to save those innocent servants. I'm not willing to let anyone else take the risk, despite my promise to Caleb. He's going to be mad as hell when he finds out, but... well, he can scold me afterwards, when that door crumbles down without hurting anyone and we are all safely out of this.

When I near the palace, I slow my run to a brisk, purposeful walk, not wanting to draw attention. Fortunately, Tristan's intel was right. Even though the ceremony is in a few short hours, there are still tons of servants and vendors bustling in and out of the only open entrance.

Tempers are high, impatience flaring both from those waiting all those having to check every single ID. Eventually, the vendors and servants, pressed for time, start taking their chances, slipping past the checkpoint in waves. The soldiers, seemingly more annoyed that they were given this job than they care about the security of the palace, look the other way as the servants slip inside.

I stick close to one batch of servants and slip in with the next wave. At this point, the soldiers seem to give up entirely and just wave us through.

"Be quick about it, then. Steward George is losing patience with these delays," says one of the soldiers, hurrying us through.

I keep my head down as I move away from the pack and towards the servants' quarters. Unfortunately, the entrance to the quarters is barred off by two familiar-looking soldiers. Traitors, who, during the battle, sided with George over their own king.

I turn my head away, but I'm not fast enough.

"Was that...?" one of them asks.

As I hurry away, he calls, "Hey, you!!

I don't wait. Instead, I take off running. I'm not familiar with these lower floors, but I remember where the stairwell is. I rush there now, sliding around people. In the stairwell, I rush up, two stairs at a time. I'm a floor up when the door below opens. "I swear to the gods, that servant looked like Harper from the harem," says one soldier to another.

"You are imagining things," says the other.

"Then why did she run?"

I rush up the stairs as, but I only make it to the floor of stairwell, and rush through these old familiar hallways.

There, I turn a corner and collide into a familiar woman

"Bethany?"

my old room, before they

ey get too close. In a panic, I dart out of the

She gapes at me as I gape at her. "Harper? What are you doing here?"

"There isn't much time," I tell her. "They are going to catch me?"

""Who is?"

"Bethany, you have to warn the servants to move out of the lower floors of the servants' quarters. Caleb and the others are going to use explosives to get through the door and -"

"There she is! Servant! Stop that woman."-This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

To protect Bethany's reputation. I grab her by the shoulders and pretend we're grappling

"There's no time," I tell her with urgency. "Tell them. Get as many people clear as you can."

"I will" she assures me, just as the soldiers arrive.

They grab me by the arms and yank me back. The soldier who suspected me gets a good look.

"It is her! Look!"

The other guard peers at me. "I'll be damned. We thought you were dead."

"Maybe she knows where the King's body is," the first soldier says

The other guard shakes his head. "Better to leave this to George

"Steward George," says the first guard. "If you keep forgetting, you'll get us assigned an even worse duty."

"Shit," the other guard says.

As they drag me off, I glance behind me, relieved to see Bethany already turning the other direction, toward the servants' quarters on this floor.

The two guards drag me up the stairwell, then down the hallway to the doors leading to the hall.

"Keep her here," says the first guard. "I'll go in and see if George is of a mind to see her."

As the second guard nods, the first slips into the room. It takes a few minutes, but then an angry booming voice erupts so loudly, I can hear it even from the hallway. "Bring her here at once, you imbecile!"

The second guard doesn't wait for the first to reemerge before he shoves open the door to the Hall and drags me inside. With the Hall, decorations are still being arranged. Servants are on tall ladders, draping silver streamers around the beams in the ceiling. Others are setting up tables near the side of the room, and covering them with silver tablecloths.

One is unrolling a long narrow carpet down the center of the room, from the doorway to the throne. At the end of it, standing just in front of the stage that holds the throne, stands George.

The first guard rushes down the carpet toward us. The servant laying the carpet glares at him behind his back.

"Now. Now. Faster," the first guard says.

Each grabbing one of my arms, the two servants rush me to the front of the room. They force me down to my knees in front of George, who stares down his nose at me.

Roughly, he grabs me by the chin and lifts my face upwards to see my face.

"So it is you. Harper, of the fallen King's harem. The fallen King's favorite," George sneers.

Calling him fallen is premature, but knowing surprise is to Caleb's advantage, I don't correct George now.

"Dressed as a servant, sneaking through my palace," George continues.

This palace does not belong to you. I bite back the words.

81%

Although to George, he mus; believe that he does. He's already wearing some of Caleb's clothing, garments of a monarch, with golden trim woven through the seams. As George is much arrower and smaller than Caleb, the clothes are ill-fitting. The addition of a gaudy silver belt does not hide it, making it bunched in places instead.

The other vendors are rushing. But the tailors likely had to tell George no outright.

I wonder what became of them.

"I assumed you died," George says. His finger strokes the side of my check. When I try to shrink away from him, he grips me harder at the chin. "Why have you come back? What is it you hope to accomplish?"

I keep my mouth closed, refusing to answer his questions.

"It is in your best interest if you talked to me now," George says. Else I'll have to mar that pretty face of yours. Wouldn't that be a waste?" He smirks with malice. "You know, after I am crowned, everything that belonged to him will belong to me instead. Including his harem. Including you."

If he tries it, I will fight back tooth and nail, whatever it takes to stop him. He will not find me a willing victim, no matter if he wears the crown or not.

If it even comes to that.

Down below, back in the underground, I imagine Caleb has received the message and the dynamite. It's only a matter of time before George's plans and dreams go up in literal smoke. Caleb grabs the messenger by the front of his shirt. "You let Harper go in there? Alone?"

"King Caleb," Tristan says, a soft warning that Caleb is getting distracted.

With the dynamite, they will lose their initial surprise.

Shoving the messenger away, Caleb turns to Tristan instead. "This ramps up our timeline. I don't care if the timing doesn't match up. We are moving everything forward." "Yes, King Caleb."

Thinking of Harper, Caleb's blood pressure skyrockets.

If she's not dead by the time he gets there, he might just kill her himself for causing him all this worry.

If she'd just stayed...

Of all the times to defy him.

"Get that dynamite in place," Caleb barks. "Everyone get ready. Stealth is no longer an option."

The soldiers salute.

Someday he will find a way to force Harper to actually listen to his commands.

If she's alive.

He growls, low and dangerous, already feeling the shift of his inner wolf pull at him.