Chapter 428 His Soon-To-Be Ex Was On That Road

DRAKENFELL — WAR ROOM

Colonel Varflarous entered the war room at a pace that communicated the information he was carrying had an expiration date and the expiration was approaching.

Tiberon was at the head of the table. Dex was beside him.

Varflarous stopped at the end of the table. “The prisoner transport to Maximus South was intercepted two hours ago on the eastern road.”

Tiberon’s eyes lifted from the document in his hand.

“Dark magic,” Varflarous continued. “Mage screen deployed across a quarter-mile stretch. Guards were neutralized before they could send a signal. The reinforcement horn was triggered by a perimeter ward, which is the only reason we received notification at all.”

“Casualties,” Tiberon said.

“One confirmed dead. Dark Fae signature on the incendiary compound used in the screen.” Varflarous set the report on the table. “Guinevere Ashford was the target. She is gone. The second prisoner was left in the carriage, unharmed. He stated she ran during the extraction, which means abducted may be generous. The extraction team pursued her through a portal. Mage residue on the road confirmed the portal signature as eastern origin.”

Tiberon’s jaw set as he assembled a picture from data points and the picture was acquiring detail faster than he liked. Extracting a prisoner off Drakenfell’s own goddamn road was either genius or suicide, and Tiberon was going to make sure it was the latter.

“Protect her dragon. I want a full security detail on the juvenile enclosure.”

“Get reinforcements on the eastern road immediately,” he continued. “Full patrol complement. Mage pairs at every intersection between here and Maximus South. I want the road swept for residual ward anchors.”

“On it, Alpha. There is one more thing.”

Tiberon waited.

“The stablemaster logged a second carriage on the eastern road this morning. The queen’s royal carriage departed at dawn for the Eastmoor Orphanage.” Varflarous looked at Tiberon. “She was scheduled to return two hours ago. The carriage has yet to arrive, and the stablemaster has received no communication from her outriders.”

The war room went quiet.

Tiberon and Dex processed the information at different speeds and arrived at the same place simultaneously. The eastern road. Dark Fae magic. Neutralized guards. A portal extraction with enough force to take out a military escort. And the queen’s carriage, carrying the queen, traveling the same road, on the same day, due back two hours ago, and missing.

“Why did she leave?” Tiberon asked.

“The stablemaster said the queen was visiting an orphanage, Alpha.” Varflarous delivered the sentence with the professional neutrality of a man who understood that the sentence was absurd and whose job did not include editorializing the absurdity. “The Eastmoor Orphanage.”

Tiberon looked at Dex.

Dex looked at Tiberon.

The look between them lasted two full seconds and communicated an identical reaction: confusion so profound it temporarily displaced the urgency. Bellatrix Drakenfell, a woman who had never expressed interest in orphans, charity, or any activity that did not directly benefit Bellatrix Drakenfell.

Dex ran the sentence through his head again. His mother. At an orphanage. Voluntarily. Around children. His brain tried to construct a mental image, but the image refused to render. What in the actual fuck was she doing at an orphanage.

“An orphanage,” Tiberon repeated.

“Yes, Alpha.”

Tiberon filed the confusion. The confusion was sitting in a drawer labeled “what the fuck” alongside every other inexplicable decision Bellatrix had made in thirty years of marriage, and the drawer was full, and the orphanage was taking up room that the damn mural had only just vacated.

“Find her,” Tiberon said. “Dispatch a fast patrol to the Eastmoor road. Mage-supported. I want eyes on the queen’s carriage within the hour, and I want confirmation that she is unharmed before the next report reaches this table.”

“Yes, Alpha.” Varflarous turned and was gone.

The door closed.

Tiberon stood very still. His hands were at his sides. His expression was controlled, carrying the composed authority of a king issuing military orders in a war room, and beneath the authority, visible only to a son who had spent twenty-four years learning to read his father’s silences, was something that looked very much like fear.

Dex saw it. He did not comment on it, because commenting on Tiberon Drakenfell’s fear was an activity that no person in the history of Drakenfell had attempted and survived.

“She is probably fine,” Dex said. “She is Bellatrix. She is unkillable. She once argued a tax magistrate into early retirement. Dark Fae mages are a lateral move.”

He believed it. Mostly. His mother was the most terrifying woman on the continent, and anyone who attempted to abduct Bellatrix Drakenfell deserved whatever the fuck happened to them.

Tiberon did not respond. He walked to the window. Looked east. The eastern road was invisible from the castle, hidden behind miles of forest and terrain.

He was worried about his wife.

The divorce papers on his desk. The mural on his wall. The contradiction was so profoundly human it almost made him laugh, except nothing about this was goddamn funny.

“Send Hyran with the patrol,” he ordered, still facing the window. “Full ward capability. If there is residual dark magic on that road, I want the strongest mage in this castle between it and the queen.”

“Hyran is in Shadowclaw,” Dex reminded him.

“Then recall him.”

Dex looked at his father’s back.

“I will send Archibald,” Dex said. “He is here, he is fast, and he will find her.”

Tiberon nodded once, translating to: find her.

Dex left the war room at speed because his mother was missing, and because his father’s face had looked like that. If Tiberon Drakenfell was scared, then the situation was bad enough to justify running through a goddamn castle in front of his own officers without caring how it looked.

His mother was a nightmare. She was also his nightmare, and nobody else’s, and the distinction mattered more than his dignity.

The King of Drakenfell stood at his window, looking east, worried about a wife he was divorcing, confused about an orphanage she had no business visiting, and running tactical scenarios for a woman whose mural had damn near given him an aneurysm that morning.

Love was a stupid, complicated, contradictory son of a bitch, and Tiberon Drakenfell was standing in it up to his neck.