CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

RICHARD

The news media was there to greet Richard on the tarmac when he stepped off the private jet. The plane was one of two belonging to the throne. One was as lavishly appointed as possible, and that was the jet his father had taken, flying back to Altaden yesterday. Richard had remained in Seattle for another night, claiming that he wished to spend more time with his betrothed and enjoy Rainier Pack hospitality. And while Prince Peter remained a witty, surprisingly down-to-earth companion, Richard's real reason for staying later was far simpler.

He was in no mood to endure his father's company a second longer than necessary. In front of the crowds and the cameras, Richard and his father were all dignified smiles and a fa?ade of pack unity. The illusion was maintained, even around the servants and security. But things between them had never been more strained. Not even after his mother's death, when Richard's father first began to lose the man he'd once been and walked the path that made him the king he was now.

As Richard made his way down the ramp, he put on his most dazzling smile. The media coordinator had told him the press would be on the tarmac at Executive Lux, the Fixed Base Operator private airfield at Logan International that catered to high-end clientele. The coordinator warned him that the media was champing at the bit to question him about the betrothal. Of course, the press, human and shifter, had been in Seattle in droves. The betrothal itself had been live-streamed, yet reporters still wanted to question him about it.

His security forced the press to keep a respectful distance from the jet. Heath stood guard nearby, keeping a watchful wolf eye on the scene. His best friend had come along as part of Richard's personal security detail. His father hadn't pushed the issue, although the king was still irritated over the compensation the crown had to pay those two bigoted idiots at the bar. Heath had teased Richard about how those assholes should feel honored to have their asses kicked by a future king, suggesting that should put a new perspective on being thrown through a window.

Richard grinned wider as he approached the reporters. He had no idea what he would've done on this trip without his best friend, always there with a joke or a kick in the pants or just to listen. Richard didn't feel so alone with Heath around, and he'd felt pretty damn alone since Justin…

It was a disturbing revelation, no matter how he looked at it. Peter Rainier was kind and seemed like a surprisingly wonderful person in many ways, but he was not Justin. He didn't set Richard's blood aflame the same way. He didn't dominate Richard's thoughts the way Justin always had. He might be formally betrothed to the prince, but Richard feared he might never be able to overcome those simple facts. It was not fair to Peter. Not even a little.

Give it time…

Yes. He needed to give it a chance. But right now, he had reporters to deal with. Richard shoved all those thoughts aside as reporters began peppering him with questions. He had to be at his most princely. The pack needed it, and his father certainly expected as much.

"Prince Hargreave," one reporter shouted. "Any plans on how many children you'll have with Prince Rainier?"

He gave his "media" chuckle—a sound he'd mastered. The kind-but-amused chuckle with a hint of good-natured patience sprinkled on top. "I believe it's a tad early to release any numbers. That said, I believe two is standard in this day and age. Although I beg your indulgence as I must check with my mate before any announcement. After all, Prince Rainier is playing a vitally important role and will be doing all the real work."

"Why set the wedding date for May, Your Highness?" a human female reporter asked. "Many on social media are wondering if that shows hesitation to tie the knot. Are you reluctant to wed?"

"Not at all. I'm told the timeline is extremely standard. A marriage alliance is a big event, bonding two packs together. There are a host of other factors to handle. Trade agreements, mutual assistance treaties, and so forth. I'll spare you the details, but the diplomats must have time to work out the finer points." He considered saying something along the lines of "I eagerly anticipate the day," but lying was a bad habit for an alpha king. Instead, he went with an understatement: "Not to mention how royal weddings do take a bit of planning."

"Any word on Brin Edwards?" another reporter shouted, his voice cutting through the din.

Richard kept his carefully controlled smile as he scanned the reporters and zeroed in on the one who'd asked the question. A wolf shifter, not a human. The reporter was lean and almost as tall as Richard, with a plain face but a thick mustache making a return from an age long in the past. Richard hesitated, caught off guard by such a pointed question coming from out of left field, especially when everyone else was focused on the betrothal.

That hesitation allowed the reporter to press his advantage. He held his smartphone in Richard's face, some app on the screen blinking "recording."

"Sources claim that agents of the crown are hunting Brin Edwards with orders to kill," the reporter barked. "Were her claims that she was framed true? Was she set up as part of a political scheme to eliminate Justin Turner because of Turner's common blood?"

It was too late to walk away with a "no comment." It would only make him appear to be hiding something if he retreated now. If the media caught the scent of blood, they would be merciless. He certainly didn't want them tracking Justin down and harassing him with these kinds of questions. As crown prince, Richard was fair game, but Justin had suffered enough.

"I'm not a detective or a prosecutor," Richard replied evenly, "so I don't know if Ms. Edwards has been located or what the status of any investigation might be." He raised an eyebrow. "I certainly know nothing about ‘orders to kill.' The last time I checked, life was not a Hollywood spy thriller."

That earned him a few laughs, although the reporter who'd asked the question seemed unfazed. He still held his phone out, staring into Richard's eyes with a challenge that made Richard's wolf bristle.

"What about the claims that Edwards was framed and ousted for political reasons? What about Justin Turner, Your Highness?"

Damn it all. He still couldn't walk away. Those questions dangled over him like a sword held by a thread because he wanted to protect Justin.

"I'm not sure what to say except that we live in a world full of internet conspiracy theories. As far as I know, the church was involved in condemning Ms. Edwards and her false visions. I have nothing more to say about it at this time."

Other reporters began asking questions about the Rainier Kingdom or his plans for a royal honeymoon, but the reporter in front of him asked another question. He didn't shout to be heard over the others. He simply asked, and Richard heard every word.

"Where is Justin Turner now?"

Richard stared the reporter dead in the eyes, his wolf surging to the forefront of his mind, ready to bite. "Justin wishes to return to his private life, far away from any media circus. I would ask everyone to respect that wish. Ms. Edwards's betrayal made this difficult for all of us. I know everyone can sympathize with what an ordeal this has been for those caught up in it."

Courteous but with an undertone of warning, a flash of teeth, an underlying growl. He held his wolf back, stirred as it was by the mention of Justin's name. His heart was beating faster after the reporter's questions, and he heard the roar of blood rushing in his ears.

He was suddenly, deeply sick of it all.

Richard raised a hand and smiled as widely as any politician. "Thank you for greeting me here after my long flight. My wolf certainly loves the attention. If you have any further questions, please direct them to our press secretary. She'll be happy to answer them for you. Thank you again, but I have some sleeping to catch up on."

With that, he started toward the waiting Mercedes-Benz. Heath fell in beside him. Richard kept his silence until he was inside the car, not wanting to risk being caught on a hot mike. Heath, at Richard's request, climbed into the back as well and slammed the door.

"Well, that went great," Heath muttered under his breath.

"You and I have very different understandings of the word ‘great.' Who was that reporter?"

"Don't know. I can ask Sara to look into him if you want."

Richard hesitated. He wasn't surprised that Heath didn't know. His friend was a captain in the elite Royal Guard, not media relations. But involving Sara, Heath's romantic partner who worked in the crown's intelligence arm, was another thing entirely.

"No. Don't bother her about it. My father started this. Let him deal with the fallout. I just don't want them going after Justin."

Heath frowned. "I don't know how we can stop that without direct intervention by the throne."

"We won't get it, so leave it be." His father would never agree to do anything to protect Justin unless the king somehow benefited. And Richard didn't want his father focused on Justin again. He wasn't sure he trusted his father to keep his word about leaving the omega alone.

He stifled a yawn as the car left the private airfield and merged into traffic, taking a road that would lead them over Andrew McArdle Bridge and into Chelsea. He felt exhausted. Some of it was jet lag, but most of it was interrupted sleep. He kept dreaming about Justin. The dreams were extremely vivid, very intense, and he always woke afterward. These dreams didn't fade from memory like his usual ones, either. Some of them were even of the wet dream kind, a perplexing thing that hadn't happened to him since he was a teenager. He hadn't told Heath about that particular business. Honestly, it was sad, and sometimes even a best friend was better off not knowing.

But the dreams, when he was caught up in them, felt so very real, indistinguishable from reality. The erotic dreams were nice, except for the surprise upon waking. Some of them were memories, but most of them were new. Making love to Justin on a white sand beach, for example. Or kissing him on a yacht on the ocean at night, near Spectacle Island, with the lights of the Boston skyscrapers in the distance.

He groaned, feeling his cock twitch at the memories of those sexy dreams. He snorted and rubbed a hand over his face. "Goddess, I need a shower and a bed."

"You do look like shit, Your Worship."

"Thanks, my friend. Good to know, seeing as I just spoke to the news media."

"What's with all the yawning, by the way?" Heath's eyes narrowed. "Jet lag?"

"Broken sleep."

"Care to elaborate?"

He shrugged and shook his head. "Intense dreams. After each dream, I always wake up. Every single time."

It wasn't easy to fall asleep again, especially when his mind was racing with so many thoughts, not all of them good. He was plagued by doubts about the future, worries about Justin, and unease about his father and what the man might pull next. His wolf had never been more on edge—not since that night in the garden with Justin. Richard couldn't seem to escape the shadow of that terrible moment.

"Is this something that requires a medical professional?" Heath asked carefully, giving him a sidelong glance.

Richard smirked. Mental health and males—always a fraught subject. He was no better, he was sad to say, especially with his damn pride. "I don't need a shrink, thank you."

"I was thinking more along the lines of a prescription for something to help you sleep."

"Perhaps." He'd heard that kind of thing could be problematic. Mildly addicting because you began to rely on them. On the other hand, if he wasn't getting good sleep, he was going to start making mistakes and be good for nothing. "I'll think about it."

"Do that," Heath replied, tossing a worried glance Richard's way before looking out the window as if not wanting to be caught worrying.

The privacy shield was up between the driver and the back of the car. Richard knew it was soundproofed to prevent eavesdropping, even by wolf shifters, as business and negotiations were often done over the phone from the back of these vehicles. What Richard didn't know was whether there was a listening device planted back here. He wouldn't have put it past his father or his father's lackeys. Such as Spymaster Mathias Irvena.

"Can we talk?" he asked, his words blunt but with an edge. He was confident his best friend would glean his underlying meaning: Is it safe to talk freely here without being spied upon?

Heath met his gaze and nodded. "I asked Sara to scan the car for bugs at the palace before the driver brought it here. There's a geo-locating tracker, of course, but all our cars feature those. No listening devices, though."

"Do you trust the driver?"

"He's loyal to the pack, and you're the crown prince. But he won't be able to overhear us through the soundproofing."

He wasn't worried about loyalty to the pack. He was worried about loyalty to his father, the alpha king. But this was as good as it was going to get.

"Brin Edwards," he said coldly. "What do you know?"

"That reporter got under your skin, did he? I thought you wanted to leave it be?"

"I changed my mind. The claims about her never sat right with me. None of it." Yet, he'd gone along like a good little sheep, herded by his father to do exactly what the king wanted. He felt a wave of bitter disgust at himself.

"I don't know any more than you do, Richard. The story that came out of the Altaden church is essentially what you've already heard."

"That Brin Edwards deliberately lied about her vision from the Goddess."

"Yeah. According to the church, Edwards's claim that Justin was your Goddess-chosen mate was ruled to be deliberately manufactured to undermine the royal bloodline and succession. Apparently, she wanted to diminish the power and standing of the Hargreave Pack and the Altaden Kingdom in the world. Or something along those lines. The motive always seemed fuzzy for a majinette dreamer."

Richard shook his head. "Did anyone that you trust ever see any evidence?"

"You're asking the wrong man. That investigation would be the domain of the Church of the Mother. It's all internal religious protocol and dogma."

"Pirchet Aarden replaced Edwards, and Pirchet happens to be very loyal to the king. Our new majinette was very convinced of his former superior's guilt. This whole thing is starting to smell like my father."

"We need to be very careful how we handle this, Richard. It could boomerang on us hard if we raise red flags by asking too many questions. You aren't the only prince, and I'm already on your father's shit list."

Heath's warning sent a chill down his spine because he was right. Richard's brother was still in Europe—Denmark from Gregory's last phone call. Ostensibly, Gregory was involved in royal pack diplomacy, but from what Richard could tell, his little brother was mostly womanizing, partying, and having a grand old time bouncing around Europe. The last thing Richard wanted was his happy-go-lucky brother dragged back into the nest of vipers in Altaden.

At the same time, Richard was increasingly chafing under that chain his father had wrapped around his neck by using Justin as leverage. None of it boded well. Richard would make a poor alpha if he didn't stand for what was right, and yet, to keep Justin safe, he'd allowed his hands to be tied.

"I'm taking your warning to heart," he told Heath, then followed that declaration with another question. "What else do you know about what happened to Brin Edwards?"

"Need I remind you that I'm a captain in the Royal Guard, not a priest?"

"Remind me all you want, but your significant other is a woman who works for the crown's intelligence division. I know there's pillow talk. Was any of it about Brin Edwards?"

Heath looked at him, appalled. "Your pillow talk involves politics?"

"Never."

"Then why the hell would ours?"

"Surely there's something more to this. Brin Edwards claimed she was innocent, correct?"

"I believe so, yes." He frowned. "I'm not clear on the details because this is all secondhand, watercooler-talk hearsay. But if I remember right, Pirchet Aarden leveled an accusation against Edwards over her vision. Your father demanded an investigation. The Church of the Mother sent clergy and dreamers to investigate. Brin escaped custody and fled the city. The church declared her guilty in absentia."

Fled the city. The same as Justin. It was as if the walls around Altaden hadn't been built to keep humans out but to trap the wolves inside.

"Is the Royal Guard involved?"

"No. At least, not that I'm aware of. I would tell you if they were."

Richard nodded, certain of that much. "It's the spymaster, then. His agents." He looked at his friend. "Could Sara be involved?"

Heath's eyes flashed. It was the aggression and warning of a wolf protecting his mate, a man standing up for the woman he loved. Heath's scents were protective, challenging, resolute, and riddled with thorns. Richard knew he needed to be extremely careful here. The two of them had been best friends for half their lives. That was not a thing to be cast aside lightly, especially not with baseless suspicions or paranoia. But Richard had to be certain because lately, he was short on people around him that he could trust.

"If the spymaster has agents out in the U.S. hunting the majinette dreamer, Sara is not involved. She would've told me."

He put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I believe you. Put away the fangs, Heath. I know you love her."

Heath calmed a little. Not much, but a little. "Then why the hell did you ask something like that?"

"I wanted to see how much you love her."

"You're an asshole, you know that?"

Justin probably agrees wholeheartedly. "Could Sara find out anything for me without risking her career?" Or prison time…but he didn't say that because it didn't need to be said. They both knew the risks.

Heath hesitated. "I don't know. Maybe, but it's risky. They compartmentalize everything rigorously for security. Spymaster Mathias Irvena has been known to hire external assets, basically mercenaries, to extend the throne's reach when the king can't be seen getting his hands dirty."

Richard nodded and said nothing more. He wasn't willing to put Sara at risk over Brin Edwards. Not yet. Not without proof of something more. But that was the Catch-22, wasn't it?

"What will you do now?" Heath asked him.

"Nothing." He growled out the word, clenching a fist and gritting his teeth. "My hands are tied. You heard that reporter. This leads back to Justin. I swore a vow to my father to have nothing more to do with Justin. The only reason I made that promise was to keep Justin safe."

"Do you believe the king would harm him?"

"Do I believe my father would hurt a man I once loved? Yes. If it served his purposes."

Heath ran a hand through his hair and leaned back in his seat, his expression grim as death. "Shit."

"Exactly."

"Are you sure you don't want me or Sara to poke around—"

"No." He smiled to soften the curt word, but the smile felt as fake as cubic zirconia. Justin was gone. He was somewhere far safer than here. Richard didn't want more people to suffer, and his father had already threatened to demote Heath after the bar fight. He didn't want Heath or Sara in range of his father's wrath.

"Will you tell Prince Rainier any of this?"

"Until we are wed, Peter remains an outsider." Harsh, but trust was too precious a commodity to risk these days.

Listen to you. You're turning into your father one baby step at a time.

Heath was eyeing him as well. "That was never how you thought of Justin. He was your mate from the very beginning. You trusted him completely."

"What are you saying?" Richard's voice was ice wrapped in barbed wire.

"Do I need to spell it out? Think about it. Justin feels like your mate. I knew him. I considered him a friend. I saw you two together plenty of times. You were both happy. Have you been happy since losing him?"

Yearning ripped at Richard, opening wounds salted with guilt. A crushing desire to see Justin and make things right again, the way they should've been, nearly broke him. He viciously shoved that desire away until he had control of himself once more.

"Justin is gone," he replied. "My father is the alpha king. If there is a conspiracy, his hands are all over it, directly or indirectly. I cannot put Justin in danger, even if he was…" His voice caught. He gritted his teeth and pushed on. "Even if he was my true mate. I still have a duty to the pack. If losing Justin is not the Goddess's will, and Peter is not my mate, then I damn well expect Her to sort it out."

His venom bordered on blasphemy, but he would not beg forgiveness. It was all he could do to keep his wolf under control and keep his vow to his father. He had no other cards to play, no hidden aces up his sleeve. His father had neatly hamstrung him with a knowing smile, and all Richard could do was return that smile or turn his back on his birthright forever.

Peter Rainier might be Richard's mate or might not be, but Richard would wed him all the same. In time, they might find happiness together. And if they did not? Well, not everyone on the planet ended up happy and in love. Even if Richard would one day become alpha king, he was not a free wolf, able to follow his heart. Duty chained him to the throne.

That would not change.

As for Brin Edwards? May the Goddess protect one of Her own and Justin too.

It wasn't a prayer. It was a demand.