Chapter 412: Unethical 1
ALDRIC
The next morning had brought with it a sharp clarity that had been absent during the ssier hours of the night. I had taken care of what needed doing, and now I sat at the edge of consciousness inside this borrowed body, waiting to see if anyone would be foolish enough to stumble across what I had hidden.
The files were out there now. What needed to be out there anyway. They were now distributed... delivered. Each one was placed exactly where it would do the most damage.
I had gone to the witch first. Found her in that filthy hovel she called a sanctuary, surrounded by candles and bones and the kind of desperate mysticism that only the weak clung to. She had tried. I would give her that much. She had reached into the great beyond with trembling hands and pulled Ronan’s spirit back just long enough for
to get what I needed.
He had fought .
Even dead, even stripped of his body and his power, Ronan had tried to resist because he had clarity now, and he hated . But the dead had no leverage. The dead had no strength. And when the witch tightened her grip and forced him to speak, he gave
what I wanted.
The cabin.
He had hidden his version of the files at the cabin.
The witch had been less useful when it ca to the rune. I had asked her about it. About what Fia had done when she healed Gabriel’s body. About whether it could be fixed or reversed, or at least stabilized enough to keep
in control permanently.
She had examined it. Poked at it with her limited talents. Muttered under her breath in that way hedge witches did when they were trying to seem more competent than they actually were.
In the end, she told
what I already suspected.
She was not talented enough to undo what Fia had done. The healing had interfered with the rune in ways even she could not unravel. The magic was tangled now. Unstable. And fixing it would require soone with far more skill than she possessed.
The Original witch who had made the rune for
in the first place could have done it. But going to her would require money. A lot of money. The kind of money I did not have access to without drawing the wrong kind of attention.
My accounts were probably frozen. My assets were probably seized. Everything I had built over decades was now in the hands of people who thought I was dead, dead, dead.
I could not go back to any of it without revealing myself. And revealing myself before I was ready would an losing everything.
So I had settled for doing what was achievable. Getting the files. Distributing them. Setting the dominoes in motion, even if I could not control how they would fall.
It was not perfect.
But it was enough.
I had hitched a ride with so fool who thought he was doing a good deed for a weary traveler, and I had torn that place apart until I found them. Buried beneath the floorboards in a tal box that had rusted at the edges. Inside were copies. Backups. Everything Ronan had kept as insurance against the day soone might try and succeed to silence
because they finally had enough.
I had read through them again on the way back. Scanned every page. Every na. Every detail. And that was when I found it.
The na Athena. The face too.
One of the experints had been nad Athena, and I had missed it the first ti because I had been too focused on the bigger picture. Too focused on having leverage against Pauline and Valentine. But now, with ti to think, with space to plan, the pieces fell into place with a clarity that was almost beautiful.
Pauline’s husband had acted like a madman when he lost his toy at the ti. Everyone had heard and seen it. Everyone had whispered about it. The way he tore through the estate looking for her. The way he raged when she could not be found. It had been dismissed as grief. As the irrational behavior of a man who had lost sothing he had obsessed over.
It had been years since it happened. But I finally understood it all. I would have. If I had taken a deep look at the files. I would have... the second I laid my eyes on Fia because of how strikingly similar she looked to this Athena.
Athena had not just been a lost pet. Athena had been one of them. One of the fleshcraft abominations. Pauline had sold the girl out of her own jealousy and insecurity.
The letter I sent him was vague. Just vague enough to destabilize his relationship with Pauline, and without revealing too much. A few carefully chosen words. A hint that soone knew what she had been hiding and was kind enough to let him know. It ended with a suggestion that his lost beloved was still alive. In Skollrend.
It would eat at him. It would make him hurt. It would turn him against Pauline, and when their marriage crumbled, it would create the kind of chaos, and with that, the legitimacy I could use.
Valentine’s letter had been even more satisfying to craft.
I had included a picture of Athena. A grainy photograph pulled from the files. The kind of image that would an nothing to most people but would send Valentine spiraling the mont he saw it.
He would recognize her. He would know what this was. A threat. And he would act.
Valentine was not the type to sit still when sothing threatened his carefully constructed world. He would lash out. He would make mistakes. He would beco reckless in ways that would make him vulnerable.
The third letter had gone to the Lily of the Valley Alpha.
I was not close to him. Not anymore. But I had been close to his wife when she was alive. She had been my connection to the royal family since she had been Luna Princess, and through her, I had access to the kind of influence most wolves could only dream of.
Now that she was dead, I could not walk straight to the royal family and present my case. Not in this body. Not without the right leverage. The sin of fleshcraft was an abomination that demanded extermination, and I had the evidence to prove it. But I needed an interdiary. Soone who would carry my ssage without questioning it too closely. Soone who would see the value in what I was offering and act on it.
The Lily of the Valley Alpha and son-in-law of the royals was that person.
When he saw what I had to give him, he would want to talk. And when we talked, I would manipulate him into doing exactly what I needed.
I had considered reaching out to Hazel as well. She was about to be connected to the family now, thanks to moves I had made for her with Pauline. But it was too risky. The bitch was young, most likely idealistic. The kind of person who might ask the wrong questions or hesitate at the wrong mont.
No, the son-in-law was the better choice.
Safer. More predictable. Easier to control.
I looked back at Cian
He looked as white as a ghost. Still panicked as he was since the mont the sentinel confird Elara had not left through the gates. His Alpha instincts kicked in exactly as I had expected them to.
I allowed myself to think about her then.
About Elara. About the way her hands had flown to her throat when I tore it open. About how her eyes had still held sothing soft and pleading right up until the very end.
She had made it easy, really.
When I returned at dawn with everything in place: the files distributed and the letters sent, I had considered my options with the kind of detachnt that ca from knowing the outco no longer mattered.
Taking her body back to her room to stage a hanging would have been poetic. Tragic even. The kind of thing people would whisper about for weeks. But her head had been too damaged. The skull was caved in, and the face was unrecognizable. Even if I managed to get her back to the estate without being seen, the sheer wrongness of it would raise questions I could not afford to answer.
I had thought about throwing her from her window instead. A beautiful, heartbroken girl who could not bear the weight of her father’s sins. It would have fit the narrative perfectly. People loved a tragedy like that. They would have mourned her. Pitied her. Never questioned it.
But the risk remained.
Carrying her body across the grounds, even in the dark, even with Gabriel’s face, was exposure I did not need. A single person awake at the wrong ti could end . A single guard patrolling where he should not have been would kill . It would unravel everything.
So I settled for the next best thing.
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