Destined for Disaster ✔️

Chapter 3

"Let us get to business," Alder spoke. "We were told your mate resides in block F?"

Austin nodded and mumbled a half-hearted "Yes". Ellis handed Alder the page from the prison log that contained the details around inmate 643217's incarceration.

Alder took the paper and read it, holding it at such an angle as to allow Corinne to read along. Once they had both scanned the page's contents, they shared a look that foreshadowed little good.

"Who is she?" Ellis asked. "The administrator told us she is violent, but we haven't been told anything else. Are you familiar with her case?"

Alder folded the page in two and nodded. "We are. We do not usually involve ourselves into prison dealings, but her case is a special one. She has been here for a few weeks now, maybe a month. She was caught trespassing onto our pack lands."

Austin's head shot up. Trespassing? If that was all it was, perhaps she wasn't so dangerous after all. He already saw his plan going up in smoke.

"Trespassing is hardly a capital offence," Ellis said. "Why has she been put in block F, if I may ask?"

"When our border patrol approached her, she attacked them," Corinne said. "She injured three of our warriors, and almost got away, too, despite the odds being against her. In the end she was taken into custody and given a cell in block F. We questioned her - her trespassing combined with her combat skills made us worry that perhaps she was a spy or assassin. You can never be too careful."

"Was she?" Austin asked, hardly trusting his voice.

"We have yet to find out," Alder said. "We have tried questioning her on multiple occasions but she has been less than forthcoming. Any attempt on our part to handle her has been met with resistance from her. She will not speak, not cooperate, not even eat unless we force her to. Corinne and I are not usually involved in the interrogating of suspects, but this one showed such a persistence that we got curious. Or rather, Corinne did."

At that, the queen smiled. "I went down to the prison to see her. She went wild when she saw me. I suppose she blamed me for her situation, which I can understand."

"After that, I wanted to see her for myself," Alder said. "I have never seen someone fight that desperately. If she hadn't been chained... She really wanted me dead, that much was clear."

"Is she feral?" Ellis asked.

Corinne shook her head. "It doesn't appear that way. And she doesn't show that kind of animosity to any of her other handlers. Only to us."

"Which was one of the things that gave us reason to think that perhaps she came onto our territory with ill intentions," Alder said. "We have tried everything we could to get her to talk, but she has proven very headstrong. For the time being we have deemed it wise to stop questioning her."

"You've stopped?" Ellis asked. "Why?"

Alder looked at Corinne, who met his look with an increasingly uncomfortable one of her own. With a sigh, she turned to Austin.

"You see, whenever it is possible, we try not to harm our prisoners. Sometimes, however, we have little choice but to resort to more... rigorous measures. She would not shift back to a human form of her own accord, so we had to take steps to ensure that she did."

Realisation slowly started settling in. Austin's wolf didn't like the apologetic looks he was receiving. "What steps?"

"We have had to silver her," Alder said. "Multiple times. We had to stop when she grew too weak."

Austin's eyes turned a darker shade of brown as his wolf flared up in his mind, taking control. A rumbling growl erupted from his throat and he surged forward.

Ellis, who was a head taller than his younger brother and far exceeded him in strength, managed to grab hold of him before he had taken more than two steps towards Alder and jerked him back, tackling him without hesitation. Austin hit the floor with a dull thud that made pain shoot through his back and that distracted his wolf long enough for Austin to push him back to the recesses of his mind, his eyes returning to hazel.

"No harm was done," he heard Corinne say, her voice insistent. He realised she was talking to the guards, who had come running from every side of the room, spears at the ready. They surrounded him swiftly, looking at Alder to await instructions. One word from him and they would have killed him on the spot.

"It was a misunderstanding," Corinne said, silently exhorting her mate to agree.

Alder raised both hands, radiating utter calmness. "Stand down. Nothing is the matter. Stand down."

Ellis was kneeling beside Austin, keeping a hand pressed to his chest, pinning him to the floor. Cold seeped through his jacket and he shivered. He moved a hand to his pounding head, and the guards immediately moved in closer.

"Stand down," Alder repeated, a bit more sternly. "It was a misunderstanding indeed. Was it not, Austin?"

The guards retreated, though they kept their gazes pinned to Austin. Corinne slipped away from Alder's s side and crouched down beside Austin, gentle fingers examining his scalp.

"Did you hurt yourself?" she asked.

"I... I don't... I don't know what came over me," Austin whispered, staring up at Corinne with wide eyes. His wolf had never taken control like that before.

"No harm was done," Corinne said. She placed a hand over Ellis', nodding at him to draw back. He did, and Austin sat up, his eyes finding Alder.

"What came over you was the effect of the mate bond," Alder said. He smiled, stepped forward and extended a hand to Austin, who, dumbly, took it and allowed the king to help him up.

"I'm so sorry," he said, horror clear on his face. "So sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"O, we know," Corinne said, brushing some dust from his back. "There, like nothing happened." She joined Alder again.

"It is forgotten already," Alder said. A bit more seriously, he added: "I understand your reaction. If anyone were to lay a hand on Corinne, well..." His eyes turned lilac and he shook his head.

Corinne slid her hand in Alder's. "Please believe me when I say that I detest silver, and that we would never use if it we had other options. If she had not seemed so insistent to kill us, we might not have felt it necessary to go this far. We simply don't know who we're dealing with. I hope you can understand that when it comes to the safety of our family and our people, there's little we're not willing to do."

Austin nodded, his heart still pounding in his ears. "Of course." And he did understand. His pack used silver as well when the situation called for it; it was nothing new. The only thing he didn't understand was his own reaction.

"Now that we have cleared that up," Alder said, "I think it is time for you to meet your mate."

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A/N: As always, any comments, suggestions, criticism, or thoughts are welcome.

Next chapter: time to meet the mate ;)

Thank you for reading!