DUSK.
At first, I thought the maid had to be joking.
"Did you hear yourself? You accidentally called the Alpha just now." I said, and the maid turned to me.
"The Alpha is dead. Read the room." She said, and I looked at everyone discussing in silent whispers, all with unbelievable looks on their faces.
"The Alpha is dead." I said more to myself than to the maid.
The man who had threatened me just the day before was gone so quickly. It was still so hard to believe.
"I know it's hard to believe. When I also heard the news very early this morning, I couldn't believe it. I thought they had to be joking or pulling some prank of some kind, but it really is true." She said, and I looked at the crowd once more.
"But how? I still don't understand." I asked.
"The Alpha loves his main room cleaned before he goes to sleep and before he awakes, so, very early this morning, his maids went in to clean up before he awoke, and they screamed, all of them." She said with wide eyes.
"How did he die?" I asked, as that seemed to be the only part that might make me start to believe it.
"We don't know for sure yet; we just know the maids screamed for the guards, telling them the King was gone. Right now, the maids have been taken, probably for questioning." She said, and just then, the Guards all came out.
"I need you all to leave; let's go about our various duties. I need you all to leave this place. It's an order from above." He said, and everyone began to move away, murmuring.
As I walked away with the workers and non-workers who had been drawn to the scream of the maids, I saw Seline looking around, and then she spotted me and beckoned me to come over. I went to meet her, and she took my arm.
"I was searching for you." She said as she took me far away from the people.
"I had also been looking for you when I left my room." I replied, and she looked to the left and to the right.
"Did you hear the news? Of course you did; I keep asking silly things. The King is dead, Dusk." She said, and we entered a guest room and sat on the bed.
"I heard about it, but it's still so hard to believe. I mean, this is someone who still spoke to me with so much hatred the previous day." I said, and she sighed.
"Lucius and the Pack Elders don't want the people to know about this." She said, and I looked at her.
"Why?" I asked, and she moistened her lips.
"The King didn't die a natural death; he was murdered. found in a pool of his own blood." She said almost in a whisper, and my eyes went wide.
"Who could have..." I started to say, and she shook her head.
"I never imagined anything like that happening. As of yesterday, he was still smiling happily with his men. The funeral is tomorrow. As our tradition is, we have to bury royalty immediately, as no part of their body is allowed to rot before they're laid to rest." She said, but I didn't know how I felt. Someone had died. I wasn't happy, I wasn't sad; it was a kind of mixed feeling that I didn't understand. Even though he had been heartless, a man of his status, as powerful as he had been, didn't deserve to die through murder.
All day, I watched Lucius walk up and down busily, sending out letters to the allied Kingdoms informing them of his sudden death, and even though he tried to look composed, there was still a look of gloom over his face, and I guessed that even though he and his father never had a good relationship, he still loved him.
~
LUCIUS.
After I had sent the letters with the help of my men and was less busy, I began to feel a bit of gloom settle over me.
The demise of my father meant I was a complete orphan.
Ethan stayed behind me as I went through my father's things after the room had been cleaned.
The things were neat and organised properly. It felt as though he'd just walk right through the door and call my name. I decided to think about the good memories I had with my father, although I doubted I had any.
Even if he never saw me as a son all through my years, a part of me knew I'd miss him being around. All the responsibility and burden of the Kingdom had been thrown at me all of a sudden, but thanks to my father's ambition at such a young age, he has started teaching me about the politics of the Kingdom.
"Lucius." Ethan called, and I turned only to have him enwrap me in a hug. I would have separated myself from him, but it seemed I really needed all the comfort I could get, so I allowed myself to stay in his hug.
~
We had rounded up all the guards that had been managing my father's quarters.
"You all are all suspects because you have access to the Alpha's room; if he was murdered just like that, it meant you all had either been bribed or had been in on it." Ethan said, and they all looked at each other.
"With all due respect, no strange person entered the Alpha's chambers yesterday at night." The Head guard said.
"That only means it can have been some of you." Ethan said, but I had my eyes on just three wolves.
The strongest things my father always kept with him like shields.
Devan, who could rip an enemy apart at once with his claws; Trevor, who had been involved in dark sorcery before he was captured and found to have warring qualities; and the last Tamil, the only female warrior of my father...
Beautiful, seductive, and charming. She always snuck up on the enemy and didn't even let them know when she was killing them.
The question was...
Was the Killer among the guards in general, the three main suspects, or none at all?
Who could dare go up against the Alpha in all his glory?