Chapter 0130
+25 BONUS
When I reach the infirmary, I find Bernard unconscious on a bed. Dr. Martin is giving him a blood transfusion. I have never seen my father look so pale. He’s almost as pale as the vampire physician.
All
my life, my father always looked big and tough. He was the strong, domineering Alpha that bowed to no man. It isn’t until I learned who he really was, the greedy coward, that he became something else in my eyes. With him lying in that hospital, I can see how much weight he has lost in the dungeon. Bones poke out of his grimy clothes. He looks crumpled and brittle, like the doctor could break him easily if he isn’t handled with care.
I approach the bed warily. Somebody had shaved his head, and they had done it badly. The loss of his hair makes it easier for me to see the bite marks on his throat. There are half a dozen bites. His arm is dangling off the edge of the bed, and there are bite marks at the wrist. This is the work of more than one vampire.
“Who did this?” I demand. “Who’s been feeding on him?”
“I’m not aware of who it was,” Dr. Martin answers. “You’ll have to ask the guards.”
I’m going to interrogate the guards to find out who is responsible and how they let this happen. If this happened to my father who is not supposed to be touched, then I worry for the feeders in the dungeons. The last time I was down there, it had been a hellish existence for the feeders. I thought I would be left to the same fate of living in squalor and being fed on until I died until Kane came to free me. And there are other abuses that happen down there, worse than just being fed on.
My understanding is that all of that has changed, but then, how did my father get in this shape?
I look at the heart monitor and see his heartbeat seems stable. “Will he recover?”
“He should recover with time and rest. He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’s malnourished.”
“They weren’t giving him enough food?”
Dr. Martin looks uncomfortable. “You’ll have to ask the guards.”
I have a lot of questions for the guards. The situation in the dungeons is meant to be different now. Kane had been furious when he saw how Clarke had been treating the feeders. I haven’t gone to see if the changes he wanted had been implemented as I have been busy dealing with the pack and doing damage control, trying to right my father’s wrongs.
I’m furious and ashamed. The feeders down there are wolf shifters, my people, and I had assumed someone else had taken careo f the problems. I can’t expect the vampires in the castle to suddenly be empathetic toward them after decades of bad blood. I should have done more to make their lives better and not left it to Kane to deal with the issues.
I turn to Helga. “Could you keep an eye on my father and call for me when he wakes up?”
“Yes, Princess.”
Rainier understands without me saying anything what I want from him. He quietly follows my lead, and we head to the dungeons. When we arrive, we question all the guards about what happened to Bernard. While the feeders had been treated better since Clarke was no longer in charge of the dungeon, the same hadn’t been applied to prisoners. The guards had largely left Bernard alone, forgetting to feed him for a
+25 BONUS
Chapter 0130
day or two. Initially, he was loud and obnoxious enough to keep their attention. But after a week or two in his cell, he stopped being such a pain in the ass, and sometimes, they said, they forgot he was there.
The guards sear none of them had been feeding on Bernard.
“Who was it then?” I demand, jabbing a finger at a short vampire with a long black beard. “You’re the ones with easy access to him. The nobles and the staff don’t come down here.”
The guards look at each other, fidgeting under my glare.
“Well?” I exclaim. “Who was it?”
The youngest–looking guard stammers out, “-It could have been the prisoner in the cell besides his. Another vampire.”
“Who?”
“Jacob Maxwell,”
My eyes widen, and I take off in a rush toward Jacob’s cell. Rainier catches me before I can get too far. My impulse is to run and find Jacob Fucking Maxwell and punch him in the face. Rainier is stronger and grabs me firmly, but not painfully, by the wrist, tugging me back to his broad chest. I struggle against his hold, but he doesn’t let go.
