Zuri was in limbo for a while, thus their meeting with Caiden was postponed until she felt better, because Khaos couldn’t leave her alone. Somehow, he didn’t want to leave her alone.
The mate bond strengthened their affection and now they were too attached to each other.
Was it love? Neither of them could answer that. Their emotions, their feelings and their attachment were complicated. They didn’t come from something pure called love…
There were so many variable and invisible forces that tied them together.
When Zuri was sleeping, Khaos carried her to bed and lay down with her until lunch came and they finally met with Caiden and… shadow.
“He is so big…” Zuri said, she was amazed to see her little wolf had gotten so big. She could no longer carry the wolf with one arm, or cradled him.
The wolf seemed recognized her and rushed to her.
“Oh, he is so fluffy!” Zuri said happily.
They met in a bar, outside of the capital city of the Great Lunar kingdom, where there were a lot of taverns that selling cheap goods and ale. There were so many people here, especially merchants.
“He is too big, he needs diet, he will have a hard time to move,” Caiden grumbled, but you could see the gentleness in his eyes, obviously, it was him, who had fed Shadow until he turned that big.
Zuri flinched when she heard that, she pressed her lips and tried to act normal.
Why would she need to act to be normal?
“Yeah, the wolf will not be able to hunt and fight if you overfed him,” Bryden chimed in. He came with them and the four of them were sitting around a table.
“Feed the wolf more. He needs his strength to fight back,” Khaos said casually, as he drank his cheap ale. Dezgar had done something with his eyes and now they were the color of black, since people would immediately recognize him with his grey eyes.
Khaos with black eyes only added the mysteriousness that shrouded him. He appeared not approachable and distant.
“Nah, he is too…” Caiden stopped in his track, realizing his mistake. “…small. I will feed him more, until you can ride him. Do you like the idea of riding a wolf, Zuri?” he asked Zuri playfully, as she patted Shadow’s head. The wolf put down his big head on Zuri’s lap.
“No, thank you.” Zuri rolled her eyes.
“Nice to see you again.” Caiden smiled genuinely.
They could be a good friend if it was not for what his father had done to Zuri. The way Ezra aggravated her and for what he said.
After that, Caiden told them everything in detail, a few things that he could tell them in his letter, just in case someone intercepted it.
“You are right, the princess has a weakness. There is a big secret that only a handful of people around her knew.” Caiden lowered his voice to give a dramatic effect, but Bryden slapped his back and told him to talk clearly.
They were at the corner of the bar and because it was still day, there were not many people here, it was safe for them to talk.
“What is it?” Bryden leaned over, so eager to know.
“Opium,” Zuri replied.
“Yes, you are right.” Caiden nodded. He came here to confirm Zuri’s suspicion and she was completely right. “How do you know that?”
“Not many people know about this, but the well known merchant from the other continent to whom the king married off his daughter is a drug dealer, the biggest one.”
“How do you know that?” This time, it was Bryden, who asked her, he stared at her with bewilderment. He was amazed with crucial information that Zuri had.
However, actually, she knew about this from Rhett. When she went to the black market for the first time with him, she met Lucas and Sir Bairone, the merchant, the drug dealer, who was now given the title as the prince, since he married the princess.
It was not common, for shifter to be with a mere human, they usually didn’t get together with other race, but rumor had it, the Great Lunar kingdom was in financial trouble and Bairone had enough golden to get them out of the critical situation in exchange for the royal title.
It was also Bairone, who was the mastermind behind the idea to monopolize almost all the merchants to sell their food supplies only to Great Lunar kingdom during the winter, caused trouble for the other two kingdoms. It did make sense, because he was a merchant himself.
Zuri didn’t realize it until she looked into it and remembered she met this man before. The question was; why Rhett met with Bairone years ago? She had never asked about it. It didn’t even cross her mind until recently.
“It doesn’t matter how I know him, we need to focus on how to get the golden stamp.” Zuri continued to give Caiden instructions of what he needed to do next, while Khaos relaxed beside her.
The beta was amazed with her plan, but also wary of her.
Needless to say, Zuri was… a strategist. Just like Khaos, she knew how to make a plot. She was not a na?ve woman, who was ignorance to how the world worked.
Her ability had been proven once when they dealt with the purchase of the ship and Bryden had been amazed by her.
But, the problem here was; Zuri was a Shell. Though it was harsh, but she was a collateral damage for their main goal. Her existence and the purpose of her was a complication for their goal, especially now when Khaos had marked her.
Bryden could see the way Khaos stared at her. The bond strengthened, the affection was real and now he was tied to her more than ever.
If only she was not the Shell, Khaos and Zuri would be perfect for each other.
“How do you want to do this?” Khaos asked, he played with her hair absentmindedly, he did it very naturally and more often than not, he would glance at the mark on her neck. It was almost healed, but there were scars around her wrists and ankles. The scars from the silver. It seemed, it wouldn’t heal.
Even though Zuri looked better, her healing ability was rather slow. She almost looked like a human, she almost looked like she lost this ability.
“I want the princess, who is the one who delivered the golden stamp.”
“How are you going to do that?” Khaos looked relax, he let his mate to plan everything, while he gave her his support and Zuri enjoyed it.
It boasted her confidence, it kept her mind away from negative thoughts and voices in her head. She looked fine. At least, now…
“The king didn’t know about the fact of Bairone and also the opium and now the princess is an addict,” Zuri started. Bryden and Caiden leaned over instinctively to listen to her.
And in the end, they talked about the plan for hours.
***
“My king, what is going on?” Luca approached him, the royal gamma had been worried about the situation in the River Creek pack and in the whole kingdom in general.
The help from Wolfdale Kingdom was already here. The palace had opened the gates to distribute the food supply too. Queen Nycta helped with the process, which made this as her first appearance in public after their ceremony.
Nycta heard what Rose was doing in the River Creek pack and she was going to do the same. Despite the tumultuous problem between the king and the queen, no one needed to know. Dacre and Nycta needed to show their strong front.
“You need to stop drinking.” Luca took the bottle of wine from Dacre’s hand. He had been like this for days after the letter from Leonard. Nycta and Killian’s betrayal hit him so hard. “We still couldn’t find a merchant, who wanted to sell their items to us,” he informed him.
“Where is Khaos?”
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