Chapter 241: Drag Path 2 ALDRIC I returned to the basement within the hour. The tray needed collecting. I couldn’t leave it down there. Gabriel could be dangerous if given an inch. I reached the steel door and pulled out the key from beneath my shirt. The lock turned with its usual smooth click and I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The white room greeted me with its sterile brightness. The cage sat in the center, exactly where it always was. And inside the cage, Gabriel hunched over the empty tray. He’d eaten everything. Licked the plate clean from the looks of it. The glasses were drained. Even the garnish was gone. But something was off. I counted the items on the tray without moving closer. Plate. Two glasses. Napkin. Spoon. No fork. I walked forward slowly. My footsteps echoed against the pristine white floor. Gabriel’s head lifted. He watched me approach with those wild eyes, trying to look innocent. Trying to look harmless. He was neither. "Return the damn cutlery." I stopped just a few feet away from the cage. "You cannot use it to escape here, big brother." Gabriel’s hands tightened around the bars. His knuckles went white. "This is madness." His voice cracked on the last word. "It has been years. So many years. What could you possibly get from this?" I tilted my head slightly and studied him the way one might study an interesting specimen under glass. "All this," he continued, "because I decided I was wrong and that the Alpha seat rightfully belonged to our nephew?" The words hung in the air between us. He actually believed that. He actually thought this was about a simple change of heart. About choosing to support Cian instead of continuing to contest for the seat himself. Poor, stupid Gabriel. "You have never had purpose," I said. My voice came out calm and measured. "But you did have use. I put the thought in your head. I nurtured it." I moved closer to the bars. Close enough to see the grime in his beard, the desperation in his bloodshot eyes. "But somehow your supposed good nature took over and you deviated from the path I laid for you." The disappointment in my tone was genuine. I’d worked so hard on him. Years of careful manipulation. Years of planting seeds and watering them with just the right combination of encouragement and doubt. "You were going to give away what wasn’t yours to give away?" Gabriel stared at me for a long moment. Then he laughed. It started as a chuckle. Then it grew into something bigger and wilder. His whole body shook with it. The sound bounced off the white walls and came back at us from every direction. "If you wanted the seat so bad," he said when he could breathe again, "you could have gotten it. You could have contested for it too." I smiled. "That wasn’t in the plan though." "What plan?" "I took a bow." I held his gaze. Let him see the truth in my eyes. "I took a bow first, knowing I had laid the groundwork for you. You were meant to be the one who rose against it, contested, and won." Gabriel’s laughter died. His face went slack with understanding. With horror. "What even is this obsession?" His voice dropped to something quieter. Something almost pitying. "You have been plotting for years and years now. You have me here, your prisoner." He gestured around the cage, at the white room, at everything. "Is Morrigan even dead yet? Is our nephew not still the Alpha of Skollrend? Really, what have you achieved?" Valid questions. All of them. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ring. The red stone caught the overhead lights and threw crimson reflections across the white walls. I slipped it onto my middle finger. The metal was warm from being against my body. The stone pulsed with power I could feel thrumming through my hand. I walked closer to the cage. Right up to the bars. "I have made you the enemy in his forefront," I said. "He believes all his problems are because of you. He even wants you dead." Gabriel’s breath hitched. "If there was even a chance you escaped here, I don’t have to even do much. Cian will be the first to put a bullet in your head or perhaps behead you." "You are a monster." Gabriel’s words came out thick, as it was choked. "How did we even come out from the same womb?" I shrugged. "Beats me. You have no fire in your soul. You are a disappointment to me." Gabriel leaned closer to the cage edge. His fingers wrapped around the bars so tight like he somehow thought they might leave permanent indents in his skin. "But Cian is our nephew," he said. "He is our blood. Do you just want to be heralding it all that badly?" The question was so naive it almost made me laugh. "He is a half blood," I said. "Part us. Plenty his mother. And now..." I paused, savored the next words. "And now he is married to an Omega. Their child, when they have one and they will because they have been fucking like rabbits, will have greater claim to Skollrend than me. Than you. Than my daughter. Than my son." Gabriel’s eyes went wide. "Son? What son?" I smiled. "There is a lot you don’t know about me, brother." I reached down, picked up the tray and lifted it slightly. The empty plate slid toward the edge. "Give what you took." Gabriel looked at me. His hand moved toward his torn shirt. The move was slow as it was deliberate. He pulled out the fork from where he’d hidden it against his body. He extended his arm through the bars. The fork glinted in the overhead lights. He held it out to me, handle first. When I reached for it, that was when Gabriel’s hand moved. It was faster than I expected from someone who’d been starving for days. He flipped the fork and drove it toward my throat. The tines aimed straight for my jugular. A killing blow if it landed and he could make it work. It never landed. The fork fell from his hand before it got within six inches of my skin. Gabriel dropped to the ground like someone had cut his strings. His body convulsed and shook. His back arched and his mouth opened in a silent scream. The runes burned into his flesh were doing their job. I bent down and picked up the fork. It was expensive so I examined it for damage. The tines were still sharp and the whole thing was still perfectly aligned. Good. "You never learn," I said. Gabriel writhed on the floor of his cage. His breathing came in sharp gasps. Sweat poured down his face and soaked through his filthy shirt. "As long as I have this ring," I held up my hand so the red stone caught the light, "and you have those runes burned into your flesh, you cannot hurt me." The convulsions slowed. Gabriel’s body went limp. He lay there on the floor, chest heaving, staring up at the ceiling. "Please." His voice was barely a whisper. "Release me. I won’t say a word. I’ll disappear. Wipe my memories with the witches under your payroll if you must. I just want to live a life." I set the fork on the tray and straightened before looking down at him through the bars. "You will live, brother," I said. "Once I ascend that throne." Gabriel dragged himself to his knees, grabbed the bars again and used it to pull himself up until he was kneeling upright. "You haven’t made a move strong enough since you hatched this idea," he said. "Cian is still Alpha." True enough. "Well, after your mess, I had to make do." I shifted the tray to my other hand. "The first plan was use love to make him step down. But he chose the seat." Gabriel’s face twisted. "The next plan was kill Morrigan, reveal it was you who poisoned her, and send my dear nephew to psychosis." I kept my tone conversational, while he stared at me horrified. The weakling that he was. "I could then put him in a conservatorship and take over Skollrend. But even that didn’t come to fruition. The Omega bride fucked that up." I moved toward the door with the tray balanced perfectly in my hands. "So I have a new plot," I said over my shoulder. "You’ll just have to see how it goes." My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out with my free hand. Ronan’s name flashed across the screen. Odd. He never called unless it was important. I looked back at Gabriel one last time. He knelt there in his cage, broken and desperate, exactly where I needed him to be. "See you in two days, brother," I said. "Rest. You’ll need it." I walked toward the door. The lock was already turning in my hand when Gabriel’s voice came from behind me. "Wait. Wait. Wait." I didn’t wait. I stepped through the door and pulled it shut behind me. The lock clicked into place with that satisfying finality. The sound echoed down the hallway and faded into the darkness. I answered the phone as I walked toward the stairs. "Ronan," I said. "Talk to me." The tray didn’t shake. My hands were steady. My voice was calm. Everything was exactly as it should be. I hoped it stayed that way.