Hunted: A Claiming Novella (The Claiming) (16 page)

His father’s sickly thin body looked
bony through the white sheets molded to his skeletal form. He coughed, a
rattling, mucous-filled sound that he hacked into a yellow stained
handkerchief. Speckles of pink soaked the cloth.

“I said,” his father began after
catching his breath. “You have a brother. Do you remember the Duchess of
Gaines?”

Lyle had nodded mutely, eyes wide.

“Her son, Patrick, isn’t Richard’s son.
He’s my boy. He’s your brother.”

The door had opened, the creak so
startling, Lyle jumped in his seat. Who but the young, gangly duke himself
stood there? Lyle still remembered the arrogant look in his eyes, the smirk on
his lips as he’d strolled in like he owned the place. Lyle found himself
scrutinizing Patrick’s face for any signs of similarity. It didn’t take him
long to see it. The height, for one, seemed to be a trait. Each of them were
over six feet tall, and the shape of the jaw, jutting and narrow, the long,
thin nose. It all painted a rather horrendous picture in Lyle’s mind.

Anyone but Patrick.

Patrick, the boy who’d beaten him, or
nearly beaten him, at almost every competitive structure in class.

His father relayed the news to Patrick.

He’d taken it much differently than
Lyle. Lyle had felt…a betrayal at his father, angry at his indiscretion to his
mother and to the family. Lyle looked unsurprised, even distant. How could he
be so cool about it? When Lyle wanted to scream and shout at his father for
what he’d done.

The rest evening hadn’t gone well. Lyle
didn’t know what his father had expected to get out of revealing the truth to
them. Had he wanted forgiveness? Acceptance? Reprieve from guilt? To create even
more chaos before he left this world?

Brice Hargrowe, King of Tarlè, at
sixty-three years of age, received no consolation from either of his sons
before he took his last shuttering breath.

Lyle pushed the unwanted memories of the
past away. They had no place here in the now.

“Lionel,” Patrick said in way of
greeting.

“I’d thank you for coming to see me, but
neither of us are happy about it.”

“Could you tell your sentinel to cool
it?” he asked, nodding at Reece who hovered against the wall at his back.

Lyle contemplated it, then relinquished
Reece from duty.

Reece hesitated, before stating, “I’ll
be right outside the door.”

He could use some privacy with the duke.

“Shoo, doggy, shoo,” Patrick taunted.

Reece stiffened, but remained quiet. The
door shut quietly behind him.

“Do try not to antagonize my guardsmen,”
Lyle advised. “Reece has been known to stab visiting guests.” Those had
technically been because of assassination attempts, but he wouldn’t mind seeing
Patrick skewered like a kebab.

“Pray tell, what this meeting is about?
I have many things to do. As you know, the company’s been occupied since the
attack at the mine. And I’m not exactly at my best health,” he said with a
pointed look at his leg.

“Ah, yes. And how is business over at
the mine going?” After Richard Gaines died, he’d passed on his company to
Patrick. Owning the mine, and thus
Tarlè’s
greatest
resource—silver—kept the Gaines’ fat with wealth.

“They didn’t infiltrate it, if that’s
what you’re asking. Aside from some debris cleanup, we should have the miners
back to work in a week.”

Sitting across from his half-brother
tried Lyle’s patience. He lit a cigar and puffed on it.

“Those are terrible for your health,”
Patrick commented.

“Want to warn me about the risks?”

Patrick smirked. Always the smirk.
“Actually, I was going to say—smoke two.”

That did make Lyle laugh. Damn. He
quelled it, not liking his brother’s sense of humor. Or maybe he did like it.
No, he quickly shut down that line of thinking. He refused to admire anything
about the man.

“In that case, here.” Lyle handed over
two cigars. Patrick cracked a smile before suppressing it. They both had that
in common. His brother joined him and soon clouds of clove-scented smoke filled
the air.

Lyle exhaled in satisfaction. Nothing
like the heat of smoke down his lungs to make him feel good. In a bad way.

“We need to discuss Lysse.”

That garnered Patrick’s attention. The
way his hand froze poised in mid-air to smoke the cigar, was almost comical. A
second passed, and he resumed putting the cigar in his mouth. Puff. Puff.

“What about her?” he asked after several
moments.

“What do you know about her?”

Calculating, always thinking critically,
Patrick met Lyle’s stare confidently. “I know we’ve both fucked her.” A muscle
jumped over Lyle’s eye. Patrick saw it, his eyes twinkling with merriment. “I
believe she was with me when you met her and stole her, was I not?” he asked
innocently.

“That’s not how I remember it. As if I
would waste time chasing after a skirt just because you’re into her.”

“Humph. Funny,” Patrick said without a
hint of smile. “I would have thought that’s exactly why you targeted Lysse.
It’s not difficult convincing a woman into your bed when you’re the king and
she’s from poor stock.”

“That’s your problem right there. I
never cared what stock she came from. I suppose it might be difficult getting
women in your bed being only the duke, though.”

Snap, crackle!

Angry tensions whizzed through the room
like bolts of electricity. His damn heart was starting to race. Talking to
Patrick always did raise his blood pressure, but this was worse than usual. He
wanted to punch that smug look off his face—with a hammer.

“You think I went after her to steal her
from you?” Lyle’s first thought, first instinct, was to squash this stupid
idea.

Some niggling sensation lingered in the
back of his mind whispering a haunting chant:
Didn’t you?

He pulled on his cigar, then exhaled
tendrils of black smoke. Patrick sat back in his chair looking infinitesimally
more relaxed than he had upon entering. As if he’d just found his comfort zone.

“That’s exactly what you did,” he
continued. “You were jealous. She was beautiful and we were relatively happy
together during our short affair.”

“How ridiculous. I’ve nothing to be
jealous of.”

Patrick smiled, completely at ease now.
He looked like a man who’d won a great prize. If he’d come here hoping to throw
Lyle off kilter, then so far, he’d succeeded.

Time to turn the tables and fish out the
information he needed. Lyle slid the report he’d received from one of his
scouts across the desk. Those scouts, or spies, as some might call them, had
done an inordinate amount of work for Lyle. He liked to keep tabs on his
enemies and friends. He didn’t care for surprises.

“What’s this?” Patrick peered at the
document.

“It’s a report that says you were seen
with Lysse at the annual celebration ball. You were alone with her for roughly
sixteen minutes in an office.”

“Your spies are lying to you,” Patrick
said, shrugging.

“I disagree. See, Lysse left my side
during those sixteen minutes, declaring a sudden urgency for the powder room.
However, when she came back she was antsy, rubbing her legs together. Five
minutes later and she had to excuse herself again. Because she’d never used the
bathroom to begin with. Because she was with you.”

“Perhaps she was sick with her menses or
some other poor ailment. Leave the woman alone, I say, and stop harassing her.”

“She’s a mole.”

Patrick blinked, his body stiffening.
“What on Earth are you talking about?”

“We learned from day one of the attack
that Lysse was not just a part of it—but the instigator. She planned this
attack, as far as our intelligence tells us. She worked with Avagarian leaders
to orchestrate the attack during the Claiming Ceremony. She knew security would
be lax on the walls. And it was. People are dead now.”

Patrick leaned back in his seat, his
eyes faraway as he grew lost in thought. Lyle let him consider the news,
curious as to what he’d have to say about it.

“I don’t believe it,” he said after a
minute.

“Well, start believing. It’s the truth.
What did you two talk about when you slipped into the office?”

“What did we talk about? The good old
times. What else?”

“Your honesty is refreshing.” Lyle
stamped out his cigar. He was getting nowhere. How did you make a man tell you
honest information without bribing, coercing, torturing?

You ask nicely.

Huzzah! When did that work but for young
women and charming children?

A thought struck. And a new plan formed.

What was one weakness that his brother
always seemed to have?

For one reason or the other, it always
revolved around one woman.

Lysse Karmine.

She was the reason why Lyle had,
admittedly, charmed Lysse from Patrick years ago. He had done it. He was
younger then, stupider. Looking back on his move, he wasn’t proud of it, but he
hadn’t regretted his decision. His half-brother always had a soft spot for the
peasant girl. Though girl was hardly the correct term for a half-breed
Avagarian.

Lyle had slept with her. Had
inadvertently slipped her information; who knew what documents she’d read over
his shoulder or while
he
used the toilet. He’d made
far too many mistakes. His biggest—underestimating her.

Lyle pledged never to allow a woman to
hear his secrets again. No matter what. Lysse’s betrayal was a blow to him,
physically and mentally.

“Listen, I have to be honest. Lysse’s in
a lot of trouble. We have first-hand witnesses, myself and General Ward
included, who saw Lysse’s betrayal to the Avagarians. We even saw her
transformed.”

Patrick slammed his back into the chair.
“You…saw her transformed?”

Any pretense vanished from his
half-brother’s eyes. He was too stunned.

“Yes. She tried to kill Penelope Farris.
In fact, she nearly turned her into an Ava. She’d bitten her, injecting the
venom into Penelope’s body. If not for Ryon’s quick thinking, she might have
permanently turned into one of them.”

Patrick shook his head like a concussed
person, dazed and confused. “She bit Penelope?”

“Yes,” Lyle said. Finally, he was
gaining some ground.

“She wouldn’t,” Patrick said faintly,
distracted.

“She did. On top of that, another of my
informants tells me you were seen heading to one of the secluded rooms below
the arena before the show. Blood and a messy room was found afterward. Mind
telling me what happened? Also, what happened to your leg there? I don’t recall
seeing that ailment before today.”

He could see the thoughts flying through
the duke’s eyes.

But when he spoke, he only said, “Well
that’s simple. I’d received a note from a friend of mine to meet her in one of
the rooms for a fling before the ceremony. I came, but was attacked and robbed.
They stole all the gold pieces I had on me including my knife. That’s how my
leg became broken.”

“Did you see who did it?”

“No.”

Lyle didn’t believe it for a second. He
sighed. He should have known he’d get nowhere with him.

“Lysse is going to stand trial. I can
tell you right now that with the evidence against her—including my own
testimony—she will be found guilty as a traitor. You know what the punishment
is for that.”

Patrick stood, balancing his weight on
his cane, and scoffed. “Death? That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”

“She is a traitor who was feeding
information to the Avagarians which led us to being attacked. Fifteen people
were killed, more than that were injured. Some lost limbs that will never grow
back. How can you say she isn’t responsible?”

His half-brother remained silent, denial
blazing in his eyes. He didn’t want to accept the truth. Eventually he must.

“On top of those traitorous actions,
she’s also an Avagarian.”

“Half.”

Lyle tried to hide his surprise at his
half-brother’s slip. “Care to expand upon that?”

“She’s only half human. She told me her
mother was raped by an Ava. She learned of it from the old woman, Magda, who
took her in and raised her.”

This was news to Lyle. He’d heard the
stories that her mother had died in childbirth, but no mention of her father.
He’d assumed it’d been a single encounter situation.

“She’s going to be found guilty at
trial. No doubt about it. If there’s anything you can tell me that I need to
know, then now is the time,” Lyle said. There wasn’t much else he could say at
this point.

Patrick paced the length of the desk. “I
did know about her history, but I did not know she had anything to do with this
attack. You make it seem like she wants to start a war between us and the
Avagarians. Why would she want to do that?”