Page 35 of Alpha's Magic

“Mmm,” he hummed and stared at me with an icy gaze.

I sat down next to Asher again and gazed directly at the king. What Asher told him was a lie. I didn’t really care if he understood what I’d said or not. I said what I said, and I wasn’t sorry for it either. His wife had been a horror, and I had to wonder how someone could be married to a person and not know deep down what a monster they were. Personally, I didn’t buy it.

The king leaned across his desk to face me. “Explain to me how you could possibly be the son of Prince Ludwig.”

“Explain it? Well, let’s see…my father met my mother and…”

He waved his hand at me impatiently. “You know what I mean. Prince Ludwig went mad and killed his only son and the rest of his family.”

“No, he most certainly did not. I was his son, and he was forced to watch me turn into a monster. Rozamond, your wife, killed my mother and her baby right in front of him. And then she murdered him.”

Harrison’s lips thinned to a straight line. “My wife murdered your family? Is that what your claim is?”

“Rozamond of Sudfarma, yes. She wasn’t your wife at the time, I believe. She was still young—maybe only about nineteen. She did it to prevent my father from ascending the throne so her usurper of a father could be king.”

“King Alfrid?”

“Yes.”

“And your claim is that Alfrid wasn’t the rightful heir.”

“No. Alfrid was born out of wedlock. An illegitimate child of King Hendrick, my grandfather. Surely, they kept records on that kind of thing, even back then. Check them. My grandfather, Hendrick, had many illegitimate children, from what my father told me. Alfrid was a child of my grandfather’s youth, so he was already an older man by the time my grandfather died. My father, Prince Ludwig, had many half-brothers and half-sisters born out of wedlock. He didn’t care much for any of them, but Alfrid was chief among them. My father said he was both ambitious and entirely mad.”

“You’re speaking of the late king, who was a highly decorated general, and who had the backing of half the army when he ascended the throne.”

“That’s right. But the other half backed my father. Alfrid arranged a marriage between my father and his daughter, Rowena to strengthen his claim.”

“What?”

“My mother was Lady Rowena. Rozamond’s half-sister.”

“Your father was their uncle? That’s ridiculous. It would have been incestuous.”

“Half-uncle, but yes. A little thing like that didn’t stop Alfrid. He wanted my father’s place. But barring that, he wanted to be Regent. He planned on killing my father after I was born, and then naming himself Regent once he had my father out of the way. I’d be named king and I’d need an Alpha as my Regent. So he sent his witch to do his bidding and get rid of my father Prince Ludwig.”

“What is he talking about?” Harrison yelled to both Lex and Asher, who were staring at me.

“Rozamond put a potion in his drink to turn him into a monster, so the villagers would kill him. But I saw her, and I took it instead.”

“This is all insane. Clearly, you’re not a monster.”

“I was for all the years I spent with Grimora, the wizard, who found me wandering around the forest after Rozamond left. I lived there with him for over ten years. They called me Banshira.”

Harrison’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“It’s true, sire,” Asher said, taking my hand. “The spell on Leo broke as soon as the queen was killed.”

“How do you know this?”

“We found Leo in Grimora’s cave. He’d been living there.”

“And what proof did you find that this omega was actually Banshira?”

Asher and Lex glanced at each other uneasily, and I felt the first stirring of unease myself. How would I prove something like that? Grimora was dead and who else could prove my claims? I could take off my amulet and change back, but what if I took it off, and it stopped working after that? What would I do then?

“He told us,” Asher said. “And we found no indication that he was lying.”

Harrison made a sound like, “Pah!” and turned to each of them in turn to pin them with a glare. “In other words, you have no proof of anything other than this boy’s word.”

---