Bound to the Alpha King novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Silver Cellar

Embla found the trail in the time it took me to dress.

A dropped grey thread on the undercroft floor, a smear of tallow on the stair, and a scuff where a heavy boot had dragged.

"Down," she said. "The old cellars under the first keep. Nobody's used them in forty years."

"That's where I'd hide a boy," said Brack.

"That's where I'd hide a body," said Embla.

I gave her a look.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That was not helpful."

Rorik was already buckling on a sword belt.

"Stay in the infirmary, Hedda," he said.

"No."

"If you're hurt, I'm..."

He stopped.

I saw something cross his face, fast and strange.

"You what?"

"I can't spare you," he said. "Stay."

"Tobren is my brother."

"Hedda."

"I'm coming," I said. "Or I'll follow you down alone."

He stared at me.

Then he swore under his breath and held out a lantern.

We went down four flights of worn steps into the cold.

The first keep had been built by wolves who feared the dark, so the vaults were low, round and many.

The air smelled of old stone and wet iron.

Brack went first with his sword drawn and Embla guarded the rear.

I walked in the middle beside Rorik.

My pulse beat in time with his.

"There," said Embla, very low.

A line of light showed under a door at the end of the passage.

Rorik signalled for silence, put his hand on the iron ring, and pushed.

It swung inward.

The room beyond was a round stone vault with a single lamp on the floor.

Tobren sat bound to a pillar in the centre.

His mouth was gagged and his eyes were huge.

There was no one else in the room.

"Trap," said Brack, softly.

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