(DARIAN)

It is unheard of for anyone in the royal family to stay anywhere aside from the royal residence in a given city. However, I don’t need the staff of these mansions reporting my every move to Willow, so I prefer staying in hotels where I can, especially when I’m conducting the kind of business I don’t want getting back to my in-laws.

I study the stack of files before me. After what happened with Alice, my father’s attitude toward me changed. He became colder, more withdrawn. His health also deteriorated around the same time, compelling me to take over more and more of his duties.

Lucius, my father’s attendant, never left his side throughout his illness, and when my father passed, Lucius withered away, too.

Despite my grievances with him, he did serve my father faithfully to the very end, so I set him up in a cottage on the palace grounds with double his pension. He lost his dearest friend the day I lost my father.

One of the last promises my father extracted from me was to weaken the power of the white witches. My interactions with the white witches had been minimal at that point.

Before what happened that fateful night, I had never really paid much attention to them. However, after my father roused my suspicions about their interference within the royal palace, I started looking into them.

That is when I realized how deeply involved the white witches’ coven is in wolf shifter politics. They are ingrained in every aspect of the kingdom.

Why, though? It didn’t make sense to me.

But the intricate web that I have begun to untangle over the past few years has had me concluding, especially after the coven began pressuring Willow and me to produce an heir, a demand that my wife has insisted upon.

It is customary for a royal couple to produce a child within, at most, three years of their marriage. I discovered, to my surprise, that this unwritten rule was created by the white witches. Why the royal family ever felt the need to comply with the coven’s demand is beyond me.

It would have been easier to uncover the depth of the relationship between the royal family and the white witches’ coven had the witches not removed all mention of them from the royal library during my father’s illness. It was an unprecedented act, completely unheard of.

The fact that the white witches were able to walk into the royal palace and walk out with documents has given me an ugly picture of how powerful they truly are. All my demands to return what they stole have been met with refusal. They claim that the records they took were ones they had loaned to the royal family. If that were truly the case, why didn’t they simply ask me for them?

No. Something fishy is happening. And I intend to uncover it.

The white witches are forgetting their place. Despite the deal I made with them regarding Alice, they’ve been going too far, crossing lines.

Unfortunately, with the coven so deeply integrated into every part of the kingdom, it’s not easy to work against them and try to find their weaknesses. Word of such actions can easily get back to them. That is why I set up a series of companies, including Acme Intech.

The profits of these companies are directed toward my investigation into the white witches. I may be the king, but the funds from the royal treasury are closely watched by shifters who are also allied to the coven. And since the coven is supportive of Willow, things are even more tedious for me.

I look through the financial records before me. It doesn’t make sense to me how the coven can afford the luxuries they enjoy when their income should be quite limited. White witches are known for their healing powers. In the olden times, their skills often came in handy during battles, but nowadays, they work with healers to produce medicines that can affect wolf shifters. However, even with that work, the amount of money going out does not equal what is coming in. I can’t seem to make sense of the discrepancy. Yet.

There’s a knock on the door of my hotel suite, and I look up as Jimmy walks in. "I’ve got the report here."

"What report?"

"You told me to look into Alice’s life."

My back stiffens. Ever since I saw her two days ago, I’ve tried to forget about her. Bringing Alice back into my life, or even trying to wedge some space for me in hers, will do nothing but harm her, pulling her back into things she worked hard to leave behind, things I should have walked away from.

The white witches’ coven should continue to believe she’s dead. It’s easier that way, less questions, less risk, and maybe she gets to keep the life she has now.

"You can set it down there." I gesture at the corner of my desk.

Jimmy puts the report down but watches me, his expression tense. "You’re not going to like it."

I intended to trash the report. I have no business diving into Alice’s life. After what I put her through? I betrayed her! How can I expect her to forget that? 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

But Jimmy’s words give me pause. "What do you mean?"

My friend walks over to the bar, opens a bottle of whiskey, and pours a generous amount into a glass. He turns around and hands it to me. "Maybe you should chug this before I tell you."

For Jimmy to be encouraging me to drink, it must be bad. My heart sinks. "What is it, Jimmy?" He winces, and upon seeing the look on his face, I drain the glass in my hand before slamming it down on the desk. "Tell me."

"She has a daughter," Jimmy says quietly. "She married a human man soon after she disappeared. His name was Paul Scott. He was an engineer, and he died in a workplace accident when her daughter was a year old."

A bitter taste fills my mouth.

She was married.