The Forbidden Wolf King: Kings of Avalier, Book 4(59)

The woman bobbed her head. “We did it at night when the guard was asleep but I fear you don’t have that long if the Nightfall queen wants your magic. They will torture him to get you to agree.”

She was right. And very smart.

“What do you suggest?” I asked her. She’d clearly been here longer than me and was quick-thinking.

She eyed the cell behind her. “I’ll ask the people locked up across the room to create a diversion in ten minutes’ time. The guards will rush to that side, and then your brother makes his move.”

I nodded, reaching for her fingers through the bars and grasping them. She had no idea what a gift this was. To not have to worry about Oslo being tortured if I didn’t comply with whatever the queen would want.

“Thank you,” I said again.

She gave me a weak smile. “We need to stick together.”

With that she turned away from me and went across her cell to speak to the fae man neighboring her. She whispered something to him and he nodded, walking across the length of his cell and passing a message to the next person. I could see now that this message would get all the way to the other side of the room and in ten minutes’ time, we would have our distraction.

Now I needed to prepare my soft-hearted little brother to break out of here and find his way to safety. Alone.

Walking over to Oslo, I watched him as he glanced at me with fear-filled eyes. I was always so easy on him, coddling him and snuggling him. I couldn’t do that anymore, I needed him to be strong for this.

Placing my cuffed hands on one side of his shoulder, I met his eyes and I saw so much of our beautiful mother in them.

I kept my voice low. “In ten minutes, there will be a distraction across the room that will take up the guards’ attention. Then we will open a space small enough between the bars for you to wiggle out of our cell and into the next—” He started to protest but I shut him down with a glare. “Then our new friend will hoist you up to her window where another bar will be removed and you will slip out of the window and into the outside. From there you will run to the storm drain at the east wall. It’s a metal cap in the ground near the community garden. Go inside, it goes under the wall and exits the city.”

“You’re coming right?” he asked with so much innocence it tore at my heart.

I shook my head. “I’m too big. But you’re twelve now. You need to start toughening up.”

His bottom lip quivered and I wanted to pull him to my chest and hold him but I kept us an arm’s length apart. “When you get out of the storm drain on the other side of the gates, I want you to shift into wolf form. Avoid the big areas of fighting. Make your way south-west to Thorngate but go farther if you have to in order to avoid the war, you can always circle back. Tell the fae king you are my brother and he will protect you.”

His chest heaved as he held my gaze and it was the first time he’d stared at me for so long. It was the one glimmer of hope I had that he might be strong enough to endure this.

“You’re a small wolf, you can hide in bushes and—” my voice broke as I swallowed a sob. I’d just remembered that Cyrus was dead and this was the only family I had left other than Axil and our unborn child.

I shook him a little. “I love you too damn much, Oz! You have to be strong for me and do this, okay?”

He growled then. A low and firm growl of dominance. “I can do this,” he assured me and then I did pull him to my chest. I crushed that kid against me and breathed him in as if it were the last time I might ever see him. Because it might be.

“You’re gonna get out too though, right? Eventually?” he mumbled against my ear.

I pulled back and gave him a knowing look. “This is me we’re talking about,” I said confidently, though I felt anything but. I noticed he wasn’t wearing cuffs. They probably weren’t worried about a scrawny kid shifting into a wolf and harming anyone. But I was cuffed, and that meant I was about as useless as a human. But I wouldn’t tell him that.

A commotion started at the far end of the room, shouting and fighting, and the guards immediately moved that way.

This was it.

“I love you, Oslo. You’re such a good kid. Mom and dad would be so proud.” I tried to stay strong but tears leaked down my cheeks.

“I love you too, Zar,” he said and wiped at his own cheeks.

Damn. I prayed to the Maker then, which I hardly did, and asked that my little brother be protected.

“Psst,” the woman called to us and I knew we were on limited time. Kailani positioned her body to face the skirmish at the far end of the room but against the bars so that she could block what we were about to do. The fae-dragon hybrid woman removed the bar easily and Oslo looked at me one last time. I gave him an encouraging smile and he turned his body sideways, slipping through the bars. He got halfway when his ear got stuck and he hissed. I gave him a hard shove and he popped out into the other cell. The bar was replaced quickly and then the woman shuffled him across the room and I spun to watch the guards break up the fight, both of their attention fully engaged.

My heart hammered in my chest as I peered back to see the woman had already boosted my brother up to the window and he pulled the middle bar off, shimmying his arms through to the other side. All I could do was pray that there was no one out patrolling on the other side of that wall. We were halfway submerged underground so when he did get out, if he could stay low, he might be able to get away unseen. He’d look human to any passerby in Nightfall City so I just had to hope for the best or the worry would drive me insane.