The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 169

They’ve been located

(Calus)

Pryor came to the office three days after I’d sent the inquiry.

He sat across from me without being invited to, which he only did when what he had to say required more than a few minutes.

“They’ve been located,” he said.

“Where?”

“The settlement,” he said. “Eastern side, away from the market. They’ve been there since shortly after Dara left Wraithbone.”

I sat back. “Together.”

“Yes,” he said. “Living quietly. No contact with anyone from Ashcrest. No communication with Rodan or Maren or anyone connected to them as far as we can confirm.”

“As far as you can confirm,” I said.

“We’ve been watching for three days,” Pryor said. “Nothing has moved in or out that connects to Ashcrest. Brent goes to the market, comes back, keeps to himself, doesn’t meet anyone twice. Dara hasn’t made contact with anyone from Wraithbone.”

I thought about that.

Three days of watching and nothing connecting either of them to Ashcrest. That didn’t mean the connection didn’t exist. It meant if it existed it was either inactive or being managed carefully enough that

three days hadn’t caught it.

“What is he doing for work?” I asked. “How are they living?”

“Brent is working at a trade yard on the eastern road,” Pryor said. “Loading and unloading. He started four days after they arrived.”

“He went straight to work,” I said.

“Yes,” Pryor said.

I thought about the man who had stood in the Ashcrest hall and said I did it without deflection. Who had looked at Isla in the market and looked away first. A man whose sentence was still pending and who had somehow ended up in a settlement trade yard loading cargo.

None of that was absolution. The sentence was still pending and pending meant the decision hadn’t been made. But a man running a network didn’t take labor work four days after arriving somewhere new. He kept himself available and connected.

Brent was loading cargo.

“Dara?” I asked

She’s been helping at a healer’s house near the market.” Pryor said. “Not formally employed Volunteering

A former royal guard volunteering at a healer’s house.

I filed that without eommenting on it.

“Does he know we’ve found them?” I asked

“No,” Pryor said. “The watch has been careful.”

“Good,” I said. “Keep it that way for now.”

Pryor nodded once. He didn’t ask what came next and I didn’t offer it yet because I didn’t fully know. What I knew was that Isla had asked to be part of whatever happened next and I’d agreed and I meant it.

“That’s all for now,” I said.

He stood and left, pulling the door closed behind him.

I sat at the desk for a while after he’d gone.

Brent at a trade yard. Dara at a healer’s house. Both of them building something out of a situation that had nothing ordinary at its origin. The bond had arrived and Dara had made a decision and whatever she knew or didn’t know about Brent, she had chosen him anyway. Whatever they were building now was built on that.

That wasn’t nothing.

It didn’t change what Brent had done. It didn’t move the sentence or erase the confession or change the fact that his hands had been on Isia and he’d known what he was doing and done it anyway. The bond and a confession and a trade yard didn’t undo any of that.

But they were information.

And Isla had asked to have the information before anything else moved.

I found her in the library.

She was sitting near the window with a book open in her lap that she wasn’t reading. She looked up when I came in and read my expression before I said a word.

“They found them,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

I sat across from her and told her everything Pryor had said. The settlement. The eastern side away from the market. Three days of watching with nothing connecting either of them to Ashcrest. Brent at the trade yard. Dara at the healer’s house.

She listened without interrupting.

When I finished she was quiet for a moment.

“He went straight to work,” she said.

“Yes” said

She held that for a moment. “That matters to you.”

“It’s information,” I said, “Tdon’t know yet what it means.”

She looked at me. “It means he’s not running anything. He went somewhere and started working.”

“That’s what it looks like,” I said. “Three days isn’t long enough to be certain.”

“No,” she said. “But it’s something.”

She looked back at the window. Outside the training yard was running its afternoon drills. She watched without seeing it, the way she did when she was working through something underneath the surface

“I want to go there,” she said.

I looked at her.

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