The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 419

“Oh, what’s the harm…” He held up the packet of powder. “This is supposed to kill you. Come morning, your body will be buried under the rose bushes. My employers wanted to dump you somewhere else, but… Well, you’re a good kid, despite everything. I felt like it was only fair to put you someplace nice.”

“But why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this? Did they tell you to?”

“Listen, I don’t know all the details. All I know is that they’re deep in debt, and if they don’t pay it off, we’ll all be dead.”

My mind, fuzzy as it was, raced. I remembered that night on the roof, when Callum, drunker than I had ever seen him before, told me about his parents’ debts. How they’d intended to take Bianca’s royal dowry to pay them off.

The butler reached for me again.

“Wait!” I said. “Wait.”

He paused. “You’re not making this easy, you know. I don’t want to make you suffer—”

“They want Bianca’s dowry, right?” I tilted my head back as far as it would go against the rocks and looked at him. “They want Callum to marry her for her dowry so they can pay off their debts.”

The butler’s expression told me all I needed to know.

“I’m a member of the royal pack,” I said. “Bianca isn’t. She’s a liar. If you want money, enough to pay off the debts and then some, don’t kill me.”

“But—”

“My father is the King.”

The butler stared at me. I could tell he didn’t believe me. Of course he didn’t. But I held his gaze and forced myself to breathe.

Finally, he sat back on his heels and pulled off one glove to reveal a weathered hand with gray hair across the knuckles. He rubbed the back of his neck and thought for a moment.

The butler said something about talking to Callum’s parents, then turned and left.

The moment he was gone, I flung myself onto my side and forced myself to gag. I tried again and again, coughing, trying to vomit up the substance, but it was no use. With my hands bound and my consciousness already fading, I knew it was too late.

“Callum,” I said. The name was a prayer on my lips. I began to move across the floor, inch by inch, hiking my knees up and then pushing myself toward the heavy wooden door at the other side of the room. “Callum… Help…”

The words died on the tip of my tongue. The room darkened, reality turning blurry at the edges as sleep grasped at me again. I clung desperately to the last vestiges of wakefulness, but the drug was strong and fast-acting.

I’d barely made it two feet across the floor, if even that, before my limbs turned heavy as lead. Even picking up my head was a great effort.

Then, darkness swallowed me up once more.