Page 56 of Mane Attraction
THIRTY-FIVE
XELENE
Consciousness crept back into Xelene’s mind like fog lifting from a lake—slow, disorienting, and accompanied by the sharp chemical tang that clung to the back of her throat. Her head pounded with each heartbeat, a dull throb that seemed to echo through her skull as awareness gradually returned to her limbs.
Alive.The thought surfaced first, followed quickly by confusion.Why am I still alive?
The air around her was stale and musty, heavy with the scent of decay and abandonment. As her vision slowly focused, she took in her surroundings—crumbling concrete walls stained with moisture, a single dirty window letting in pale moonlight, and debris scattered across what had once been a floor. Some kind of abandoned warehouse or storage facility, the kind of place that had been forgotten by civilization and left to rot.
Her wrists ached, and when she tested them carefully, she felt the rough bite of fabric against her skin. Cloth strips—hastily torn from something, by the feel of it. Improvised restraints that spoke of desperation rather than careful planning.
“Ah, sleeping beauty finally wakes up.”
Crispin’s voice cut through the dim space like a blade, and Xelene’s blood turned to ice. He sat slouched in a broken chair about ten feet away, his blonde hair disheveled and his clothes rumpled from a day on the run. The pale blue eyes that had once held calculated ambition now burned with something far more dangerous—the wild gleam of a man who had lost everything and no longer cared about consequences.
Xelene forced her expression to remain neutral despite the terror clawing at her chest. Years of managing crises had taught her to never show weakness, especially to predators who fed on fear.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?” she asked, her voice surprisingly steady. “Seems like it would have been more efficient.”
Crispin’s laugh was harsh and bitter, echoing off the concrete walls. “Trust me, I wanted to. Nothing would have given me more pleasure than watching the life drain from your eyes after what you cost me.”
He stood up from the chair, beginning to pace like a caged animal.
“But that wouldn’t be very effective for my objective.”
“What objective?” Xelene kept her tone conversational, almost bored. “You can’t be king anymore, and the council ordered your execution. You’re a dead man walking.”
The calculated gleam in his eyes intensified, and his lips curved into a smile that made her skin crawl. “My objective is to kill you with Lev watching. Make him feel the kind of deep, soul-crushing pain I felt when my father died because of your meddling. Then, once he’s broken and vulnerable, I’ll kill him too.”
Fear spiked through her system, but Xelene forced out a laugh. “Lev is stronger than you, and you don’t stand a chance at killing him before he kills you.”
“You’re blinded by love,” Crispin snarled, his composure cracking. “You don’t realize that Lev is just fooling everyone with his charm and this sudden act of being the responsible king. He’s not, and he never will be. He’s the same spoiled, reckless prince he’s always been, just better at hiding it now.”
Keep him talking,Xelene thought, carefully testing the bindings around her wrists behind her back. The cloth was loosening the more she moved her hands—amateur work from a man operating on desperation rather than skill.
If she could distract him long enough...
“How long had you and your father been planning this whole thing?” she asked, injecting genuine curiosity into her voice. “Killing King Rorick, then Lev? It must have taken incredible foresight and planning. I have to admit, I only discovered it by pure fluke.”
Crispin’s chest puffed with pride, and he stopped pacing. “Decades, really. Since I was sixteen and Lev started acting like such a reckless, spoiled brat. We couldn’t stand watching him embarrass the pride with his parties and his women and his complete disregard for responsibility.”
Behind her back, Xelene worked at the cloth binding her wrists, using his moment of gloating to her advantage. The knots were sloppy, tied by hands that had been shaking with rage and exhaustion.
“We tried addressing it the right way at first,” Crispin continued, his voice gaining momentum as he warmed to his subject. “Talked to the king about Lev’s behavior, suggested alternatives, tried to guide him toward better choices. But nothing worked. If anything, Lev got worse.”
Perhaps their concerns had been legitimate at the beginning,Xelene thought as she felt the binding loosen.
They had seen Lev’s surface behavior—the parties, the women, the apparent disregard for duty—withoutunderstanding the complex, wounded man beneath. A man running from vulnerability and responsibility because he’d never learned how to embrace them without losing himself.
But Lev wasn’t that scared boy anymore. He’d grown into a king who owned his mistakes, who protected his people with fierce determination, who loved with a depth that transformed everyone around him.
“So you decided your bloodline was more worthy?” Xelene prompted, working the cloth looser with each subtle movement.
“Exactly.” Crispin’s eyes blazed with righteous fury. “We were more equipped for the throne, more disciplined, more?—”
The binding finally gave way, and Xelene’s hands came free behind her back. She didn’t hesitate—couldn’t afford to. In one fluid motion, she sprang to her feet and bolted toward the doorway, her heels clicking against the concrete as she ran.
“You bitch!” Crispin’s roar echoed behind her as she burst through the doorway and into the cool night air.
