Stolen by the Rebel King
Chapter 389: Stitches

Chapter 389: Stitches

She didn’t miss the wary look that Jonah and Sirona exchanged.

"That’s not a good idea, Daphne," Sirona cautioned. "They’re dead, and their bodies might have lingering venom. You could catch an illness."

"I’ll just take a quick look," Daphne insisted, shooting them with pleading eyes. "They aren’t Alistair. The bodies are hardly going to open their eyes and try to drain me of blood."

"Don’t remind me," Jonah said, his mouth twisting in distaste. "Daphne, are you sure you want to do this?"

"I’ll be fine. And... I should take a look at them," Daphne said, morose coloring her voice as she hung her head. "They died because Atticus sent them to protect Zephyr, and yet I still believed that they had abandoned their duties. Taking one last look at them is the least I could do."

Faced with such an impassioned plea, Sirona and Jonah could only relent, but they hovered protectively, the moonlight causing their bodies to cast long shadows over her as though they truly believed the dead men were going to awaken and murder her.

More importantly, their hovering shadows made it hard for her to see anything in the dim light. She could vaguely make out the shape of their bodies and the outline of their uniforms, but their features were nearly indistinguishable.

Zephyr let out a squawk and flew out of her hands, deciding to strut among the bodies like he was proud that he caused so much death.

"This bird is really a menace," Sirona said, impressed.

Zephyr flapped his wings proudly, sitting on the body furthest away. Daphne immediately sprinted towards him, leaving Sirona and Jonah behind as she chased down her errant child.

"Zephyr, you can’t sit on corpses," she scolded. "Come on, move!"

Zephyr only glanced at her and began to peck at the dead man’s face.

"Zephyr!" Daphne smacked her face with her hands in despair.

If there was a hell, Zephyr had earned himself a spot with his antics. Was this because he didn’t get to eat supper? She tried to tug him away, but now he planted himself on said dead man’s face. Daphne, in her attempt to pry him from his new unholy perch, accidentally ended up touching the bottom of the man’s face.

Her body froze minutely as she felt a series of tiny bumps on the underside of his jaw all the way to his cheek, similar to stitches.

This sounded very familiar; Atticus had told her about the experiments Alistair did to women to disguise them as her.

She met Zephyr’s eyes, and Zephyr trilled, pleased that Daphne had found his clue. He purposely pecked at the bump under the dead man’s jaw as he pretended to nestle against his neck.

Daphne’s eyes widened when she realized the top layer of skin seemed to be coming undone, similar to how the petals of a flower delicately unfurled in spring. There was another layer of skin underneath where the flesh should be.

Daphne felt like she was going to hurl all over the dead body, but then Zephyr let out a loud squawk and proceeded to fly off, and Daphne chased after him again, while Jonah and Sirona trailed behind her.

She knew now this was Zephyr’s way of helping her investigate. Prince Nathaniel’s tonic must have caused him to regain a semblance of his intelligence in his human form, so Zephyr was using his small griffin form to best effect, trying to aid her discovery of the truth in the guise of creating havoc.

Daphne could only play along with his act, even as a shiver ran down her spine.

Were these men really guards like Sirona and Jonah claimed? It was looking less and less likely with every passing body that Zephyr decided to desecrate in his own way. She had an excuse to quickly touch their faces ’by accident’, making sure that her back faced Sirona and Jonah the whole time.

With every touch, her face grew paler. They were all well-built, healthy men that could have passed for real guards, if not for the layer of false skin on their faces. She and Zephyr didn’t linger, so Jonah and Sirona never got the chance to draw close and hover over her.

Zephyr’s chirps also grew more vindictive, but she doubted anyone else could have noticed it. He wanted those people responsible to pay for their crimes!

In the end, she gathered her emotions enough to finally catch Zephyr, who had also tired himself out after all his investigative work.

"Sorry for all the trouble Zephyr caused, he was very unhappy that we didn’t have a second supper," Daphne said, making sure to seem very shamefaced when she met up with Sirona and Jonah.

"It’s fine, it’s not like we didn’t know he was a menace," Sirona pointed out.

Zephyr squawked indignantly at her reply, as though proving her point.

Daphne wanted nothing more than to go to bed, but with such a devastating realization at the back of her mind, she knew she would not be able to rest until she got proof. The leaden ball in her stomach was now fifty times heavier than it was in the beginning when she merely suspected Atticus of negligence.

Now, it seemed more and more likely that he loved taking her for a fool. Did he purposely get Sirona and Jonah to act out this grotesque play, knowing that she would be loitering around this area at this time? Zephyr’s appetite for food at all hours was no secret, and Sirona had detailed notes on his behavior.

Who were all the dead men?

Daphne wanted to scream hysterically, but she suppressed that urge with every fiber of her being. She needed to investigate these men, and to do that, she needed their bodies present. Knowing her husband’s way of working, he would have them removed at the earliest opportunity.

"Have you informed the family members of the deceased? Will they be coming over to collect the bodies? I wish to hold a service for them. There has been too much death lately," Daphne said with a heavy sigh.

Jonah’s eyes widened in shock for a brief moment, but he collected himself. "All the arrangements have already been made, Daphne. Don’t worry about it."

She couldn’t help the bitter, wan smile that crossed her face when she heard Jonah’s caring, yet dismissive words.

All arrangements have indeed been made, and they were all done without her knowing.