The Alpha's Bargain

The Father's Journey Part 3

I stood at the foot of that impossible drive, rain dripping from my coat despite the sudden stillness of the air, and felt the weight of every mistake I'd ever made pressing down on my shoulders. The castle loomed above me like a judgment, beautiful and terrible and utterly beyond anything that should have existed in the rational world I thought I understood.

But rational worlds, I was learning, didn't always provide for desperate men.

The money in my pocket felt insignificant now—a few pounds against debts that mounted like avalanches, a handful of coins where we needed rivers of gold. Catherine's request echoed in my memory: A rose, if they have them this far from civilization. Such a simple thing to ask for, and yet here I was, soaked to the bone and half-drunk, staring at a castle that belonged in children's stories.

Chester snorted behind me, his breath visible in the sudden chill. The temperature had dropped when we'd passed through those gates, as if we'd crossed some invisible boundary between seasons. Between worlds, perhaps.

Turn around, the rational part of my mind whispered. This place feels wrong. Those gates, this mist, the way the rain stopped—none of it is natural.

But I'd been ignoring rational thoughts for months now, ever since I'd thrown our future away on ships that never returned from seas that swallowed fortunes whole. And standing there in the courtyard of an impossible castle, with wealth beyond imagining stretching above me in stone and mortar, I felt that familiar serpent of greed uncoiling in my chest.

The lord of such a place would have riches I couldn't fathom. Ancient family money, the kind that survived generations without diminishing. And if I could present myself properly—not as a beggar, but as a gentleman temporarily embarrassed by circumstances—perhaps generosity might follow.

I'd always been good with words, good at making people want to help me. It was how I'd convinced investors to trust me with their money, how I'd talked my way into deals that had seemed too good to be true.

Because they had been too good to be true.

But this felt different. This felt like providence.

Chester followed reluctantly as I led him up the cobblestone drive, his hooves ringing against stones that seemed to absorb sound rather than echo it. The castle grew larger with each step, its towers reaching toward a sky that had turned the color of old pewter. Windows glowed with warm light, suggesting habitation, comfort, perhaps even hospitality for a lost traveler.

The approach was longer than it had appeared from the gates—distances seemed malleable here, as if space itself bent to accommodate the impossible. By the time we reached the main courtyard, I was slightly breathless and completely sober, the whiskey burned away by exertion and mounting unease.

Ancient stones surrounded us on three sides, their surfaces carved with symbols I didn't recognize. Gargoyles leered down from the corners of buildings, their expressions so lifelike I half-expected them to comment on my presumption. But it was the garden that stopped me cold.

To the right of the main keep, barely visible in the gathering dusk, stretched an elaborate maze of hedgerows and flower beds. But these weren't the dormant, brown tangles I'd expected to find in autumn. These bloomed with impossible vitality—roses that should have finished flowering months ago nodding in the still air, their colors so vivid they seemed to pulse with their own light.

And there, in a circular bed at the garden's heart, stood a single rose bush more magnificent than anything I'd ever seen. The flowers were deep crimson, almost black in the strange light, their petals so perfect they looked carved from precious gems. Even from fifty feet away, I could smell their fragrance—sweet and heady and utterly intoxicating.

A rose, if they have them this far from civilization.

Catherine's voice seemed to whisper from the flowers themselves, and I felt something twist in my chest that was part longing and part something I didn't want to name. Here was beauty beyond price, growing unguarded in a place that shouldn't exist. Here was the answer to my daughter's innocent request, waiting to be plucked by anyone bold enough to take it.

The rational part of my mind—what remained of it—whispered warnings about trespassing, about taking things that didn't belong to me. But that voice had grown fainter over the months, drowned out by desperation and the seductive logic of necessity.

What harm could there be in taking just one rose? The bush was heavy with blooms, dozens of perfect flowers that would never be missed. And Catherine had asked for so little, after losing so much.

I tied Chester near the main entrance and approached the garden with steps that felt both inevitable and wrong. The roses seemed to grow more beautiful as I drew closer, their perfume so intense it made my head spin. Or perhaps that was just the lingering whiskey, or the strange thinness of the air in this impossible place.

The largest rose hung just within reach, its stem thick and strong. All I had to do was reach out and take it. Such a simple thing. Such a small transgression.

My hand closed around the stem, thorns biting into my palm with surprising sharpness. The flower came away easily, as if it had been waiting for exactly this moment.

And in the sudden silence that followed, I heard something that turned my blood to ice water.

A growl, low and rumbling and utterly inhuman, rising from the shadows beyond the garden like the voice of something that had never learned to speak with words.