All For Love

Chapter 14

A/N - Thank you for your patience during the Christmas hiatus 💜

Nathalie watched on as Barbot sat smugly at Gabriel's desk, in Gabriel's Office, wearing Gabriel's royal cloak. Sitting on the desk was the sealed Miracle Box. Nathalie now regretted playing ignorant on knowing what the Miraculous were or that she had been helping to keep the Miracle Box a secret. Amelie had made a solemn promise from one sister to the other to protect the secret of the Miraculous and keep the box safe. To keep Adrien safe. Despite their best efforts though, Barbot had somehow found out about it, and worst still, had found where they had hidden it within the De Vanily Estate. They must have turned the place upside down to have found it. Even she wasn't sure where Amelie had hidden it.

Nathalie thought she was doing the right thing by keeping silent, but could see too late that there are some secrets that should not have been kept, especially from Félix and Adrien. She only hoped that Félix had kept his own Miraculous safe and that the ring of the Black Cat hadn't fallen into the wrong hands.

The Miraculous had only been one secret. The other was sitting blissfully ignorant in an upstairs chamber.

Unaware of Nathalie's internal crisis, Thèo looked over the paperwork that would see him declared King of DuPont in a few days time, alongside the contract that would make Marinette Dupain his bride. Zoè Lee was his unwitting canary in the coal mine, unaware of the important role she was about to play. Down in the Throne room, preparations were in place for his upcoming nuptials as well as to welcome Audrey and Andre Bourgeois, the two expecting to seal a treaty between DuPont and the House of Bourgeois. They think Andre will be crowned King with his "devoted" wife as his consort and Barbot their ally to the south - if only they knew what was really waiting for them.

"What are you going to do with him?" Nathalie asked, detesting the fact she had to serve this... thing the same way she had served Gabriel.

"With who? The Jade Turtle?" He asked nonchalantly. He almost got pleasure from Nathalie's irritated expression.

"You know that's who I meant."

Thèo smirked. "I'm going to make him open this box for me of course. Although it seems he is in need of a little persuasion. So he can stay down in the dungeon and think about it for a while. I have time."

His eyes then darkened. "I want the magic of the Miraculous at my disposal. An army of invincible warriors that no one will be able to touch. I will be unstoppable." He held up his fist and grinned like a man intoxicated with power. "And why stop just at DuPont when I can take the whole world."

Natalie glared at him with disdain. "You think you have this all planned out so perfectly, don't you?"

He shrugged, leaning back in his seat. "I'll admit not everything has gone exactly to plan, but I'm nothing if not resourceful. In fact, some mishaps have actually worked in my favour. I guess I am truly ordained by the gods."

Suddenly, the door on the office burst open and Lila stormed in, her eyes blazing and her nostrils flaring. Nathalie wasn't sure she had ever seen so much anger oozing from a young girl.

"You lied to me. You bastard!" She screamed, throwing a satchel bag down on the desk. Barbot sat unmoving, his face not so much as flinching at her outburst. He didn't need to open the bag to know what was. It belonged to the courier, and not the one that Lila was supposed to know about.

"Calm down." Barbot said flatly, but that only fueled the fire.

"Don't you dare tell me to calm down." Lila snapped back. "For weeks now you've had me hanging around the damn pigeon coup bringing you "urgent" news when the real game was being played behind my back the whole time. You've been running messages to XY through a secret courier. You knew the Prince was alive. You knew! And you've had XY tailing him. What in the hell is going on here?!"