4. Impossible Care
“ S he looks like a giant elf reject.”
“Her skin is almost as dark as dirt, no wonder she likes being covered in it.”
“Look at the way her dress hangs on her! Are we sure she’s even female?”
The giggles and harsh words from the maids hurt, especially since she’d been allowed to wash with cold water and a rag and given a dress better than any garment she’d ever had. She felt positively pretty being able to see the blonde of her hair and the natural color of her skin.
What the maids thought didn’t matter. How her supplies were frequently misplaced didn’t matter either. Or when her fresh rags were swapped with dirty ones, or her freshly cleaned area was suddenly a wreck, or how she was reprimanded for being slow and doing poor work, it meant nothing.
She didn’t have the luxury of feelings .
She was given the worst jobs, but the conditions were far better than she was used to, so she considered herself lucky. Most days she hummed to herself while she cleaned, scrubbed the toilets, and took care of all the excrement. It was hard work, hauling the buckets outside where winter raged, and no short walk. The gardens where she rotated dumping the waste would surely bloom brilliantly in spring.
With nothing but her thin dress to wear, the cold seeped straight to her insides. And not only outside. Even in some of the hallways of the palace, drafts chilled her. She came to appreciate cleaning the rooms where fires still burned or embers smoldered.
And Larkin, sweet Larkin, always seemed to know when she was suffering and would visit.
In the mornings, she was given bread and broth, sometimes scraps of rotting vegetables. Though it was by no means great food, it was better than she’d ever had. She was allowed water when the maids took their meals.
Prince Adrian didn’t want her in the lower slave rooms, and she wasn’t high enough status to merit a bed in the maid’s quarters, so she was given a tiny unused closet on a lower level. There she slept on the floor for a few hours every day. She cherished the times Larkin curled up with her, warming her and making her feel safe.
On those nights, she dreamed of a female surrounded by golden light. Sometimes she sang. Sometimes Rose ran through fields of flowers, picking bouquets, and making necklaces and crowns under bright blue skies while the female watched over her.
There was laughter and happiness, familiarity and love.
They were the best dreams.
And they were the worst.
They left her feeling melancholy and missing something she feared was only imagination .
On one such morning, she was summoned by the Prince. In the middle of cleaning a particularly filthy privy, she insisted the servant who’d come to fetch her wait for her to finish. Not wanting to be reprimanded by Mrs. Hawthorne, she emptied her bucket before following the human male to Prince Adrian’s quarters. Larkin stretched around her neck, snoring softly as a red mink.
“Our master has summoned us, little one,” she said, stroking his head. When Larkin woke with a big yawn, she smiled and followed her escort into a sitting room. She immediately sunk into a deep reverence before Prince Adrian.
“Dismissed,” the Prince told the servant snappily, waving a hand before turning to Rose. “What kept you?”
“I had work, Your Highness.”
“You put your work above the orders of your Prince ?”
Rose bit her lip, realizing how stupid her decision had been. She’d been thinking only of having another meal revoked and not how the Prince could do far worse.
Her wrists ached at the thought of hanging again.
“Your impertinence angers me, slave. When I call, you come. When I make an inquiry, you answer. Understood?”
Rose bowed deeper. Any sane person would be trembling at the threat implied in the Prince’s tone, but she thought it all bluster. While not exactly nice to her, he gave her things—a bath, a dress, a closet—and he protected her.
It was all for Larkin, at the core. But the result was the same.
She was grateful.
Larkin, however, skittered down her arm to shift into a tiger and growl at the Prince.
“Oh, like she needs protecting from me! ”
Another low growl was Larkin’s answer. Rose rubbed his whiskers. He leaned into her.
“You’ve grown awful close to my pet.”
Rose remained quiet as Larkin rumbled lowly yet again. His tail flicked at her side before curling around her leg.
“Do you think I will not punish you for impertinence?”
“No, Your Highness,” she lied, keeping her gaze submissively averted.
“I’ve heard the maids pick on you.”
Rose wondered who’d told him such an insignificant thing as if it mattered.
“I’ve also heard”—his shiny black-shoed feet moved a step closer to her—“that you take full responsibility for the tricks they pull. Why?”
Rose pursed her lips.
When he took another step closer, she bowed her head more, sinking into another curtsy. Her fingers gripped Larkin’s black-and-orange fur, trying to remain steady as his nearness made her heart race.
“Look at me.” The Prince’s command was quiet yet made her tremble.
She gave a slight shake of her head.
“Look at me,” he repeated more slowly.
“Your Highness, I cannot. It would be treasonous.”
“I order it.”
“Fine.” Defiantly, she lifted her head, keeping her eyes averted a second longer, and was taken aback by the sight of him, tall and lean with well-kept black hair and shining red eyes that seemed to pierce her.
His features were fine, sharp with high cheekbones, a thin mouth, and a longish nose. He wore royal blue—a deeper, richer blue than what the servants wore—trimmed in gold. The jacket and vest of his suit were tossed on a chair, revealing his white undershirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to his elbows. When their eyes met, she had the strangest sensation of being drawn in, pulled into the cold depths of his ruby irises.
The longer she stared there, the warmer she became.
Until she’d gladly stay.
“Who are you?” he asked breathlessly, breaking the trance.
“I am Rose, Your Highness,” she answered, averting her gaze. “I am just a slave.”
“I fear you’re a witch.”
It was nothing she hadn’t heard before, others finding her unusual eyes eerie, but she would not have thought the monarchy susceptible to such superstition. Somehow, they seemed above it, as they were most things.
“I assure Your Highness, there is nothing to fear from me.”
After another moment of contemplative quiet, the Prince said, “Larkin’s tantrums have diminished. I trust that means conditions here are acceptable.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Thank you.” The iron ringing her wrists, ankles, and neck was a constant reminder that she had no choice in the matter, but she didn’t point that out. Being owned by him was the best she’d ever had.
“You have no wounds that I can see, which is better than the last time I saw you.”
Larkin purred at his master’s words as if taking ownership of her improved station. Which was crazy. Telling herself it was just imagination, or perhaps her gratitude, she ran her hand along his back.
“You still smell, however. Have you not bathed?”
Embarrassed color heated Rose’s cheeks. “I clean the toilets, sir. I am not allowed the privilege to bathe. Since I offend you, may I be dismissed?”
“Fine,” he replied curtly, flicking his fingers toward the door. When Larkin began following her out, he tsked . “Larkin, you stay. ”
Sulking, the big cat walked to his master, who stroked the fur where Rose’s fingers had just been. Somehow, that was titillating, and Rose turned away. Hurrying from the room, she rushed to the corridor she’d been working in, keeping her head down to avoid the gazes of those she passed.
Behind the closed door of her next room, she leaned against the wall, the full weight of her meeting with the Prince falling on her.
What the heck had just happened? Had he been checking up on her ?
Impossible.
Just as impossible as thinking he cared.
“Sleep with me, Larkin,” Adrian demanded after the slave left.
Rose , he thought, dropping clothing on the floor on the way to his bedroom. It pleased him when the tiger followed, jumping onto the bed beside him. The curtains, already closed by his valet Devon, made the room pleasantly dark. It was a welcome reprieve, as even the knowledge of the sun being so close to midday made being in the halls of the palace uncomfortable.
Settling under the turned-down duvet, he sighed deeply, stroking the big cat curled beside him. He admired the red fur with striking black stripes as his fingers ran over them even as he considered what the appearance of this new form could mean .
This tiger was significantly larger than the leopard, which had previously been his largest. It stood to reason that meant it took more magic to attain. That meant his pet was stronger.
How had he gotten so? And why? What had caused it?
The only significant change that had occurred was the appearance of the slave. Larkin had a bond with her, certainly, but that couldn’t possibly be connected.
Probably just a growth spurt, he reasoned.
When Adrian had first found Larkin as a boy, he’d been a badly injured mouse, barely alive. Adrian couldn’t remember what had prompted him to keep the poor creature, but he treated him like a pet from the first day.
Larkin had remained in his mouse form for weeks as he recovered from his injuries. When he’d shapeshifted for the first time, Adrian had been shocked. He’d only been able to take small forms at first—the red dormouse, a scarlet tanager, a red mink, and a tabby cat. Later, he’d become a fox, and then a hawk, and only a few years ago, the leopard.
Despite extensive research by himself and servants he assigned to the task, he could find no literature on Larkin. There was no creature of his kind anywhere in Neigera. There were other shifters, certainly, but they were primarily humans that shifted into animals, and only one kind of animal at that. The largest groups were the felids and the canids, though there were others.
But none shifted between animal species.
Larkin was unique.
As if sensing his thoughts and the underlying worry, Larkin moved higher on the bed to groom Adrian with his rough tongue.
“Stop that.” He gave the tiger a shove. “I don’t need comfort. Go to sleep, beast. ”
When Larkin continued anyway, purring deeply, Adrian knew it was his way of arguing and rolled over. Larkin simply ran his scratchy tongue over Adrian’s nape and the back of his head.
Oddly comforted even though he didn’t want to be, Adrian relaxed deeper into the mattress. As he did, his thoughts turned to Rose. She’d spoken to him with bravery and aplomb. Even though she was but a slave, she had a self-assuredness that impressed him. There was a quiet grace about her that tugged at something deep within him.
The last thing he saw before sleep took him was her pink eyes staring into his.