15. Chapter Fifteen
~Felix~
Once I got out of the cell and got my first real look at my mate, I couldn’t stop staring. The strange daylight of this world bathed her in a soft glow, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe. The things I’d guessed about her from my glimpses through the tunnel - her petite stature and the beautiful gleam of her eyes - turned out to be true, but those things barely scraped the surface.
Auburn hair, streaked with all the shades of reds and browns, curled delicately over her shoulders. Eyes of icy blue, the blue of mountain streams or the sky in winter, gazed up at me from beneath long lashes, and pink lips formed a perfect bow beneath her slender nose. I’d never seen a bone structure so delicate or ears quite so pointed at the tips. The tops of her ears poked up adorably through the cascades of her hair. She wore a dress that would have been suitable for a ball, much more formal than anything I normally wore, and soft slippers covered her little feet. At least, they looked like slippers in the small glimpses that I got of them when her skirt swished from one side to the other.
The only thing I didn’t love about her on sight was the frown that pulled her lips down when I offered her my hand and asked her to go through the portal with me.
“I can’t leave,” she said, taking a step back as if to stop herself from taking my hand. “It’s not that I don’t want to go, but Tarron would be suspicious, and I have to work. I have to look after my mother.”
Since she had multiple reasons for turning me down, I tried to go through them one by one. “Tarron is your prince?”
Her head bobbed up and down in a quick nod. “He is, and he ordered me to bring you food. If I go with you, he’ll figure out that I helped you escape.”
“Not necessarily,” I countered. “He might think I kidnapped you.”
I offered her a smile to let her know I wasn’t being completely serious, but Evalina’s frown remained. “That would make matters worse. He might follow us and try to get me back. It could put you in danger.”
“Are you that important to him?” Jealousy undercut my words despite my best efforts to hold it back. The idea of her being important to another man, especially one like Tarron, flooded my chest with an uncomfortable heat. I remembered what she said before, that he wanted something from her she didn’t want to give, and my imagination threatened to conjure all kinds of dark and disturbing scenarios.
“Our interaction is… complicated,” she said, which didn’t explain much at all. “He’s looking for something he can hold over me. I don’t want to give it to him.”
I didn’t want that either, though I still didn’t understand exactly what she meant. Reluctantly, I turned to the second part of her refusal. “Where do you work?”
Her honest, open expression held nothing back. “In the royal family’s residence. I cook for them. That's why Tarron ordered me to cook for you.”
That explained why her food smelled so delicious, and it raised a host of other questions in my mind. How did she learn to cook? Did she like it? What were her favourite foods? Had she ever tried a cheeseburger?
There were so many things I wanted to know and no time to ask any of it, so I stuck to the matter at hand instead. “So, you’d be missed if you didn’t turn up to make dinner?”
“Exactly.”
With a firm grasp on that objection, I moved on to the third thing she mentioned. “Is your mother alright?”
Worry flashed across her face, pinching the corners of her mouth tight. “She’s sick and I need the silver to make her better. There’s no one else to look after her so I can’t leave her alone.”
Putting those three things together, I could see why she refused to go with me at that time, and though I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t force her into a potentially dangerous situation for herself or her mother. “How should I get the silver back to you, then?”
The worry in her expression cleared, replaced by hope, and I had never seen anything so beautiful. “I can sneak through the portal at night, like I did last night. Can you meet me on the other side?”
“You’re sure that won’t get you in trouble?” She mentioned earlier that she wasn’t supposed to go through it.
“I’ll be careful, and it’s probably safer than you coming back here. Tarron won’t be happy when he realizes you escaped.”
Her concern for my safety sent a flush of pleasure through me. She has a good heart, Kai said in my head, and I readily agreed. The way she cared for her mother, the way she trusted me despite not knowing about the bond between us, and the way she asked me to make sure I didn’t hurt the man she tricked into freeing me all pointed to an empathetic and compassionate soul, someone I could admire as well as adore.
First, I would get her the silver she needed to help her mother. Afterwards, we could figure out the rest.
“Do you need help to find the portal again?” she asked, and although I would have loved her company, I put practical considerations first.
“Point me in the general direction and I’ll find it. It has a distinct smell, similar to my home world, so once I get close, I’ll be able to sniff it out.”
Her head tilted to the side, curiosity filling those gorgeous blue eyes. “You can smell it?”
She said it as though navigating by scent had never occurred to her. It probably hadn’t. “I can. My nose will lead the way and I’ll attract less attention if I travel in my wolf form.”
“Your… what?”
Her gaze travelled down my body, searching for clues, and I smiled as a pink blush spread across her cheeks when her eyes rested on my exposed stomach and hips.
“My wolf form. As a werewolf, I can shift into a wolf.”
That didn’t seem to make things any clearer for her, and her eyebrows drew together in an adorable furrow as she looked back up at my face. “What’s a wolf?”
Goddess, we had so much to teach each other, so much to explore together. Some werewolves might have been upset to get a mate outside their own species, but other supernatural beings had always fascinated me. Finding a mate was supposed to feel like coming home. With Evalina, it felt like an adventure: unfamiliar, but exhilarating.
“I’ll show you in a moment if you like. First, let’s finish making plans. You should stay here and pretend to be unconscious so it looks like I knocked both of you out. That’ll deflect suspicion off you for my escape. Tonight, when you can, come through the portal and I’ll be waiting for you with the silver. How much do you need?”
“Twenty plins.”
She stated her answer quickly and confidently but she might as well have been speaking gibberish for all the sense it made to me. “I have no idea what a plin is, but I’ll bring you as much as I can. If you don’t come tonight, I’ll return and find you.”
“But Tarron…”
I didn’t let her finish. “It’s more important to me that you and the people you love are safe. If I don’t see you tonight, I’ll find a way to get back to you. Don’t worry, Evalina. You’re not alone.”
She blinked up at me rapidly, my words obviously meaning something special to her. Good. She already meant everything to me, so I had my work cut out for me to make her feel the same.
“The portal is that way. Be careful.” She pointed to our right, and I held out my hand again. Tentatively, she took it and the warm, electric tingles of our bond spread through my body for the first time as our skin connected, her small hand disappearing inside the grip of my larger one.
Fuck, that feels good.
Evalina’s eyes widened as she stared down at our joined hands, but she didn’t pull away. When I bent down to lay a kiss on the back of her hand, her cheeks flushed even pinker than before, but still, she didn’t resist. If anything, I could have sworn her fingers tightened around mine, just for a second.
“I’ll see you soon. Please, take care of yourself.”
With those parting words I released her hand and took a couple of steps back before shifting to my wolf. A ripple of energy coursed through my body as my muscles stretched and shifted, fur erupting across my skin in a rush of heat and shredding the ridiculously undersized fae clothes in the process.
Evalina’s lips parted, her eyes shining with wonder as she took in my animal form, and Kai gave her a wink before we bounded off in search of the portal and the way home.