Chapter 27 Riley
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Riley
I’d been at the castle for several days now.
It was beautiful here. Stunning, really. Stone corridors that echoed with history, ancient tapestries older than anything I’d ever touched, windows overlooking snow-covered mountains that belonged in a fantasy novel.
Which, I supposed, made sense. I was literally living in another dimension.
My life had officially jumped the shark. No, scratch that. My life had pole-vaulted over the shark, done a triple backflip, and landed in a completely different ocean.
I’d met a lot of people. Servants who bowed when I passed, which still made me deeply uncomfortable.
Nobles who introduced themselves with titles I couldn’t remember five seconds later.
Lords and Ladies of This and That, Keepers of Ancient Whatnot, Protectors of Various Things.
Guards who eyed me with poorly concealed curiosity, probably wondering what the hell this random woman was doing walking around their castle.
Fair question. I was still wondering the same thing.
No one had been openly mean to me.
But I still caught the stares. The whispers that stopped when I entered a room. The way certain people looked at me with an expression that screamed interloper, curiosity, doesn’t quite belong here.
I tried not to pay them any mind. I was engaged to their prince. I had a claiming mark on my neck. I belonged here now, whether they accepted it or not.
Right?
There was also the matter of how I’d been feeling.
It started the second or third day after I arrived. A low-grade nausea that came and went. A tiredness that sleep didn’t seem to fix, no matter how many hours I spent in Caelan’s ridiculously comfortable bed. Occasional dizziness that made me grip walls for support when no one was looking.
I’d been shrugging it off as the realm change, the stress, the lingering effects of the heat, which had mostly subsided but still flared up occasionally in waves of want that left me breathless. Nothing to worry about. Probably.
So today, I found the library.
It was massive, with three stories of shelves stretching toward a vaulted ceiling painted with constellations I didn’t recognize. Rolling ladders, reading nooks tucked into alcoves, and the smell of old paper and leather bindings, that particular scent that every book lover knows and craves.
I fell in love instantly.
Finally. One place in this castle that felt familiar. One place that felt mine.
I wandered through the stacks, trailing my fingers along spines written in languages I couldn’t read, until I found a quiet corner with a desk by a window.
The view was spectacular. Snow falling gently, mountains rising in the distance, the kind of scene that made my writer’s heart ache with inspiration.
Speaking of which.
An idea had been niggling at me since I arrived. A scene, a character, a story inspired by this place, this world, this impossible turn my life had taken. My writer brain never shut off, even when the rest of me was having an existential crisis.
I checked the drawers of the desk and found paper. Cream-colored, beautiful, the kind of paper that made you want to write words worthy of it. And actual ink with a quill.
Odd, but I could work with it. How hard could a quill be?
Very hard, as it turned out. The first three attempts resulted in ink blots and smeared words. But eventually I got the hang of it, and then...
Then the words flowed.
I lost myself in the scene. A woman in a strange castle, surrounded by wolves, falling for a prince who looked at her the way Caelan looked at me. The way that made my heart stutter and my brain short-circuit and my entire body want to climb him and never let go.
God, I had it bad.
I didn’t hear the footsteps at first. I was too deep in the writing, too focused on getting the words down before they slipped away. It wasn’t until the chair beside me scraped against the floor that I looked up.
Vix was sitting beside me. The woman from the council room, the one who sneered at me, the one Thessa called a bitch. She was smiling now, but there was nothing warm about it. It was the smile of a cat that had cornered a mouse and was deciding exactly how to play with it before the kill.
“Writing?” Vix asked, glancing at my pages. “How quaint.”
I set down the quill, keeping my expression neutral.
“Can I help you?”
“I just wanted to welcome you properly.” Vix settled into the chair beside me, crossing her legs with fluid elegance. “We didn’t get a chance to talk at the council meeting.”
“I remember.”
“I’m sure you do.” Her smile turned predatory. “You must have so many questions. About Duskmere. About the court. About Caelan.”
There it was.
My spine stiffened. “I think I’m managing fine.”
“Are you? It must be overwhelming. Coming from the human world, not knowing our customs, our history, our...” She paused, tilted her head. “Our relationships.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Only that you’re very new here. And Caelan has a long history. One you might not fully understand.”
My fingers curled around the edge of the desk. “If you have a point, make it.”
Vix’s eyes glittered with satisfaction. She was enjoying this.
“Caelan is mine,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper but dripping with venom. “He’s always been mine. We were destined to be together. Everyone knows it. The court knows it. His family knows it, even if they won’t admit it.”
“That’s interesting, considering he claimed me as his mate.”
“A lie.” Vix waved a dismissive hand. “He wanted to play with you first. A temporary fascination with the new and exotic. A shiny toy from the human realm. But he’ll tire of you soon enough. He always does. He’s a prince, after all. He never lacked feminine attention, if you know what I mean.”
My heart was pounding, but I kept my voice steady. “You seem very confident about that.”
“I am. Because I know Caelan. I’ve known him my entire life.” Vix leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “When he’s done with you, when he finally admits you’re not up to his standards, I’ll be right here. Ready to claim my spot. A spot you will never, ever have.”
“That sounds pathetic, actually.”
The words were out before I could stop them. Apparently my self-preservation instincts had taken the day off.
Vix’s expression shifted. Surprise, then rage, quickly suppressed.
“He was mine first,” she hissed. “Who do you think he lost his virginity with? I was his first, and I will be his last. You could never match that connection.”
His first.
She took his virginity.
The words hit hard. My stomach lurched. From the nausea that had been plaguing me or from Vix’s claim, I couldn’t tell.
“I can’t wait to see it happen,” Vix continued, standing smoothly. “When he casts you aside. When you realize you were never meant to be here.” She straightened her dress. “Enjoy the library. It’s one of the few places you actually belong.”
She walked away, heels clicking on the stone floor.
I sat frozen, staring at the pages in front of me. The words I’d written blurred together. My hands were shaking.
Was it true? Did Caelan and Vix have that kind of history? He said he’d never encouraged her, but that wasn’t the same as saying nothing ever happened.
That wasn’t the same as saying he didn’t sleep with her.
Why didn’t he tell me?
I thought about Vix’s words all day. I couldn’t stop. They played on a loop in my head, poisoning everything. I tried to distract myself. Exploring more of the castle. Having tea with Elspeth. Reading in my chambers.
Nothing worked.
His first. She was his first.
What did that mean? That they were in love? That they had a relationship? That Caelan had been lying to me this whole time about the depth of his connection to Vix?
He said he’d never given her encouragement. He said she was delusional. But losing your virginity to someone wasn’t nothing. That was intimate, real. A memory that stayed with you forever, no matter how much time passed.
And he never told me.
I hadn’t seen him at all today. He mentioned at breakfast that he’d be working late, reviewing files that might give him a clue about who orchestrated the attacks on his father. Important, necessary work. The kind of work a prince had to do.
At least, that’s what I’d believed this morning. But his absence felt different now. Loaded with new meaning.
Was he avoiding me? Was he with Vix?
Stop it, I told myself. You’re being ridiculous. You’re letting a jealous woman get in your head.
But the doubt wouldn’t go away. It was a splinter under my skin, working its way deeper with every passing hour. Every time I tried to push it aside, it pushed back harder.
What if she was telling the truth?
What if everything I believed about my relationship with Caelan was a lie?
By evening, I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to see him, talk to him. Needed to hear him say that Vix was lying, that nothing ever happened between them, that I was the only one.
I made my way to his office.
The walk took longer than it should. The castle was a maze, and I was still learning its twists and turns. Every corridor looked identical. Stone walls, torch sconces, occasional tapestries depicting wolves and battles and moons.
My head ached. The dizziness was back, worse than before. I had to pause twice to lean against the wall and wait for the world to stop spinning. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision.
I should probably be worried about that. A normal person would definitely be worried about that.
Later. I’d deal with it later. Right now I needed answers.
I found his office eventually. A door at the end of a long corridor. Light spilling from beneath it. He was there.
My heart was pounding. My palms were sweating. This was ridiculous. He was my mate. My fiancé. The man who claimed me, who shifted to protect me, who told me he loved me more times than I could count.
Why was I so scared to talk to him?