Chapter Twenty-Two
It has been weeks since the Mother trial, and yet I still feel the dagger in my chest when I wake up.
My monster hasn’t come to my dreams once, but I smell him sometimes.
It’s odd moments, like when I come back to my room after a shower, or I’m alone in the living room and drifting off to sleep.
I almost sense him there, and the smell of midnight air lingers. I’m sure I’m imagining it.
Reed sleeps in my room every night, his big white wolf curled up on the floor. Blackfire defended me from the falling rocks, and we both woke up back in the cabin, my injuries fully healed before Reed had to help me.
As much as I’m glad not to be dead, Imogen’s final words are bothering me.
She had a daughter? Imogen can’t be much older than me, and that means her daughter must be young, and the Crone alpha threatened to kill a shifter child.
I knew he was a monster, but maybe underestimated his cruelty towards his own kind.
They are his pack. Blackfire told me his parents were good alphas, and they wanted him, so how did his uncle become alpha?
I wish I had learnt more about the pack royalty.
The reward for the trial is better entertainment in the cabin and slightly better food.
There are board games piled into the cupboards now, painting equipment, a chess set and a bookcase stuffed full of books I’ve never read.
There are a lot of smutty ones, which tells me even the goddesses like smut.
Now, as much as they have tried to kill me a lot of times, I am still thankful for it as I curl up on the sofa, a blanket thrown over my legs.
Tannith is hiding between the cushions as I read about a dragon who made himself human to be with the love of his life.
Elizabeth has a book too, on the other side of the sofa, under her own blanket.
We do this daily now, and I love that she doesn’t try to fill the silence.
Tannith never really liked to read books—not like me.
I am glad that I found a friend who does.
I’m lucky to have them both. Elizabeth’s head lifts just before the bell rings.
“I really dislike that the goddesses gave him a bell to ring us down for dinner.”
I completely agree. Men shouldn’t be allowed bells. “I am hungry, though. I have to admit they are good at cooking.”
She laughs. “Anything is better than the night you tried to cook for us. No offence.”
I wince, remembering the black soup I made.
It wasn’t meant to be black, but they ate it anyway.
Well, Elizabeth and Ayan didn’t, saying it was disgusting.
Which it was. After that fiasco, the men do the cooking, as Elizabeth refuses and they don’t trust me in the kitchen.
If I knew the key to never cooking was cooking badly just once, I’d have done that to Tannith years ago.
I sigh, closing my book. “Every time I get to the good part, aka the sex, I’m interrupted. ”
Elizabeth pulls the book from my hands and holds it to her chest. “The last thing we need in this house is you getting turned on by a book. With how the heirs are with you…” She drifts off and my face burns.
“I’m banning this book for the good of the cabin and the innocents in the middle. Aka Ayan, Tannith and me.”
“Wait!” I protest, chasing her as she literally runs off with my goddamn book. “I’ve changed my mind! We aren’t friends anymore!”
I can only hear her laughter as she runs too fast, and she is out the back door before I can catch her.
Rolling my eyes, I go to the kitchen, which smells so good.
The big dining room table is full of food on silver plates, with candles lit down the centre, and everything looks like it has no sugar in it.
I’m officially having withdrawal symptoms from lack of cake or sugar.
Or ice cream. Cake is the cure to all my problems and crazy feelings about the heirs. I need it. Or ice cream.
“Are you still hiding the ice cream from me?” I ask the smug bastard, who is sitting at the end of the table.
Orion grins at me tauntingly. The ice-cream-stealing asshole makes sure to tease me with the pot and spoon at least twice a day, and disappears before I can get to him.
Embarrassingly, I have chased him a few times, but he is too fast.
“It’s so sweet. It melts on my tongue,” he answers smoothly, licking his plush bottom lip.
My cheeks burn for another reason, and it has nothing to do with ice cream.
He is too beautiful, and it should be illegal.
There go the cake withdrawal symptoms again.
There is no sane reason I’m looking at the male who hates me to my very core like this.
This is Orion, the giant asshole who wants me dead.
I hate him. I lift my chin. “Well, it’s made of ice, so of course it does, idiot. ”
Blackfire whacks Orion on the back of the head when he growls at me, and I grin.
There are roasted peppers filled with cheese, and they look delicious, and I eye them as I take my regular seat on the left side, and Blackfire sits on my right.
Reed takes the seat on my other side, and he leans into me.
Things between Reed and me are…different.
Every day, he has a question for me, from what my favourite colour is to what my hobbies are.
Reed asks for stories about Tannith and me growing up, and I tell him the fun, less traumatic ones.
He is getting to know me, just like he said he would, and I try to work out what to do about him.
“Hey, little human.” Reed flashes me a perfect smile. “What book are you reading and why did your selected steal it?”
Blackfire growls at Reed, and I jump. Blackfire’s hand wraps around my chair, and he yanks it close to his, our thighs pressed tightly together.
There is a considerable space between my chair and Reed’s.
Reed laughs low, reaching across to rest his hand on the back of my seat instead.
The tension in the room rockets as Blackfire and Reed glare each other down.
I don’t understand men or wolves, or whatever is happening here.
Elizabeth drops into the seat opposite me, next to Ayan, who is eating silently. “You should thank me for saving the weird pack we have here. That book was dangerous.”
I glare at her. Orion’s leg stretches out and kicks into mine, and I kick him back.
“Behave,” Blackfire murmurs, so close to my ear that his breath tickles me.
“He started it,” I mutter.
Orion immediately goes to disagree with me, and someone else must kick him under the table as he grunts. “Why does everyone kick me at family meals?”
Family. Pack. They all often refer to us as that, and I don’t know when we agreed to this.
Reed and Blackfire begin to squabble over who puts what on my plate, but I’m so used to them doing this that I just wait, leaning back in my seat.
In the end, Blackfire focuses on the peppers, and Reed adds rice, cut-up steamed vegetables and sauces.
I shake my head at the both of them while Elizabeth watches warily.
She has warned me more than once now not to let them put food on my plate, but I do not know how I am meant to stop them.
Sometimes I think she forgets that I am human.
It’s not like they can claim me like they can a female wolf with these offerings, so she is worrying for nothing.
We all dig into our food in silence, and only when I’m done does the conversation begin. I swear the heirs are all watching to make sure I eat.
Reed taps his fingers on the table. “There was only one more chosen left alive. I cannot find the fucker no matter how much I search the forest. There is no sign of him anywhere, but if he is smart, he will be hidden well. The way I see it, he dies, and we all go home.”
“What about her?” Ayan asks, nodding his head towards me. Her. He never bothers with my name, and Reed pauses. The wolves all tense.
“What about Hopeless?” Blackfire challenges, not saying my name either.
Not that he ever has done, just that nickname.
I’m highly aware of how his thigh is pressed against mine, his hand resting on top of his thigh, his fingertips inches from me.
I swear his hand twitches, like he wants to touch my leg. Maybe I want him to.
“Don’t be a dick. He was just asking.” Reed defends his friend and smiles warmly.
“Mere is human. It is always said that three wolves from each pack come out. They never said what rule there was for a human, and they would not have put her in here for nothing. I think she will walk out with us as another champion. The first human champion.”
“There is still the Maiden’s test to come up,” Orion reminds us. “That will be something to do with water, though these tests are anything but predictable.”
“Well, I have heard drowning is a really bad way to die, so could we make a pact for you to take me out before I drown?” I ask. It would be nice to have a backup plan in place. I’m sure Orion would even enjoy killing me.
“No,” all three heirs snap at the same time. Ohhh-kay.
Fleetingly, I look at Elizabeth, and she just shakes her head at me. No point in asking her—she will die with me, so she probably has a good sense of survival. Also, I doubt she will be in the trial; the Mother test didn’t bring her in.
We all help clean up in silence after my pact idea has put them all in a bad mood.
We have gotten into a strange rhythm of doing it.
I dry the plates with Blackfire. Reed uses his magic to wash away all the food and clean them.
Elizabeth puts the dry plates and cutlery away.
Orion, the spoilt brat, just sits with Ayan.
The two of them seem like the sort that have never cleaned up anything.
Orion, Elizabeth and Ayan leave with me, and I make it halfway up the stairs when I decide I should get some food for Tannith and try to make her eat.
She hasn’t been eating much, just sleeping lots and being snarky when I ask if she is okay.
I’m worried about her. I pause when I hear shouting in the kitchen and hide by the door.
“You are getting too close to her, and what the fuck, Blackfire? We both know what happens when you leave the Folkland, and you can’t protect her then,” Reed warns, and my heart clenches at the silence that follows.
“You threw yourself over her to protect her in the Mother test. I saw how you looked at her when you were dancing, and the chair pulling tonight?”
“You are a fool if you think I am not the only one who is growing feelings in this cabin. Your scent is all over her.” Blackfire’s tone is cold.
Reed doesn’t answer for a long moment. “So is yours.” There is a crash and thump, and I know Blackfire hit Reed. I should go in there and stop this, but I don’t know what I’d say.
Blackfire lowers his tone. “I know what I’m doing, and I haven’t touched her.
I won’t, for her sake, I won’t. Can you say the same?
You know what we have been planning for the last one hundred years, and if we go back like this, she becomes a weakness that they will use against us. Is that what you want?”
Silence. When Reed finally speaks, I wish he hadn’t. “She is just some fun. That is it. I’m bored.”
Just some fun.
Bored.
His words echo in my mind, and I feel them deep down in my chest. In my heart, and it cracks.
I walk back to my room in a haze, grabbing a random book from the bookcase and trying to ignore the tears that are rolling down my face as I lock my door.
Reed isn’t sleeping in my room anymore. I’m such a fool.