Chapter 6
Rook
If she started crying, I was going to dump her ass back in her packlands and let them deal with her. Damn wolves. I could feel a headache coming on.
I like her.
I narrowed my eyes. You don’t like anyone.
I like her. And so do you.
She nicknamed you after a dead fictional dragon. Though I was, admittedly, somewhat surprised she was familiar with Tolkien. Presumably one of her pack owned a DVD player and was reckless enough with their energy supply to actually power it.
I’m pretty sure she nicknamed you after a dead fictional dragon.
There was no point talking to him when he was in this mood. So keep your thoughts to yourself, lizard.
Not my fault you’re listening in. By the way, the girl’s looking at you like you’ve lost it.
I flicked my gaze to her and scowled when I realized my dragon was right. I wasn’t used to having to worry about my face while I argued with him. She flinched back, lowering her head and looking at me from the corner of her eye, and I blew out an irritated breath and stalked past her.
“Follow me. I’ll show you around.”
She didn’t answer, but the sound of her footsteps followed me along the hallway.
“So you can do what you’re told without argument,” I couldn’t resist goading her. “Interesting.”
“What a boring life you must live, if one little wolfless shifter following you along a hallway seems interesting.”
My dragon’s amusement reverberated through me. She’s funny.
“I prefer it when you’re not speaking,” I told them both.
“Must get quiet here, all on your own,” she said.
“You’d think,” I muttered. I nodded to a door on my left without breaking my stride. “Reception room. Doesn’t get used much, but you’ll keep it gleaming.”
I gestured to the door right next to it, and then the one on the other side of the corridor. “Cloak room. Bathroom—not for you.”
“What, you expect me to toilet in the yard like a good puppy?”
“You’re talking again. You might want to look to that. You’ll find your own facilities upstairs. Den. Library—don’t touch my books.” I threw a glance back over my shoulder. “You can read?”
She rolled her eyes at me, infuriating creature. At me. I should whip her for her insolence.
Or spank her.
The image of her face flushed, mouth open in an ‘O’ of surprise as my hand warmed her ass flashed through my mind, and I wasn’t sure it the thought was mine or the dragon’s.
It’s a pleasant one, though, isn’t it?
Shut up, beast.
“I might have been raised by wolves, but I’m not an animal. Yes, I can read.”
“Careful who you’re insulting, girl. Your education is a privilege.” I raked my eyes up and down her. “Such as it is.”
Her face flushed red with humiliation or anger, I couldn’t discern which, and had no interest in finding out—and no interest in comparing it to the image in my dragon’s thoughts of her being spanked.
“Regardless, you will not touch my books.” I jerked my chin at the next door. “Dining hall. You’ll clean it twice a day, as well as serving my meals there.”
She choked on air and I allowed myself a small smile that she couldn’t see. She’d obviously once been someone in her pack—she had too much attitude to have been raised as a no-one—and I doubted she was enjoying her current recalibration. I couldn’t say the same.
“That one’s my study.” I stopped abruptly and turned to glare at her. “If I ever catch you in there, I will flay you alive.”
“Don’t get caught. Check.”
I growled and hardened my glare. “Stay the fuck out of my study.”
She grinned. “He knows how to swear. Cool. Really scary. It’s a good look for you.”
Another growl ripped from my throat, but she was already brushing past me. “What’s behind this door?”
“The flayed remains of annoying shifters,” I ground out, glaring at her back.
“Sounds messy. Do I have to clean that up, too?”
My hand twitched by my side. “You clean whatever I say you clean. That includes this corridor, by the way.”
“You’re aware there are only twenty-four hours in a day, right?”
“Yes. If need be, you can save time by not eating or sleeping. Or talking.”
I strode on, and she hurried to catch up to my side.
“You were, um, joking about the flayed remains, right?” She searched my face, peeking through her eyelashes as she worried at her bottom lip. “You seem like the sort who likes to joke. A lot. About scary stuff. So it was a joke?”
I stared at her impassively as she babbled. “You’re still talking.”
She stopped mid-word as I cut across her, sparing me from having to decipher whatever she was rambling about. I’d never met a creature that made so much noise and so little sense. It was…
Enticing?
Annoying. Incredibly annoying. We don’t need a maid.
You don’t cook or clean, and we’ve barely eaten since—
I shut him out. I didn’t need his commentary on my life, and not for the first time, I wished he was as silent as the inner beasts of most dragons.
We were unusual amongst shifters in that way, our beasts rarely communicating with us in anything more than flashes of instinct.
It had been that way for me, too, before. I missed before.
Liar.
I rubbed at my temples and turned to the wolf shifter hurrying timidly behind me once more.
“There’s a supply room behind the kitchen, you’ll find everything you need in there. Should you find you need something not in that room, you will report it to me, and I will take care of it. You will not communicate with anyone outside of these walls.”
She swallowed. “Anyone?”
“Did I stutter, little wolf? You will speak to no-one but me, or you will speak to no-one at all.”
She nodded miserably, and I snapped my gaze away, irritated by her self-pity.
Living in isolation was not the affliction she made it out to be.
She should have been glad I was removing her from the chaos and danger of the outside world.
She should have shown some gratitude for the roof over her head.
She didn’t have the first idea what the world was like outside my borders. In some parts of the world, her kind were hunted. Others, just left to starve. There were far worse fates than being provided for, kept fed and safe in exchange for a bit of work.
Let it go. She’s had a rough day.
She doesn’t have the first idea about ‘rough’. You remember the mass wolf executions after the war? Because I’m pretty damned sure we were both there.
But she wasn’t.
And she should be fucking grateful.
I rounded on her, snapping my words irritably.
“You’ll cook three meals a day, and you’ll clean up afterwards. You will keep the kitchen in immaculate condition at all times. You will mop and scrub every room down here every week.”
“The study?”
“Except the study,” I snarled. “You’ll clean the windows until they shine, and if I’m not happy, you’ll do them again. You’ll keep the bedrooms upstairs clean and fit for guests at any moment.”
“Do you get many?” She looked up at me through her lashes in that timid way again. “Guests?”
“No. You’ll keep the rooms ready, regardless. Bedding changed weekly, floors mopped, rugs cleaned.”
“All of the rooms?” she asked. “Including yours?”
“No.” The word rushed out and I forced myself to take a breath. “I don’t need your scent filling up every damn inch of my personal space.”
“Don’t want me in your bedroom,” she chirped. “Got it.”
“Trust me,” I growled. “If I want you in my room, you’ll be there. And it won’t be for cleaning.”
A flush ran across her cheeks and she ducked her head. It was fucking adorable and if she kept staring at me, my pants were going to become a problem.
I opened my mouth to change the subject when my cell rang. Saved by the fucking bell. The shifter’s eyes went comically wide as I pulled it out, and I arched a brow at her. She flushed even redder, this time with embarrassment.
“Sorry. I’ve just never seen someone with an actual cell phone before.”
I wasn’t surprised. Humans and shifters had been allowed access to only limited technology after the fall of their society—technology being the one thing that made them dangerous.
I was less strict than most, seeing as I had no interest in ruling the wolf pack on my lands, but they were still aware of the laws.
Communicating outside of their borders was forbidden. On pain of death.
I answered the call. “I’m busy. I’ll call you later.”
And then I hung up again. The shifter girl gawked. Gaheris would probably be pissed as hell that I’d hung up on him without so much as an explanation, but I didn’t owe him one, and I’d deal with him later. I was busy.
Busy. Right.
“Stairs are this way,” I snapped at the girl. “Follow me. I’ll show you to your room.”
Because my dragon was right. If Gaheris was reaching out to me—something that didn’t happen more than every decade or two—then showing the new maid around was no excuse to dodge the call. Especially if there was any truth to the rumors about the rebels in the east.
Sometimes, I couldn’t help but feel life had been a lot easier before some bright spark decided to take over the fucking world.