Chapter 18
Kaylee
It was chasing me, and no matter how fast I moved, it just kept on gaining.
The forest around me blurred into streaks of black and green.
My lungs burned and legs screaming, but I couldn't stop.
I could feel its presence like heat against my back, hear the rush of something massive cutting through the air above me.
I stumbled, catching myself against a tree that felt too warm under my palms. When I looked back, golden eyes stared at me from the darkness.
I screamed, and—
“Kaylee. Wake up.”
I opened my eyes and rolled onto my side to find myself staring at an agitated Rook. This was becoming a bad habit. At least this time he was fully clothed. I offered him a shy, grateful smile.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this. People might get the wrong impression, you coming into my room all the time.”
It was the wrong thing to say. I wasn’t sure why, but it clearly was: his eyes darkened, and his lips pressed into a scowl.
“Um, sorry.” I ducked my eye, not quite sure what I was apologizing for, but I was too damn tired, and too shaken by the nightmare to be up for a fight with him.
“You wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving outside these walls,” he grunted, and I could hear the derision in his voice. I couldn’t keep from jerking my head up, and then I wished I had, because the disgust there was more than I could bear right now.
“Excuse me?”
“Look at you,” he snapped, gesturing at me with one hand. “You wouldn’t last two minutes on your own.”
Anger uncurled in me. What gave him the right to judge me? “Aside from the fact that I did survive outside of these walls—perfectly well, for eighteen years—I don’t need to be on my own, because wolves run in a pack.”
“Need I remind you that you’re not a wolf, and your pack didn’t want you?
” His words were quiet, matter of fact, and somehow that made them worse.
They cut through me, every word the truth, and nothing that hadn’t been said to me a thousand times before.
But coming from his mouth, they tore me apart, punching through my chest to crush my heart.
I swallowed hard, averting my eyes and scanning the room, looking anywhere but him, at anything but the accusation, the disgust, in his eyes.
My attention slid over his shoes and landed on the bag at his feet. I canted my head.
“What’s with the bag?” And why was he dressed? He didn’t look like he’d just stumbled out of bed, disturbed by my screaming. He looked like he’d been awake a while, which probably meant I should have been, too.
“Nothing.”
“It’s obviously not nothing, or it wouldn’t be here. Would you just be straight with me?” I looked up at his closed face, met his eye, and this time, I didn’t look away.
“I was going to let you go,” he admitted after a moment. “Release you from your position, on the grounds you left this territory and told no-one of your past. But It’s clear now that would never work.” He shook his head in disgust. “You’d be dead within a day.”
Dead within a day? How fucking dare he? He didn’t have the first idea what I’d gone through in my pack, what I’d done to survive. Sure, I’d never been on my own, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be on my own. What the fuck gave him the right to make that judgement?
“Excuse me,” I snapped, swinging my legs over the bed and glaring at him.
“If you’re done telling me how useless I am, I need to start preparing your breakfast. Because despite the fact you think I wouldn’t last on my own, you’re the one who had to drag someone here against her will to cook for you. ”
He pivoted on his heel and stalked out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him, and I stared at it for a long moment, chest heaving, before I rushed into my bathroom, ducking into the shower as my tears started to flow.
I turned on the hot water, and for a minute just let them fall.
Let the self-pity swallow me, because fuck it, I’d earned a good cry.
And then I palmed my eyes, and swore those would be the last tears I cried over Lord Asshole, because fuck him.
He didn’t get to decide what I was or wasn’t capable of.
What the hell did he even know about surviving in the real world anyway?
He’d spent the last however many years holed up here in his not-ivory tower, thinking he knew what it took, but he didn’t have a clue.
He hadn’t lived in the heart of a pack who despised him, and he did not get to judge me. Not now, not ever.
My eyes were dry when I stalked into the kitchen, and a smile twisted my lips as I pulled the usual ingredients from the pantry. I tossed them all into pans, turned the heat up, and then sat down and watched them burn.
My smile had become a full-on malicious smirk by the time I served the badly charred food onto two plates, and carried them into the dining hall.
Rook arrived a half-minute after I did, pausing in the doorway as he scented the air.
Then his eyes fell on the plate set in his place, and his lips pressed together.
He said nothing as he took his seat, but the darkness swirling in his eyes spoke volumes.
Good. I schooled my expression, keeping my face blank as I looked at him from my seat—my usual one halfway down the table, not the one he’d made me move to yesterday, because I had no intention of getting that close to him again.
Especially not after serving him a meal that I’d deliberately overcooked for half an hour.
“Lord Rook.” I dipped my chin in polite acknowledgement, and he returned the gesture, his chin dipping only a fraction of an inch.
“Kaylee.”
Oh, so this morning I was Kaylee, was I?
Not little wolf, or Tribute, or Dhoca. I should burn his food more often.
I continued to watch him from the corner of my eye as he picked up his cutlery, making no comment on the state of his food, and it took everything in me not to smirk as he forced the knife through one charred sausage.
But hey, at least it wasn’t raw inside this time.
He should have been grateful. I was pretty sure he wasn’t grateful.
He put the food in his mouth, working his jaw and swallowing without comment. Not even a flicker of distaste reached his eyes. Not like the disgust he’d worn a couple of hours ago in my room, when he was telling me—
Fuck. I swallowed, shoving the vulnerable feeling away. His opinion didn’t matter to me, I reminded myself fiercely. He was my captor, not my friend.
“May I be excused?” I asked, pushing my plate away and getting to my feet.
“No.”
“…What?”
“Still in need of that dictionary?” he asked, but there was no amusement on his face this time, not like…that night. The one I didn’t think about. “Sit.”
I slumped back into my seat, watching him warily.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” And especially not for the food I’d charred beyond recognition. Maybe I shouldn’t have burnt mine as much as his. Then again, I hadn’t been planning on eating it. It wasn’t like skipping a meal or two was any kind of unknown hardship.
Eating it, on the other hand, might be.
“You will eat every bite,” he said, enunciating each word clearly.
Fine. I’d eaten worse food than this before. Probably.
“As you wish, Lord Rook,” I said sweetly, but I knew there was nothing sweet lurking in my eyes as I carved a slice of what had once been a sausage.
I put it in my mouth and immediately had to resist the urge to gag.
I was wrong. I hadn’t eaten food worse than this before.
Ever. It tasted of burnt…everything. Burnt meat, burnt oil, burnt something else I couldn’t even place, and sure as hell hadn’t put in the pan.
Maybe it was the pan itself. I glared at Rook as I forced myself to chew, and his eyes didn’t leave mine for even a heartbeat as I swallowed.
“More,” he demanded.
“It’s your turn,” I said.
“More,” he repeated, and I stabbed at a rasher of bacon, only for it to shatter into half a dozen pieces.
I was pretty sure bacon wasn’t meant to shatter.
Rook’s stare was unrelenting, so I scooped the pieces up onto my fork, and shoved them in my mouth, this time swallowing without chewing.
There was less burnt taste that way…except the jagged shards clawed at my throat.
I choked, grabbing for my water and gulping a large mouthful. At least I hadn’t ruined that.
I chanced another look at Rook in case he planned to let me off the hook, but clearly he was too much of a sadist for that.
His jaw twitched, and I didn’t wait for him to order me to continue before I scooped some of the black rubbery mess that had once been an egg onto my fork and into my mouth, almost gagging again as I forced it down.
Because I wasn’t going to let Rook win. He’d taken enough from me, and I wasn’t about to ask his forgiveness for something he’d brought on himself. I’d die first.
It was the slowest, most painfully unpleasant meal I’d ever eaten, made a hundred times worse by Rook’s glare that never left me for even a second, but I choked the whole lot down, because fuck him.
Then I picked up the plate and licked it. Rook’s eyes narrowed and he ground his teeth together. Point to me.
“Aren’t you eating, Lord Rook?” I asked innocently. His eyes glittered coldly.
“Clear the plates,” he said.
I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut again. Right, because like any kind of victory I had meant a damn thing. He could still order me around, make my life hell, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Not even ruin his food, unless I wanted another meal like that. Message received.
His phone rang and he switched his attention to the device as he answered, apparently no longer interested in me. I wasn’t sure whether to be pissed or relieved.