Chapter 7
Anya Delemond
A flood of panic and shame ripped Anya’s passion and affection away in its tide. She pulled away from Lord Bryson’s embrace. The warmth drained from her body as the chilling word set in.
Roderick!? She covered her mouth to stifle a scream. Her emotional hackles surged.
Had he sought her out? Put on this gentlemanly act to seduce her and shame her?
Oh stars, oh damn it, damn it, damn it! Anya’s thoughts raced as she clawed her dress up from the floor.
“Do I…get to know yours?” Confusion infected his tone as took a step toward her. He grasped her hand. She yanked it away and slammed into the bedside table. The lantern fell and shattered around her.
“Are you all right?” Wood creaked as he knelt in front of her. “Take my hand. I’ll help you up.”
By the mercy of the Moon, Lord Bryson didn’t seem to realize who she was, what with the darkness and the vocal tonic. Anya tried to steady her breathing as she swatted him away with one hand and clawed at the table with the other, searching for her spectacles.
“I forgot my friend at the manor! I need to take her home!”
“I’ll escort you.” His peppermint scent grew stronger as he stepped closer. “It’s late. What kind of man would I be if I—”
“No!” Anya shouted. She fumbled around in the darkness, finally finding her mask. She clumsily pulled on her gown and fastened her mask, snapping the thread painfully against the back of her head.
“Ah!” She hissed as a shard of glass dug into the arch of her foot, sending searing pain into her calf.
“What happened?”
“Stop! Please just stop!”
“Please, can I know your name? Can I see you tomorrow?” The floorboards shifted as he moved toward her. “I’ll still be here for the—”
“No! I have to go!” Panic marred her tone. She couldn’t let him see her. She could never, ever let him see her again.
“Wait! Please! I want to see you again—” His fingers barely caught her dress, but she pulled away, forcing the door open and shut behind her in a swift motion. She darted down the back stairwell and into the starlit streets.
A hippogriff-drawn carriage trotted down the road at a steady clip. She jumped onto the back as it passed, clinging to an iron support on the outside. Her feet fumbled on the runners. The Lycanian driver whirled his head around the side of the carriage.
“Hey! No free rides!” he barked.
“I’ve got a copper piece if you hush up and go faster!” Anya shouted over the wind.
“You got it, lady!”
The driver goaded the tawny hippogriff on, and it screeched with delight at the permission to run full bore. The bumpy road gave way to the dirt paths on the outskirts of the city. Her hair was a banner on the wind. She tossed it over her shoulder and looked back.
Through the dust and darkness, Lord Bryson stood in the middle of the road. His shirt was unbuttoned and his hair disheveled from running her hands through it. She turned back around, then flexed her hand open and shut, trying to erase the skin-deep sensation of his locks between her fingers.
He almost looked…devastated.
She shook her head to banish a sliver of guilt.
Surely such a tryst was a regular happenstance for “Valeria’s greatest knight.
” She was lucky not to become a notch in his bedpost, or whatever cads like him did to tally their conquests.
Why an egotistical, self-absorbed brute of a man like him would find enjoyment in a masquerade was beyond her.
Perhaps it was simply a prime opportunity to engage in no-strings sex.
But he was the one who asked for her name. He could have very well bedded her under the shadow of anonymity. So why didn’t he? Did he think she’d be thrilled to find out who he was?
Her parents wanted nothing more than for her to be courted by a proper nobleman. They had all but begged her this year.
You’re twenty-six years old, Anya.
You cannot bear the Crown alone, Anya.
After many dull dinners with potential suitors, she had all but written off the prospect of marriage.
She planned to show her parents she could handle the burdens of the Crown on her own—that she was responsible, and the best choice to govern Valeria after them.
Surely if her academic and diplomatic work were exemplary, they would overlook her need for a hair’s breadth of freedom.
This wouldn’t help. But only if Lord Bryson learned the truth and crowed to his constituents.
If he did, she’d become the hot-button embarrassment of the year.
She could practically hear the haughty Lord telling every noble in sight how the Princess had gone to a debaucherous party, and was all too happy to leave with a nameless, faceless man to quell her desires.
Before she learned his name, it felt like it was going to be much more than that.
Not anymore.
Anya raised her head as the heavy smell of algae-laden stones filled her senses. They were close to the coast.
“Drop me right here, if you please!” she called to the driver.
The driver dutifully slowed the carriage.
She tossed the copper coin to him, then stepped down to the cobblestone street.
The moon reflected over the waters of the port, sliced by docks and wooden ships bobbing in the waves.
She was only a ten-minute walk from the palace.
She’d need to go through some populated areas, but she had the perfect solution for that.
Anya dipped into an alley between the blacksmith and apothecary.
Tensing her hands, then her arms, she rolled the movement into her spine.
Fur pushed between her fingers, spreading up her arms to her chest. She woke the wolf that slept in her heart, rousing it with every twitch of muscle and shift of bone.
In a moment akin to a delicious, audible pop of a kink in her neck, she shifted into her ancestral form.
She looked down at two furry paws that carried a sheen of gold.
She kicked her back legs out of the puddle of midnight fabric.
It was a shame to abandon such a lovely gown, but she could never wear it again, in case Lord Bryson recognized it.
She still needed her spectacles too, but a “dog” wearing spectacles would be…
well, a spectacle. So she gingerly picked the metal frames up in her jaws, taking care not to scratch the lenses.
The ring of midnight basilica bells slammed in her ears. They were so sensitive in this form. Even the slightest whistle seemed to give her a headache.
If she spent more time in this form, she would adjust. Though there was little opportunity to do so. Her mother made sure of that.
Anya told Blackbird about her ability after they survived their first debutante ball together, and she knew they would be best friends the moment Blackbird offered to be her lookout while she enjoyed the full moon and ran through the gardens behind the palace.
A midnight sprint felt like none other. Her muscles would burn with vigor as she ran and ran and ran.
She even caught the occasional prey, though she was hesitant to ever let Blackbird see that part of her.
She doubted her friend would ever look at her the same way again after watching her swallow a squirrel whole. But it still felt so. Damn. Good.
The cobblestone scraped against her dark claws as she padded through the alleyway.
She did her best to appear docile and dog-like, keeping her eyes wide and wagging her tail as she went.
Sporadic groups of people loomed above her.
She pressed herself close to every structure, barrel, and building she could find in a desperate bid to melt into the shadows.
The palace quickly came into view after she rounded the corner of the basilica.
Cherry blossoms stood sentry along the fine stone path, casting unsettling moonlit shadows.
Every wavering patch of darkness made her flinch, fearing an early-rising kitchen servant or guard was arriving for work.
The staff were under strict orders to report to her parents if they saw anything suspicious, so Anya abandoned the path and slinked through the line of hedges closest to the outer walls of the palace.
They eventually led around to the back garden.
She finally stopped to catch her breath and peered up at the second-floor window to her bedchamber.
Blackbird…I hope you did wait up for me…
She deposited her spectacles onto the soft grass, ripped a stick from the hedge, turned her head to the side, then whipped it at the window. She waited with bated breath, praying to the moon and the stars that her friend was in there. Crickets chirped in the silence.
“Woof.”
Anya whirled around and bared her teeth, then snapped her jaws shut and tucked her tail. Her eyes flared wide at the sight of her mother looming over her.
Anya had no pack besides her family. The only Lycanian in her line was her great-grandmother, now in the Eternal.
The rest were humans. There were many, many times where she yearned for her great-grandmother’s guidance.
Maybe she’d know why Anya could shift when none of her kind could, save for one—and that was only a rumor.
But despite her parents’ humanity, among Delemonds, her mother was the alpha. This moment proved it. The maternal behemoth glared down at her, slippered foot tapping on the grass.
“Judging by your spectacles, you were not just out to stretch your paws. Come. You will explain yourself inside.”
Anya picked up her spectacles in her jaws and plodded to her bedchamber, tail tucked low in shame. The moment her mother shut the door, she shifted back with a gasp onto her hands and knees, staring into the golden stars embroidered on the rug beneath her.
“I have had enough of your wild antics,” her mother chided, striding over to the wolf-eyed changing partition. “What was it this time? Drinking? Dice?” She threw a silk robe over Anya.
Anya stood silently, slipping her arms through the sleeves and cinching the waist.
“A masquerade,” she muttered.