33
Heading to breakfast, I kept my eyes on the ground.
Celestine had already finished her oats. I ate a mouthful of mine, grimacing at their cold state as I surveyed the emptying prayer hall. Meront and Darcen were gone. As were the younglings they’d taken to sitting with.
Voran remained—his attention a warmth that chilled at my back.
“How you sleep through that rotting bell, I’ll never know,” Celestine said. “Were you up late?”
I reached for my water and nodded.
“Reading?” she asked, excitement in her eyes. “Which one now?”
I hadn’t read. I’d been accosted by all that had happened well into the late hours while worrying that Voran would visit me. Hoping that he would visit me. That he would vow not to harm anyone and agree to keep his distance for now. Agree to keep our secret safe.
But I just said, “The one that would be confiscated immediately.”
Her eyes widened, and she nudged me with a laugh. “Good, isn’t it?” Sighing wistfully, she said, “I might need to read it again when you’re done.”
To avoid being late for garden duty, I only ate half of my breakfast. I left Celestine and hurried to the back hall. Beyond the side door held open by younglings heading out, rain dusted the air. I groaned and slowed my steps.
A gasp down the hall stopped them entirely.
Alixa and two other wards lingered there, watching something in the prayer hall. But everyone had now gone.
Everyone except for Voran.
Unease crawled across my skin, urging me to walk back.
Alixa stepped aside when I neared, blond brows high as she whispered, “I fear Meront’s about to get his pretty face ruined.”
I barely heard her.
Because Meront stood before Voran’s table.
He stabbed his finger at something on it. “That’s Ayla’s handwriting.”
“You would know.” A husked chuckle came from Voran, who sat against the wall. “Wouldn’t you, golden prince?”
“You’re goddess-damned right I would know.” Meront slapped his hands onto the table, leaning over it to growl, “But right now, what I want to know is why you’ve got a story she wrote in your nightstand drawer?”
The story about the stag.
Sickened, I gripped the stone archway. While Voran had been at breakfast, someone had searched his room.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Perched atop the table we usually sat at, Haynes set down the oats he’d been eating. The oats I’d left behind. “He’s obsessed with her. I’ve seen it since he dared to arrive on the isle. Probably spills his seed on those pages.”
Darcen stood at the end of Voran’s table—opposite to where he sat. His green eyes found mine. He hadn’t wished to believe that I’d been teaching the prince how to read. This was proof I’d told him the truth, even if it had only been half of it.
But the Coraldeen prince just slid his gaze back to his friends. He remained against the wall, arms crossed and oozing disinterest.
“Do you?” Meront taunted. “Do you fantasize about the princess giving you the time of day while you read her pretty handwriting, wolf?”
“Meront,” Darcen warned, yet didn’t unfold himself from the wall.
The Moongold prince ignored him. “She never will. She loathes so much as sharing the same air as you, but you know that, don’t you?”
I couldn’t see past Meront to Voran’s face. I wasn’t sure I breathed as my heart sank deeper and deeper into my quaking stomach.
“You know it, so you steal her possessions.” Again, Meront gestured to the story I’d written for Voran. “Which leads me to wonder what else you wish to steal from her.” He then tilted his head. “What are you fucking smiling for, wolf?”
Haynes clucked his tongue. “Perhaps we should rid it from his face by telling the high priestess what he’s done.”
“Perhaps,” drawled Meront. “At the very least, we ought to detain you until we speak to her about this.”
“Try,” Voran said, lethally low. He finally rose and leaned over the table—nose to nose with Meront. “I fucking beg of you.”
A choking silence descended.
No one chose to fill it. Not even Haynes, who now stood between the two tables.
Then Meront lunged.
Voran leapt back to the wall, grinning.
Haynes jumped to Voran’s table, as if he’d launch from it onto the Valadorn prince.
Before he could, before I even thought about the trouble I might cause, I ran into the prayer hall. “Stop it,” I shouted. “Meront, he didn’t steal anything.”
Meront kept his gaze on Voran as he ordered, “Get out, Ayla.”
“You get out.” Reaching the back table, I stepped in front of him and tried to catch his eyes while explaining, “I gave Prince Voran that story. I wrote it to help him learn how to read.”
At that, Meront went still.
Shock twisted his features as he stared at me. “You wrote it for him?” With a shake of his head, he glared over my shoulder at Voran. “You expect me to believe you would make anything for this asshole?”
“Yes,” I snapped. “Because he saved my life.”
Meront reared back as if I’d stabbed him.
Haynes guffawed. “What a barrel of piss. Of course he knows how to read. She’s covering for him,” he said. “And we all deserve to know why.”
“She”—I whirled to where Haynes crouched on the table—“is telling the truth. When those prisoners escaped, Voran killed one who tried to kill me, and I’ve been repaying the debt by teaching him how to read.”
Quiet again filled the prayer hall.
Meront’s gaze didn’t stray from Voran. His hands curled at his sides. His chest heaved, and his jaw ticked.
I stepped closer to him. “Read the story,” I whispered. “Please, Meront. You’ll see what I tried to do by writing it.”
Haynes heard me and laughed. “I think we should do just that.” He snatched the story from the table.
Parchment fluttered as he flicked through it and said in a youngling-like voice, “My name is Prince Voran, and I’m a wolf who wears the skin of a male to better seduce the enemy kingdom’s princess.
I freed prisoners from the sea cells just so I could save her life, then I told her that I cannot read so that she repays the debt… ”
“Haynes,” Meront warned, eyes still on Voran.
But Lord Haynes went on. “…by teaching me something I already know how to do because what do wolves do best?” He feigned a gasp.
“That’s right.” His mocking voice rose. “They pretend to be something they’re not to lure their prey.
And once I’ve ensnared the princess, I’ll fuck her untouched cunt until she squeals like a dying lamb, then I’ll use my teeth to rip her into itty bitty pieces for my uncle, who just so happens to be taking… ”
Meront’s curse and the heaving air were the only warnings I had before he pulled me away from the males.
He shoved me behind him as a series of cracks sent a chill cascading down my spine. Wood breaking.
Bones reshaping.
My heart turned to stone. I snuck out from behind Meront to find the back table destroyed beneath Haynes.
And a direwolf looming above him.
Wards who’d returned to watch the confrontation screamed, bumping into each other in their haste to flee the prayer hall. The glass doors behind me burst open with a violent screech, and people spilled out onto the sandy courtyard.
Haynes groaned. Blood leaked from his arm where a piece of wood had pierced it, and Voran…
Teeth bared, he snarled into the lord’s face.
Fear strangled. But I wasn’t merely afraid for Haynes, who lay trapped beneath the silver-and-deep-gray beast more than twice his size. I was afraid for Voran. Should he injure Haynes, then he wouldn’t just be punished. He would likely be sent to the sea cells until the war ended.
Haynes tried to glare at the wolf, but he failed to hide the terror in his rusty gaze. Failed to keep from trying to move out from under the enormous beast. Voran noticed, and he didn’t just snarl again. He lifted a paw as big as the lord’s head.
And pressed it into Haynes’s chest.
He cried out, and I darted forward without thinking. Without knowing if Voran would even recognize me in this form.
Meront seized me around the waist. “Don’t be foolish, Ayla.”
“Someone needs to stop this. Let me go,” I hissed and tried to pull his arms from my waist. When that failed, I dug my elbow into his side.
Meront cursed. His hold loosened enough for me to break free.
I ran for the wreckage. As I neared, Voran growled in warning. Not at me, I realized when I froze, but at Meront, who tried to snatch me again.
“Leave me,” I told Meront, then I spoke to Voran, hoping he understood me. “Please release him. You need to shift back before a priestess comes.”
“Ayla,” Meront called.
And I knew before I looked that it was too late.
Priestess Renisha stood beneath the stairs, her hands at her mouth. Above her was Celestine.
I closed my eyes, unsure what to do. How to fix this.
But the damage had been done before Voran shifted into his wolf form. Done long before these males had gotten their hands on that stupid story. We’d been treading water, knowing it couldn’t last yet hoping to stay afloat.
Now we were sinking.
When I opened my eyes, I found the giant wolf easing back from Haynes. But he wasn’t looking at the priestess. He seemed only aware of me, and the tear I brushed from my cheek as I spied the story I’d made for him.
Crushed beneath the table he’d watched me from since arriving.
Haynes stumbled to his feet. Smiling wide, he pointed at the large splinter protruding from his arm. “Blood drawn by a fellow ward,” he rasped while walking backward over the wood. “You’re finished here, wolf.”
Priestess Mala entered from the back hall with a gasp, then ushered Haynes down it.
Meront marched to Priestess Renisha.
I stood staring at the direwolf until Celestine approached, and he bounded through the open doors.