Chapter 8
Fern
The pillow brought no comfort that night, nor the next. If anything, it made it more difficult to sleep.
Her wolf begged her not to get rid of it, but when she had lain awake for hours, knowing she could not last another second, she stood, collecting the gift and heading towards the Ashpaw in the back of the room.
Apparently, the Ashpaw couldn’t sleep either, the moonlight reflecting off her wary eyes as she watched Fern approach.
“Do you mean to smother me with the thing?” she asked with a whisper.
Fern froze, realizing it was the first time she’d heard the woman speak. “No. Unless you’re asking me to.”
She snorted softly. “Perhaps it would be for the best.”
The joke was brittle, but it was still a joke, and Fern laughed despite herself.
She then settled down on the cold, hard floor, realizing that perhaps she’d been too quick to judge her lumpy straw mattress. It could be much worse.
“You may need this more than I do,” Fern whispered, but the Ashpaw shook her head.
“If Alpha Darion gave you a gift and I was discovered to have it, I’d be accused of thievery.
And if you insisted it wasn’t stolen but freely given, you’d be joining me on the floor for the crime of your compassion.
” She pointed towards the fireplace with her chin.
“Better to burn the thing if you don’t want it. ”
No! her wolf cried, but Fern silenced her.
“Are you sure?”
“Being ignored is the best I can hope for, not small acts of mercy by ignorant Solvekh. Just leave me be.”
Fern stayed for a moment longer, watching the Ashpaw cling to her threadbare blanket and turn away from her. With a sigh, Fern stood, her knees already aching. “If you say so.”
She walked to the other side of the large room, past the women snoring gently, until she reached the fireplace, the pillow cradled to her chest.
Her wolf was having none of it, howling in pain and doing her best to drag Fern back to bed, but she didn’t have any other choice. With trembling hands, she held it out, over the embers, closed her eyes and…
Ran to her cot, tucking the pillow between her knees.
Perhaps having it further away would help her forget how she’d come by it, and what it had cost her.
* * *
Fern did her best to keep her head down the next few weeks, realizing how true the Ashpaw’s words were to all the Solvekh living in the castle—safety was in being ignored.
It was difficult to do some days, especially at dinner, where the ale flowed a little more freely and the wolfkin’s appetites for something more than dinner grew.
The approaching full moon did not help.
Her backside was covered in pinches she received on a nightly basis, unable to keep herself from yelping in a way that only encouraged further teasing.
Harland, one of the betas who had come to the tavern in her village, gave her the most trouble, and her pleas to the other servers to take care of his table were met with patronizing laughter.
“Why would we? He’ll only be angry if you’re not there. And besides, he obviously wants to petition you,” Vedia told her while they picked up new platters in the kitchen. “You’re lucky.”
“Lucky” was hardly the word she’d use to describe the state of her buttocks. “I don’t want to appear ungrateful, but—”
“But nothing,” Vedia replied, her tone slightly more clipped. “You’re the shiny new toy, entering her prime fertile years. You’d do well not to refuse, unless you mean to spend the rest of your life in the kitchen.”
“Or worse,” Tegen added. “I once saw a Lurvekh rip a Solvekh’s stomach open during a shift because she had refused him.”
A hard knot formed in the pit of her stomach. Her only experience with a shifted wolfkin had been Darion, and aside from biting her finger, he had been gentle.
She had to remind herself they were still beasts, and that she would become one soon herself. The full moon was days away now, and she would finally experience her first shift.
Which meant her wolf—the whiny, needy thing—would finally be in control, and if she was going to be as tiny as Fern was compared to the wolfkin, a jilted Lurvekh could easily harm her.
“Was he punished?” she asked, worried she had inadvertently swatted away too many hands since she’d arrived.
Vedia shook her head. “Wolfkin are never punished for crimes committed during a shift. Even those against pups are forgiven. Our wolves aren’t really us, you see. So you cannot punish the man for a beast he cannot control.”
That was hardly comforting.
“Are you holding out hope for the young guard, perhaps?” Annik asked.
Color hit her cheeks, and the three women laughed, assuming that to be the case.
In truth, if she were unable to refuse a petition, Jules was probably the best man to go with.
The guard continually stopped by in between meals to say hello, his touches and words much gentler than Harland’s.
He’d even begun bringing her small gifts—flowers, ribbons, that sort of thing.
Something the Solvekh had assured her was unusual.
She wanted to weave them in her hair, to do something that made her feel like less of a faceless serving girl, but she also didn’t want to draw even more attention to herself.
The cook saw them chatting and waved them off. “Foods getting cold, off with you!”
Arms laden, they left, with Tegen whispering. “You never know, you might end up with both.”
“Both?” she cried.
Both! her wolf cried.
“Aye, it happens sometimes. Stops the Lurvekh from fighting and killing each other needlessly over mates and Naravekh. As long as there are pups, most will accept sharing.”
Fern could not imagine how such an arrangement would halt arguments instead of causing more, especially after what she’d heard from Hyde, and her thoughts spiraled into further worry when she heard Harland whistling loudly.
“Hurry now, Fern, I’m starving!”
She took a deep breath, fixed a neutral smile on her face, and headed over. “Good evening, gentlemen.”
The men laughed, one taking the platter right out of her hands before she even had a chance to set it. She meant to turn around, but Harland grabbed her around the middle, pulling her down and forcing her onto his lap. She pushed weakly at his chest, but his grip only tightened.
“I’m afraid you keep mistaking me. I was hungry for this.”
His teeth gently bit the soft skin of her neck, and she keened loudly in surprise, her head falling and back bowing from the pain of it.
And yet, there was the barest hint of something akin to pleasure that slowly blossomed alongside the hurt, unfurling low in her belly into something warm and tingling.
It was a foreign feeling, and she did not know if she liked it or not.
He growled against her in warning not to move, lapping at the mark he’d made and holding onto her tighter.
“You smell so good,” he said, his voice low. “And I’m tired of waiting for the alphas to release you to me.”
One hand gripped her by the neckline of her bodice, and he forced her up to meet his eye, pupils large and black.
Fern could feel her wolf pressing her forward, getting stronger. Her fingers found his cheek, cupping his face, her own breath becoming shallow.
She hardly liked the man, but there was something in the way he drew these responses from her that left her confused. Curious.
“Aye, she-wolf,” he said, his voice low and rumbling. She could feel his arousal, hard and much larger than she’d even anticipated, along the back of her thighs. “You want this too, hm? For me to fill you with my seed? For your belly to grow large with my pups?”
Fern and her wolf whimpered in unison.
“Give her a taste!” one of the other men bellowed.
But before his lips found hers, a guard approached from the head table. “Alpha Darion has ordered this she-wolf to serve the Council in their chamber this evening. Release her.”
Harland growled, refusing to let her go. “Well, isn’t that convenient?”
Fern blinked slowly, trying to find her way through the fog, and turned to look at the head table.
Kyntha was absent tonight, but Darion was still there, eyes locked on the two of them. Hands gripping silverware so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.
Harland pulled her close, whispering in her ear, “Worry not. You’ll be mine soon enough.”
And then he pushed her off, straight into the guard, who just barely caught her before she tripped over her skirts.
“Away with her, then!” he said, waving them off. “And allow me to find someone else before the night is over.”
The thought was a cut at first, but relief soon filled the wound as she regained her senses. Better for him to fixate on someone else and leave her be.
But as the guard straightened her up, she realized fully what exactly had saved her from Harland’s bed, and cold fear sluiced through her.
Darion had ordered her to pour drinks for the alphas in their private chamber.
That was normally a job for one of the more experienced Solvekh. Why had he requested her?
He likes us, her wolf chirped.
Fern almost envied her wolf’s optimism and simplicity. But if there was one thing her short time here had already taught her, there was nothing someone like her could ever count on to be simple.
* * *
The Sabletail Clan had five alphas, and after hearing their names spoken many times, she was finally able to match them to faces.
“Bloodmoon scouts crossed the ridge again,” Norden said. He was one of Darion’s uncles.
She eyed the map in the middle of the table, outlining clan lands, forests, and mountains she’d never heard of before.
Humans didn’t bother exploring this side of the river, for those who tried never returned.
“Not only scouts,” Karn corrected. Darion’s other uncle. “But a forward movement. They’re testing the north-west border for weaknesses.”
“Are there?”
That was Head Alpha Alastair, Darion’s father. He looked much like his son, only his face was roughly hewn where Darion’s was smoothed, perhaps by the softness of a comely mother.
“None,” he replied. “Although with the Verdantbites gone, we will want to send reinforcements.”
“Then the Verdantbite defeat is confirmed?” Darion asked.