27. Isolde
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ISOLDE
B astian didn’t say a word the whole way from the feast hall to their suite of rooms, which were situated at the very top of the rounded tower Isolde had seen from outside.
Calden and Seraphine had been waiting in the corridor with their packs, which they’d collected from the backs of the horses.
Bastian snatched all three bags from them with one hand and shoved Isolde to the other side of himself with the other.
He ignored the Wolves’ jeering insults and the way they snapped their teeth like a pack of wild dogs, but kept one hand on Isolde’s back the whole way through the manor.
“You should be safe in here,” he said when they finally stood in the common area of the suite, which held a green upholstered settee and chairs before the hearth, a dining area, and a heavily stocked sideboard. “My clemency holds. No one will bother either of you.”
With that, he dropped their packs onto the settee, disappeared into one of the three bedrooms, and slammed the door.
Isolde stood in the center of a plush rug and stared after him, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. She’d seen him ornery, sick, and angry, but never… this. Silent and shaken. Unsteady.
He was always so unflinching. Always in control. Even when he’d told her what Anselm had done to him, he hadn’t let more than a flicker of emotion shine in his brown eyes.
Now, she could see the emotions pressing outward, forcing their way through the cracks in his hard exterior. She’d seen it in his shaking hands, his trembling breath, the way he flinched.
He seemed as though one little nudge might shatter him into pieces.
“Don’t fret over him,” Selene said dismissively, scooping her pack off the settee. “Wolves are notoriously hotblooded creatures. He’ll be fine come nightfall.”
Then she disappeared into the bedroom across from Bastian’s. A moment later, the snick of the lock echoed through the suite. Isolde stood for a few seconds, staring at Bastian’s closed door, before going off to investigate the third bedroom.
Like the common area—and the rest of the manor—it was decorated in shades of green and brown.
The thick curtains were a deep mossy color, drawn tightly over the windows.
The bedspread, which was soft and looked hand-sewn, had matching shades of green mixed in with ivory and pale yellow.
There was a vanity and a plush looking fainting couch and even a small antechamber with a bathtub in it, which was outfitted with a polished pipe and two spinning handles.
Isolde assumed it was some sort of contraption to fill the tub with water.
She’d never seen anything like it before, and itched to try it.
But… Bastian.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Isolde left her room and walked up to the door of Bastian’s.
She hesitated for a minute at the threshold, her fingertips resting on the cool brass of the handle.
Maybe she ought to knock? Though she was half afraid he’d lock it and refuse to let her in if she tried that—assuming it wasn’t locked already.
Isolde tried the handle, and the door swung silently open.
“Bastian?” she called, poking her head inside.
She didn’t see him at first. For a minute, she almost thought the room was empty, and wondered if he’d snuck back out of the suite after she went into her own room.
Then she heard a shuddering breath, and spotted the top of his head poking up from the other side of the bed.
Isolde took a few uncertain steps into the room, closing the door behind herself. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” he replied, but Isolde heard the thickness of his voice. The way it caught in his throat.
She gave up her hesitation and rounded the end of the bed. She found Bastian sitting with his back propped against it, his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them. He turned away as she came into view, tucking his face against his shoulder to hide it from her.
Bastian’s pack might have been a horde of predators with a taste for Vampire blood, but Isolde was a predator, too. And right now, at the sight of Bastian folded over his knees, shattering beneath the hurt of what his pack had done to him…
Isolde was ready to stalk back out into the halls of the manor and drain every last one of them to dust.
She didn’t kill lightly. Night after sleepless night, she’d weighed the decision to murder those men who had beaten her to the brink of death. What she’d done to them had haunted her for years after—still did, sometimes.
In that moment, though, she was ready to kill for Bastian. Her instincts salivated for it, sharpening her canines and urging her pulse into a gallop, and she knew that no matter what she did to those Wolves, she wouldn’t regret it.
But doing that would start the very war they were trying to avoid, so she swallowed down the rage and lowered herself to the floor beside Bastian. She waited, debating whether she ought to touch him, or ask what was wrong, or just sit there with him until he was ready.
Then a sob slipped out of him, low and pained, like he was trying with all his might to hold the full force of it in and that little sound had wrenched its way free. Isolde couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Hey,” she murmured, reaching for him. She slid her hand up his arm, over his shoulder to the back of his neck. “It’s alright. Hey, come here.”
Bastian didn’t resist as she tugged him close. His weight sagged against her, his head dropping to rest on her shoulder. Isolde cradled him there, one hand smoothing long lines up and down his spine while the other cupped his neck.
And as she held him like that, Bastian wept .
His tears soaked through the shoulder of her coat, which she hadn’t bothered to take off yet. He shook with every trembling breath, and the desperate, broken sounds that came out of him… Isolde could barely stand it. Her own heart ached from it, every noise he made like an ice pick to her chest.
God, she didn’t know what the hell she was doing. Things with Bastian were so fucking messy.
Isolde wanted to tell herself she didn’t even like Bastian, and that he certainly didn’t like her either.
But that was starting to feel like it might be a lie, because here she was, cradling him in her arms as he cried, feeling like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin from the helplessness, the desperation to do something to take his pain away and the knowledge that she couldn’t.
Her canines were still sharp against her lip, her veins still simmering with the urge to tear out the throats of every Wolf she could get ahold of.
Eventually, Bastian fell still and silent in her arms. His ragged breathing evened out and the clutching grip he had on the back of Isolde’s shirt eased.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, drawing back to wipe at his face. He turned away again, trying to hide the wetness on his cheeks.
“Don’t apologize,” Isolde said gently. “I understand.”
“It’s just…” He pressed his knuckles against his eyes, gave his head a frustrated little shake. “I left here because of what Anselm did to me, you know? It would have been easier if he’d been angry at me for coming back.”
“You think so?”
“I want to hate him,” Bastian admitted. “I want to hate him for what he did to me, but except for that night, he’s never been anything but kind to me.
He saved my life when I was a child, raised me as his own alongside Everett.
Even after he forced me to change, when I was so angry I couldn’t be in the same room without screaming at him, he was kind.
So, yeah. It would be easier to hate him if he hit me, or exiled me, or let Everett deal me the Punishment. ”
As much as she wanted to have a go at Anselm for what he’d done to Bastian, Isolde understood.
Selene hadn’t exactly always been kind to her—she was harsh sometimes, and God knew they had their moments—but Isolde did love her.
Selene had saved her life, too. She’d been like a mother to Isolde in the ten years since she turned.
“I know what you mean,” Isolde told Bastian quietly. He looked up at her then, his eyes swimming with a degree of sadness that she couldn’t bear to look at. “What is the Punishment?” she asked, glancing down at her lap.
Bastian cleared his throat as he sat back, tilting his head to lean it against the edge of the mattress. “It’s something Wolves do to one another when someone violates a pack law,” he explained. “It involves knives tipped with discarded Wolf claws, and it’s completely brutal.”
“Does it… kill the Wolf being dealt the Punishment?”
“No. Not usually, anyway.”
Isolde frowned. The Punishment was that barbaric, and Bastian’s own brother wanted to inflict it on him?
She understood Everett’s anger at Bastian leaving the pack—she knew that was a grave offense for Wolves, that it was considered unnatural for a Wolf to live alone—and for consorting with Vampires, but…
she couldn’t imagine hurting someone she loved like that, no matter what they’d done.
“Did you and Everett get along well?” she asked Bastian. “Before you left?”
Bastian shrugged, his gaze trained on the ceiling. “We fought like any siblings do. It got worse as we got older, I suppose. Everett is the heir to the pack, but his duties weigh on him. It makes him anxious, shortens his temper. The fighting got better once Anselm turned me, though.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“You heard him that day he came to the forge, didn’t you?” Bastian let out a humorless chuckle. “ You weren’t family—not really. Not until you became a Wolf.”
“Does he really believe that?” Isolde frowned. “How does becoming a Wolf make you more family than all the years you spent growing up together?”
“Wolves are just… like that. We take an oath to the pack when we’re turned, and it’s seen as sacred. We’re meant to be loyal to other Wolves above all else.”