Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
ROSAMUND
Della leaves.
As for me, I wait behind the closed door like a scaredy cat until she returns with the manservants. They bang on the door. It’s time to meet the monster.
Grabbing the leash she left me, making a point of throwing my shoulders back and bracing myself for the inevitable, I open the door and step out.
Leaving my room after fleeing here last night feels… honestly, it feels like a terrible idea, and the sensation that I’m still inside a nightmare lingers, like cobwebs clinging to my mind.
Then the seriousness of my situation slams into me like a punch when I see the werewolf standing there.
My Gods. I take a step back. I hadn’t expected…
Hadn’t expected him to be muzzled.
I almost laugh, a nervous chuckle choking me, because do they think he needs his mouth to kill me? One of his clawed hands would be more than enough.
Oh, he’s also wearing black leather gloves, and his wrists are tied together with a rope.
Creative. And even more hilarious. What use are these contraptions when he can transform and rip them all off?
But above all, I hadn’t expected him to be so… imposing. I cast about for a negative word, an insulting word, but can’t find one. Imposing, broad-shouldered and tall, the line of his jaw defined, his brows straight like slashes, his amber eyes with their black flecks…
Why am I staring at his eyes? Or his jaw, or shoulders, for that matter?
What’s wrong with me?
My fingers tighten around the leash, a no-nonsense steel chain with a hook at one end and a leather strap at the other.
“Let me hook that in, my lady,” one of my trusted manservants says, Kier. “I can drag him along kicking and screaming if need be.”
Good Gods. That’s humans for you. In the past few centuries, we forgot how dangerous the fae can be.
Swallowing hard, I shake my head. “I’ll do it.”
“My lady.” Della reaches for me. “Don’t!”
I don’t know what possesses me. Maybe a visceral need to get over the crippling fear. I step forward, getting close, way too close to the werewolf. I look up and up, past bloodied flesh and unreal muscles bulging through torn clothes to the leather muzzle and those blazing yellow eyes—
Kier grabs me, hauling me aside, shoving his hand against the middle of the werewolf’s massive chest. “Stay back!”
A blade flashes as the other manservant steps in. The knife sweeps in a circle, leaving a new gash in already bloodied flesh.
The werewolf snarls but stops, panting harshly.
“Don’t move,” the other manservant says, grabbing the leash from me and hooking the chain in the man’s collar. He’s towering over both human men, even more so than the average fae. I don’t object when the manservant drags the werewolf after him. “After you, my lady.”
Numb, inwardly shaking with fear, I hesitate. Della takes my hand, and I take enough strength from her presence to start walking.
Well, that went splendidly.
“Rosie!” As I walk toward the stairs that lead down to the great hall, my cousins hurry toward us, but they slow down when they notice my companions.
“Oh, Gods.” Mina presses a hand to her bosom. “He’s… tall.”
Pausing, I glance over my shoulder and loose a sharp breath.
He’s still way too close, hulking over us, head bowed, that strangely ashen hair with the white streak falling in his eyes.
His muzzle and bound wrists, his collared neck with the leash, his human-like countenance, they do nothing to make him seem less threatening.
I stumble back and crash into Mina. Orlen grabs me, steadying me.
The werewolf’s golden gaze is pinned on my face. My throat is so dry I can’t swallow. Can barely breathe. Flashes of the past fill my head. Phantom aches spring up all over my body. Fear wraps around my spine like a snake.
“Come.” Mina tugs on my arm. “Let’s go find your stepfather so he can stop this stupid charade.”
Good idea. This can’t go on any longer. Turning my back to the monster takes effort. My cousins’ presence and Della’s hand around mine help. I hate that I require aid to go on, when everyone around me seems to take this in their stride.
A dark fae, a werewolf in our house, an alpha, the strongest of his kind—muzzled and tied up in flimsy rope, a delicate chain serving as his leash.
Sometimes I think people live in a bubble, in a rose-tinged dream, and I’m the only one who can see through it to the other side, to the real world, the danger and cruelty and fear.
Servants stop in their tracks as we move toward the stairs, goggling at our little party and the huge werewolf lumbering behind us. I say lumbering, but glancing over my shoulder at the monster following me, I find he’s rather stumbling along, one leg dragging.
Della was right. He’s wounded.
Good.
Would that slow him down if he loses control and attacks me? Not likely. Would he even feel the pain? He’d probably relish it as he tore me to pieces. Besides, werewolves heal inhumanly fast. He—
“My lady, be careful.” Della tugs on my hand, and I realize we’ve reached the stairs.
Clever, killing myself by falling down the stairs out of fear that the wolf would get me. Ironic.
Getting myself together, lifting my chin, I let go of her hand and lead the way down and into the great hall.
The last thing I want is to let Stepfather and everyone else read any alarm on my face, so I school my features into a calm countenance. I reach up to my neck, making sure my high collar is in place and my hair hasn’t slipped from its do.
A grim lady is coming down the stairs, wearing my face, ready to fight.
I’ll fight for my salvation.
The noise from the hall slams into me before I reach the bottom of the stairs, and then I enter it. It’s like plunging into a lake full of snakes, the voices jabbing like fangs into my aching head.
A few faces turn as I march between tables and into the center of the hall, followed by my unlikely bodyguard and the others. The noise goes down a notch as more and more guests fall silent, watching our small but spectacular procession head for the lord of the manor.
“Stepfather,” I say, too riled up to even manage a curtsy. “I demand you send this beast away from here.”
“Good morning to you, too, Stepdaughter.” Stepfather has the gall to look mildly amused at my declaration. He doesn’t get up or even stop cutting up the meat on his plate, simply lifting his brows. “Sit down and have some breakfast with our guests.”
“This… creature.” I point blindly behind me. “He has to go. Now. I’m not staying with him breathing down my neck.”
“But that’s just the thing, Stepdaughter. You’re not staying.”
I blink. “What?”
“It’s time for you to travel and join your future husband.”
“But… I’m not ready to leave yet.” I’m shocked, caught off guard yet again, and I hate it. I hate how I’m losing control of my face muscles, that my eyes go wide, and my body stiff. This isn’t how it was supposed to go down. “It’s too soon for the wedding.”
“Now that your bodyguard is here… you are leaving.” He waves his knife in the air. “Well, it will take a few days to prepare your things, of course. Pack up everything.”
A silent scream is building up in my chest, rising in my throat, choking me.
“Pack up everything.” My entire life is to be stuffed inside a few coffers. And I thought I was ready to go, leave this life behind and look to new horizons, new possibilities, so why is the thought crippling me, making my knees weak and my mouth dry?
Worse still… “I’m not going with this… thing following me!” My voice rises, and I can’t keep it down. “There is no way. I won’t.”
“Now, don’t act like a crybaby. Such a fine-looking lady,” he goes on, still using the knife to emphasize his points, making the whole argument seem petty and unimportant. “Despite her scars, of course. It’s not proper to screech like this just because you’re not getting your way.”
“I’m not screeching.”
“There you go. Come now, sit and partake of this delicious banquet. You won’t have such fine fare once you’re on the road.”
I feel faint. Black spots swim in my sight. My chest feels crushed, my lungs laboring. “You can’t… can’t do this.”
“It is already done.” Now, he points the knife at me.
“You should be thanking me. After what happened to you in the past, I made sure you’d have the only bodyguard who can actually protect you in case of an attack on the road.
A fine specimen. And such an interesting hair hue… Doesn’t he remind you of someone?”
My head is pounding so hard I can barely think. “What? No.”
“Well.” He leans back in his chair. “It doesn’t matter. How about some gratefulness for all the trouble I went through to secure one of the creatures?”
“He’ll… eat me alive.”
“He’s muzzled and tied up, so please stop with the melodrama. It’s exhausting.”
“And how am I supposed to convince this beast to follow me and protect me?” I rally my thoughts, my rational mind that’s cowering behind the instinct to scream and flee. “Why would he, once we’re out of here?”
Sympathetic murmurs rise from the tables around me, and it’s crazy what a balm they are on my soul. Stepfather wants to present me as a deranged, whiny girl, but my concerns are valid.
Gods, what am I saying? He is the deranged one.
“I’m not a monster,” Stepfather says, and I blink. “Despite what you seem to think.”
How does he do that, turning the tables on me again and again, never giving me time to regroup? And what does he even mean?
“I will, of course, give you a way to control him,” he goes on and returns to cutting up the meat on his plate.
“Control him? How?”
More murmurs and whispers from the tables around us. Looks like I’m not the only one confused.
“What are you talking about?” his wife demands. “You can’t control a beast such as this one.”
Ah. She obviously was hoping the wolf would eviscerate me the moment he stepped out of his cage.
“We want her to reach her future husband’s house, don’t we?” Stepfather says, as if it wasn’t evident before. When I glance at her and my stepsister, I see scowls on their faces.
“What are you saying?” I demand.
I know that silver is unpleasant for werewolves. Most metals are, due to the nature of their magic. There is wolfsbane, a plant, but that won’t do much against an enraged werewolf. Is that what he’s planning? Is he—?
“I will give you a sword. So you can fight him off if he attacks you.” Stepfather smirks when tittering rises from the seated guests. “Am I not kind?”
“How dare you?” My hands curl into fists. “Sending me to my death.”
“Ah, that’s slander. I’m doing no such thing. In fact,” he waves a hand at me, dismissing my concerns, “I’ll give you a magical sword. It belonged to your mother.”
I stare at him. My chest hurts. Is my heart seizing? He’s going to kill me from disbelief and anger alone. “Are you listening to yourself? You’ll send me out there with a werewolf and a sword?”
“Your mother held it in her hands as she died,” he says. “I’m being generous, giving you something so precious.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “If it really belonged to my mother, then it’s mine by rights. It was never yours to give.”
His smile is slimy. “We are a family. What is yours is also mine.”
I draw a shaky breath, my jaw ticking. “You…”
“Besides.” A bored expression comes over his face. “No sane werewolf would try to eat someone as bitter and hard as you, Stepdaughter. They’d get indigestion. He’ll realize it soon enough. So have no fear. Right, wolf?”
An angry snarl echoes behind me.
It’s too much. I slide down to my knees and bow over, unable to catch my breath. The hall closes in around me, the walls crushing me, until I curl up on the floor and close my eyes, shutting the world out.