Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ROSAMUND
The food I’m consuming lies like lead inside my stomach. The musicians play, and people talk, slowly returning to their seats, resuming the evening’s festivities. A somberness hangs over the hall, and it doesn’t dissipate until the end.
Having Valen standing behind me all this time, tall and forbidding, covered in drying blood, surely has something to do with it.
The evening has dragged on, endless. Making conversation with my cousins was always a pleasure in the past, but tonight it feels like a chore, my mind jumping all over the place.
It keeps revisiting the animalistic growl and the spray of blood as the werewolf killed those men to protect me.
The feral glow of his amber eyes. The clawed hands and long teeth.
Yet, I wish I could stay here forever, to avoid returning to my rooms with my brawny bodyguard in tow.
What do I do? Chain him outside? Lock him up in my closet? Sit in front of the fire and have tea and cake with him?
An inexplicable urge to laugh grips me.
I don’t know if I can do this. Or how. Delayed shock from the attack is to blame for the hysteria, I’m sure. Not the fact that I’ve accepted my fate and my bodyguard, and my concerns have shifted to the mundane, practical questions.
I feel confused, dazed. The memory of Valen saving my life is a warm spot in my otherwise cold body, even if he only did it to benefit himself.
Somehow, by focusing on the wolf’s brutality, I underestimated his cunning. He’s playing a longer game, just like me. Little by little, he’s gaining more freedoms, more of my sympathy and empathy. I need to step back, resurrect the wall between us.
At this point, I should be worried about my sanity. About my clarity and good sense.
But I can’t. The path is blocked, the maze closing in around me, allowing me no escape.
Just like in a nightmare, I have to stand and let the terror overtake me, sink its teeth into me, and worry me like a bone until I jerk awake.
A sullen Bert accompanies us back to my room, grumbling in his beard about ungratefulness and foolishness, and frankly, he’s right.
This confused state I’m in can’t go on.
Yet, when we arrive, and Bert opens the door for me, bowing, I turn back to Valen and the dark expanse of the corridor. It’s freezing and… and drafty.
“What if—?” I start.
“He’s staying outside,” Bert says flatly.
“It’s cold,” I say, and curse myself inwardly for speaking my thoughts out loud. “Maybe—”
“I’ll stay outside,” Valen interrupts me. “We wolves run hot. Don’t worry about me, Princess.”
“I’m not worried.” Turning my back to him, I rush to enter the room after Bert. “Not about you.”
Only, Valen follows inside. “You’re wounded.”
I stop, frowning. “Hm? What?”
“Your arm.” He reaches for me. “Let me—”
I jerk away from his tall shadow. “Don’t.”
“Fine. I won’t.” He lifts his hands, but Bert has already inserted himself between us.
“Damn right you won’t.” Bert shoves him backward. “Come on, let’s tie you up.”
With a grunt, Valen sidesteps him, his gaze on me. “Don’t be scared.”
“How can I not?” I hiss.
“My lady,” Bert says, turning to me, but I ignore him.
Valen is silent, watching me, and Gods, I hadn’t meant for that to slip out. That admission… I curse myself for showing yet another weakness, another chink in my armor.
Then again, he saw me all but pass out at the sight of him covered in blood, saw me recoil again and again in his presence.
It’s not a big secret that I’m terrified of him.
So why does he look so… unhappy?
I’m imagining things, though, because the next moment he’s turning toward the window and my commode with my washbasin. Without asking for permission, he plunges his hands into the water remaining from my afternoon ablutions and starts scrubbing the blood off his face.
I retreat until my back hits the wall.
Valen turns around, his face and hands dripping red-tinged water. “What’s the matter?”
With a curse, Bert crosses the room, grabs him and hauls him toward the door. “Enough of this dilly-dallying and fooling around. Kier! Where in the hells are you?”
Valen shoves him away. “Don’t make me hurt you, human. I’m already in a bad mood.”
“If you hurt Bert,” I say shakily, “I’ll kill you myself, I swear it on all the Gods.”
Valen stares at me. Then he shrugs. “Fine. I’ll get out of your hair, but first, let me take a look at that wound on your arm.”
“Think you’re a better healer than the one employed by the manor lord?” Bert mocks.
Valen shoots him a glare. “Let me just take a look at the wound, Bert.”
“I’d feel better,” I whisper, “if you stayed far away from me.”
“But I only want to see—”
“My lady,” Della says, bustling into the room, “I heard that you—why in the hells is he untied?”
“Whoa.” Valen lifts his hands. “I wasn’t—”
“Kier, come in here!” Della shouts. “The wolf is unleashed.”
“I only wanted to make sure she’s okay,” Valen says quietly. “Her arm—”
“Kier!” Della shrieks, taking a step back and lifting her hands. “You, stay where you are.”
“I’m not moving, dammit,” Valen snarls softly.
Then Kier comes barging through the door and grabs him, joined by Bert, who’s all too happy to take out his annoyance on the werewolf.
“Fuck,” Valen says, “don’t.”
But they slam him down to the floor, on his stomach. He grunts, and I start toward him, only to be stopped by Della.
“Hold him,” Bert says, and Kier sits on Valen’s back, making him curse.
“He’s covered in blood,” Della says, watching them. “What happened?”
“Didn’t you hear?” Bert unties a length of rope from around his waist. “He killed two men.”
“Then why wasn’t he put down?”
“He saved her ladyship’s life.” Bert crouches down to tie Valen’s wrists together. “There.”
“He what?” Kier frowns as he gets up. “Is Bert pulling my leg?”
“It’s true,” I whisper.
Valen rolls slowly to face me. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“You eviscerated two men,” I whisper.
“Ripped their throats out,” he corrects me. “Look, I love this conversation, I really do, but I hate being bound, so…” He swallows audibly. “I won’t touch you. Won’t come close to you, just… Please, Rosamund, untie me.”
Kier kicks him in the stomach and sends him rolling the other way. “Didn’t I say to mind how you speak to her?”
Valen coughs and curls onto his side. “Fuck…”
“My lady, that’s how you call her, and you bow to her. You kneel for her.” He kicks him again, and Valen rolls on his back. “You’re not fit to lick the soles of her shoes, let alone use her given name.”
“Kier!” I’m breathless, the violence making my insides hurt as if I’m the one being abused. “Stop.”
Kier gestures at Valen. “But he—”
“He saved my life earlier, didn’t you hear? Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Valen lets out a strange cackling sound. He rolls his head toward me, a wide grin baring those sharp teeth. Blood dribbles down his chin. “So can I call you Ros—?”
“My lady,” I say. “That’s how you’ll address me.”
“Adding more terms to the deal we made?” he wheezes.
“Always check the small print on the contract.” I work my jaw. It aches from the tension. “Any trader knows that.”
“Well, I’m no trader. And I didn’t sign anything.”
“You agreed,” I hiss.
His pale lashes lower. “And I’m keeping my promise. What about yours?”
I try to look away, but my gaze keeps returning to him. “The terms haven’t changed. You wear the gloves and the muzzle, your wrists tied. That’s the deal.”
“Not to scare the babes at the banquet?” I can hear the grin in his low voice.
“Not to talk my ear off. You’re putting that muzzle back on. It looks good on you.”
“So you think I look good,” he drawls, “do you?”
A sharp breath escapes me. “I… that’s not what I said.”
“Don’t you, though?” He licks his lips, and something silver glints in his tongue. A silver stud? “Don’t you think that?”
“Out with you, wolf,” Della says before I can think of a paid reply and sends the men out. “Bert, get him out of here.”
Irritation prickles that she’d think I can’t handle this, but… But I sort of lost control of the situation, didn’t I? Of myself. I hadn’t expected the wolf to be so… playful. Teasing.
Or so sexy, which…
Della closes the door firmly against the three men and leans against it with a sigh.
“Now,” she says after a moment of terse silence, “let’s see to that wound…”