Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ROSAMUND
We’re both quiet for a while, just standing there and listening for any sounds from outside the door. Soon enough, though, the men’s voices fade away, and quiet returns.
Della helps me out of my clothes and places my blood-stained dress aside to clean and mend, then she examines the shallow cut on my forearm and tsks.
“It won’t scar,” she says. “It’s a shallow cut.”
“What’s another scar?” I say, but she throws me a knowing look. She knows I care. Too much.
“Let me wash this and bind it. You were careless, my lady.”
“Was I?”
“Yes. Didn’t I teach you to let the men walk before you? They are expendable. You are not.”
“Nobody is expendable,” I mutter, frowning.
“They are your servants. We all are.”
“You are my people,” I protest. “The only friends I have.”
“My lady—”
“You know it’s the truth.”
She nods once, her eyes meeting mine briefly, then she tugs on my wrist, leading me to the washbasin. There, she makes a small sound. “What happened here? It’s all filthy and… bloodied.”
“Valen,” I say. At her blank look, I clarify, “The werewolf. He washed himself here.”
“Oh? He really has no manners! It’s true what they say, that they live like animals, then. Rolling in their own filth, I’ll bet.”
“Della—”
“We’ll do a field dressing, then. Did I ever tell you that my father was in the royal army?”
“No, why—?”
She pulls a small flask from her cleavage and abandons my wrist to unscrew it. The smell of strong alcohol hits me like a fist. “This is what we need.”
“Are you…? You drink?”
“Sometimes a woman needs a little something to relax in the evenings,” she says defensively. “Or in the mornings.”
I’m torn between hilarity and shock. “You’ve been hiding things from me.”
“I’m not proud of my habits,” she says quietly. “Picked them up from my parents, and when I get anxious… Well, you know all about that. We all deal with it in our own way.”
True enough. I say nothing, and after a drawn-out moment, she sighs and spills some alcohol over the cut. I hiss between my teeth at the sting while she grabs a towel to pat it dry and wrap it around my forearm.
I’ve known her for most of my life and know so little about her. Kier and Bert, too. It has taken me this long to let my guard down enough to wonder about it, and just in time to leave them behind.
My heart aches.
I don’t want this pain. I’ve wanted to leave this life behind and start with a clean slate for a while. As if moving away will empty my mind of memories and the past. As if everything at the new place will be perfect.
But surely, it has to be better than a home where your family wants you gone or dead, or both?
“You’re shocked,” Della says, helping me into my nightgown and letting my hair down. Grabbing a brush, she sets to work, untangling my long, dark locks.
“By your drinking habit?”
“And the attack. Your family’s actions. Any act of cruelty. The men’s innuendos and advances.”
My brows wing up. “Well, of course I am.”
“You grew up too sheltered.”
“It looks like you and the wolf agree,” I say drily.
“I only mean… this is a small place. You’re going out into the wide world, and…”
“Nobody will be holding my hand?”
She sighs. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You didn’t. But I’m not that sheltered.”
The wolves stripped away many childish illusions all those years ago. The illusion that your parents can protect you. That if you’re good, nothing bad will happen to you. That if you beg, the big bad monster will let you go.
That others will understand the trauma you went through and help.
All lies. All false expectations.
When something bad happens, you’re alone. That’s the truth of it, and I learned my lesson. In my opinion, that was the most important lesson of all.
The night passes wreathed in dark snatches of dreams. I’m dancing in a shadowed hall, indistinct figures gathered in a circle, a candelabra flickering overhead.
A wolf is watching me from the shadows, tongue lolling, sharp canines glinting.
I swear I can smell the coppery tang of spilled blood. Then my feet slip in it, and I’m falling and falling down an endless hole… until I wake up to a crash. It sends the door rattling on its hinges, followed by a howl right outside my bedroom door.
I sit up with a gasp. “Who’s there?” I call out, but nobody answers me.
After a moment, I realize that rain is lashing against the windows. Thunder crashes. That has to be what woke me up. The weather is turning.
I get up, shivering when I leave the warm mound of blankets, and grab my robe, wrapping myself up in it. With my feet inside my slippers, I walk to the window and touch the frigid glass.
“This is a small place. You’re going out into the wide world.”
The night sky is split by lightning, illuminating briefly a copse of trees, a distant hill, a meadow, and a flying dragon. It’s a storm. The worst time for a journey. And then, a thought strikes me.
I bet Stepfather will order me to go now when it’s the most dangerous time to travel.
Because he wants me dead.
I pull my hand back and press my cold palm to my cheek. This awareness of his hatred is new, and I wonder if the signs had been there and I’d missed them. I’ve never known real affection from him or his wife and daughter, but I also never thought their dislike of me went that deep.
No, I’m missing something. What is it…?
A thump against my door has me turning away from the stormy sky and my thoughts. Ice travels down my spine as I softly tread across the wooden floor.
“Who’s there?” I ask again. “Valen?”
A growl from the other side of the door has all the fine hairs on my arms standing up and my nipples pebbling. My heart starts pounding in earnest.
“Valen, are you all right?” I don’t know why, but suddenly I’m afraid for him. A bad feeling grips me, and I unlock the door with shaky hands, opening it a crack. “Valen!”
The picture that greets me is otherworldly.
Illuminated by the flashes of lightning coming through the skylight, he stands there, all six feet and some of him, his hair plastered to his neck and cheeks, his eyes glowing.
His hands are fisted at his sides, his posture slightly hunched over, and that wolf tail swishes behind him against powerful thighs.
Something is off. My heart in my throat, I open the door a bit more. He’s covered in a black substance, I realize, and the coppery tang of blood is suddenly so overpowering I retch.
He’s literally bathed in blood. It drips from the ends of his hair, from his fists, from his clothes.
Three bodies are sprawled at unnatural angles on the floor, blades strewn around them, so bloodied they are mere shadows.
“What… happened?” I choke out, although it’s pretty obvious. “Are you…?”
“Just doing my job,” he says, and then grins. He actually grins, his teeth too white and sharp against his blood-painted face. “So do I get a bone?”
He’s looking pretty much like a tomcat who just brought the dead mice to his master, only he looks definitely wolfish. The wolf who brought his mistress dead rabbits?
My mouth twitches, and then nausea grips me again. He killed three men. Three men carrying long, wicked blades.
Blades I have to assume were meant for me.
He takes a step back to prop his back against the wall, folding those powerful arms over his chest, dipping his chin and…
Good Gods, I’m staring. Even bathed in crimson, he strikes a chord through me, one that makes my blood sing.
In a sudden move, he pushes off the wall. I stand there, frozen, as he stalks up to me, grabs me, and spins me around, his chest pressed to my back.
Burying his face in my hair, he slides his bloodied hand up my neck, fingers wrapping around my throat.
“You…” He inhales. Groans. “Are you testing my self-control?”
He smells of blood and musk, pungent, beastly. His hand tightens, stopping my airflow. This is terrifying. He just slaughtered three men with his bare hands, the same hands holding me now immobile.
Yet, my insides tighten with a strange ache, a strange need. I’m still in his hold, my heart pounding, throbbing between my legs, the heat radiating from his tall body seeping into my back.
Just as suddenly as he came up to me, he pushes me away, and I turn to find him with his hand bowed, eyes glimmering like stars.
“This is fucking with my head,” he says in that low, growly voice. “I just killed for you. Your damn family really wants you dead, don’t they?”
That erases the strange need for him and sends me stumbling back, away from him and his hot touch. “How would you know it’s my family who sent these men?” I protest.
Even as my thoughts from moments earlier return and my mind screeches, See? See? Home isn’t safe for you anymore, if you haven’t noticed already.
“Wake up. This is real.” His voice hardens. “Who commands these men?”
My stepfather. He’s right. He’s absolutely right, and as I bolt for my room, slamming the door shut behind me, I know my time of grace is over.
Leaving now might be best, storm and all.