Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ROSAMUND
“My lady!” Kier rushes toward us, but I glower and simply walk past him. “I couldn’t believe it when they told me you came out here. You should be inside!”
“Kier,” I snap as he falls into step beside me. “You may have helped raise me, but stop questioning my decisions. You’re being insolent. I’m not your daughter.”
“Of course not.” He’s quiet as we enter the manor, Valen a hulking presence behind us, leaving puddles all over the floor. “I’m merely concerned about you.”
“Don’t be. This is out of your control.”
“It doesn’t have to be. Let me and Bert grab this animal and take him out in the woods. We’ll bury him there. Your family doesn’t even have to know.”
“But I’d know,” I whisper.
“I know he saved your life. Twice. But he’s still a dark fae, my lady. You can’t ever trust a dark fae. They’re evil creatures, twisted by magic.”
“I know. You don’t need to lecture me about it.”
“Yet, you keep acting as if you don’t know,” he says, “as if you forgot every lesson you ever received. What he did last night—”
I cut my hand at him. “I won’t discuss this now, Kier.”
“But if you let me take him—”
“He’s with me!” I shout.
We have stopped in the middle of the great hall. I’m breathing hard, feeling warm despite the cold water that has soaked through my long green dress to chill my skin, the mass of my wet hair pulling at my scalp.
Kier is staring.
Everyone is.
“I’m only trying to protect you,” Kier eventually breathes, then his eyes narrow, and I know without turning that Valen has stepped closer to me.
“And yet he’s the one who saved my life,” I say. “Not you.”
I know it’s unfair. Kier is human, not a werewolf, and apart from that, he wasn’t even there.
Yet, it’s the truth.
“If that’s how you feel,” Kier says, rubbing at his beard.
“It is.”
His expression closes down. He gives a stiff bow. “My lady.”
“Would that be all?” I need to get out of this hall, away from all the prying eyes.
“No. I was coming to inform you that there will be a reception.” Kier swallows hard. “To bid you goodbye as you ride away.”
Controlling my recoil is harder than ever. “Today?”
“Tomorrow.” He swallows. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t. I’m prepared.”
Della may think I’m unready for what the world has to throw at me, but I was trained in this very home to expect the worst of people. I saw this coming.
My things are packed. And to be quite frank, I’m glad to ride away from this place. I was afraid of the moment, but now that it’s upon me, it doesn’t feel quite so hard.
“My lady.” He bows again.
I watch him walk away, dodging servants carrying platters of food and decanters of wine, my chest tight. It doesn’t matter that he’s upset with me. He won’t be accompanying me on this journey, anyway.
Much like I lost my parents, it’s time I lost everyone I love yet again, and it looks like it’s about to happen sooner than I thought.
Walking through the manor, pulling Valen behind me is starting to acquire a sense of familiarity.
He was right. Everyone was right. This is dangerous.
I’ve let my guard down. That’s the kind of mistake that gets people killed.
It was the sort of miscalculation that led to my mother’s death and my abduction by the werewolves all those years ago.
Every night ever since, I’ve locked my door and climbed into my bed, slept with a knife under my pillow, and admonished myself never to forget the lesson I learned.
And yet here I am, defending a werewolf, determined to stop this cycle of nonsensical, unnecessary violence.
“In a rush, Princess?” Valen asks.
“I need to make sure everything is ready for our departure.”
“Are we going somewhere?”
“Don’t mock me,” I seethe. “You know very well what I’m talking about.”
And I should check the trunks, see that nothing important is missing. Della has her own ideas about what is essential, and also about my future husband, it seems, so…
We make it up the stairs in silence and start down the wide hallway leading to my room, when the leash tugs in my grip. I turn around to tell Valen to stop fooling around… just in time to see him stumble and knock into a wall.
My breath catches. “Valen!”
He slides down the wall, eyes fluttering closed, until his knees hit the floor. “Fuck…”
Before I can second-guess myself, I rush to crouch down beside him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” But his paleness behind the muzzle belies his words. “Just give me a moment.”
“But—”
He lifts his bound hands. “I’m fine.”
I reach for the rope around his wrists. “Let me take that off.”
My fingers are cold and stiff, and the knot is slippery. Frowning, I tug harder, cursing under my breath, when he suddenly spreads his hands and snaps the rope.
With a gasp, I glance up, but he doesn’t move from the spot. His golden eyes bore into me.
“Take the muzzle off me,” he says. “Go on, princess. You don’t fear me, do you?”
I’m terrified, but also fascinated, by his long, muscular body, his gruff voice, all the angles and cut lines begging for my touch.
As if in a dream, I slide my hands behind his head, finding the clasp and opening it. I remove the muzzle and swallow hard when I find that generous mouth tipped into a smirk.
Then his lips part, his tongue darting out to lick them, the piercing in it flashing, and fierce heat flares in my belly. “You… You’re something else, aren’t you?” he breathes. “Just…”
“Get up.” Rolling back on my heels, I stand, tangled up in my wet dress and struggling not to fall over. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing. This is…”
“Improper?” he inquires.
“Yes. Exactly.”
His pale lashes lower. “But not dangerous?”
“Gods.” Grabbing the handle of the leash, I give a hard tug, and he grunts, fingers going to his throat. “Come on. If you wanted to eat me, you’d have done so already.”
“Eating you is my top priority,” he informs me, his smirk returning. “I just haven’t had time on my hands lately. On account of them being tied up.”
“That pun is growing old, you know.”
“I’ll eat you up one of these days,” he rumbles softly. “Spread your legs and lick up that honey from—”
“You’re insufferable.” A shiver that isn’t quite unpleasant goes through me, and it annoys me even more. “Intolerable.”
“Ah. Better than abominable, though, for sure.” He gathers in his long legs and slowly gets up, those cut muscles rippling across his chest, his big shoulders and arms. “If you believe the tales…”
I don’t need tales to tell me of wolves snatching girls from their doorsteps, though. No fairytale would have prepared me for what I lived through, and if he’s not abominable and is easy on the eyes, that changes nothing.