CHAPTER 8
I jolted awake to a crackling noise.
A wool blanket had been draped over me as I lay on an umber leather couch, its colour like that of tree bark.
The sound of light footsteps made me sit upright, only to struggle and hiss as a sharp sting radiated from my arm and neck.
Someone was approaching from the corridor outside.
I tried to push myself off the couch, but my legs were as heavy as lead.
Black spots danced in my vision with the same dizziness as before.
“Stop moving so much.” It was Reagan’s voice.
A washcloth and a bowl in hand, he sank onto the cushion beside me. Smudges of dirt streaked his shirt, the same grime clinging to his face and neck. His eyes looked dull, hooded in a way I hadn’t seen before.
He set the bowl on the floor.
“You lost a lot of blood. But it doesn’t look like anything is broken.” His voice was tired, his eyes surveying me as I brought my legs down to sit back. “You have bruises, so I sent for Madam Hildegard. She is the healer.”
I looked down at myself, removing the blanket that had fallen to the carpet.
My trousers were covered in dirt, and so was the sweater that had been torn from the neckline to the shoulder.
I noticed some scrapes and redness around my hands, and I knew they were on my face too, based on the stinging pain radiating there. My cloak was not on me anymore.
I didn’t remember how I arrived here, back in the castle. He must have carried me, which meant I’d never reached the station. There was not enough energy in me to feel disappointment.
“What were those things?” I asked him.
“Those were Strzygas, creatures who feed on blood. They drank from you, and the weakness will linger for some time.”
I pulled back my sleeves, and there it was. Two puncture wounds throbbing in the middle of my forearm, the skin around them red and swollen, though no longer bleeding.
“We need to clean the wounds before they fester,” Reagan said.
His gaze followed my hand as I brushed the tender hollow between my shoulder and neck, where two—no, four—small bite marks nestled.
I shuddered, the phantom press of fangs still vivid.
Beside me, Reagan pinched the bridge of his nose, as though something between exhaustion and irritation gnawed at him.
“What are you going to do now . . . with me?”
He didn’t answer at first, leaning down to grab the water bowl from the floor before sliding closer to me on the couch, his leg brushing against mine. I shifted away.
“Easy,” he said in a tight voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Reagan lifted the damp cloth and drew it over my forearm, brushing away the dirt with surprising gentleness. “You look like you’ve already been appropriately punished.”
I held my silence, unwilling to let relief show.
“What I don’t understand is why you would risk your life like that?” he asked, and I wasn’t sure if it was rhetorical, but I answered anyway.
“My life is already at risk here. It was worth trying to get to my family before you did.”
He eyed me, dipping the cloth in the water once more. “So you almost got yourself killed because you didn’t want your family to take a harmless draught?”
“Yes.” I flinched and bit my lip as he pressed the fabric to my neck, the skin stinging beneath his touch.
For a brief moment, only our breathing and the fire’s soft crackle filled the room.
“I don’t know if that was brave or just foolish,” he remarked, his tone quieter.
As if I were worried about what my captor thought of me. He could find me the dumbest person alive, for all I cared.
Reagan’s gaze was fixed on the spot he was tending. “I hope this is the last time you try that, or next time, you’ll be dead before I get to you.”
I glanced at him curiously, only now remembering that he had ripped those Strzygas from over me. He had protected me—and, perhaps most bewildering of all, he was here, fussing over the bite marks.
“How did you find me?”
I thought I’d done a good job of slipping out unnoticed, but maybe I was wrong.
“There are patrols near the woods,” he said wearily.
“They heard a scream and sent word. Guess who was nowhere to be found.” His brows furrowed, irritation gathering between them.
“You’re lucky you left tracks all over. I guess I should expect to watch over a human now.
You’re going to ruin whatever peaceful time remains in my rotting days, aren’t you? ”
My shoulders tensed at the clipped tone. “I’m not going to say sorry for trying to escape my prison. And you didn’t have to come.”
“But I did, didn’t I?” he remarked bitterly. “Or did you forget that Malory put you under my sole protection?”
“If this situation is awful for both of us, then do something to change it.”
“I told you I can’t change it,” he seethed through clenched teeth.
It was pointless to push.
Pulling up my ankle, my hand went for the rag, but he snatched it from my grasp, dipping it into the water once more. His frown deepened, his silence pressing down like its own reprimand.
“I don’t understand how I walked willingly to that thing. I remember it feeling so . . .”
“Seductive?” he ventured. “That is how Strzygas attack. They seduce you with whatever you’ll respond to. It placed you in its thrall. You didn’t go willingly.”
My brows rose. That explained why I was so reckless.
“I heard a sound.”
The gentle hum eased me, made me feel safe. So convincing was the illusion that for not a moment did I doubt it.
“I thought I would be invisible to them with the Velvetshades,” I admitted, slipping a hand into my pocket and grabbing the flower still there. “I thought it would hide my scent or whatever helps them find me.”
Reagan seemed surprised as I gave him the crushed purple petals. “It might hide your scent from some creatures, but not Strzygas,” he explained, holding on to the flower. “Who told you about the Velvetshades?”
I suspected he would learn it from her anyway, and she hadn’t struck me as afraid of him. “Gwinifer. I asked her how to protect myself.”
His eyes studied me, close enough now that their blue looked softer, less hardened by a frown. Maybe he wasn’t angry with her.
I glanced at the bowl, eager for him to be done so I could go. To the cell upstairs.
Reagan rinsed the cloth, blood and dirt disappearing into the water. The veins in his hands looked normal, no shimmer beneath the skin.
“What was that, exactly?” I asked. “What happened to the monsters?”
“You have a lot of questions,” Reagan said dryly, guiding my leg back down with a nudge.
As he inched closer, raising the cloth towards my cheek, his eyes met mine, pausing for my reaction. I lifted my brows, granting silent assent.
“It was a charm,” he answered. The scent of earth and snow drifted into my nose. “Not the best choice. Too bloody draining, but light and heat charms work against Strzygas, and I’m used to it.”
Draining. That would explain the weariness, which could be useful. But for what? Trying to make it through that nightmarish forest again?
I sighed.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to fight those things in your animal form?” I asked. “I mean, I saw you hit a tree.” It was a wonder he wasn’t more hurt. Perhaps he had already mended himself.
“I can’t control when I turn,” he answered, not seeming bothered by my question.
“You can’t control your powers?”
His brows twitched. “I don’t,” Reagan said with a sigh. “I don’t shapeshift by choice. It’s triggered by my sentence.”
The mere mention stilled my breath. He studied me then, eyes dark and calculating, as if weighing whether I was worth the effort of explaining further. To my surprise, he went on.
“I’m forced to shift when a . . . higher entity senses that I’m straying from a virtuous soul. When all that remains in me is lacking, and the only thing left is rage.” His fingers raked along his jaw, the motion more restraint than anything else. “That’s what happened before.”
In the dining room, when he shifted in front of me.
Silence thickened. When he seemed done waiting for me to speak, Reagan returned the cloth to my face. He traced it down my throat with unnerving patience, following every subtle motion as I swallowed.
A sudden awareness prickled my skin. He was still dangerous.
Reagan sucked in a breath. “Did you have a can of poison spray with you?”
The change caught me so off guard that I huffed a laugh.
It shouldn’t have been funny. The lost chance to run should have hit me harder, yet all I felt was exhaustion.
“I didn’t think that would actually work,” I admitted, and at the same time, a coppery taste coated my tongue.
“You opened a cut,” he murmured, dropping the rag into the bowl. “Well, it worked. You might be more dangerous than we thought.”
Halfway through my snort, Reagan’s hand rose to my face, his thumb brushing over my lower lip.
It surprised me enough that I grabbed his wrist, stilling it. Reagan met my narrowed gaze, still letting the pad of his finger linger on my mouth.
I knew he was cleaning the blood. Knew I shouldn’t just hold his wrist but push it away. Yet I didn’t move, as if I were holding it to me.
He glanced at my mouth again, unbothered by my hold, and wet his own lips. Another wave of his earthy scent curled around me.
A knock drew his attention to the door.
“My lord, you called for me?” A woman who looked to be in her forties stood in the doorway.
“Yes,” he said.
My hand dropped as he rose to his feet, cleaning the thumb with my blood on his trousers.
The woman approached, clad in a light green robe and matching trousers. Two strands of white hair framed her face, while the rest of her dark ash hair was pulled back into a high bun.
Reagan briefed Healer Hildegard on my wounds and what he’d done to clean them. Soon after, he excused himself, leaving her to question me in detail about my pain.
“Strzygas can be terrifying, especially when you encounter a group,” she remarked. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
All I remembered was nodding. The toll and shock of that blasted day had pushed me to my limits, rising still long after I’d been carried out of the forest.
◆◆◆
The puncture wounds on my body throbbed for two days straight, despite countless baths and the healer’s concoction.
They gave me two days alone.
During that time, snow fell heavily over Mountheim, burying the world outside beneath a thick white layer. It left me with too much time to think about the escape attempt, about how close it had come to costing me my life.
There was no safe way to try again.
So I watched the movement beyond the window and waited as long as I could before forcing myself to face those people again.
“Jane,” Cerridwen said as I stood at the doorway, gesturing toward the empty chairs. “Join us for breakfast.”
I made my way to the seat farthest from the group, my teeth grinding at the silence.
I must have interrupted a thread of conversation, since most of them tracked me from the corners of their eyes.
All except Barracus and Reagan, who didn’t so much as glance my way, both absorbed in the papers by their plates.
“How are you feeling?” Cerridwen asked coolly.
“Like I have energy again,” I answered, settling into the seat and reaching for the fruits closest to me, though part of me wished I could still be eating in my room.
I glanced at Barracus, peeking at the white and grey feathers beneath the sleeve of his black robe, like the wings of a bird.
Yesterday, while peering out from the corridor to my chamber, I heard two maids murmuring about a quarrel between Barracus and Gwinifer. They said the older man blamed her for helping me escape, and the disagreement had spiralled into an argument.
Despite everything, I couldn’t shake the itch of shame for trying to flee. It didn’t make sense. I was a prisoner there, even if they didn’t treat me like one.
The itch lingered all the same, another reason I had to steel myself for this dinner.
“I know you won’t believe me,” I began, “but I wouldn’t have told anyone about your secret. I just didn’t want you going after my family. I still don’t.”
Silence followed as they exchanged glances.
Unsurprisingly, the emissary was the first to indulge me.
“I can understand that,” Finnegan said. “But this is about protecting them. Making sure they don’t risk coming for you.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I replied, “and I have no reason to trust you. Besides . . .” I sighed, my leg bouncing under the table.
“It’s not just about them. Before I came here, I handled business for my family.
I was meant to travel to the Capital’s fair in the central market to meet other merchants.
I’m responsible for our main income, the kind that depends on attending that fair.
When I left, I thought I might still be able to salvage some of it. ”
Gwinifer cocked her head, and Reagan lifted his gaze from the papers before him.
“Perhaps there’s another way,” Reagan said, his eyes flicking to the emissary. “How difficult would it be to go to the fair in her place?”
Surprise rippled through me. Finnegan tilted his head, clearly considering, and I straightened in my chair.
“That depends on how much convincing he’ll need to do,” Gwinifer said mildly.
“Tell me exactly what you would do,” Finnegan asked me, his mouth curving with something like invitation.
I hesitated. “Would you go in my place?”
“Half of what I do could already be considered a merchant’s work,” he replied lazily and winked.
Gwinifer snorted. “And what are you trading? Beds?”
They all chuckled, all except Barracus and me.
It was an option. The only one. It might work if Finnegan followed my instructions and if the goods were still in the city.
“If Finn secures your family’s earnings,” Reagan said, drawing my attention back to him, “he’ll need the full picture. And a reason why you didn’t return yourself.”
My stomach churned. The thought of allowing them to administer some magical draught to manipulate my father and Joy nearly unsettled me more than the loss of the earnings.
“Will it hurt them?” I asked. “My father has a health condition.”
“They’ll feel nothing,” Cerridwen said. “There will be no impact on their system.”
I gave a small, uncertain nod. Their gazes lingered on me, waiting.
“Fine,” I murmured. “As long as they’re safe, and the draught causes no harm.”
Finnegan nodded once. “What should I tell your family?” he asked.
I didn’t know precisely how their draught worked, but Joy was not easily convinced. She would come looking for me if the story sounded too far-fetched.
“You’ll tell them I’ve accepted a new position in the Capital. A better-paying role at a larger bookshop, and I plan to stay.”