The door to my room swings open.
“Out.” A low growl comes from the doorway.
The three males stiffen.
The alpha stands there. He’s wearing a crumpled white linen shirt and high boots as well as his red tartan kilt. His face looks like it is carved from thunder and stone. “Out.”
Magnus swallows, before a smile twists back onto his face and he turns. “It’s just a bit of fun—”
“Now,” says the alpha.
The alpha is bigger than the other three wolves, and there’s something in his eyes that promises death. Magnus seems to realize that, and shakes his head.
“Come on, lads. Time to get the fuck out of here.” He grins and gives me a mock bow. “Until we meet again, Your Highness.”
The alpha shuts the door behind them. My mouth is dry and my head is whirling. Is he my savior? Or does he have something even worse in mind?
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
I hold up the letter opener and curse my trembling hand.
“I’m sorry about them. Their whole clan—” His green eyes darken. “They’ll pay for it later.”
“You need to leave.”
“Aye. I do.” He swallows, and his gaze moves from the wardrobe to the crescent moon through the window. As the silence extends between us, I hear more shouting in the castle. “Do you have a warm cloak?”
“Why?”
“It’s cold outside.”
“I don’t see why that is of any relevance to me,” I say, my voice higher in pitch than I’d like it to be.
A flicker of regret crosses his face. “Aye, you do.”
A humorless laugh escapes my lips and I step back. “You can’t possibly think I’m going with you.”
“You are, Princess.”
“You. . . you won’t hurt me,” I say.
He sighs. “That’s where you’re wrong. I won’t kill you. And I won’t lay a finger on you in the way those bastards were threatening. But you’re coming with me. And if I have to overpower you in order to make that happen, I can’t promise that won’t hurt.”
I narrow my eyes, tilting my chin up. “I helped you, earlier.”
“Aye, you did. And I appreciate that, Princess. I really do. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m taking you with me.”
When he steps forward, I brandish the letter opener before me. “Stay back.”
The blade is laughably small in relation to his huge build, but he raises his hands placatingly. “Please calm down.”
Emotions that have lain dormant inside me for years awaken.
“How dare you tell me to calm down.”
Every time my father, or the priest, or my brother dismissed me for daring to show emotion, flashes before my eyes and feeds the wildness growing inside me.
“You come into my chambers in the middle of the night,” I slice the blade through the air, “thinking you can steal me from my bed.” I cut the space between us. “And you act as if I am overreacting?”
I jab the letter opener at his stomach and he grabs my wrist.
I still. His hand is callused and strong as it wraps around the bone.
“Get off me,” I hiss.
He bends my wrist and the tiny blade hits the stone floor and clatters. Crouching down, he picks it up. He winces when the silver comes into contact with his skin.
“You can have this back when you behave yourself.”
When he pockets it, I kick his chest. He grabs my ankle, putting a hand on my lower back to steady me. Our eyes meet, and my breath hitches at the intensity of his expression.
“What do you want with me?” I ask.
“I think you can help me end this war.”
I shake my head. “Kidnapping me will only worsen it. You’re going to get yourself killed, you fool.”
“If that is the price I must pay to save my people, I will gladly pay it. So, what will it be, Princess? Will you grab your cloak and walk out of this room with me? Or am I going to throw you over my shoulder? You have a choice. It’s not a very good one.” He mimics my words from earlier, a grim smile on his face. “But it’s a choice nonetheless.”
“You bastard.” I shake my head. “You can’t possibly think you’ll get all the way out of the castle.”
I can hear shouting and the thunder of hooves in the grounds below.
“See? They’re coming for you.” I jerk my head toward the window, and a strand of red hair catches in my mouth. “If you go now, you have a chance to—”
Before I know what’s happening, he’s on his feet, and I’m over his shoulder. I shriek, punching his back.
“Are you insane?” I snarl. “They’ll skin you alive for—”
He throws open my wardrobe and the words die in my throat at the inopportune moment for my threat.
In the current circumstance, guilt should not flood so powerfully through my chest at the sight of the wolf coat that hangs there. Nor should I want, desperately, to tell him that it was there when I arrived.
The Wolves have been attacking my people for centuries, yet I can’t bring myself to agree with some of Sebastian’s more barbaric practices.
He stills, the muscles in his back tightening.
Then he grabs a different fur and heads out of my chambers.
I punch him between his shoulder blades again, but I do not put my full force into it.
Perhaps it’s because his mood has darkened and I’m afraid. Or perhaps it’s because a small part of me is glad I’m being taken away from my fate with Sebastian, despite how frightening this wolf may be.
“You won’t get away with this,” I growl, regardless.
“I will. Now be quiet.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Home.”
Chapter Four
Shouts fill the castle and torchlight flickers as I’m carried through a labyrinth of stone corridors.
I struggle against my captor, but his thick arm only tightens around my waist.
I do not know where I’d run to even if I did escape him. Sebastian? My father? Would that be any better? Would it be worse?
Trapped as I am, something wild seems to have knocked loose inside me. It rattles around in my chest and I do not feel the hopelessness I should be feeling. The anger I have caged since my mother died surges hot and free through my veins.
I am not stone. I am not a statue.
I am fire.
And somehow it has taken this man, this beast, to make me see it.
I pound against the alpha’s back. “Get off me, you bloody horrible brute.” My hair catches in my mouth. I kick my bare feet and hit nothing but air. “Get off me. You’ll die for this, you horrible—” I cut myself off as we turn a corner.
There are two guards lying in a pool of blood. The alpha steps over the bodies, and I’m forced to stare down at their lifeless faces as he continues onward.
The reality of my situation slams fully into me.
These men are dangerous. They’re killers. They’re Wolves.
Of course being taken away from my homeland by the enemies of my people is worse than staying. Of course it is. And yet. . .
The alpha cuts through one of the servants’ passageways, almost as if he knows where he is going, even if I am lost, and a scream from a lady-in-waiting pierces my ears. She catches my eye as we pass, then runs in the opposite direction, her dark hair falling free from her cap.
The alpha won’t make it out of here.
They’ll imprison him until the full moon, then skin him alive.