C6 Bane

By the time Viktor led us back into the forest, Daniel was but a drunken slob on my shoulder. I carried him most of the way, his feet stumbling over roots and stones and his heavy body swaying into mine. It was strange to see him like this—he was a scholar and a worrier and not much else. Now he laughed and sang and swayed and tumbled through the forest with such struggle that Viktor eventually had to turn to a man once more to help me carry him home.

We were nearly half-way when a sound rumbled from the darkness and Viktor ordered us to crouch at the base of a tree. I clasped a hand over Daniel’s mouth to shut him up and we watched as the silhouette of something gargantuan moved in the darkness. I’d never seen a thing like it—large like a bear but scaly like a lizard. It passed by us, crunching leaves and sticks as it went. Then Viktor whispered, “Run.”

We ran as quickly as we could with a drunk man slung over our shoulders, and broke through the edge of the forest just before dawn. The world was a strange in-between of colors—blues and greens and the faintest suggestion of a sunrise in the distance. Viktor took it upon himself to fish his payment from Daniel’s jacket, snatching the fabric and reaching into the pockets until he found a ring—one I distinctly knew as my mothers.

Something strange washed over his face the moment his hand was in Daniel’s jacket. Something he brushed off after a moment and stepped back to examine the ring in his hand. He tossed it up in the air and caught it again. “Pleasure doing business,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say to the man, but to nod. I’d gotten what I’d come for and he did his job. There was nothing left for me here. I slung Daniel’s arm around my neck and helped him toward the horse. It had been a long time since I’d ridden, but I’d find my way back. My father’s castle was the largest structure on the peninsula—you could see it from miles away.

The rogues still in wolf form watched me as I took my leave, their eyes glowing specters in the night.

“Hey,” Viktor called out. He jogged up to stop me at my horse, my mother’s ring still in his hand. He laid his palm flat and let the gold glint in the moonlight. “By chance, you got anymore like this?”

My mother had an expansive collection of jewelry from all around the world. The truth was, she’d probably never notice this one was missing—but I still partly despised Daniel from taking it. I’d never known him to be a man who would steal—let alone from such dangerous people as my parents.

“If you’re asking, I can get my hands on many more like this. Why? Are you planning to kidnap me for ransom?”

Viktor laughed heartily. “I don’t wish my head on a platter. But you did just confirm my suspicions. You’re the duke’s daughter, aren’t you?”

A lump formed in my throat. “How do you know?”

“No one else from his castle would be worth a ransom. Now, that leads me to my next question. What you said to the witch—is it true? You don’t know your wolf?”

There was something about Viktor’s eyes and the playfulness behind them that put me at ease. He was a rogue—one of the most dangerous kind of wolf in the Southern Kingdom, but I wanted badly to open up to someone. Anyone. Even if that person was a stranger.

So I set Daniel down by the horse and let him rest on his side, and followed Viktor to the camp. His wolves seemed reluctant to trust me, some of them muttering sounds of distaste in their soft ethereal voices, others rising to walk off and find another place to lay. The men who hadn’t shifted were eyeing us from the other side of the fire, whispering to one another. Watching me.

Viktor led me into a tent, made from blankets of hide, with not much more than a pad of bedding in the middle. “No one can hear you in here,” he told me. So, against my better judgment, I told him everything. I told him about my wolf, my marriage, my father and the war brewing between the North and South. And when I was done, he withdrew that ring again, eyeing it in the light of his small gas lantern.

“I have a proposition for you, my lady.” He slid the ring onto his own finger and admired the shine. “Get me more valuables like this, and I’ll be your mate-for-hire.”

“My what?”

“I’ll clean up nice, you take me to your father, and you tell him you’ve found your true mate. He can’t force you into a marriage after that, can he?”

The proposition sparked something in me—a feeling I hadn’t felt in days. Hope.

“When you’re ready to accept my offer, come find me,” he said. Then he took a long gander at me, and his hand came up to touch my face. His gloved fingers brushed my cheek, then roamed down below my chin. A seering heat followed that I prayed he couldn’t see. “You better hope we aren’t actually mates, princess. If ever I’m given the power your father has, I’ll burn this entire kingdom to the ground.”

-

The sun was nearly up by the time I returned home, but that meant that the night guards were exhausted from their shift, and they didn’t seem to pay us any mind as we re-entered the castle walls. Daniel was nearly sober by then, but looking ill and exhausted, so we parted ways and I fell asleep in the bath to the sound of chattering birds outside my window. It was nearly noon when I awoke, still only partly restored on five hours of sleep.

I decided to return to my canvas, and began working out the shape of a woman in a sunflower dress. I was hours into my painting when my door opened, and a large frame emerged from the hall. Cato eyed me with one thick, hiked brow, the scruff on his face freshly trimmed, and his hair slicked back and dewy-wet. I ignored his presence and continued my painting of a red-haired woman. He loomed over my shoulder, watching the colors come together.

“Who is she?” he asked.

“Don’t you have manners? I could have been naked.”

“As if you hadn’t watched like a fly on the wall as I stripped my clothes yesterday and went on a run.”

I balked, but didn’t dare turn to him. The heat hit my cheeks and I hesitated with my brush, but after a beat of stillness, went on painting the woman’s orange hair.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Who is she?”

“A woman,” I replied curtly, “obviously.”

He leaned in low to look at the painting, our faces closer to one another than they’d ever been before. “What is your story?” he asked.

“My story?”

“That is the purpose of art, isn’t it? To tell a story.”

I stared at the red-haired woman, not a thought on my mind. She had no more of a story than I did.

“Can you leave my chambers or do you have any other questions?” I asked as I went on, painting the trees in the distance.

“No questions,” said Cato. “I simply came for this.” He took the satchel where it rested by my window and quickly fished out the vial of wolvesbane I’d purchased. The blood in my body went to ice as he observed the milky liquid in the sunrise. “What were you planning to poison, exactly? My morning breakfast? My evening desert?”

My brush clattered to the floor, slinging orange hue about. “I—”

“If you want to kill me,” he said, a low and dangerous look in his eye, “you should do it in a more honorable way.”

Then he dropped the vial into his pocket and left.