Chapter 24

Zara

I put up with Lucian’s overbearing rules for the whole week of healer prescribed rest. I didn’t understand why he insisted that I only eat food he or Kieran brought. At least they weren’t trying to starve me into submission again.

The collar had been left on my wardrobe. I picked it up and debated whether it was worth provoking Kieran to throw it out.

Before I decided to find out whether my window would open so I could fling the strip of leather into the surrounding forest, my door opened. I spun around, to see Kieran leaning against the door frame.

“You don’t have to wear it,” he said, “since you won’t be leaving this room. No need to keep up appearances.”

He grinned and stalked across the room. He reached out and took the collar out of my hand, then stroked one finger along the bare line of my throat.

“Unless you miss it, of course. I can put it on for you, if you like.”

I snorted. “Why would I miss being collared like a dog?”

Kieran shrugged and leaned in close. “Who knows? But I bet your throat feels naked without it. Vulnerable.”

He was too close. After what happened with Lucian, I knew better than to let either of them touch me.

I backed away and sidled around him, until I had some space.

“You’re not supposed to stress me out,” I reminded him. “Healer’s orders.”

“Hm. How am I causing you stress?” Kieran smirked. “I’m only standing here. Keeping the poor invalid company.”

“I’m not an invalid!” I protested angrily.

“Then there’s no problem, right?” Kieran grinned, happy to have trapped me with his words.

“Look, dinner isn’t for an hour, and Lucian said you weren’t going to make me work for at least another day. So what do you want?”

Kieran shrugged. “Maybe I’m bored.” He leaned against my wardrobe, spinning the collar around his finger idly. “Maybe you’re bored, and your deep yearning for company called me here.”

I snorted. I was bored, actually. Lucian had declared that anything heavier than a paperback book was too much for me to handle. My computer, which I’d finally gotten a chance to move from my little cabin, had been confiscated on the grounds that the humans’ internet was “too stressful.”

I was not bored enough to put up with Kieran’s taunting, though.

“I’ll have you know that I’ve been enjoying the solitude,” I said. “I’m used to being on my own.”

I had been on my own ever since Adrian rejected me. I did miss my little cabin at the edge of the pack’s territory. I’d move back there in a second if Lucian and Kieran would let me go.

Although, maybe, I would let them visit, just to make sure their wolf bonds didn’t shatter. I kept my bargains.

“Sure you are,” Kieran snorted. “Must be all that human blood. Wolves aren’t meant to be alone.”

I shrugged. Yeah, I was a hybrid. Everyone knew that. I wondered who exactly told Kieran and Lucian about my heritage. I certainly hadn’t ever mentioned it.

“Tell me, if the last Alpha was your father,” Kieran said, “who exactly was your mother? I haven’t noticed any other humans hanging around the pack.”

I considered and discarded several sarcastic answers, before deciding on the simple truth.

“I never met her. She vanished when I was a baby.”

“Seriously? Like, she didn’t die of some weird human disease? Or get killed by a Rogue? Or faint in the shower and hit her head?” Kieran asked.

I snarled. “I didn’t faint!”

“I was talking about your mother.”

“Well you shouldn’t. It’s rude.”

“My mother’s dead,” Kieran offered.

“And you’d be pretty pissed if I suggested she died by fainting in a shower,” I said.

“Well, I wish she died like that,” Kieran said, “It would’ve been better.”

“What?” I shrieked. How could he say something so awful?

Kieran shrugged. “She died protecting Lucian. It was my fault.”

He turned and dropped the collar on the wardrobe.

“You don’t have to wear that,” he said like he hadn’t just told me something utterly heart wrenching out of nowhere. “I’ll get you something better.”

“I don’t want a collar,” I said.

He ignored me and went to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob.

“The vial of poison you were trying to dump,” he said, “you got it from one of the Rogues?”

“Yes,” I said. It was the truth. Adrian was a Rogue now.

“And you decided not to use it,” Kieran added.

“I’m not a murderer,” I said. I nobly refrained from adding, ‘unlike you.’

“Right, yeah,” he said. “You didn’t dump it, though. Do you remember what you did with it?”

I shook my head. I’d lost track of the vial when Lucian and I were kissing and… other things. And then I passed out from pain.

“Hm. So you didn’t, I don’t know, stick it in your pocket?”

I’d been naked. There were no pockets. I wasn’t mentioning that to Kieran though. I just shrugged and shook my head.

“Why?” I asked.

“No reason, just curious,” Kieran said.

He left without another word.

Well that was weird.

I wandered over to the window. As I should have suspected, it was locked. I messed with the latch for a couple of minutes, mostly out of boredom, but I couldn’t slip it. I spared a thought to hope there wasn’t a house fire. Well, I suppose in that case I could break the window.

Was I desperate enough to do that now? Not yet. But I was edging closer to that point with every hour of forced ‘rest’ and isolation.

It wasn’t as bad as my punishment. Hunger didn’t claw at my gut. Kieran and Lucian fed me plenty, and always precisely on time. I even had a small basket of snacks to choose from between meals.

But the imposed solitude was different from when I’d chosen to live apart from the pack. I could hear servants move through the house, but I couldn’t speak to them. I could see the guards training, which was frustrating because I got scolded if I tried so much as a simple push up.

How was I supposed to get stronger if I wasn’t allowed to train?

And I was desperate to be stronger. I never wanted to collapse like I had in the shower again. It had been horrible. The memory of that burst of pain sent a shudder down my spine.

I watched a flock of crows mock the guards running laps around the property. I needed to think.

Sooner or later, probably sooner, Lucian and Kieran would need me to calm their wolves. And I had promised I would do it.

But I was only able to calm their wolves because I was their fated mate. And every time I used the nascent bond, I risked collapsing again, or worse.

Besides that, it was a minor miracle that Lucian hadn’t realized I was his mate when we kissed. I’d lost my mind for a moment.

I could never let that happen again. Because if the ruthless Alphas learned that I was their fated mate, I would lose not only my freedom, but my life.

So, why did I keep remembering that kiss? And the feel of Lucian’s mouth on my throat?

Why did I want to feel that again, even knowing the risks?

Was I losing my mind, too?