The Lycan's Stolen Bride

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Two days passed before Chase found the chance he had been quietly waiting for.

He had spent that time healing steadily, the ache in his side fading further with each morning, though he was careful not to let anyone see just how much better he felt. It suited him to appear a little weaker than he was for now, gave him reason to linger in the house longer, to move through the halls at odd hours under the excuse of needing rest and fresh air, when in truth he was simply watching.

He had learned the rhythms of the household quickly. He noted which servants moved through which corridors, which hours the family gathered and which hours they scattered to their own private corners. And he had noted, more than once, the quiet girl from the terrace, moving through the house like a shadow that everyone had agreed collectively to stop seeing.

She was never in the main rooms unless carrying something. She never lingered near the family. She kept her eyes down in a way that read, to most people, as simple obedience. But Chase had spent enough years reading soldiers and spies and men trying to hide wounds in battle to recognize the particular kind of stillness she carried. It was not the stillness of someone naturally quiet. It was the stillness of someone who had trained themselves to disappear.

He found her on the third afternoon, alone in the guest wing hallway, stacking fresh linens into a tall cabinet built into the wall. She had not heard him approach, her attention fully on the neat folding of the fabric in her hands, and for a moment he simply watched her work, unnoticed.

Then he stepped forward, deliberately allowing his boots to sound against the floor so she would hear him coming rather than startle her outright.

Callie's head came up sharply anyway, her whole body going still the way it always did around anyone in this house who held power over her. She straightened quickly, tucking the last of the linens into place, and dropped her eyes respectfully.

"General," she said quietly. "Do you need something?"

"Not something," Chase said, stopping a comfortable distance from her, not close enough to crowd her, not so far that she could easily slip past him without it looking deliberate. "I wanted to speak with you, actually. If you have a moment."

Callie's stomach tightened, though she kept her expression carefully blank. "Of course."

He studied her for a moment before speaking again, his voice even, calm, none of the sharp authority he might have used with a soldier under his command. He had learned a long time ago that fear rarely produced honesty. People spoke more freely when they did not feel cornered, even when they were.

"Three nights ago," he said, "someone came into my room while I was sleeping. I want to ask you directly, since I suspect you already know the answer. Was it you?"

Callie's heart pounded hard against her ribs, but she kept her face still, the same flat mask she wore for every accusation thrown at her in this house. "I don't know what you mean, General."

"I think you do," Chase said, not unkindly, simply steady. "I was told a traveling healer visited me that night. My men, stationed outside the house, saw no such visitor arrive or leave. Which means either they failed at their post, which I doubt, or whoever came to me that night came from inside this house, and did not want to be seen coming or going."

Callie held perfectly still, forcing her breathing to stay even, her hands loose at her sides rather than curling into the fists she desperately wanted to make. "I wouldn't know anything about that. I'm only staff here, General. I clean the linens and serve the trays. I don't have any special skills worth mentioning."

"That's not what I asked," Chase said quietly. "I asked if it was you."

"It wasn't," Callie said, voice flat and even, exactly the same tone she used with Peter, with her parents, with anyone in this house who tried to pin something on her. Deny, deflect, give them nothing to hold onto.

Chase studied her a long moment in silence, and Callie forced herself to meet his eyes rather than look away first, knowing instinctively that looking away too quickly would only feed his suspicion further. His gaze was not hostile. If anything, it was almost gentle, patient in a way she was not used to from anyone who held power in this house. But it was also unmistakably unconvinced.

"I see," he said finally, and something in his tone told her clearly that he did not believe a word she had said. But he did not push further, did not raise his voice, did not threaten to take the matter to her family the way anyone else in this house might have used such leverage against her.

Instead, he simply stepped back, clearing the narrow hallway so she could pass if she wished.

Callie hesitated only a moment before moving past him, careful to keep an even distance, her shoulders tight with the effort of appearing unaffected.

"Wait," Chase said quietly, just as she drew level with him.

She stopped, glancing back at him warily.

He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and drew out something small, a carved wooden token, dark and smooth, worn soft at the edges like it had been carried a long time. He held it out to her without ceremony, without pressure, simply offering it the way one might offer something small and unimportant.

Callie did not reach for it. "I don't need anything, General."

"Take it anyway," he said, and before she could refuse again, he pressed it gently into her palm, closing her fingers around it with a light, careful touch. "For when you're ready to talk."

Then he stepped past her and walked off down the hallway without waiting for a response, leaving Callie standing frozen with the token warm in her closed fist, unable to call after him or hand it back without drawing more attention than she could afford.