Forbidden Temptation

Chapter Seven

At the bottom of the stairs, walking was no longer up to me. They held me on both sides; the iron at my ankle dragged at my skin, nipping at each step. The stones were wet, the air cold, smelling of lime. Someone said, “two more,” but numbers fell apart in my head. Then my body let go. I pitched forward. The iron on my wrist gave a clink, and then—dark.

Half-sleep. Voices coming and going. A key in a lock. Footsteps that don’t hurry. The sputter of an oil lamp. Someone coughs. The wolf in my chest is just a heavy, warm block—doesn’t come forward, but watches. The stone hums in the walls.

“I told you, she’s not one of ours,” a young voice, sharp, impatient.

“The Veil let her in,” another voice, drier, lower. “That’s a fact.”

“A fact that she’s a problem,” the young one snaps back. “The northern border’s been shifting for weeks. She’s one of them.”

“Enough,” says a third, deeper. He doesn’t shout. After the word, silence falls, like when a predator steps between trees and the forest stops for a heartbeat.

My eyelids are heavy. I open them a slit. Stone wall, bars, water in thin streaks on the floor, a bucket in the corner. Two figures at the door: one with a scar running from his temple to the corner of his mouth, leather stitched onto his shoulder, a man who’s seen a lot. Beside him a dark-eyed one in a cap, more motionless. Further back, turned slightly aside as if leaving space for the wall too, a taller one in a heavy cloak. I don’t know their names. I only see faces. Their smells blend: iron, oil, pine, discipline.

Through the small pass-through hatch they shove in a canteen. Water. My hand shakes as I drag it toward me. They don’t reach in. The shadow—the taller one—catches the canteen with a single motion before it tips, then lets it go. I drink a few swallows. The water is cold; my throat rasps after.

“She’s alive,” says the scarred one. “But that’s not a bandage. Just a rag.” He reaches toward my side through the bars; he doesn’t touch me, only looks. “It’s bleeding.”

“She’ll get a bandage,” says the one in the cap. “The iron stays.” He nudges the chain along the floor so it won’t cut into me as much. That’s something.

“Could be a spy,” mutters the young one, half a step closer to the bars. “The Veil lets her in, the Council dithers, and we end up cleaning the mess.”

“You don’t decide,” the deep voice rumbles. “It’ll be decided.”

My wolf twitches an ear inside me at that voice. Doesn’t shrink from it. Recognizes it: power that doesn’t play.

Footsteps in the corridor. Not the same ones. Heavier boots. More iron. Another scent mixes into the air: costlier oil, better leather, something metallic that isn’t a weapon. The two soldiers straighten. The lamp’s light catches the edge of a new cloak at the back: dark fabric, silver stitching, a brooch that glints as if the light itself kept its distance.

He stops at the bars. He doesn’t need to introduce himself. It isn’t his voice, nor the insignia—it’s how everyone else breathes around him. The king.

He glances at me. Not for long. Long enough for his gaze to travel over my wrist, my ankle, the cloth wrapped around my belly. He grimaces, just a shade.

“What is this?” he asks. His voice isn’t loud, but it snaps. “This is what you brought me across the border?”

“The Veil admitted her, my lord,” says the man in the cap. He doesn’t bow, he just states it.

“The Veil ‘admits’ many things,” he shoots back. “The Veil doesn’t decide. I decide.” He tilts his chin toward me, as if inspecting a poorly made piece of goods. “Look at me.”

I lift my head. It doesn’t come easy. My throat is rough, my ribs protest. I meet his eyes. Cold, smooth. His gaze doesn’t ask. It judges.

“Where did you come from?” he tosses. He doesn’t care about the story. Only the period at the end of the sentence.

“From the north,” I say. Bark on my voice. He understands anyway. It’s the piece of truth I give.

The king looks to the man in the cap.

“Wolf?”

“A wolf,” the man in the cap nods. “Not our pack’s scent.”

“Then she counts for nothing until I say otherwise,” he replies. “Tie her properly. Double it if you must. I don’t want her tearing the bars apart the first night.”

“She’s already in iron, my lord,” the scarred one points down at my ankle. The king’s gaze flicks there, assesses; details don’t interest him.

“Then put it on again.” Half under his breath. “And wash her. Her smell offends my nose.”

The young one nearly says something—I can read it in the movement—but falls silent when the king turns his head aside. His gaze comes back to me.

“If she lies, I’ll take her beyond the walls,” he states. As simply as another might say, “it will rain tomorrow.” “And I’ll finish it there.” He makes no promise. He makes an announcement.

My wolf snarls inside, but stays in. The iron’s chill helps now: it cinches the motion tight.

“Questions,” the king throws to the man in the cap and the scarred one. “But healer first. I don’t want her dying on the floor. I don’t care.” He turns to the young one. “And you—keep quiet. This isn’t a market.”

He moves off. His guards move with him, legs in unison. Their smell—oil, iron, cold—settles into the cell’s air, then the stone swallows it. Only the silence remains, which is always worse after than before.

The man in the cap waits for the corridor to still. Then he looks back at me. There’s no pity in him. No particular zeal either. Work.

“More water,” he tells the scarred one. “And fetch someone from the healers. Someone who can bind, not just scribble prescriptions.”

The young one steps to the bars. Stares at me, too close. Jittery, nervous energy. I just lie there. He studies my eyes as if he expects the answer from them.

“Spy,” he growls. “With these, it always comes out.”

“Maybe,” the man in the cap replies dryly. “Maybe not. You don’t decide.” His voice doesn’t attack, but it closes the matter.

The little door in the bars opens. The scarred one slides in clean linen and another canteen. He doesn’t touch me. I pull them to me. He props the chain at my ankle so it doesn’t bite as much. These small things give me back a little shard of the world’s order in my head.

When the healer arrives, he doesn’t waste words. Lime and alcohol—sharp, clean—are his scents. He doesn’t ask what I couldn’t answer now anyway. He probes, presses; I rumble low when he hits the wrong spot. He lays a new bandage across my belly. Cinches it tight. I understand why: if I come apart, I’ll say nothing tomorrow.

“Rest,” he says outward. “She gets water. Food later.” His words are hard, but not ill-meaning.

The man in the cap nods. The young one huffs softly but doesn’t argue. Footsteps, a jangle, the lamp recedes. The cell’s quiet returns, but not entirely empty now: the bandage holds, the water sits in my stomach, the iron cools on my wrist. My wolf settles inside, nudging his nose to my ribs. He doesn’t comfort; he keeps watch.

I don’t know how much time passes. The stone is evenly cold. The straw beneath me creaks when I shift. A shadow stops at the bars. Not the young one. Not the scarred one. The motionless kind. He doesn’t speak in. He just stands there. His presence sharpens the sounds: a drop on the floor, the faint metal note of the chain, my own breathing. His gaze is heavy, but not aggressive. When he looks at me, I feel him measuring: what can be done with me, how much I am.

“Sleep,” he says at last. Simple. Not a command, not a plea. An instruction I could have given myself.

I close my eyes. Sleep doesn’t come at once, but my body no longer screams for every motion. The bandage presses evenly, the water soothes, the iron holds. The king’s scent still sits in the air and pricks my nose, but it no longer burns. From the end of the corridor, the voices of the two soldiers seep back, muffled: they’re arguing about something I don’t understand. I don’t need to.

My wolf stretches out beside me inside. He says only this:

“Tomorrow.”

I nod. Perhaps only inwardly. The stone is cold. This time the dark doesn’t pull me down, it just lays a cover over me. Enough. By tomorrow I’ll have a voice. For today it’s enough that I live. And enough that I know: I’ll memorize them by faces, not by names. Names come later. Names matter when choices do. For now there are only faces, voices, iron, stone. And the fact that I did not break.