Offered to the Lion

The Arrangement

It smelled of leather and old paper and that particular mix of wool and pine which was her father. It should have been comforting, should have meant something of the sort, but it never had.

She sat in her father's chair, the one with the low seat which made everyone who occupied it feel smaller than he did. She noticed it years ago; now, she made sure she sat up straight.

Celeste was there, in the chair to her father's right, where she did not sit during the day. During the day, she was not visible; Damon ran the formal business of the compound, while she took care of the social aspects and made sure no one could get anywhere without her permission. Her presence there meant she came to enjoy this, whatever it was.

"I'll be blunt," said Damon, seating himself in his chair. He was fifty-two, but he was still physically formidable, silver beginning to creep at his temples, making him more so. "I've been negotiating with Kael Ashford."

Rielle's face did not betray her thoughts. She knew the name — everyone in the shifter world knew the name. Kael Ashford was the Alpha of the Ashveil lion pride, which controlled a territory thrice the size of the Voss lands and businesses worth billions: security, weapons manufacturing, resource extraction and dealings with entities the governance councils preferred not to look at too closely. Kael Ashford was thirty-four years old and had established total control over his pride before turning twenty-eight. The tales about him differed slightly according to the narrator — the body count did not.

"And he agreed to take into consideration a possibility of partnership," said Damon, spreading out the paper in front of him. "A partnership which would prove highly beneficial for both of our territories — his military power and my connections in politics. It's a perfectly natural alliance."

"Congratulations," she said carefully.

"The partnership, however, needs to include a personal aspect," said Damon, looking at her for the first time. "You."

It hung between them. Celeste lifted her coffee cup.

"You will meet Kael Ashford in four days," he said. "You'll be presented to him as a part of our partnership — a gesture of good faith, a liaison, of sorts, between our two —"

"You offer me to him," Rielle said.

It clearly irritated him. She could tell — he did not like to stay in the realm of negotiations and offers for long. "I offer him you as a companion. As a partner. Someone to —"

"Does he know about the offer, or does he think it's my choice?" Rielle asked.

A slight tension spread around Damon. He frowned slightly; Celeste put her cup down with precision that suggested she did not intend to drop anything.

"The frame of the offer," Damon said after some moments, "is negotiable."

Which meant he had not told Kael Ashford anything about his plans, which, in turn, meant Kael Ashford was managed, much like everyone else in his compound, through selectively provided information.

She thought about that. Stared at her father. "Why do you want me to do this?"

"It's simple." He frowned. "Shifter women from the pride are too political. He refused three formal offers within the past two years. He —" he chose his words — "expressed interest in something quieter. More —"

"Wolfish," Celeste supplied with her trademark smile. "Your human qualities can prove themselves useful for once, Rielle."

Useful for once. Useful for once, after twenty-one years.

She stared at her stepmother for a moment with an impassive gaze. Then she turned back to Damon. "Specifically, what do you gain from this."

Access to the security branch and contacts in the business of the pride; access to his contracts and agreements with others. The territory of the Ashveil lions opened new perspectives she had been trying to explore for the past three years; such an alliance would make them real.

Maren Valley. She knew where Maren Valley was. It was an area farther to the west from their territory with a few human settlements on it and a river running down it, the river which was responsible for irrigating a good chunk of the territory. She filed it into her memory.

"You'll be presentable," he said. "Celeste will choose appropriate clothing for you. Be polite, attentive — make it clear that you —"

"Are available," she finished.

"Are interested," he corrected, getting up to signal the end of the conversation. "In partnership, in an alliance. In a future."

This was an opportunity for her. Ashveil was one of the largest territories in the world; to join their ranks was a chance for a better future.

"Yes," she said and got up from her seat.

· · ·

When she went back to her room, she sat down on the bed and breathed for precisely four minutes. Four years of practice allowed her to regulate her breathing to perfection, and she was quite good at it.

She retrieved her bag from under the mattress — a rucksack from the supplies store, filled with essentials. She had been maintaining it for four years now — some changes of clothes, money, charger, a little knife. And there, among the rest, was the photo of a young woman, auburn-haired and with amber eyes, in warm sunlight and smiling at someone taking her picture. There was no name attached to it, but Rielle was quite sure it was her mother.

She did not have any plan to leave right now. Maintaining the bag was not the purpose — the bag was merely the proof that she had agency and that there was a possibility for her. Without the bag she was a piece of furniture in the house of her parents; with it she knew she could walk away if she needed to.

She heard knocking on her door and stuffed the bag quickly under the bed.

"Come in," she called.

It was Mira.

She entered the room with a pained look on her face, which was her way of showing she really wanted to be not like she always was. She was nineteen and beautiful the typical wolf way with long blonde hair, pale face and barely contained physical energy of those who often shift. Rielle and her sister never formed any kind of relationship; she was beautiful, and Mira loved her — that, along with Mira's stepmother's constant belittling of Rielle, was the main cause for animosity between them. They reached, however, some kind of non-violent stalemate that sometimes became heated, only for Mira's mother's word to turn things back to normal.

"He told you," Mira said.

"Yes."

Mira walked in and closed the door behind her. She stood by the door with crossed arms, not comfortable but not going anywhere either. "I don't come here to — I don't justify it," she said.

"Of course not."

"I wanted you to know. I talked to someone who used to work at Ashveil two years ago, in the household staff. He left — that's not negligible considering the reputation of that pride — and he said —"

"Say what he said."

"That it was the same as everybody says," Mira paused, "but it isn't. He said they paid well and protected their employees; they had rules — special ones, in fact — and that whatever caused him to become what he is wasn't negligible."

Silence reigned in her room.

She could hear the sounds of a training session begin outside her window. Wolves shouted to each other and sparred somewhere near.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked.

"Because I don't know what else I can do," said Mira and walked out of the room.

· · ·

That night, lying in her bed, she weighed everything.

She could leave; she had enough for a short run. She had the money, clothes, a charger. But she had nothing on the outside — no friends, no places to find shelter, no job skills. She was educated in the territory's system, where she could learn how to read and write and do figures, but that didn't translate into a résumé.

She could do what she was told, go to Ashveil, be presented, smile and fulfill her father's expectations of her; then she could survive the same way she had survived everything else before.

Or.

Or.

She stared at the white ceiling above her.

It had been her prison for twenty-one years. Stepmother's insults. Father's cold analysis of her worth. Assumption of others that she was less than them — always slightly wrong, always inferior in her animal instincts. She survived all of this by shriveling up, by becoming useful; by carrying the bag under the mattress as the proof she was free, although she was not.

Kael Ashford was infamous and dangerous. He was notorious; she was his prey in a dirty game. All of it was true. It was also true that Ashveil was three hundred miles away from here, and whatever his intention was, they were definitely different from the ones she had suffered so far.

Her finger traced the lines of her bracelet — gold, heavy and warm.

She left me something, she thought. Her mother. Her real mother, who died at the moment of Rielle's birth, was taken from her without leaving anything aside but the single mark, the bracelet she carried everywhere and never took off.

"I will go," she whispered into the silence. "Not because he tells me to, but because I might have no other choice."

She listened to the night sounds outside and fell asleep, feeling not alone in this for the first time.