Fated to the Lycan king

Chapter 8

I woke up and he was gone.

The side of the bed where he had been was still warm. I pressed my hand against it before I realized I was doing it and pulled it back immediately and sat up and pushed my hair out of my face.

Gone. Again.

I got up and got dressed and went to find out what a palace looked like in the morning.

The answer was enormous and unhelpful.

I took what I was fairly certain was a left and ended up somewhere I had not been. I took a right after that and ended up somewhere worse. The palace had a logic to it that I had not learned yet and it was not interested in teaching me gently.

I turned a corner and stopped.

The corridor ahead was different.

The others had been maintained torches in brackets, floors clean, the upkeep of a place that was used daily. This one had not been touched. The torches were unlit. The air was older. Stiller. Like it had been holding its breath for eighty three years and had simply gotten used to it.

I walked in slowly.

The doors along the corridor were all closed. Dust on the floor undisturbed. Tapestries on the walls faded from whatever colors they had been into something patient and waiting. I stopped in front of one and tucked my hair behind my ear and looked at it.

A hunt. Someone young and proud had commissioned this.

"I used to sneak in here when I was small."

I turned around.

Calista stood at the entrance. Simpler dress than last night. Hair loose. Looking at the tapestry with the expression of someone looking at something they had not let themselves look at in a very long time.

"He did not know," she said, walking in slowly. "I would come and look at his things and leave before anyone noticed." She stopped beside me. "After. When Damon had it locked I kept coming anyway. Until he changed the key."

"He locked it," I said.

"The week after." She looked at the tapestry. "Caelan was fourteen when he went on his first hunt. He came back and commissioned that himself." Something moved in her face. "He was so proud."

I looked at the faded image and said nothing.

"He unlocked this corridor the morning after you arrived," Calista said quietly. "Before the throne room. Before any of it. This was the first thing he did."

I pressed my lips together and looked at the tapestry.

"Come," Calista said. "I will show you the parts of this palace that will not get you lost."

She walked and talked the way she had at dinner. Easily. Her hands moving when something required it. She showed me the east corridor that connected everything, the courtyard visible from the library window, the turn that looked like it went nowhere and went everywhere.

I tucked my hair behind my ear and tried to remember all of it.

"He was different before," she said. We were moving through a wide corridor with windows on one side. "Not softer. He was never soft. But he laughed more. He was quicker to it." She looked out the window briefly. "I kept waiting for someone in this palace to be quick like that and nobody was."

"Does he still," I said.

Calista looked at me.

"At dinner last night," she said carefully. "When you choked on your water."

I kept my eyes forward.

"He handed you the glass," she said. "And asked if the food was too spicy."

"Yes," I said.

"And you looked at him," she said. "And he looked back at you."

I said nothing.

"He has not looked at anyone like that," Calista said quietly, "in a very long time."

I pushed my hair behind my ear and looked at the corridor ahead and did not say anything and she was kind enough not to make me.

We turned into another corridor.

And walked directly into Mireille.

She was coming the other way with two attendants behind her and she stopped when she saw us with the specific pause of someone deciding in real time how to use an unplanned encounter.

Her eyes went to me first. Then to Calista.

"Calista." Warmly. "And Rhea." The warmth adjusting slightly when it reached my name. "Are you finding your way around."

"Calista is showing me," I said.

"Good." She folded her hands in front of her. "It can be overwhelming. A palace this size." A small smile. "Especially for someone who is not accustomed to it."

Calista went very still beside me.

I looked at Mireille.

"It is overwhelming," I agreed pleasantly. "But I am a fast learner."

Something moved in Mireille's expression.

"I am sure you are," she said. "Caelan always did have specific tastes." Her eyes moved over me once. "Unexpected ones."

Calista made a sound she converted into clearing her throat.

I held Mireille's gaze and smiled.

"He does," I said. "I will take that as a compliment."

Mireille looked at me for one moment longer than the conversation required.

"Of course," she said. And moved past us with her attendants without looking back.

I watched her go.

Beside me Calista exhaled slowly. "She has been like that since the moment you walked through the gates."

"I noticed," I said.

Calista looked at my face and whatever she found there made her laugh. The same real laugh from dinner. "You handled that well."

"I am a fast learner," I said.

She laughed again and I found myself smiling back before I had decided to.

The servant found me an hour later.

"My lord Damon requests the pleasure of your company," he said. "At your convenience."

At your convenience.

Meaning now.

I put down the book I had found and pushed my hair behind my ear and followed him.

Damon's private sitting room was nothing like the throne room.

Warm. Comfortable. A fire going despite the mild weather outside. Two chairs arranged in front of it like he had been expecting this conversation for longer than the last hour.

He stood when I came in and smiled his warm convincing smile.

"Rhea. Thank you for indulging me." He sat when I sat and leaned back with the ease of a man completely comfortable in his own space. "I simply wanted the chance to speak with you properly. Dinner last night was...." A small laugh. "There is never enough time at a formal table."

"No," I agreed.

He looked at me with that warm attentive gaze. "How are you finding Asveron."

"Beautiful," I said. "I got lost this morning."

He laughed. Genuine sounding. "Everyone does at first. Even those of us who grew up here." He shook his head fondly. "Caelan used to make maps when he was young. Actual hand drawn maps. He had books of them." Something warm and nostalgic in his voice. "He was always like that. Needed to understand everything completely before he would move."

I looked at the fire.

"It made him extraordinary," Damon said. Gently. "And it made some things very difficult for the people around him."

I kept my eyes on the fire. "Difficult how."

"He is not a forgiving man." Simply. Gently. Like sharing something that cost him something to share. "When he decides something about a person it does not change. When he makes a judgment..." He stopped. Turned his cup in his hands once. "I say this as someone who loves him. As someone who has watched what that quality costs the people who care about him."

I turned and looked at him.

He met my gaze with that open concerned expression.

"I only want you to have the full picture," he said. "You are new to this world. New to him. I would not feel right watching you walk in without..."

"That is very thoughtful of you," I said.

He smiled. "I mean it sincerely."

"I can see that," I said.

We looked at each other.

The fire crackled.

He was good. Genuinely extraordinary at this. Warm enough that without last night's corridor I might have believed every word. Even knowing what I knew I had to work to find the edge of it.

"He is lucky to have found you," Damon said. "Someone grounded. Someone from outside all of this." He gestured at the room. The palace. Everything. "It will be good for him. Having something real. Something that belongs to him."

Something.

Not someone.

Something that belongs to him.

There it was. Dressed in warmth and concern and the gentle voice of a man who simply wanted his brother to be happy. The reminder that I was not a person in this conversation. I was an asset. Something that could be used against the man who owned it.

I smiled at Damon.

"Thank you," I said. "For the conversation. And for making us feel so welcome."

"Always," he said warmly, walking me to the door, his hand briefly at his heart. "My door is always open to you Rhea. Whatever you need."

"I will remember that," I said.

I walked back through the corridor and did not let my face do anything until I had turned two corners and was alone.

Then I stopped and pressed my back against the wall and looked at the ceiling and let out a slow breath.

Something that belongs to him.

I pushed off the wall and walked faster.

Caelan was in the room when I got back.

Standing at the window. He turned when I came in and looked at my face and whatever he saw there made him go still in a specific way.

I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at my hands for a moment. Turned them over once.

"Your brother asked to see me today," I said.

He said nothing.

"He was very warm," I said. "Very concerned. He told me you are not a forgiving man. That when you make a judgment about a person it does not change." I looked up at him. "He called me something that belongs to you. Not someone. Something."

The room was quiet.

I watched his face.

Something moved through it. Not the controlled stillness. Something older. Something that had been sitting somewhere for eighty three years and recognized exactly what it was hearing.

He crossed the room and sat beside me on the edge of the bed.

"What he said about me," he said, "is not wrong."

I looked at him.

"I am not a forgiving man," he said. "When I decide something about a person it does not change." He turned and looked at me directly. "He knew exactly what to tell you and exactly how to tell it."

"I know," I said. "And it is still true. Which makes it more dangerous not less."

He held my gaze. "What did you give him."

"Nothing," I said. "I thanked him for making us feel welcome."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Good," he said.

We sat in the quiet of the room. Outside Asveron moved through its evening. Somewhere in this palace Damon was sitting with whatever he had taken from that conversation and deciding what to do next.

I turned my hand over on the bed between us and laced my fingers through his without planning to.

He looked down at our hands. Then at my face.

He said nothing. He did not make it into anything it did not need to be.

We sat there while the candles burned down.

Then his thumb moved across the back of my hand once. Slow. Deliberate.

"He is going to move again soon," Caelan said quietly.

I looked at him. "How soon."

He looked at the window.

"He already has," he said.

I stared at him. "What do you mean he already..."

"Draven found something this afternoon," he said. "In the east wing. Someone has been accessing the old records. Caelan's council records. His old alliances. His old..." He stopped.

I watched his jaw tighten.

"Someone has been building a case," he said. "For months. Before I even surfaced." He looked at me. "He was not preparing for my return."

"Then what was he preparing for," I said.

Caelan looked at me steadily.

"He was preparing to end it," he said. "Permanently. Whatever the bond was going to produce he intended to make sure it never had the chance to matter."

The room was very quiet.

I thought about the private audience. About the warm concern. About something that belongs to him.

"He was not warning me about you," I said slowly.

"No," Caelan said.

"He was assessing me," I said. "Seeing what I knew. What I was."

"Yes," Caelan said.

I looked at our hands still laced together on the bed.

"Caelan," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"What does permanently mean," I said. "Specifically."

He looked at me for a long moment.

And did not answer.

Which was its own answer.

The candle on the table beside me guttered once in a draft from somewhere and the shadows in the room shifted and I sat there with my fingers through his and the word permanently sitting in my chest like something with weight.

I was not on a bus to Valeria anymore.

I was not sure I was ever going to be that person again.