Peril

Chapter 1

Prologue

    The cool wind rushed through her golden hair as she pulled her cloak tighter to fight the winter air. She looked pensive, perhaps sad, as she turned back to look towards the castle. When she turned, her eyes passed where I stood. Though she couldn’t possibly see me, I eased back further into the shadows. I felt her senses become alert. Surely, she knew it wasn’t smart to be out of this hour. So many things for her to fear, yet her gaze was strong as she searched the shadows. She stared right through me; green eyes focused on easing her suspicions. Seemingly unable to identify the feeling, she opted to begin her trek up the hill back inside the walls of the castle. Once she was inside, I knew I could leave.

Chapter 1

    Unable to shake the feeling of being watched, I slid through an easily forgotten side gate into the castle. The guards apparently weren’t worried about threats during a winter this cold. The magic pulsing through my veins enticed me to attempt to reveal the source of my anxiety using supernatural means, but the rational side of my brain knew to hold off. Using magic would only alert other supernatural beings of my presence.

    Anticipating the wrath of my father for my earlier misdeeds, I chose to navigate through the maid’s quarters to return to my wing of the house, hoping not to cross paths with anyone. Unfortunately, this ran me directly into my other problem for the evening.

    My fiancé, red in the face, nearly crashed into me.

    “Christ, Kathryn, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” As he spoke, the scent of alcohol and an unidentifiable sickly-sweet smell overpowered me. His face showed an odd mix of panic and guilt. It didn’t take supernatural senses to know why. Opting not to deal with his apologies tonight, I went for a cold comment.

    “I assumed you were quite occupied based on what I saw earlier. In fact, I’m sure had I walked through her mere moments earlier I might have been treated to another show!”

    I began to walk off as he grabbed my arm to stop me.

    “You know that’s not what I was doing here. I’m sorry for what you saw earlier. It was a mistake and you know that you are the only one I want.”

    Pulling away from his grip I continued my walk to my quarters exclaiming, “Nik, you want any lady who has a nice face and will go to bed with you.” 

    My face must have delivered the message that I was not interested in continuing the discussion. Apparently not wanting to argue with me, he stormed off, presumably to find another bottle of liquor, muttering something under his breath.

    I felt a rush of anger come across me. Not at Nik necessarily, his antics were expected at this point, but more at the situation in and my lack of choices. An odd tingling of jealousy also crept up that I wasn’t expecting. The logical part of my brain knew I was beautiful. I had heard it from various men from the moment I was presented to society. I also knew that Nik had wanted to marry me since we were children and he was informed of the possibility of our arrangement. I had refused his attempts to romance me, guising my rejection under maintaining my dignity as a lady. We danced together at balls and took walks through the gardens together, but each time he attempted more, I stopped him.

    Though I had made it clear that I agreed to our marriage to respect my father’s arrangement, the thought of him with someone else, even a maid, irritated me.

    My jealousy morphed into anger and with that anger I felt the surge of my magic coming to life. A torch on the wall danced to life dangerously close to a hanging tapestry featuring a particularly gloomy countryside estate. Despite my utter lack of attachment to the tapestry, I figured a fire would not be ideal and I quickly became aware enough of my surroundings and emotions to calm down. Once my emotions were collected, and my magic’s threat gone, I continued my trek to the other side of the castle.

    Rounding the corner hastily, I nearly crashed into a pair of guards making their nightly rounds.

    “Princess” they nodded and hurried away.

    Apparently, I had picked the most popular route through the castle this evening.

    I was able to absorb myself in various thoughts as I navigated the rest of the way to my rooms and managed to put aside my earlier dark thoughts.

    When I entered my bedchamber, I was happy to see my lady’s maids had finally obliged to my request for them not to wait up for me if I was gone late. While they might have been put off by the odd request, they couldn’t refuse a direct order especially when it was combined with a hint of compulsion. One of them had kindly laid out a night shift for me as well as a comb which I gratefully used to take the snarls in the hair that those same maids had styled to perfection hours earlier. Once my golden hair hung loose to my waist I climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep.