Marked By Him

Chapter 7

A knock rouses me from sleep. I roll onto my back and stare unseeingly at the ceiling, the events of last night’s dinner flashing through my mind. Embarrassment washes over me. For a second, I lay against the pillow, wondering how I’m going to face Mace after what happened last night. After the second knock snaps me out of my thoughts, I climb out of bed and hurry to open the bedroom to let them in.

I take longer than necessary to get ready for breakfast, prolonging the inevitable. The two handmaidens—Raya and Silia are their names—lay some clothes on the bed and then lead me to the washroom.

There are rose petals in the bubble-filled bathtub. I close my eyes, my limbs languid in the water's warm embrace. Silia shampoos my hair, her nails scraping against my scalp in a soothing, relaxing way. Raya scrubs my body as I run my fingers through the surface of the water. I’m tempted to stay in the bathtub and not face Mace, but the water will grow cold if I stay here for too long. And plus, at that moment, my stomach grumbles with hunger. After leaving the washroom with a towel wrapped around my body, I put on the clothes that I assume Mace had bought for me, and then I make my way to the dining room to eat breakfast with, as usual, Dominic trailing behind me.

When I’m close to the dining room, I hear muffled voices. When I listen closely, I recognize one of the voices as Mace’s, but the other one—a female voice—I don’t recognize. Entering the dining room, I see Mace in a suit, a grey one this time, looking as impeccable as ever. And standing next to him, laughing at whatever Mace just said, is a woman. A beautiful woman—long raven hair that looks like it should be in a shampoo ad, golden brown eyes, and a body that looks like it belongs on the runway. Seeing them standing next to each other, I can’t help but think that they look good together, like a novel's main protagonists, where the characters are unrealistically beautiful. So ethereal. The woman stops laughing to look at me when I enter. Her stare is so intimidating that I feel small under her gaze.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Mace says, turning to look at me. “You were taking so long that I was about to come to get you myself.”

“Uh, yeah,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. The woman’s stare is unwavering. It makes me feel nervous and awkward. “I woke up late.”

I lower my gaze to the table. The table is filled with all sorts of mouth-watering food—a banquet. Mace must be trying to impress the beautiful woman because this is a lot of food for three people—or four, if Dominic is going to join us. But he doesn’t. Seriously, when does he eat? The woman sits next to Mace while I sit across the table.

“Is this her?” the woman asks, speaking about me like I’m not there, at the same table as her. She looks at me like I’m someone beneath her. “I expected someone… more.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Mace warns, “Don’t speak about her like that?”

The woman looks at Mace like he just offended her or something. She turns to look at me again, clearly not pleased by what Mace said. “Whatever.”

Mace looks kind of irritated by her, but he says, “Rose, this is Rue. Rue, this is Rose.” And then to Rose, he says, “Be nice.”

Rose rolls her eyes. “How old are you?”

“Uh.” The question catches me off guard that I actually have to take a few seconds to think about how old I am. I wasn’t expecting her to talk directly to me since she seems not to like me for some reason. “I’m nineteen.”

Rose sucks in air through her teeth, staring at Mace in disbelief. “She’s young,” she hisses.

“She’s of legal age,” Mace says, then continues to eat his breakfast.

I want to ask what my age has to do with anything. Killian did say that Mace looked older than me. Maybe that’s why Rose is shocked. And that has me thinking about how old Mace is. He seems to be in his early twenties, but he might not be because werewolves age slower than humans. He could be in his thirties.

“How old are you?” I ask Mace.

Taking a sip of his wine (Why the hell is he drinking wine so early in the morning?), he says, “Why do you ask, Little Angel?”

“Just curious,” I say with a shrug, trying to seem casual about it.

Mace stares at me, and I shift in my seat, licking my now-dry lips. Swirling the white wine in the glass, he says, “I’m twenty-three.”

He is definitely in his early twenties, then. But before I can say he isn’t that old, Rose says, “You can’t mate her, Mace. She’s not twenty-one yet. She won’t survive the mating ceremony.”

“If I don’t, she’ll die before she turns twenty-one,” Mace says. “You know that.”

“But—”

“It’s to protect her,” Mace says.

He keeps saying that. What is he protecting me from? I don’t see anyone trying to harm me.

Rose doesn’t relent. “You can protect her just fine without having to mate her.”

“You don’t understand—”

Rose jumps to her feet, throwing her napkin on the table, angry. “You’re right. I don’t understand. I don’t understand how my boyfriend is so eager to mate with someone he doesn’t know, someone so f*****g young! If you’re so eager to mate her, wait until she’s f*****g twenty-one! At least that way, the mating ceremony won’t f*****g kill her!” And then she marches out of the dining room, leaving me in shock.

That’s his girlfriend? Whoa.

“Don’t worry about her,” Mace says, still eating his breakfast as if his girlfriend didn’t just march out of the room a second ago, fuming. “She’ll calm down.”

“Sure,” I say because: what the hell? Not wanting to ponder what the hell.

After a few minutes of silence, save for the sound of our forks and knives scraping our plates as we eat, Mace says, “Finish up eating. I have to take you somewhere.”

“Oh?” I say. “We’re leaving the house?”

He nods.

I try to conceal my excitement, fighting off the smile that threatens to make its appearance on my face. Leaving the house means I’m going to be outside, which means I can find a way to escape.

“Don’t think about it,” Mace says, breaking through my thoughts.

“Think about what?” I feign innocence.

Putting his glass of wine on the table, he gets up and says, “Don’t think about escaping. You escape, I find you.” He walks around the table and stands next to me. “Come on. We have to leave.”

I wipe my mouth and get up too. “Where are we going?”

“To see my pack.”