Page 120 of A Bond in Blood

He pressed himself against me. “Why?” he asked.

My body shook with the fear he’d trained into me. A reaction I’d come to realize he wanted me to have.

“Because,” I breathed out.

I jumped when his fingers pressed into my thigh, lifting my chemise upward with his touch.

“Why?” he demanded.

“I believe you wear that mask for show. You hide who you are, wanting all of us to believe only a monster lives behind it. But there’s more. I’m sure there’s more.”

The pressure of his fingers on my thigh pulled away and he chuckled while he shifted from me, pulling his body from mine.

“The wine still has its grasp on you.”

Tension lingered in the air with the mattress groaning from his large frame settling in for the night.

“Goodnight,” he whispered before silence enveloped us once more.

“Get up,” a voice growled beside me.

I covered my eyes, shocked by the bright sunlight filling the bedroom. When I glanced down, I found Olen in beast form at the side of the bed.

“What is the urgency?” I groaned.

“Penance,” he snarled.

I sat up, shaking my head. “I didn’t know! I didn’t know what this Rite was!”

Olen’s shoulders shook with his unsettling laugh. “Not for you. Get up. Ulrich is waiting in the palace courtyard.”

I jumped from the bed, dressing quickly and not caring that Olen remained in the room. He was unmoving as I stripped my clothes from my body before redressing.

I grabbed my cloak from the closet and turned to the beast, huffing with heavy breaths.

“That was fast,” he laughed.

“Ulrich is waiting,” I replied.

Olen bumped my calves with his snout, nudging me through the door. My hands twisted around the clasp of my cloak. When my feet entered the hall, I glanced back at the bed.

I’d slept peacefully again, even after the chaos of the night before. The sound of Ulrich’s deep breathing had lulled me into rest rather than irritated my mind.

Was I truly going mad?

Olen grunted beside me, and we picked up our pace, silently making our way through the palace.

Even with my nerves, I could not ignore the air layering over everything. It was heavy and charged with warning. Raising the hair on my body in alarm.

Olen stood on his hind-legs, shoving the grand entrance doors open and I stopped in my tracks.

The courtyard was full of bodies. Every pair of eyes went to me while whispers and hisses filtered into the palace.

And in the middle of the courtyard was Ulrich, with Bjorn shackled on his knees.

I pulled my hand to my mouth. “What is this?” I whispered, shocked to find my assailant breathing.

Olen snarled.

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