Page 81 of Feral Guardian
I trust him. He knows what’s best.
Trask releases my face. “Go now, princess. I’ll be following you. Come into the wilds and I will take you to where you’re supposed to be.”
I slide off the bench and pull my serving tray up to my chest. He looks at me like I’m important.
So does Alastair.
These thoughts are at war as I walk back to the kitchen.
Igor’s wife drops two more bowls of stew onto my tray. “Table six, right, behind the door.”
I feel Alastair’s stare but avoid it. It burns me like a bonfire, the intensity of it boring through my skin to reveal secrets. So many secrets.
I serve bowl after bowl, beer after beer. My head churns thoughts like butter, slow and thick and laboriously. I want to stop thinking.
The bards strike a new tune and I find I’m leaning against the bar. There aren’t many patrons in the room and I’m not sure when that happened or how I got here. The bards’ melody strikes at my heart, erasing that thought and drawing me to the dance floor.
“Go. Make them thirsty,” Igor says with a knowing smile.
Thirsty.
I wish I could affect Alastair like that. I wish I could make him need me the way I need him. I wish he didn’t want to send me to my death.
I untie the apron from my back as I weave through the tables, the music pulling at me with its slow seduction. I lift the loop over my head and pull my hair down from its braid, letting my locks wave over my shoulders.
The dance floor is empty, and I take it all up. The space is mine, and I am alone with the music. My hips move, then my shoulders. I toss my head and my hair ruffles around my face. My arms undulate with the fiddle player’s melody and my hips strike the beats of the hurdy-gurdy.
Desire is palpable in the air. I feel the gazes of everyone in the room on me. I move only for him. Only for Alastair.
Want me.
Need me the way I need you.
Don’t condemn me.
Don’t take me home.
Please.
The music goes on and on, making me move. I’m not sure if Trask is still here, watching, reporting back to Wolfsheim about what a good little princess I’ll be for one of their heirs. I could do that. I could be that. I like Trask, and doing what he says would make him happy.
But I move only for Alastair.
I have to tell him. I have to show him the headmistress’s decree. The real one. Trask might be a nice man, but I want to stay with Alastair. My body will die without his touch.
Someone else comes onto the floor, moving near me. I don’t acknowledge him but I feel the way he tries to enter my circle. Then another man moves closer, and another. I’m surrounded by them, pulled into their gravity and passed around.
I keep my eyes closed as each holds me, moves me like I’m some puppet, then passes me along. I’m handed from man to man, their knees falling between my legs, their hands gripping the back of my neck and my lower back. The music evolves with their touches and my mind lets go.
The music is in my blood, making me move.
Fire burns behind me as another presence fills the dance floor. This had been my space, my pity party, my dance floor, but now it’shis.
I open my eyes to see Alastair, red gleaming in his gaze, staring down at me. The other men move away, and Alastair takes me.
“You’re not well,” he says, his hands enveloping me like a cast.
“I’m perfect,” I say as I twist side to side.
