Page 44 of Wolf Caged
I didn’t belong here.
Or at least, I didn’t belong in this castle.
My gaze tracked back to the town that hugged the hill, each building different in scale and design, and I ached to explore it and be among those people who looked as if they were greeting each other, hands waving at whoever they had spotted or being shaken by men who saw someone they knew. This place of lofty highborn wasn’t me. That place of warmth and laughter, of smiles and joyful greetings was me.
An ache started deep in my breast, my eyes stinging as my wolf instincts howled for my pack. For that comfort and warmth, and being surrounded by friends and family.
I looked back at my room, with all its lavish finery and carved wooden doors and black marble floors that were inlaid with patterns of gold metal that reflected the magical lights. I bet it was real gold. I traced my fingers over the edges of the table I sat on, feeling the carvings there too. Everything here was finely crafted, even the table and chairs I had seen in the dining roomlast night. The king’s craftsmen were incredibly talented, but I doubted they lived in the fine houses below me.
I shifted my focus to that town beyond the highborn houses, to the smoke that rose from some of the chimneys and the sound of metal striking metal ringing out. People moved between buildings with small carts of goods, and one of the houses closer to the gate to the highborn area was putting out what looked like baskets of bread as people gathered there, a mixture of the finely dressed and the others.
The heart of this castle town was there, among those craftspeople and commoners.
I wanted to go there.
Maybe I would ask Kaeleron to allow me to visit it.
I needed to get in his good graces first though.
I nibbled at a piece of buttered toast as I shifted my focus to beyond the walls of the town, to lands that called to me more fiercely than the bustling streets below.
A great swath of farmland and forests stretched as far as my eyes could see. Hazy mountains rose beyond them like great onyx teeth. And above them… the most incredible sky I had ever seen. My handmaidens had called this morning, but the sky did resemble twilight, with faint shifting aurora that stole my breath. If I had needed proof I wasn’t in my world any longer, if the landscape and the shimmering air wasn’t evidence enough, this sky was it.
My eyes tracked the rippling hues of green and purple.
I had seen aurora before, but not like this. Golden stars glittered among the dancing ribbons, moving with them, and if someone had asked me to paint magic, and I had been capable of creating something so beautiful and bewitching, this is what I would have drawn for them.
I watched them until my food was stone cold and my teapot was empty, and then I watched the town, but as the minutesticked past, I found myself drawn to the window that overlooked the lake again, my mind turning to the one thing I had on my agenda today.
Swimming with the king.
Trees lined part of the lake and bordered the garden, and gathered thickly off to my left, where there seemed to be an entire forest within the confines of the walls. Those trees called to me, pulling on my instincts, filling me with an urge to shift and explore them. What scents would be in that forest? What new creatures might I encounter? How would the leaf litter feel beneath my paws?
There were clearings in places where the dark canopy of the trees fell away.
I frowned.
Stared harder at that dense canopy, trying to peer through the leaves to confirm I wasn’t imagining things. I lowered my gaze to the nearest trees and my eyes widened. The bark of the trees were lined with violet glowing veins, just like my dreams.
Neve.
The dragon held some kind of power and she had influenced my dreams. The more I thought about them, the more certain I felt. I had seen glimpses of the aurora in my dreams, of mountains and the great crashing sea. She had shown me these things.
Teased me with what I would find beyond the bars of my cage.
My gaze remained rooted on the trees, something about them speaking to me, not just calling to me but actuallyspeakingto me, as if they wanted me to run among them. They beckoned. Filled me with a sense that I belonged there, among those stunning but strange trees. Not just the trees though. Everything in this place spoke to me on some primal level.
I had never felt more as one with nature than I did now, here in this strange new world.
Something about this land whispered to my wolf side.
Made me feel light and warm.
Comforted.
As if I had been born to be here and had finally found my way home.
I shook off that sensation, because my home was back in Canada with my pack, far away from this court of dark fae and this world of magic and shadows.
