Page 46 of Wolf Caged
Towards the trees.
The haughtiness in me faltered as I headed for them, overshadowed by eagerness to step into their shadows and feel them around me. My pack lands were heavily wooded mountains, and I had run in the forests daily since I had been old enough to shift. That hour of exercise had been my only true freedom and adventure, and I had been missing it in the time I had been here.
I shivered as I slipped into the shadows of ethereal trees and felt them around me, as their leaf litter and the earth cushioned my feet, and the urge to run was strong. It bubbled through me, making my steps feel lighter as I almost danced through the trees that clung to the foothills of the mountains, fascinated by how they glowed and how those violet veins reacted to my touch as I brushed my fingers across them. They dimmed and the area beyond my touch brightened, as if the tree had pulled whatever magic or sap ran through them away from me. When I broke contact, the veins filled again.
Mossy boulders tumbled close to the path that had been worn into the dirt, the scent of them lacing the air together with the earth and the water, and the flowers in the trees. I breathed deep of it, filling my lungs, letting nature flow into me as it swirled around me. Bliss. This was bliss.
And it was beautiful.
To my left, a dark cliff came into view above the canopy of the forest, trees sprouting from it, clinging to its cragged face, and long grass tumbling down it, together with a creeping vine with blood red blooms that reached their faces towards the twilight sky. The path rose over a series of timeworn boulders and packed dirt at the base of the cliff, the canopy of the trees to my right, their roots buried deep in a small beach below, close enough that I could reach out and touch the shimmering flowers. A small waterfall tumbled over one part of the cliff, trickling down to the earth below and forming a stream that rushed beneath a small wooden bridge that spanned the gap between two boulders, carrying me over the beach to where the path began to descend again.
My wolf side bayed for freedom and I fought it, struggling to hold it at bay because I wasn’t here to run, even when I wished that I was. I was here to swim, and while I could do so in mywolf form, some petty part of me wanted to keep that part of me hidden from everyone.
I wanted to deny him something.
This male who stood ahead of me on the pebbly shore, his backdrop fierce black mountains and waterfalls that thundered down their faces. I hadn’t noticed them before. I looked back towards the castle and couldn’t see it through the trees. We had come further than I had thought. Perhaps they had been hidden from view by the curving mountains.
The servant bowed and disappeared.
Leaving me alone with Kaeleron.
He raked cold silver eyes over me, not at all shocked to see I hadn’t bothered with the sarong. The curve of his lips said he was pleased I had forgone using it. I stood my ground, unfazed by the way his eyes danced over my body, because he had seen far more than this already.
He had seen me at my lowest and most vulnerable.
He gestured to the lake, sweeping his left hand towards it. “After you.”
That eager glint in his eyes warned he was up to something, but I was already lost in how clear and inviting the water was, and how freeing it would feel to be in it and get a look at this place from another perspective. Maybe I would be able to see the castle and my room, and later when I stood in the window, I would be able to recognise where I had swum and could recall how the water felt or how free I felt right now, out here in the woods, almost alone.
It was hard to shut out the presence of the fae king.
His power ensconced me, his gaze heavy on my face, as he waited to see what I would do.
I stepped towards the lake, eyes darting over the crystalline rocks and boulders that lined the bottom. They glittered beneath the turquoise water, each a hue of grey but tinged with othercolours. Some were purplish, some had a hint of crimson, and others captured shades of green and blue or gold. It was as if someone had poured glass beads into the water, only they had been made by giants. If I had been in any danger of forgetting how different and magical this land of Lucia was, this would have reminded me.
Kaeleron continued to watch me like a hawk.
I didn’t dare glance back at him, even when I wanted to know if he looked as disappointed as I was sure he did by my swimsuit. Whoever had bought it for me from the human world had probably made a mistake, purchasing me something far less revealing than the king had had in mind.
I stepped into the surprisingly warm water, letting it lap at my ankles, and risked a look back at Kaeleron.
He looked fascinated rather than disappointed.
Strange male.
I wasn’t sure I would ever understand him even if it took a decade or more to earn my freedom.
A decade or more.
My breath hitched and I took in the lake that stretched before me, embraced by those forbidding black mountains, and kissed by that twilight aurora sky, and rather than crushing fear and loneliness at the thought of being separated from my pack for so long, I felt only calm.
The steady, gentle touch of nature against all of me that comforted me and made me feel at home here.
I strode into the water, watching glowing green bugs lift from the surface as I disrupted it and how they danced among the reflected aurora.
It was beautiful.
I was so caught up in trying to absorb it all and put it all to memory as I dragged my fingers through the water at my sides,attempting to capture it in my heart forever, that I forgot all about Kaeleron.
