Page 65 of Wolf Caged
Sensing she would continue to refuse to name the one who had wounded her and that ordering her to reveal her attacker would only make her more angry, and less likely to speak, I made a mental note to speak with my sister and the guards who had been with Saphira this morning and gain a name that way.
Instead of pressing her, I changed the course of the conversation, circling back to something she had said that had caught my attention.
“You called my castle stuffy.”
She prodded at her meat. “It is stuffy.”
“Definestuffy.” I slowly calmed my shadows, reining them back under control, not wanting them to lash at the wolf if she said anything that offended me more than her declaration that my castle was ‘stuffy’ already had. “You have every comfort you might need. You have one of the largest guest rooms and the only one with a balcony and a view of the entire town. Your every need is catered for. I feel that is rather gracious of me given your position.”
She leaned back in her seat and looked around her as my shadows fell away to reveal the room and the roaring fire, and sighed. “It’s a nice castle, and my rooms are far better than acramped cell in a dungeon and I really have no complaints… but I do have a complaint.”
Contradictory little female.
“And your complaint is?” I refilled her wine glass for her and she didn’t even flinch this time, just picked the glass up and sipped it as if it was perfectly natural it had filled itself before her eyes.
She was growing accustomed to my world. To me. She had not even flinched when my shadows had encompassed her, filling the room.
“I don’t know. I just… the view is lovely, but it’s not… My pack lands are densely forested, set in a valley deep in the mountains, and my home is a cabin, but I’m rarely in it. I spend so much of my day outside, helping others, doing my work. I guess… I think being inside all day just feels a bit… claustrophobic. It’s a pretty cage, but a cage nonetheless.”
Interesting.
The place where I had travelled to for the auction had been in such lands, far from any sizable town. It made sense that she might find the castle and the town confining given how open the land I had taken her from had been.
“I shall have to find you work that involves you being outdoors then.” I tapped my finger against the table, pretending to contemplate this, and then smirked at her. “Perhaps you can clean out the stables every morning.”
She glared at me for that and made an obscene gesture with her hand.
“Did you enjoy your sojourn around the town?” I wanted to hear more about it, to draw out that female who had been filled with light and excitement before she had fallen down a dark path by recalling what had happened to her this morning, before my sister had escorted her down into the town.
“I did. But… something bothered me when I was in the town. Are your people happy?”
“Yes.” I did not falter, did not even take a breath before I answered her. “My people are safe and have everything they need.”
Her gaze grew distant, her light dimming. “There’s a difference between being safe with everything you need and happy.”
“Is there?” I had given my people everything, had expended great magic to seal the borders to shield them from danger and did whatever was expected of me in order to keep the lands strong and fertile. They were safe and protected, and had no reason not to be happy.
Yet, the way Saphira looked at me, a wealth of hurt surfacing in her eyes, said at least one person in my court was unhappy.
“I was safe at my pack. I had everything I needed.” She toyed with the bottom of her wine glass, nudging it.
“But not everything you wanted,” I husked and her shoulders went rigid. I sat back and hardened my tone, determined to shut down this line of conversation, because I was the king of this court and she had not seen enough of it to draw conclusions about how I ran it. “Perhaps you are projecting your own feelings onto my people. I assure you, they have all they need and they want for nothing.”
She kept her gaze downcast and gave a subtle nod, and I felt sure she would hide in her wine glass for the rest of the meal, but then she pushed it away from her and lifted her head, her eyes locking with mine.
“It was rude of me. I’m sorry. If you believe your people are happy, then I’m sure they are happy.”
A veiled challenge.
“They are happy,” I declared, my tone firm. “Now, you were telling me of what you saw in the town. What did you find mostfascinating? The market? The minotaurs? Those dresses you will soon receive?”
A flicker of light emerged in her eyes as she silently studied her wine and then she shuddered.
“It is not cold in here, so what did you recall that made you shiver?” I canted my head, curious now. This female had taken everything in her stride so far, had stood up to me countless times and showed little fear of me, but something she had seen today had rattled her. If it was the fae who had been rude to her, I would hunt them down and claim their heads and place them on pikes in the courtyard as a warning to others.
“After I saw the minotaurs, there were these tall, thin creatures dressed in black and they wore deer skulls as masks.”
I chuckled at her description, sure she would shiver again as I corrected her, “They do not wear masks.”
