Filed to story: My Kidnapper Is the Wolf King
He saunters over to the alpha table and seats himself beside the acting Wolf King.
“Aye, that he does,” says Robert, not bothering to lower his voice. “Something to do with the Southern lass, do you reckon? I wouldn’t be going around looking like I had a stick up my arse if she was wearing my collar.”
He goes on to describe the horrible things he would do to me to relieve his frustration, much to my disgust, while two other Wolves roar with laughter.
Beside me, Callum’s jaw sets.
“What do you reckon, Blake?” asks Robert, realizing that Blake doesn’t seem to be listening.
The dark-haired wolf is sitting with one arm slung over his chair, seemingly staring at the tapestries that depict different stages of the moon hanging from the walls.
Lazily, he turns his head. “About what?”
“The lass!”
I feel Blake’s eyes on me, just for a moment, even though I’m staring down at my porridge. My fist tightens around my spoon.
“She’s adequate, I suppose,” he replies.
I look up just as he grabs an apple and saunters out of the Great Hall.
Robert laughs as he continues his disgusting monologue about me. Rage builds inside my chest.
I wonder if he’d be so amused if I slipped some wolfsbane in his tea.
Callum puts a hand on my leg, and I start.
“I’ll kill him for you, if you like,” he says.
His voice is quiet, but the air feels charged for a moment. A furrow appears in Robert’s brow, so I know he heard him, and Callum smiles at him. Threateningly.
Robert turns away and re-joins the conversation the other men are now having about Blake.
“Does Blake even like the lasses?”
“I think so. I’ve heard some screams coming from his room late at night.”
“Aye, but they’re not the good kind.”
“I’ve heard he has some dark tastes. . . Never wanted to ask.”
I turn back to Callum. “Would you really kill him for me?” I ask.
“Aye. I hope you don’t ask. Because it could cause me some serious problems when the king returns.”
I smile as I go back to my porridge.
I’m less amused when Robert looms over our table twenty minutes later.
“I said you could keep her if she earned her keep,” he says. He walks off before Callum can respond.
“I could get a job in the infirmary,” I say. I don’t want to do anything to appease that horrible wolf, but I must admit, I’m curious. I wonder what I could learn about healing and Wolves if I had the opportunity to do so. “I don’t mind. I have nothing else to do while we wait for your king to return, so I may as well make myself useful.”
Callum’s eyebrows raise, then he shakes his head. “No. I appreciate what you did for Ryan, but I don’t want you alone with Blake.” He gives me an assessing look. “If you truly want a way to pass the time, I may have an idea.”
“What is it?”
“Our cook, Mrs. McDonald, is always complaining that she needs help peeling potatoes in the kitchens.”
***
The past week, a restless energy has been growing within the castle. The Wolves are angry about the attack against Ryan, but there’s more to it than that. It feels like the days before a big storm where the air is close and humid.
It feels like something big is about to happen.
I see less of Callum during the week than I did in my first few days here. It is partially because I’m spending my time in the kitchens.
When I first arrived here, someone made a comment about the cook, Mrs. McDonald, being like a dragon, and they were not wrong. She is truly a formidable woman-with greying hair and a sharp tongue. She is constantly shouting at me.
Her hatred doesn’t come from the fact that I am human; rather that I am incompetent in the kitchen. I have no idea how to make a stew, I burn the bread, and I’m constantly knocking things over.
I have never had to do these things before. People always served me my meals, so it’s no wonder I’m useless. I have a feeling that even if Mrs. McDonald knew I was a princess, she would not sympathize.
I don’t like being constantly scolded-for the first few days it was difficult to bite my tongue. But there’s actually something refreshing about someone being unguarded around me-not fearing that I’ll have them executed if they speak to me in a way I do not like.
It makes me feel. . . normal.
The other plus side of being so useless is that after a few days the kitchen maid Kayleigh, who snarled at me for making her drop her potatoes on that first day here, starts to take pity on me-even if she is still cold. She begrudgingly shows me how to dice an onion, and grumpily walks me around the kitchen gardens one day to show me the different herbs.
On the fifth day, when she cuts herself, I offer to take her to the infirmary and she blanches-clearly terrified of the dark-haired wolf who occupies it. I help her clean it so it doesn’t become infected.
After that, she is a lot more pleasant, and even starts to gossip with me.
“What’s Callum like in the sack, then?” she asks one day.
“In the sack?”
“You know, in bed.”
I flush, remembering people are supposed to think I have been intimate with him. “Kayleigh! Can we change the subject, please?”
She giggles. “You Southerners are so shy. I bet he’s good. I’d be shouting about it from the rooftops if I had a male like that in my bed.”
Callum hasn’t been anywhere near my bed again since he massaged me, though.
He tells me he is busy. He’s trying to stop the Wolves from attacking Sebastian in retaliation for what he did to Ryan. Their best move, he says, is to wait until the return of the Wolf King-when he can put his plan into play and get hold of the Heart of the Moon.
But there is more to it than that.
Even though he has spent time with me every day-eating dinner with me in the Great Hall, and teasing me about Mrs. McDonald-he is more guarded around me. He’s certainly been less physical and seems to avoid touching me.
I should be glad about that. Yet I’m worried I have offended him in some way. Or perhaps he has just lost interest in me.
I ask Fiona about him one day, when she shows me the stables on my lunch break.
“Don’t take it personally,” she says. “As the full moon gets closer, the wolf gets stronger. It brings certain. . . animalistic traits to the surface.”
“Like what?”
“Like the need to hunt, to kill. . . to fuck.”
My eyes widen and I splutter, “Goodness!”
She laughs and gives me a half-shrug. “All I’m saying is, he’s trying to suppress the wolf around you, that’s all.”
There is an irony, I suppose, that for so many years, I tried to suppress my emotions and now Callum is doing the same. I think of that recurring dream I had, where I was a statue in the palace grounds. I haven’t had that dream since I came here.